Special Needs In Strange Worlds Reading List

Last month Bookworm Blues (Sarah Chorn) posted a series of guest blogs on a very important - and under discussed  - topic: disabilities in science fiction and fantasy.  I'd started a reading list on this topic months ago, but couldn't figure out a way of displaying it without seeming condescending.  So I put my incomplete list aside and went on to do other displays.

Then Elspeth Cooper did this post on disability in fantasy, and Bookworm Blues decided to do her amazing blog series.  And Dan Goodman suggested the amazing, and respectful, title: Special Needs in Strange Worlds.  If you haven't read her posts, they start here and end here.  She also did a half way point round up with links, here, if you don't want to scroll through all the posts.  With the suggestions offered in the posts and a wonderful title, my endcap/reading list was back in business.

A few notes on this list.  First, it's incomplete.  This is a topic that to a large extent requires having read the book in order to know if the book fits the topic.  And it's impossible to read everything.  I've tried to categorize the books I had listed into general categories and then subdivided issues that had several books each.  Even then some books fit several categories, and some categories are flexible.  I tried to leave off the 'magical cure' books, but left the books with blind characters who have second sight as a compensation for losing their physical sight.  I also recognize that some of the books deal with disability in more detail than others.

I wasn't looking for mystery books, which is why there are only two (+ one from the comments), and only mentioned general fiction books I - and those I spoke to (at work and at home) - knew.

If you have a suggestion, please leave the title of the book, author and which category it fits.  I'll try to add them to the list.  If I get too many suggestions I may just let people read the comments to find more.

I'd meant to post this list at the end of May to somewhat co-incide with the Bookworm Blues posts, but I wanted an endcap, and that takes a month (from ordering the books until it's up).  This is an important issue and I wanted to bring it to the attention of more people.

I wanted to credit those who helped bring this endcap to life, so I've mentioned them with shelf talkers on the display (at the World's Biggest Bookstore, Toronto).

SFX did a list, with several characters I missed and subsequently added, here.

Sarah Chorn (Bookworm Blues) did a post on SF Signal where she mentions several books on this topic.

Ada Hoffman has an excellent list of books containing autistic characters, many of which she has reviewed.  Do to the size of her list I've chosen not to add the titles here.

*List updated April 3, 2014.

For some 2014 books, SF Signal has a reading list for you.

Essays:

Disability in Science Fiction: Representations of Technology as Cure - Kathryn Allan, Ed.

Physical Issues:

The Blade Itself - Joe Abercrombie

Song of the Beast - Carol Berg
Rogue Moon - Algis Budrys (amputee)

Young Miles - Lois McMaster Bujold

Songs of the Earth - Elspeth Cooper
Mind Games - Carolyn Crane (hypochondriac)
Silent Dances - A. C. Crispin & Kathleen O'Malley

The Scar - Sergey & Marina Dyachenko
Talus and the Frozen King - Graham Edwards (damaged arm)
Earth Girl - Janet Edwards
Angel Fall - Susan Ee
Ether - Ben Ehrenreich

Miserere - Teresa Frohock
Handbook for Dragon Slayers - Merrie Haskell
Silver - Rhiannon Held (+ mental)
Spark - Brigid Kemmerer

Wolfsangel - M. D. Lachlan (mute)
Brood of Bones - A. E. Marling (sleeping sickness)

Game of Thrones - George R. R. Martin
The Ship Who Sang - Anne McCaffrey

Elric: Stealer of Souls - Michael Moorcock
Mister Monday - Garth Nix (asthma)

Galatea 2.2 - Richard Powers

Enclave - Kit Reed (epilepsy)

Scourge of the Betrayer - Jeff Salyards
15 Miles - Rob Scott
The Dream-Maker's Magic - Sharon Shinn
Hollow World - Michael J. Sullivan (idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis)
Sideshow - Sheri Tepper

Quarantine: The Loners - Lex Thomas (epilepsy) 

Among Others - Jo Walton
Blindsight - Peter Watts (epilepsy)

Beyond the Shadows - Brent Weeks

Shadowmarch - Tad Williams

Amped - Daniel Wilson (has technological implant that prevents seizures)

