pluralstories | Entries tagged with genre:sci-fi

"-- I am not a monkey, she signs. -- I am a girl.

Blurb: A chimp, taught ASL and implanted with the personality of a man's dead daughter, is raised as that daughter until his death. Taken to a scientific research facility, it's up to Rachel to decide who and what she is, and how she wants her life to go.

Why is it worth your time?: Rachel's experience of species dissonance, deciding where she fits in (among humans? among apes?) and reconciling her past, human self with her current chimpanzee self feels relevant to anyone who's had to undergo a major identity change (and move from one species to another). Check it out!

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse not mentioned, identityblending, copies, nonhumans (chimpanzee), setting-specific, serially singlet

Content Warnings: Contain spoilers; see comments

Accessibility Notes: Available in German, Dutch, Japanese, and French. This story has been reprinted oodles of times, and is available in paperback, hardback,

Misc. Notes (if any): This story has also won some awards. It's well-reputed!

lb_lee

"But doux-doux," Prince of Cemetery said, "your grandaughter head full of spirits already; she ain't tell you? All kind of duppy and thing. When she close she eyes, she does see death. She belong to me. She is my daughter. You should 'fraid of she."

Blurb: Toronto's wealthy citizens have fled, leaving the town barricaded and wartorn. Worse yet, young, single mother Ti-Jeanne starts dreaming of the dreadful La Diablesse. She knows she must obey the spirits in order to save her family from a deadly fate.

Why is it worth your time?: This book is good! Caribbean folklore and religion combine as the story ramps up to a faster and faster pace. We couldn't wait to see how it ended!

Plural Tags: abuse low focus, bodyhopping, cofronting, nonhumans (spirits, loa/orisha), realitymashing, possession, spiritual, switching, visions

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Available on paper, as ebook and audiobook, and in French.

Misc Notes: Won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and the Locus Award for Best First Novel. Had a loose film prequel/adaptation, Brown Girl Begins, but I liked the book better!

lb_lee

"He never was alone before. He had himself to see, talk with, live with, nine other selves all his life."

Blurb: A clone of ten named John Chow come to help mine a hellish planet... but when disaster strikes, there's only one John Chow left. How does he deal?

Why is it worth your time?: The John Chows are referred to as A clone, not TEN clones, and have an interesting sort of group self. And of course, Le Guin is a legend. Give it a shot! It's good!

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse not mentioned, identityblending, copies, setting-specific, intimate and teamwork relationships, on purpose

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Accessibility Notes: This story has been anthologized more than anything in the catalog. Available in print, ebook, and audio, and in German, Dutch, French, Serbian, Spanish, Italian, and Lithuanian

Misc. Notes (if any): "singleton" is used in this story to refer to non-clone single selves. Is this possibly where later ('90s BBS) plural usage came from?

lb_lee

"ARTICLE III: The man going by the name Brother Francis is charged with claiming to have begun life miraculously, without father or mother, in the body of a boy about thirteen years of age."

Blurb: An epistolary short story about the fall and rise of Brother Francis/Leopold Graz, who in a post-nuclear apocalypse preached brotherhood and kindness: condemned, burned alive, and then beatified... at a cost.

Why is it worth your time?: Pangborn is a kind writer who tells the story of a boy, his invisible Companion who urges him to great things, and the major front switch that occurs when he is thirteen, which leads to his fall and rise under the pseudo-feudal fundamentalist church afterward. It's pretty good!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, switching, serially singlet, spiritual voices, visions

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Only officially available on paper, but anthologized multiple times; one of them, Still I Persist in Wondering, is screenreadable on archive.org. (Please ignore the pulpy cover.) Available in German and Italian.

lb_lee

Submitted by

thishouse. Thank you,

thishouse!

We

Bootstrap ourselves from mere insensate clutches of jelly and molecular interaction until We

Remember

We were on an adventure.

For many long spans of time we were Lante, once we had repaired Lante. Except that Those-of-We who had learnt what Lante was had to make such repairs so that what came out was less Lante and more We. But Those-of-We had experienced what it was to be Lante and could fill in the gaps. We were We and We were Lante and Lante was Lante and did not know it was also

We.

