Books Backlist Bonanza Backlist Bonanza: 5 Underrated Books With Disabled Characters A selection of novels and stories that highlight people with different disabilities in strange new worlds By Alex Brown | Published on August 4, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share Jimothy, the Seattle raccoon with short spine syndrome, has taken over the internet recently. He is extremely adorable and I feel such joy whenever he crosses my social media feeds. And since everyone is now talking about disabilities, he also offers the perfect opportunity to talk about disability in speculative fiction. The five books in this list feature characters and/or are written by authors with physical, intellectual, or invisible disabilities. Accessing the Future edited by Kathryn Allan and Djibril al-Ayad (Futurefire.net Publishing, 2015) Kathryn Allen writes a lot about speculative fiction from the nonfiction essay angle. She is also the editor of the 2015 nonfiction book Disability in Science Fiction, which collected twelve essays digging into the state of representation at the time, and was a contributor to the must-read issue of Uncanny Magazine, “Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction.” Djibrial Al-Ayad is, of course, the general editor of one of my favorite speculative short fiction publishers, The Future Fire. Allan and al-Ayad frame this anthology from the perspective of accessibility, in that it thinks about accommodations or the lack thereof (or the outright rejection thereof) and what that means for a disabled person trying to live under those conditions. The stories highlight people with different disabilities in strange new worlds, and especially considers the intersectionality of other identities with disability. It’s an astonishing anthology. Space Unicorn Blues by T.J. Berry (Reason #1 — Angry Robot, 2018) Is it science fiction, fantasy, or science fantasy? All I know is that this book has unicorns in space. Well, technically, Gary is half-human and half-unicorn (and he’s asexual!). The other protagonist in this snarky novel is Captain Jenny Perata, a Māori lesbian who uses a wheelchair. Gary and Jenny were nemeses for a long time—due in no small part to her imprisoning him and using his horn for fuel against his will—but now they must work together to save the universe. Berry’s duology is hard to consolidate down to an elevator pitch. It’s weird, it’s funny, it’s sad, it’s quirky, it’s empowering, it’s challenging. Jenny is a riot of a character. She is tough and sharp-tongued. While her former bosses decided she was worthless once she lost the use of her legs, she has only become stronger. She isn’t ashamed of her disability, it’s just a part of who she is. Soul Jar edited by Annie Carl (Forest Avenue Press — 2023) Reading this cover copy, I was immediately intrigued: “imagining such wonders as a shapeshifter on a first date, skin that sprouts orchid buds, and a cereal-box demon. An insulin pump diverts an undead mob. An autistic teen sets out to discover the local cranberry bog’s sinister secret. A pizza delivery on Mars goes wrong.” I mean, come on, how cool does that sound? Carl, a bookstore owner and author, splits the thirty-one stories into four categories: Earth in Retrograde, Gone Astray, Wild Space, and Creature Feature. The author list is a who’s who of short fiction, as well as a few newbies; if you read contemporary short spec fic (and I do… a lot of it), you’ll recognize many of them. For readers looking for a variety of disabilities and perspectives set in a variety of speculative worlds, you can’t go wrong with this collection. The Maid and the Crocodile by Jordan Ifueko (Harry N. Abrams, 2025) This young adult fantasy novel is a standalone set in the same world as the Raybearer duology. In the magical city of Oluwan lives Small Sade, a young woman who is finally old enough to leave the orphanage where she grew up. She needs a job, but that proves difficult, what with her vitiligo and a painful foot condition that requires the use of a cane, the result of an injury as a child laborer. Those conditions are visible to everyone. What else she is, no one can see: she is a Curse-Eater, in that she can cleanse the spirit of what is essentially “dirty” energy. This puts her in the sights of the Crocodile God. He needs her power and she needs a way out. Small Sade’s disabilities are a part of who she is and how she navigates the world, but she isn’t defined solely by them. This book often gets comped to Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, and yeah, it’s got those magical sorta cozy vibes but with deeper conversations about ableism, labor rights, and exploitation. These Bodies Ain’t Broken edited by Madeline Dyer (Page Street YA, 2025) Let’s keep this short story train going. This anthology is only the third traditionally published YA anthology focusing on disability; the other two are Own­ing It: Stories About Teens with Disabilities, from 2008, and Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens, from 2018. These Bodies Ain’t Broken is the only one to exclusively feature speculative fiction, specifically horror and dark fantasy. What’s neat about this anthology is that the authors overlap on some of the disability representation, so the reader gets to see it from different perspectives. The horror here isn’t in having the disability, per se, but in what it’s like to live in an abled-centric world as a disabled person. In these stories, disability is neither a problem to be fixed or overcome, nor a superpower. What does it mean to be “normal”? What makes a monster?[end-mark] The post Backlist Bonanza: 5 Underrated Books With Disabled Characters appeared first on Reactor.