Five Science Fiction Novels That Flirt With the Supernatural - Reactor
I love science fiction. Especially the kind of science fiction that deeply concerns itself with how thingscouldwork. The kind that extrapolates from scientific principles to a truly unexpected premise. . . .
I love science fiction. Especially the kind of science fiction that deeply concerns itself with how thingscouldwork. The kind that extrapolates from scientific principles to a truly unexpected premise. Stories that treat their speculation with rigor and consistency and attempt explanations for the mechanics of reality, altered or not. But I think some of science fiction’s most interesting stories occupy the space where those reality-mechanics falter. Where rationality brushes up against the unknowable and observation yields no certainty, only awe. Where the scientific meets the supernatural. This kind of mystical flirtation has always been part of the genre’s DNA. From the proto-SF of Gilgamesh, Liezi and the Ramayana to the early 19thcentury writers who folded mysticism and spiritual philosophy into their science fiction (think Olaf Stapledon’s cosmic consciousness or Arthur C. Clarke’s famous assertion about sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic). And yes, the intrusion of the supernatural into science fiction (science-fantasy as a genre deserves separate discussion) can seem like an erosion of intellectual rigor. But when done well, it’s a feat of epistemological and ontological agility, finding ways to make space for intuition, belief, cultural memory, and other modes of knowing and not knowing. Besides, in many syncretic-leaning non-Western cultures where there was no schism between natural philosophy and metaphysics, the supernatural and the physical are often believed to exist side by side. It is both an acceptance of the multiplicity of realities, and a recognition that even the most rigorous systems of knowledge have edges where the knowable dissolves into the ineffable. This is something I lean into in my novelThe Fist of Memory—combining quantum mechanics, ancestral belief and Jungian metaphysics into a single framework for a first contact story. Whether they seek to illuminate the limitations of our understanding of reality or to propose clever frameworks in which the supernatural and scientific can be reconciled, what makes these kind of stories compelling is this: they give us the opportunity to think through that tension in a fun way and that provides a unique flavor of that sense-of-wonder many of us SF lovers are always seeking. Here are five novels that did that for me. The Gone Worldby Tom SweterlitschA cosmic horror novel wearing time-travel police procedural skin, I bought this one on a whim when I popped into the excellent Stefen’s bookstore in Perth and asked him for a thriller with supernatural elements that “starts off normal and goes a bit bonkers by the end”. This delivered in spades. The Gone Worldbegins with the mostly familiar framework of an investigator (Shannon Moss) chasing a brutal crime that ends up much stranger. She jumps timelines and finds that something called the Terminus is approaching the present, bringing with it the terrifying and cataclysmic end of all things. The science fictional premise is anchored in military experiments with deep-space travel and temporal displacement, which are rigorously explained and grounded (Brandt-Lomonaco quantum-foam engines that tear holes in spacetime) but what follows is less a neat time travel story and more an encounter with something vast, unknowable, bordering without explicitly crossing into the supernatural. Sweterlitsch doesn’t demystify the Terminus, instead, he leans into its ambiguity with references to Christian spiritual beliefs, allowing us to sit in the discomfort of not knowing whether what’s happening is a natural reaction of physics pushed to its breaking point or the intrusion of something fundamentally beyond it. It’s an amazing feat of writing with a mind-blowing ending as multiple timelines and the end of time itself converge into a single, dizzying event. Far From the Light of Heavenby Tade ThompsonI’m a big fan of Tade Thompson’s sharp, propulsive prose and in this novel, it works perfectly to keep us holding our breaths as what begins as a locked-room mystery aboard a colony ship in transit unfolds into something far more interesting. Captain Michelle “Shell” Campion is captaining theRagtimeon a journey to the colony planet Bloodroot, when she awakens to find that the ship is compromised and passengers have been murdered. Rasheed Fin from Bloodroot is sent to investigate and Larry Biz, governor of a space station, takes a shuttle to intercept. All the familiar science fiction