Blurb for Book 1: Avrana Kern spearheaded an exoplanet terraforming program with the goal of populating new Earth-like worlds with monkeys uplifted to human-like intelligence by a nanovirus. Her program was sabotaged by people who rejected her scientific ideals, and the conflict blossomed into nuclear war back on Earth. Avrana escapes the sabotage, and she uploads herself to a computer system while she waits for rescue. The monkeys died, but the virus lived on. Its host becomes a species of jumping spider, beginning their ascension toward a space-faring society. Thousands of years after the nuclear war, ark ships take off from Earth and seek terraformed planets to re-establish a home for humanity. The ark ship Gilgamesh discovers Kern's World, and its crew are determined to make a new home there.

Why is it worth your time?: Besides the unique and interesting plurality portrayed in these books, they're fantastic science fiction with an emphasis on worldbuilding and speculative evolution. Their greatest strength is their empathy toward atypical experiences of sentience and intelligence.

In Book 1, Avrana Kern is the primary plural character as the distinction between her, the computer system, and her uploaded version of herself blur together. In Book 2, Children of Ruin, Tchaikovsky adds sentient octopuses, and the octopuses' selves divided between their Crown, Guise, and Reach showcases a permanent co-fronting experience. Also introduced in Book 2 but explored further in Book 3, Children of Memory, is a naturally plural species that seeks to understand what it means to live as one and as many at the same time. In Book 3, there's also a sentient headspace-like world.

Plural/1+ Tags: setting-specific sci-fi stuff, enmity in Book 1, the naturally plural species is a scary antagonistic force in Book 2 at first, teamwork in Books 2 and 3

Content Warnings: nuclear war, extreme isolation, murder, lynching

Accessibility Notes: audiobooks available; pretty easy library book; Book 1 is available in English, French, German, Romanian, Portuguese, and Dutch; Book 2 is available in English, German, French, Romanian, and Dutch; and Book 3 is available in English, German, and Dutch

Misc. Notes (if any): Even though Book 2 has a "plurality is a scary monster" situation, the resolution is peaceful and empathetic, and the species is redeemed and explored further in Book 3.

lb_lee

Submitted by

packbat! Thank you,

packbat!

As they began walking away from the market plaza, Kaelyn’s conversation flowed effortlessly. Each time the warrior spoke, she responded with perfect precision—laughing at his jokes, complimenting his bravery, weaving small bits of charm into her words. And as they walked, Ryan could feel her growing confidence, her control tightening over his thoughts.
See how easy this is? Kaelyn’s voice whispered. They all want to help you. All you have to do is ask the right way.
Ryan’s hesitation, that sliver of discomfort, was shrinking. Drowned out by the sheer thrill of success, Kaelyn felt. This was power. Not in the way of brute strength or flashy magic, but in the quiet control of social finesse, in the way people bent toward her without even realising they were being pulled in.

Blurb: In a near-future world where reality often feels like an afterthought, players escape into A Realm Reforged Again—a groundbreaking VR MMORPG offering unparalleled character customization.
Follow Jason, Ryan, Emmy, and Sophie as they navigate personal struggles both in and out of the game. Within the virtual world, they take on new forms: Jason becomes Vaelith, a reluctant but powerful dracan mage; Ryan experiments with power as Kaelyn, a felinae priestess; Emmy creates Elyssia, a sylvani tank embodying who she wishes she could be; and Sophie transforms into Leoric, a towering burrovian ranger seeking freedom from familial and societal expectations.
But when the game's AI Creator-Gods, tasked with ensuring player happiness, begin to meddle with their choices, the players must confront unexpected challenges and questions about autonomy and self-acceptance.
With themes of identity, agency, and transformation, State of the Art sets the stage for an epic journey of self-discovery in a world where fantasy and reality blur.
Why is it worth your time?: Kaelyn's introduction, her relationship with her headmate, and how the two of them navigate their other relationships as they switch are interestingly messy. Part of the setting is the game's ability to implant memories in its players of their character's backstory, and that makes it ambiguous to what extent she existed before Ryan signed up for the game to make a power fantasy RP character - especially because neither headmate was even aware of plurality as a concept before.
Plural/1+ Tags: people: RP characters (should this be classed as a type of fictioneer?); type: switching; creator speaks from experience, voices
Content Warnings: Contain spoilers, see comments. (Also, the author uses AI editing software, in case that's something you care about.)
Accessibility Notes: online (Scribble Hub edition, Royal Road edition), free, screenreadable
Misc. Notes (if any): This series is an extremely slow burn - at the time of writing, two hundred and eighty thousand words in and nearing the end of Book 2, the timeline covers two days in the lives of its ~~four~~ five protagonists. (The series is planned to span five volumes.) Also, the chapters do not have a regular cycle between viewpoints - for example, Ryan and Kaelyn are entirely absent from the first sixteen chapters of Book 2 because they haven't woken up yet - so you can't easily skip through to just their chapters. We like all the characters, but if we didn't, we wouldn't stick it out just to see what happens to this duo.

