10 fantasy and science fiction books to celebrate AAPI Heritage Month

Light Years From Home by Mike Chen

When he’s not busy writing best-selling Star Wars tie-in novels like Star Wars: Brotherhood, Mike Chen churns out groundbreaking original work. Light Years From Home is one of the author’s latest novels; one part alien abduction story and one part family drama, it tells the story of two sisters whose lives are turned upside down by an extraterrestrial event. Years later, their family is forced to confront their past and all the baggage they’ve accumulated since.

Is it more difficult to stop an alien invasion or make peace with your siblings? Light Years From Home digs into that question in all its messy and heartwarming glory.

"Evie Shao and her sister, Kass, aren’t on speaking terms. Fifteen years ago on a family camping trip, their father and brother vanished. Their dad turned up days later, dehydrated and confused—and convinced he’d been abducted by aliens. Their brother, Jakob, remained missing. The women dealt with it very differently. Kass, suspecting her college-dropout twin simply ran off, became the rock of the family. Evie traded academics to pursue alien conspiracy theories, always looking for Jakob. When Evie’s UFO network uncovers a new event, she goes to investigate. And discovers Jakob is back. He’s different—older, stranger, and talking of an intergalactic war—but the tensions between the siblings haven’t changed at all. If the family is going to come together to help Jakob, then Kass and Evie are going to have to fix their issues, and fast. Because the FBI is after Jakob, and if their brother is telling the truth, possibly an entire space armada, too. The perfect combination of action, imagination and heart, Light Years from Home is a touching drama about a challenge as difficult as saving the galaxy: making peace with your family…and yourself."

Light Years From Home is a standalone novel, but Chen has plenty of other books if you enjoy this one, including that aforementioned Star Wars novel Brotherhood, which explores Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi’s relationship during the Clone Wars.

Find Light Years From Home on Amazon.

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

The debut novel by Xiran Jay Zhao, Iron Widow is a gritty tale that’s being described as The Handmaid’s Tale meets Pacific Rim, a blending of mecha science fiction and Chinese history. If that’s not enough to peak your interest, I don’t know what is.

Zhao has made lots of waves with this novel since its release in September of 2021, breaking onto the New York Times Bestseller List and gaining a huge following with her powerful vision of a future where young girls are sacrificed in order to power giant robots built for war.

"The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn’t matter that the girls often die from the mental strain. When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it’s to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister’s death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected—she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead.​ To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia​. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way—and stop more girls from being sacrificed."

Find Iron Widow on Amazon.