The best books of Jewish science fiction and fantasy

Wandering Stars is a landmark anthology that should be the starting point for anyone interested in Jewish science fiction and fantasy. It contains a collection of incredible short stories; it’s nearly impossible to pick out the best. My own favorites include William Tenn’s “On Venus, Have We Got a Rabbi,” Avram Davidson’s “The Golem,” Harlan Ellison’s “I’m Looking for Kadak,” and Isaac Bashevitz Singer’s heartbreaking, “Jachid and Jechidah.”

This fascinating novel is about two supernatural beings from two separate cultures—a woman made of clay by a Polish rabbi and an ancient Syrian jinni recently released from captivity—who, rejected by their own kind, join together to try to find a life in early turn-of-the-20th-century America. This is a wonderfully written and complex work about two very complex individuals; I couldn’t stop reading it. The second book, The Hidden Palace, is equally compelling.

Start with the supposition that a district in the Alaskan panhandle was put aside to receive Jews fleeing from Nazi persecution, and that those refugees created their own Yiddish society—one that is now being dissolved as their rights to live there come to an end. The novel’s protagonist, a homicide detective living in a seedy hotel, must also contend with a murder that is being covered up by social and political forces. This is a fascinating traditional noir mystery set in an alternative historical environment; it introduced me to Michael Chabon’s writing and I’ve never looked back.

It’s hard to describe Lavie Tidhar’s Central Station, except to say that it is a fascinating study of various humans and non-humans residing—some permanently, some temporarily—in a hot, dusty spaceport/city that has sprung up between Tel Aviv and Jaffa sometime in our future. They confront questions and answers about family, memory, reality, and what is human—and occasionally come up with answers. A wonderfully written, almost hypnotic book.

If Wandering Stars was the first short-story anthology to explore Jewish science fiction and fantasy, People of the Book is its descendant. This collection features a variety of stories by modern authors such as Jane Yolen, Theodora Goss, Neil Gaiman, and Michael Chabon, and is an excellent way to discover some of the talents that have emerged in the 21st century—and their approach to the Jewish religion, culture, and society.