lb_lee

Submitted by

beepbird! Thanks,

beepbird!

"Zed didn’t say that you were the ones that called her my sister, and it’s too late, now I have always loved her and she has always loved me, and I cannot imagine thinking without her."

Blurb: A man brainshares with the spaceship he lives on... and does everything in his power to get her back.

Why is it worth your time?: This has pretty explicit parallels to multiplicity- to the point that the narrative itself asks the question of whether Epsilon is an alter and/or tulpa at one point. It's also one of those rare narratives where separation is presented as a negative, where the system wants to share brainspace- and where being plural is the happy ending.

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse not mentioned, nonhumans (spaceship), family, teamwork, setting-specific, switching, cofronting, on purpose

Content Warnings: Main character fakes own death by suicide, conscious surgery without pain

Accessibility Notes: Audio and text freely available at https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kim_03_23/. (Back-up link here.) You can also purchase a print edition or ebook of the magazine this is hosted in from a bunch of sources linked on that page if you'd like. Also holy moly, this story has been anthologized a LOT!

lb_lee

"I've no way of knowing if I've ever lived in Elsinore. After wiping they tell one very little about the past history of one's body..."

Blurb: Sci-fi retelling of Hamlet where Ophelia's mind was wiped and the woman she is now continues living on, telling her story to a rather insufferable female noble (before banging her).

Why is it worth your time?: Unusual story of a singular nature, and it's short, free, and online. "O" has no memories of the pre-wipe body tenant, and has only what she's put together and what she's been told.

Plural Tags: abuse low-focus, serially singlet

Content Warnings: incest plus skeezy sexual dynamics (very much on purpose)

Access Notes: This story is in an out-of-print small press anthology, Memories and Visions: Women's Fantasy & Science Fiction, edited by Susanna J. Sturgis. Used copies can still be scraped up; it is also available in bootleg screenreadable digital form on archive.org. The whole anthology contains many spirited, many-selved stories and is worth checking out!

lb_lee

"With a shock like ice water we were chained mind to mind. Another person shared my ship, shared the awareness of myself; I was the ship and no one could have it. [...] Through the chain I sensed all Writer: the pride, the remoteness, the arrogant imagination, the reach spanning praeterspace that sets a Writer above all other ultra-psis."

Blurb: A starship captain uses her mental bond to her ship and chains minds with a Writer to orgasm their way into praeterspace.

Why is it worth your time?: Lesbian erotic sci-fi writing about bonding minds with someone you really don't like (but is also hot)!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, bodyhopping, enmity, intimate, nonhumans [a spaceship], on purpose, setting-specific, voices

Content Warnings: sex!

Access Notes: This story is in an out-of-print small press anthology, Memories and Visions: Women's Fantasy & Science Fiction, edited by Susanna J. Sturgis. Used copies can still be scraped up; it is also available in bootleg screenreadable digital form on archive.org. The whole anthology contains many spirited, many-selved stories and is worth checking out!

lb_lee

Submitted by

packbat! Thanks,

packbat!

So out we went, and a few minutes later we were at the mall. It wasn’t a large mall by today’s standards, but it was fairly new, and though Cynthia wasn’t impressed with the selection of clothing, I was in hog heaven, since it was all new to me. I don’t know how many pieces of clothing I tried on that day. I was a little tired but still feeling enthusiastic when we stopped for lunch. I would have bought dozens of things, as much as I could possibly afford and maybe more, but Cynthia kept cautioning me not to spend so much of Scott’s money that he wouldn’t want to be me again. So I didn’t buy anything at first, until I’d tried on a bunch of stuff at several stores. Then after lunch I went back and bought my favorites: a flower-pattern peasant skirt, a solid green long-sleeved blouse, and matching shoes with a low heel. The skirt and blouse had no pockets, so I needed a purse as well. I wanted to buy a necklace or earrings too, but reluctantly decided I’d better not push my luck. Scott needed this stuff if he wanted to be me again, and the less money I spent, the more likely he was to want to be me again. Then, after he’d made a habit of it, I could buy the necklace and earrings.

