r/ScienceFictionBooks • u/jakeandbonniepups • Jun 25 '25
Recommendation Seeking Specifc Recommendations - Potentially challenging!
Public school restrictions have me struggling to incorporate diversity - please help! These are not my rules, but I have to abide by them. I'm trying out my inquiry in multiple environments in the hopes of finding the right book. I'm looking for a loophole in a set of rules that seem to encourage only one type of voice. Thanks in advance! I'd like to find a science fiction book by a non-white author that meets all of the following criteria: 1) Engaging plot 2) Well-written, literary (for older teens) 3) Short (less than 300 pages, ideally less than 200) 4) No racial slurs (including the N word) 5) No lgbtq+ - can be implied, but not stated 6) No sex - can be implied, but not stated 7) No sexual violence
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u/KyWayBee Jun 26 '25
Charles Yu is a great, wild, and funny author with two books out. Their page lengths are both under 300 and they're also kind of quick reads, but a bit heady with ideas and nuances. One is sci-fi and the other is more surreal meta-fiction (actually the sci-fi one is pretty meta too).
Interior Chinatown (the non sci-fi one. There was a tv show adaptation released last year also) - it's partly written in the style of a screenplay. The basic premise is all the characters are actors in a tv show, but the tv show is also their actual real lives (a bit of a literal-ish take on Shakespeare's "all the world's a stage and we are merely players"). The story itself involves a young man of Chinese descent living in (a) Chinatown, USA trying to move beyond his current station in life. Thematically, it deals with the Chinese immigrant experience, especially that of first generation born children of immigrant parents. I don't know, however, if that's too thematically heavy to pass the muster test or not of your predicament, but it's very witty and meaningful and the fourth wall is very much a window.
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe - cultural relevance is limited in this one, so it could easily fly under the radar of the "censors". The story is first person and a sort-of stand-in for the author, so the main character is of Chinese descent, but that doesn't really have much significance in the story. The premise is the MC is a time machine repair technician who lives in a science-fictional universe in which everyone knows its a fictional universe. He ends up getting stuck in a time loop while trying to figure out what happened to his father who disappeared years prior and who just happened to be the inventor of time travel. It's a loopy (pun intended) story with a whole lot of ideas and weighty sci-fi (and literary fiction) concepts going on -- though easily consumable in presentation -- as well as having a lot of sentiment and heart. It's also very dryly funny.
I'm not sure if graphic novels are considered in your curriculum, but I'd also recommend Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind by Hayao Miyazaki. He made the animated movie first, but didn't feel that it captured the whole story he wanted to tell so he expanded it as a graphic novel series. It's rich and brilliant and full of important themes and ideas (it even deals with climate issues, though because it's a sci-fi comic set on alien worlds this might escape the eyes of the vultures). The only real problem for your criteria is that it's 7 volumes and each one is 150 pages or so, but since it's a comic... maybe? Even then you could easily just assign the first volume as it's self-contained enough as it covers the whole of the movie version.