Sci-fi and fantasy novels with disabled characters

11 December 2021

Kit Kavanagh-Ryan, a presenter of The Book Show, has put together a selection of five science fiction and/or fantasy novels featuring central characters who are disabled.

Sometimes, however, speculative fiction creates a space where readers and writers get to imagine ‘crip futures’ in our fiction: spaces real or imagined where we question our idea of what ‘normal’ bodies and minds look like – what normal means at all.

Maybe it’s the sort of novels I read, titles usually found on literary award shortlists, but now that I think about it, few of them include people with disabilities.