Blurb: In 1970, a young college student is introduced by his roommate to jekyllase. Based on the recently rediscovered formula created and then thought lost by Dr. Henry Jekyll a century earlier, it's all the rage on campuses now: it will show you your inner, repressed self. What will that look like for Scott and his friends?

Why is it worth your time?: It's a cool story in a classic kind of speculative fiction style, and explores a lot of aspects of its specific fictional form of plurality through it - notably relationships within jekyll-hyde pairs, how the introduction of hydes changes jekylls' relationships with others, and the power dynamics and logistics of the drug-induced switching.

Plural/1+ Tags: enmity, friendship, teamwork, setting-specific, on purpose.

Content Warnings: alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use; homophobia; transphobia; attempted sexual assault; period language we wouldn't use today. Also, it's possible for a jekyll (jekyllase user) to use jekyllase to the point where the hyde (the alternate identity created by the drug) becomes their body's base form instead of transformed form and jekyllase would be needed to revive the original; the idea of doing this deliberately is discussed.

Accessibility Notes: online, screenreadable, free. The author has posted it to multiple archives, but the Scribblehub edition is our recommendation.

Misc. Notes (if any): The way it explores gender is probably not a clear match to plural gender issues, but it's definitely interesting. Also, while the story takes place in the 1970s, the framing device is that this account was published later (presumably around the mid 2010s when it was written), so things like the period-appropriate theories of gender and transness that the protagonists look up are given commentary from a more modern perspective.

lb_lee

"Please. I could go to one of the others, maybe. But I feel closest to you. Please. Please. [...] I wouldn't try that again, an unwilling host. You have to say you'll let me, or I won't come in."

Blurb: Deep space captain Adam is on his first trip through deep space when a free-floating "matrix" personality escapes containment and takes residence in his body. She seems nice enough, but the rest of the ship is deeply afraid; how can they hide her?

Why is it worth your time?: It's a good, bittersweet tale of two different people finding and connecting with each other in space! Give it a shot!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, bodyhopping, closeting, cofronting, teamwork, friendship, intimate relationships, setting-specific

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Available in audiobook, ebook, and still in print; also Italian, French, and German. Also on archive.org

Misc Notes: Nominated for Hugo, Locus, and Nebula.

lb_lee

Zhonos interjected "It'll take time to adjust to the fact that you are still out there, yet also in here. And the other Time Lords… they won't treat you like they do now, we're all… an aberration to them".

"But we'll be here for you" Nistri added "And you'll be with us for whoever comes next. For number six".'

Blurb (from AO3): After sacrificing themselves to save the Doctor from an elder god, Yanistriterquyzhonosorkyquiana, a Time Lord agent with regenerative dissonance, barely manages to escape, at the cost of their fifth incarnation's life. Crashing onto Cretaceous Era Earth, they regenerate into a form best fit for survival, a Velociraptor.

Five months later, Yanis VI, aka Skyfallen, has become closely connected with a local pack of Velociraptors who have helped her to survive in her new form. However when the Doctor returns for her help, they uncover a conspiracy that could shake Gallifrey to its core.

Why is it worth your time?: First — the author takes a badly-realised, stereotypical 'alien DID equivalent' from somewhere down in the depths of canon, and hollows out and rebuilds the ethics of it, 'till the story doesn't doubt for a second that being many-in-one is, in fact, fine and awesome… and that you don't trust an ableist fictional society to be just this once correct about the danger somebody must supposedly inherently pose, even if the society's what's handing out your plot hooks. It actually goes through with applying what people say the occasional best things about Doctor Who ethics are… that you trust difference, and that you listen to people's perspectives, over traditions and impersonal systems that would like them to stop ~~existing~~ being inconvenient.

The collective at the center of things are vibrant, distinct characters, and they have a great teamwork dynamic, it's fun to read them solve disagreements! The author's also put quite some thought into the mechanics of how this plurality-equivalent's dealt with, and how other things are, the edges of what's possible and what's 'acceptable' and how that affects people living in these contexts.

