Having delved deeply into all kinds of science fiction narratives that push us to interrogate our own humanity, existence, and consciousness, I wanted to provide some recommendations for a very specific type of science fiction book that is often concerned with big existential questions, called “time loop” narratives, where characters relive the same time period over and over. This type of narrative has always been a favorite of mine, as I find the payoffs of the comedy, mystery, and action even more satisfying when you already know as a reader what events are going to take place over and over again.
I wanted to explore the big questions about our existence, and the media’s place in encouraging us to deeply contemplate the nature of big existential things like consciousness, memory, identity, and humanity itself. I’ve explored a lot of media history, genres, and platforms and kept coming back to the idea that the science fiction genre provided the most consistent source of encouraged existential contemplation across media.
I wrote this book to explore examples of existential science fiction across time and medium, from 2001 to the present, and theorize that contemporary media contains a more concentrated version of contemplation, deeply examining examples that include films like Interstellar, television shows like Westworld, and video games like Death Stranding.
This book is a quintessential version of this type of narrative, following a new recruit, Keiji, as he relives the same battle against invading aliens known as Mimics, who also do their own hive-mind version of time looping.
I’ve always loved how time loop stories use repetition to progressively work through a situation, and following Keiji movement by movement, as he learns how to defeat the Mimics, I really felt like I knew what the experience of a time loop would be like.
When the alien Gitai invade, Keiji Kiriya is just one of many raw recruits shoved into a suit of battle armour and sent out to kill. Keiji dies on the battlefield, only to find himself reborn each morning to fight and die again and again. On the 158th iteration though, he sees something different, something out of place: the female soldier known as the Bitch of War. Is the Bitch the key to Keiji's escape, or to his final death?
I loved the boldness of this book, as it does what most of these types of novels shy away from, and that is to let everyone in the world in on the knowledge of the loop, eventually.
In this book, once a character has looped back in time and changed things, everyone involved in the change catches up to the knowledge of the original version through “false memory syndrome.” The result is that by the end of the novel, the whole world seems to be conspiring to stop the protagonists in the most nerve-wracking last few chapters I can remember reading in a long time.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author of Dark Matter and the Wayward Pines trilogy comes a relentless thriller about time, identity, and memory—his most mind-boggling, irresistible work to date, and the inspiration for Shondaland’s upcoming Netflix film.
“Gloriously twisting . . . a heady campfire tale of a novel.”—The New York Times Book Review
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time • NPR • BookRiot
Reality is broken.
At first, it looks like a disease. An epidemic that spreads through no known means, driving its victims mad with memories of a life they…
More of a murder mystery novel in the vein of Agatha Christie, as the time loop is only nebulously defined as science fiction, this book is by far the most complicated, in the best possible way, of the books recommended in this list.
The twist in this time loop is that the main character’s consciousness jumps into different bodies to relive the same day in an attempt to solve a murder, which made my head spin a little with each new day, but it made the nesting narrative feel all the more interconnected and satisfying when it all comes together in the end.
"Pop your favorite Agatha Christie whodunnit into a blender with a scoop of Downton Abbey, a dash of Quantum Leap, and a liberal sprinkling of Groundhog Day and you'll get this unique murder mystery." ―Harper's Bazaar
The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a breathlessly addictive mystery that follows one man's race to find a killer, with an astonishing time-turning twist that means nothing and no one are quite what they seem.
Aiden Bishop knows the rules. Evelyn Hardcastle will die every day until he can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again,…
I consider myself a big Stephen King fan, and sometimes that means a long read. At over 800 pages, this book makes use of the space to dive into the history of the 1950s and 1960s, and the events leading up to the assassination of John F. Kennedy Jr., as the main character tries to prevent this tragic moment in time by reliving the same couple years over and over.
Full of alternate realities, time resets, and explorations of fate on a global and individual level, I would recommend this book to fans of King and those who have avoided the author because of his more typically horrific content.
Now a major TV series from JJ Abrams and Stephen King, starring James Franco (Hulu US, Fox UK and Europe, Stan Australia, SKY New Zealand).
WHAT IF you could go back in time and change the course of history? WHAT IF the watershed moment you could change was the JFK assassination? 11.22.63, the date that Kennedy was shot - unless . . .
King takes his protagonist Jake Epping, a high school English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine, 2011, on a fascinating journey back to 1958 - from a world of mobile phones and iPods to a new world of…
I might be cheating a little with this one, but I enjoyed it so much that I had to include it. Not quite a standard time loop, as the main character, Jen, wakes up each morning further in the past then when she fell asleep, but that’s what makes this book feel so innovative and fun.
I enjoyed trying to solve the mystery of why she watched her son stab a man, following along as Jen had to trace the clues back into her own past. It felt like a refreshing take on a time loop, but in an oddly reverse linear way, which I appreciated.
'Perfection, every word, every moment. One of the best books I've ever read' LISA JEWELL 'Ingenious. A book to blow your mind and break your heart' ERIN KELLY 'Extraordinary' HARRIET TYCE 'I am totally in awe. This is one story I will not forget' HEIDI PERKS 'Genre-bending and totally original. A tour de force!' CLAIRE DOUGLAS
PRE-ORDER THE BOOK EVERYONE HAS BEEN TALKING ABOUT _________
It's every parent's nightmare.
Your happy, funny, innocent son commits a terrible crime: murdering a complete stranger.
I am a freelance writer from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, specializing in media history and speculative fiction. I have been enchanted by animation since childhood and followed many series avidly through adulthood. My viewing inspired my MA thesis on the history of animation, out of which grew two books on the history and theory of animation on television, America 'Toons In: A History of Television Animation (available from McFarland and Co.) and The Encyclopedia of American Animated Television Shows (available from Rowman and Littlefield). Hopefully, others will follow.
Jefferson Ball, the mightiest female dog in a universe of the same, is, despite her anti-heroic behavior, intent on keeping her legacy as an athlete and adventurer intact. So, when female teenage robot Jody Ryder inadvertently angers her by smashing her high school records, Jefferson is intent on proving her superiority by outmuscling the robot in a not-so-fair fight. Not wanting to seem like a coward, and eager to end her enemy's trash talking, Jody agrees.
However, they have been lured to fight each other by circumstances beyond their control. Which are intent on destroying them if they don't destroy each other in combat first...
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