Books Backlist Bonanza Backlist Bonanza: 5 Underrated Books About Escaping Earth From space horror to cozy mysteries, these five books will take you far away from our messy home planet… By Alex Brown | Published on June 17, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share There are simply too many terrible things happening all at once. Every day some new horror dawns. AI is draining our water supply, insects are dying en masse, the worst guys in the world are battling each other over who gets to destroy a thing you love, The Acolyte is still canceled, Hollywood still hasn’t greenlit a new romcom starring John Cho and/or Dev Patel. Sometimes the horrors make me want to fight, sometimes they make me want to cry, and sometimes I gaze off into the distance and think “I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.” An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon (Akashic Books, 2017) For generations, the spaceship HSS Matilda has sailed toward the Promised Land carrying the last vestiges of human society. And for just as long, the people on the ship have replicated antebellum South hierarchies. The Sovereignty uses white supremacy to dominate over everything, and enslaved Black and brown folks like Aster are locked into a battle their ancestors broke free from centuries before. Aster’s othering is furthered by her being neurodivergent and a having gender identity and expression that exist outside the rigidly enforced binary. When opportunities for change present themselves, Aster must figure out how to navigate what she wants, what she can achieve, and what she must risk. Much like another book on this list, An Unkindness of Ghosts isn’t an easy read but it is a necessary one. It’s harrowing and lyrical, a scream in the void and a punch in the face. Sometimes escape is not enough. If you’re not diligent, the past can follow you into the future. Pitch Dark by Courtney Alameda (Feiwel & Friends, 2018) Young adult space horror! YA science fiction is rare enough as it is, space-set YA sci-fi even rarer, and YA space horror we maybe get one book a year out of the Big Five publishers. It’s 2435 and the USS John Muir has been lost for centuries. Its crew, including a teen called Tuck, is stuck in stasis and the last hope to save humanity is locked in its hold. When the ship is finally found by Laura and her crew of marauders, she’s eager to put her background in both heists and archaeology to good work. Unfortunately, she has competition for the John Muir. The ship is attacked by monsters that kill with sound, but they aren’t the only horrors lurking in the future. The future is dark and full of terrors. Goddess in the Machine by Lora Beth Johnson (Goddess in the Machine #1 — Razorbill, 2020) A thousand years ago, Andra and her people slipped into a cryogenic sleep. They left Earth in search of a new planet, and planned to hibernate for a century while the ship traveled across the galaxy. Now, everyone Andra knew and loved is dead and gone, and their descendants are teetering on the edge of chaos. On the planet Holymyth, the Eerensed people have deemed Andra the Third Goddess, making her a powerful ally to whoever can gain control of her. All she wants is to get a spaceship that can take her back to Earth, and the exiled prince Zhade might be the key to her plans. I love a good young adult space opera. This one is action-packed, unique, and clever with its worldbuilding.  Goliath by Tochi Onyebuchi (Tor Books, 2022) Set just a scant couple of decades from now, the Earth is rapidly being depopulated. The wealthy enact a new kind of white flight by fleeing to a space colony while everyone else is left to rot on a dying planet. Decades after that, some of those descendants return to Earth to gentrify and exploit the planet they abandoned. The survivors must watch what’s left of their homes be demolished, the bricks shipped up to space for the privileged to recreate the old world without all the strife or accountability. I’m totally not doing this book justice, but it’s also extremely difficult to summarize briefly. The cast is huge and the plots varied. Goliath is a fractured story told through a variety of characters and in a nonlinear fashion. It’s heady and heavy, a powerhouse of literary prowess and intricate craftwork.  The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older (The Investigations of Mossa and Pleiti #1 — Tordotcom, 2023) Let’s end on a cozy note. This series is like a hug from an old friend or a mug of tea on a rainy day. Centuries ago, humans fled a dying Earth and settled on platforms around the gas giant Jupiter. Pleiti is a Classics scholar at the university on the Valdegeld platform who studies literature from Earth to better understand life pre-collapse (there is also a Modern track that does STEM and Humanities during the platform era). Mossa is an Investigator who looks into potential crimes and solves them in the least copaganda way possible. Mossa and Pleiti dated for a time but are reunited after time apart when Mossa returns to Valdegeld on the trail of a missing person. The story evolves into bigger commentary on activism, environmentalism, traditionalism, and mythologizing the past, but throughout it all Malka Older centers kindness and understanding. [end-mark] The post Backlist Bonanza: 5 Underrated Books About Escaping Earth appeared first on Reactor.