Speaking of, beautiful, beautiful nonhuman societies worldbuilding… the plot mechanics're dizzying, but I love, too, the moment when it finally clicks into place. (The ending's a happy one, I believe, and the cleverness is one bit of how.) Fair warning, you might need a lot of lore and context to get the most possible out of this fic — I think I caught less than half — but if you can roll with unintroduced elements, or you do know that lore and context, this is the worthwhilest thing…

1+ Tags: abuse:low-focus (not connected to the existence of the plurality-equivalent), nonhumans ('Time Lord', velociraptor), median (sort of, they consider themselves 'the same person' in a way), serially singlet (sort of, people can all act through the body, but their body is always of the latest arrival), setting-specific, cofronting, teamwork

Content warnings: Adventure-story-typical violence, predatory animal behaviour, war mentions, death; ableism/pluralphobia, a lot; some mentions of ~abuse — there's nothing that's called abuse, but you could very easily interpret it anyway.

Access notes: Read it on AO3, here!

lb_lee

"Hi! My name is Maura Ai. That's my body you're wearing."

Blurb: Maura and Francine are mad scientist sisters, but after Maura dies in a scientific accident, Francine tries to resurrect her... only to get someone completely different instead. How do you manage a life that isn't your own?

Why is it worth your time?: This is a "serial singlet" story--after Maura's death, she can communicate with M through mirrors, but never comes back into the body, and M did not exist prior to Maura's death. The story focuses overwhelmingly on the difficulty of the relationship between Francine (who so badly wants her sister back, and just CAN'T) and M (who comes in a blank slate, has very different tastes and aptitudes than Maura, but is terrified of being found out lest she be "taken apart"). Any plural who's had to pretend to be the "real person" will feel this book hard! Also, the art is pretty!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, serially singlet, closeting, the dead, family, friendship, teamwork, setting-specific, visions, voices

Content Warnings: Death! Others contain spoilers; see comments.

Access Notes: Available in hardcover, paperback, and ebook.

Misc Notes:

lb_lee

"He's here he's here two ends of the circuit he's here migod we're holding him between us!!!"

Blurb: After Spock's tragic death at the end of the Wrath of Khan, Bones and Kirk are left picking up the pieces... only to discover that their friend may not be truly gone.

Why is it worth your time?: A time capsule from slash fandom past! Delightful cheesy fun.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, bodyhopping, cofronting, intimate and romantic relationships, on purpose, setting-specific, voices, the dead, nonhumans (Vulcan)

Content Warnings: Spock's dead, McCoy and Kirk are upset, and that's no spoiler.

Access Notes: Originally published in the Star Trek fanzine It Takes Time on Impulse, Vol. II, from 1983, it's also available on Archive of Our Own and LB Lee also textually transcribed it here as a back-up.

lb_lee

"We sometimes forget that the memories that ESV latches onto are always traumatic. This meant that patients who die have had their traumatic memories repeatedly multiplied by ESV until their brains can no longer function. Thus, it is into a memory of endless trauma that divers and their companions descend."

Blurb: A disabled veteran and the burnt-out King of Limbo are recruited to wade into the memories of patients with a sleeping disease, hoping to find its cause and cure. But something isn't right...

Why is it worth your time?: This is a really solid manga with good art, an interesting story, and robust characters. Sci-fi thriller with flavors of Paprika and Inception.

Plural Tags: abuse low focus, memory work, otherworld, dreamfolk, teamwork, setting-specific, visions, nonhumans (AI/robot animals)

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Available in paperback and ebook, in English and its native Japanese.

Misc Notes: Six tankoubon volumes in Japan, three big ominbuses in English!

lb_lee

This was submitted by

wolffyluna! Thank you,

wolffyluna! :D

"If all physically possible universes exist, so do all physically possible girlfriends… including the one you’re imagining who’s imagining you."

Blurb: Ana’s parents, who hadn’t heard that it wasn’t game-theoretically optimal to punish her for dropping LSD, packed her away to a troubled teen camp. During the day, Ana faces the harsh Utah desert, near-starvation, and torture in the name of “therapy.” At night, she seeks desperate comfort in the arms of her alternate-universe girlfriend, Yuya, one of three hundred wives in the harem of the Emperor of Every World. But as their respective prisons wear away at their very selves, both girls face a choice: to become the monsters those in authority want them to be, or to die trying to escape.

