National Network for Equitable Library Service

In near-future America, sleep has been banned. Our unemployed, dream-prone narrator finds himself following Chevauchet, a diplomat from Onirica, a foreign republic of dreams, to resist the prohibition. On a mission to combat the state-sponsored drugging of citizens with uppers for greater productivity, they traverse an eerie landscape in an everlasting autumn, able to see inside other people's nightmares and dreams. When Chevauchet, the old radical, disappears, our narrator must take up Chevauchet's dictum that "daydreaming is directly subversive" and forge ahead on his own.

Watershed is a contemporary dystopian novel set in a near-future southern Alberta, which has been ravaged by desert-like conditions, as opposed to the northern part of the province, which is warm as well as green and lush thanks to a water pipeline from the ocean. The province's former oil and gas pipelines are being converted to carry desalinated sea water, and the north and south are at odds because of it. The protagonist, Wilma, is desperately trying to hold onto her dying family farm, while her son, Daniel, takes a job for the enemy: the big water pipeline corporation.

Karen knows she must discover the truth about the "Grey Man" who stalked her when she was a child and now is following her son, Michael. When they travel to California to find Karen's estranged sister, Laura, they also find an alternate Earth. 1989.

In 1912 world history is changed by the Miracle. The old world of Europe is replaced by a land known as Darwinia, a strange jungle full of antediluvian monsters. Some people seize the opportunity to carve out a new empire and America is ruled by religious fundamentalists. When young Guildford Law undertakes a journey of exploration to Darwinia he has a stunning revelation about mankind's destiny in the universe. c1998.

Life in seventh-century China teems with magic, fox spirits, and demons; there is a fervent belief that the extraordinary resides within the lives of both commoners and royalty. During the years when the empress Wu Zhao gains ascendancy in the Tang court, her evil-minded lover Xie becomes obsessed with finding and possessing the oracle bone, a magical object that will bestow immortal powers on him.

Jules, a relative youngster at more than a century old, is a contented citizen of the Bitchun Society that has filled Earth and near-space since shortage and death were overcome. People are free to do whatever they wish. Jules wants to move to Disney World; but when his prudently stored consciousness abruptly awakens in a cloned body, he learns that he was murdered; evidently he's in the way of somebody else's dreams. Some descriptions of sex and violence, strong language. 2003.

Radicalized is a timely collection consisting of four SF novellas connected by social, technological, and economic visions of today and what America could be in the near, near future. Canada Reads 2020. Bestseller. 2019.

The millennium has come and gone, leaving stunned survivors in the sister states of NoCal and SoCal in what used to be California. Chevette Washington is a bicycle courier turned pickpocket. He picks up an innocent-looking pair of sunglasses, but in fact these are high-tech specs that can make you rich -- or get you killed. Strong language. 1993.

Following the events of Pulse Point, 12-year old Ama and the other Underlanders living in a world of darkness dig for brine, the City's real energy source. Underland is a dangerous place: cave-ins, starvation and illness are constant threats. When their leader deserts them, Ama goes looking for him and stumbles on two Citizens. Neither knew the other existed. 18-year old Sari lives in the City, blissfully unaware of what goes on beneath her feet. The disappearance of her best friend, Kaia, has left her feeling isolated.

What does it mean to say "I love you"? Ariadne is a single, forty-something writer and mother embroiled in an affair with a married man. At the core of her current work, a manuscript about the declaration of love, is the need to understand why: why her lover has returned to his wife, why their relationship still lingers in her mind, why she's unable to conquer her longing. Lacking answers and struggling financially, she joins a research study in which she's paid to live with an AI device called Dirk. But the study quickly enters unchartered territory.