One-Armed Queen - Jane Yolen

Westlake Soul - Rio Youers (vegetative state)
Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny

Wheelchair:

Memory of Earth - Orson Scott Card 

Immobility - Brian Evenson
Heaven's Shadow - David Goyer

Dune - Frank Herbert

The Rapture - Liz Jensen

The Drawing of the Three - Stephen King

Fenrir - M. D. Lachlan

Last Hero - Terry Pratchett
Apollo's Outcasts - Allen Steele

Blindness:

The Daemon Prism - Carol Berg 

Eyes to See - Joseph Nassise 

WWW.Wake - Robert J. Sawyer 

Sojourn - R. A. Salvatore
Persistence of Vision - John Varley
Mind Games - Kiersten White

The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham 

Mental Issues:

Debris - Jo Anderton

Xenocide - Orson Scott Card (OCD)
A Turn of Light - Julie Czerneda
Alien Shore - C. S. Friedman (also has an autistic character)
The Diamond in the Window - Jane Langton (children's book)

Dragonsinger - Anne McCaffrey
Swans & Klons - Nora Olsen
Bleeding Violet - Dia Reeves (bipolar)
Dying Inside - Robert Silverberg (ability to read minds destroys life)
Eight Million Gods - Wen Spencer (OCD)

Dracula - Bram Stoker (insanity)
More Than Human - Theodore Sturgis
Lost & Found - J. Sheehan (synesthesia)

Red Thunder - John Varley

Dyslexia:

Spellwrignt - Blake Charlton
God's War - Kameron Hurley 

Of Blood and Honey - Stina Leicht
The Lightning Thief - Rick Riordan

Autistic:
[Ada Hoffman has an excellent list of books containing characters with autism here.]

World House - Guy Adams
Winds of Khalakovo - Bradley Beaulieu
A Wizard Alone - Diane Duane

Speed of Dark - Elizabeth Moon
Silence - Michelle Sagara
The Real Boy - Anne Ursu (middle grade SF)

Depression:

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Philip K. Dick

Lord Foul's Bane - Stephen Donaldson
The Magicians - Lev Grossman

The Fionavar Tapestry - Guy Gavriel Kay

Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien 

Problems With Magic: 

A Spell for Chameleon - Piers Anthony

Assassin's Apprentice - Robin Hobb

Forging the Darksword - Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman

Graphic Novels:

Birds of Prey / Batman (Oracle - wheelchair)

Daredevil (blindness)
Hawkeye (hard of hearing)

Iron Man (heart problems)

With the Light: Raising an Autistic Child - Keiko Tobe (autism)

X-Men (Professor X - wheelchair, Destiny - blindness)

Movies/TV:

Alphas (autism)
Avatar (paraplegic)

Bionic Woman (bionic parts)

Cube (mental)

Dark Angel (paraplegic)

Defendor (mental)

Dr. Who (Davros - quadriplegic)
Guild (Venom is paraplegic)
How to Train a Dragon (Toothless's damaged wing)
Human Race (amputee, deafness - Note: this is a horror movie with lots of gore)

Lawnmower Man (mental issues)

Mantis (paralysis)

Memento (memory loss)

6 Million Dollar Man (bionic parts after accident)

Star Trek (Commander Pike - quadriplegic)

Star Trek: The Next Generation (Geordi La Forge - blindness)

Star Wars (breathing apparatus, dismemberment)
Twin Peaks (chief Gordon Cole was deaf, mental issues)

Unbreakable (brittle bone syndrome)

Wizard of Oz (fear, no heart, etc.)

General Fiction: 

Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie

A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner

Curious Incident of a Dog in the Nighttime - Mark Haddon (autism)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo (partial blindness and deafness)

Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes (mental)

Last Snow - Eric Van Lustbader (dyslexia)

Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Blindness - Jose Saramago

Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (mental)

Johnny Got His Gun - Dalton Trumbo 

Before I Go To Sleep - S. J. Watson (memory loss)

Mystery:

Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse - Lee Goldberg (OCD)

Divine Sacrifice - Tony Hays
You Die Today! - Baynard Kendrick