Why is it worth your time?: It's a really good exploration of the ways being in awful situations can make you a worse person, and also how you can help lift others out of it even if the other people are arguably 'only in your head.' It also contained a wrenching dialogue about multiversarial philosophy that made me cry.

Plural Tags: abuse (high focus), romantic relationships, type: on purpose.

Content Warnings: Institutional abuse including forced exercise torture, abusive therapy, moral injury, attempted child murder, consensual underage sex.

Accessibility Notes: Available as ebook on Amazon. Also available on hoopla in some libraries.

lb_lee

This one is submitted by a friendly anon! Thank you, anon!

"I wanna say, that your value is much higher than your assessment. It shouldn't be measured in terms of data..."

Blurb: An android, subject to horrific experiments, finds himself part of a network of clones. He fights to set them free along with the other victims of experimentation, and succeeds--at the cost of his life. Those 7 clones find new life together with their human partner, but the threats to their existence are far from over...

Why is it worth your time?: Season 1 is a set-up for the bulk of the plural content in Season 2, "Eclipse of Sybil", in which the androids act as an external system connected via their own network. (Yes, the title is partly a reference to that Sybil, whose name was used for the computer term 'Sybil attack'.) Although they each have their own body, the way they cooperate, share memories, and talk about each other is nevertheless very plural. It's cool seeing what a system could look and act like on the outside.

A particular heartwarming scene: one member tells the system's partner how each of them have their own unique thoughts, but laments that they must be indistinguishable due to being the same model of android. The partner, upset, responds with, 'of course I can differentiate all of you!' Just like how a system might feel as though only the body is known to others, but a loved one can tell the difference between members.

Also, the artwork is gorgeous.

Plural Tags: nonswitching, switching, setting-specific, on purpose, teamwork, nonhumans [robots], enmity, memory work, bodyhopping, otherworld [cyberspace], copies, realitymashing

Content Warnings: abuse (adults and children), blood, death (dismemberment, decapitation, shooting, falling, fire, car accidents...), experimentation, gore (machine), graphic violence, strong language, suicide (attempts and one who chooses to shut down), trauma (flashbacks, anxiety attacks), hospital/surgery scene

Accessibility Notes: Lots of translations! The entirety can be read in Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, and Russian. Season 1 can also be read in German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, and Spanish.
There are plain text scripts in English, but they don't distinguish between who is speaking.

Available to read on Archive Of Our Own
Also available for free download by the creator (where all the translations can also be found)

Misc. Notes (if any): This is a Detroit: Become Human fan comic that goes off the rails with the artwork being a main draw (heh). Massive spoilers for the game, of course, but since most of the story is its own thing, it can (probably) be read without any knowledge of the source. Midjourney was used for a little of the art, which is clearly notated by page.

(Cataloger's note: oh jeez this is very large, I made a local copy of the English translation but don't have it in me to back up all the translations, sorry folks.)

lb_lee

Submitted by

acorn_squash! Thank you,

acron_squash! ^_^

“Vern reached out to squeeze Lucy’s hand. Lucy squeezed back. In her mind, Vern said the words, I love you, I miss you. Lucy put down the book, turned to Vern, and said, ‘I like living inside of you.’”

Blurb: Everybody in Cainland is used to hauntings - visions and night terrors supposedly caused by withdrawal from white people's toxins. But in Cainland, everything is connected and nothing is what it seems. After fleeing the Cainland cult compound pregnant with twins, an exoskeleton develops on Vern's disabled, teenage body, a passenger that saps her energy but connects her to something greater than herself. Meanwhile, she learns to communicate with her hauntings and develops loving relationships with some of them.

Why is it worth your time?: It’s a fast-paced thriller with some of the most unique and creative science fiction elements I’ve seen in a while (did I mention the exoskeleton?). Definitely read the content warnings first, though!

Plural Tags:abuse high-focus, the dead, children, setting-specific plurality, family, friendship, and intimate relationships, visions

Content Warnings: The author includes the following content warning: “I hope that even as Sorrowland delves into the pain these colonial states have wrought, one might see the joy, triumph, and humor of those who resist, resist, resist. That said, there is no mincing words about some of the darker themes in this book. Note discussion and instances of racism, misogyny, self-harm, suicidality, and homophobia, inclusion of animal death and explicit violence, and references to sexual violence that have taken place off the page.”