foundations you expect in a story about colony ships are here: cryogenic stasis, AI, nascent colonies on new worlds, wormholes for interstellar migration. But then there are the Lambers. Initially presented as enigmatic alien beings, we learn that they are actually the spirits of humans gone to another dimension after death and who can now only interact with our dimension only in very specific, limited ways. I love this incursion of the supernatural in the story, and it becomes an increasingly important plot element as one of the main characters is a Human-Lamber hybrid. It’s a brilliant and subtle Africanfuturist touch (that blend of the science fictional and supernatural is very much a feature of the subgenre) in a larger genre tapestry. Too Like the Lightningby Ada PalmerI’ve always felt a bit jealous of Ada Palmer’sToo Like the Lightningbecause it cleverly uses a science fictional idea I have had for a long time but never committed to writing: organizing the world into collectives and groups based on shared values instead of geographic nation-states. InToo Like the Lightning, this is enabled by technology which has seemingly solved most of humanity’s old problems. The novel is set in the 25thcentury and initially reads like rigorous, idea-driven SF. Into this carefully ordered future Palmer introduces Bridger, a child whose abilities appear genuinely miraculous. They are able to bring objects to life and reshape reality in ways that defy the rational explanation. I love the way that Palmer uses the supernatural element to challenge the assumptions of a civilization built on technological mastery and ask whether advanced societies can ever fully leave mystery behind. It’s a question I find deeply interesting and the prose reads like a historical document written by an unreliable narrator with lots of stylistic, worldbuilding flourishes. Lord of Lightby Roger ZelaznyThis is an interesting one that’s stuck in my brain ever since I read it decades ago because it takes a different approach to many other books on this list. On its surface, the central premise is pure science fiction. It features a far-future human colony where a ruling elite (crew from the original colony ship) has used advanced technology to remake themselves adopting the identities and iconography of the Hindu pantheon. Seems like a straightforward exercise in demystification, right? I mean, the gods are not gods at all, but people wielding technologies so advanced that they appear miraculous. Reincarnation is a process of consciousness transfer. Divine weapons are machines. Heavenly power is engineering. But even after revealing the mechanics behind the miracles,Lord of Lightremains deeply interested in faith, enlightenment, transcendence. The novel’s protagonist takes on the role of the Buddha in order to bring down the techno-god-class, not because Buddhism is scientifically valid or invalid, but because its ideas have genuine power to challenge an oppressive system. Lord of Lightflirts with the spiritual by asking whether a thing must be supernatural to be spiritually meaningful. It suggests that understanding how something works does not necessarily explain away its significance. A viewpoint which I philosophically align with (I’m also the kind of person that enjoys a magic trick more when I knowhowit’s done). Dissolutionby Nicholas BingeDissolutionis an intricately plotted and taut techno-thriller focused on memory. Protagonist Maggie Webb, who has been caring for her Alzheimer’s-suffering husband, is thrust into an adventure when she meets a mysterious stranger named Hassan who offers her a way to use technology to journey into her husband’s mind, probing the depths of his past in an effort to save him. It’s a propulsive and exciting story through time and memory, full of twists and turns and an especially powerful ending. At its core though,Dissolutionis concerned with a temporal anomaly (like the Terminus inThe Gone World), that is beyond the explanation or understanding of science and technology: the ancient, memory-devouring and time-manipulating force called Omega which Maggie encounters when she enters her husband’s mind. As the story progresses and it becomes increasingly clear that Omega is the key to her husband’s memory loss and the motivation for a lot of the books plot, it also becomes clear that Omega is a force that can only be understood by looking beyond the traditional scientific framework and leaning into a spiritual journey (which her husband takes with an Aboriginal guide in the Australian desert). It’s a compelling, pluri-philosophical approach that kept me turning the pages and made the novel much more memorable (pun intended). icon-paragraph-endBuy the BookThe Fist of MemoryWole Talabi