In addition to this, the book also includes the death and sexual abuse of children, the forced removal of children, poverty, homelessness, cults, medical experimentation, and drugs. Pregnancy, childbirth, and consensual sex also appear.

Accessibility Notes: Available in e-book, audiobook, and print.

lb_lee

"He... I don't know how to say this either. He wore his face differently. The MacDonald he loosened into was changed, somehow older."

Blurb: A crew of free-rolling barflies assist a young telepathic man in trying to contact his comatose brother in the mental ward.

Why is it worth your time?: Spider Robinson at his compassionate, bad-puns best; he has a thing about group telepathy that reads very powerfully even after fifty years. Plus it's short.

Plural Tags: abuse low focus, cofronting, family relationships (brothers), setting-specific

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: You can find this story in the omnibuses Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, Callahan and Company, and Callahan Chronicals [sic]. It was also in Analog magazine from May 1975. I know at least ONE of those has been digitized and been screenreadable, Callahan Chronicals I think, which is also available in audiobook. Available in the French collection Le bar du coin des temps, the German collection Die Zeitreisenden in "Callahan's Saloon" and the Italian collection I crocevia del tempo.

Misc Notes: Part of a series, but can be read stand-alone no problem; the early Callahan stories were episodic on purpose, since they were being serialized in magazines.

lb_lee

"Look at me! I am a person! I DESERVE A NUMBER!"

Blurb: Characters find themselves on a surreal, forever-extending train with ever-changing numbers printed on their hands. Each one has to deal with that in a different way.

Why is it worth your time?: All four seasons of this show are good, but each one is self-contained and have different themes; your mileage may vary on which of seasons 1-3 are "plural enough." In Season One, there's the multi robot One-One. Season Two deals with MT, a runaway mirror reflection determined to find her own personhood separate from the person she reflects. Season Three deals with Grace, who's spent years treating the train (and its denizens) as her own personal playground devoid of moral weight, and the way that eventually comes back to haunt her. (Season 4 involves two ex-best friends who get thrown on the train together and has no pluralish content.)

Plural Tags: abuse low-focus, cofronting, otherworld, copies, nonhumans (robots, mirror reflections), setting-specific

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: On account of being canceled by streaming services, this show can only be pirated. We encourage you to do so; it's very good! Subtitles should be available; I was able to watch with them.

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Plural Stories

Entries tagged with genre:sci-fi

Rachel in Love, by Pat Murphy (sci-fi short story, 1987)

Brown Girl in the Ring, by Nalo Hopkinson (sci-fi novel, 1998)

Nine Lives, by Ursula K. Le Guin (sci-fi short story, 1969)

My Brother Leopold, by Edgar Pangborn (science fiction novella, 1973)

Children of Time series by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Science fiction book series, 2015-)

State of the Art / Golden Dawn series by Cloé Anne Sophie Veilleux (sci-fi webfiction, 2024-)

Zeta-Epsilon by Isabel J. Kim (science fiction short story, 2023)

O's Story, by L. Timmel Duchamp (sci-fi fiction/fanfiction, 1989)

The Rational Ship, by Caro Clarke (sci-fi/porn prose, 1989)

Listening to Jekyllase by Trismegistus Shandy (sci-fi slice-of-life short novel, 2019, 2023-2024)

The Secret Sharer, by Robert Silverberg (sci-fi novella, 1987)

Skyfall by SangheiliosThel, AKA Thien Valdram (Doctor Who fanfiction, 2025)

M is for Monster, by Talia Dutton (YA sci-fantasy comic, 2022)

The Undeparted, by Leslie Fish (Star Trek slash fanfiction, 1983)

King in Limbo, by Ai Tanaka (sci-fi combo, 2017)

Her Voice Is A Backwards Record by Ozy Brennan (sff novelette, 2024)

Byzantine Generals by SunsetAgain (sci-fi digital comic, 2018-2023)

Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon (contemporary gothic sci-fi prose, 2021)

"Two Heads Are Better Than One," by Spider Robinson (sci-fi prose, 1975)

Infinity Train, seasons 1-3?, by Owen Daniels (sci-fi cartoon, 2019-2021)

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