Meg Elison Books In Order

Publication Order of The Road to Nowhere Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of PM's Outspoken Authors Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Meg Elison is a renowned American novelist of science fiction, dystopia, fiction, and post-apocalyptic novels. She is particularly famous for writing The Road to Nowhere series. Elison is also a reputed feminist essayist and likes to incorporate female empowerment, gender flexibility, and body positivity themes in her books. She won the Philip K. Dick Award in 2014 for her debut book called The Book of Unnamed Midwife. In 2017, she was nominated again for the same award for her second book, The Book of Etta. The works of author Elison have appeared in various markets, including Terraform, Catapult, Electric Literature, Fantasy & Science Fiction, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

In her first novel, Elison has described a post-apocalyptic feminist examination of women’s plight following a global epidemic. She has written the book primarily in the journal format. The story follows the life of a surviving medical provider, who goes through a lot of struggles in finding civilization and providing medical care and birth control to the females she comes across in her path. In the sequel novel, Elison has described the revisit to the plague survivors’ community after several generations. A female protagonist battles the male-dominated oppressive regime.

Following the grand success of her first two books, Elison came up with the third book with the hope that it would achieve the same amount of success as the previous 2 novels, if not more. Author Elison was born on May 10, 1982. She dropped out of high school and joined a community college system in California. Eventually, Elison completed her graduation from Mount San Jacinto College of UC Berkeley. During the early days of her career, Elison was highly active in speaking and writing extensively about early queer identity and poverty. Later, she adopted these topics in her work as well. Currently, Elison resides in Oakland, California and works as a full-time writer. She is grateful to all the love and support she has received from her fans and expects them to continue showering their love for all her future projects as well.

The Road to Nowhere novel series written by author Meg Elison is comprised of a total of three books released between 2014 and 2019. This award-winning series describes a feminist post-apocalyptic story and consists of the central characters in the roles of Etta, Flora, and several others. The debut book of this series penned by Elison is entitled ‘The Book of the Unnamed Midwife’. It was released by the 47 North publication in 2016, after its original release in 2014. The opening lines of the book’s plot describe that when the Midwife was asleep, the world was heading towards doom and when she woke up, it had already died. Initially, it is mentioned that a pandemic decimates almost all the population of earth. It killed children, women, and men, and the women who survived were deprived of the ability to give birth to new children.

Most of the women died during childbirth, thereby, become making it difficult for the mother & infant to survive. After waking up from her sleep, the midwife is required to find her way through the skeletons of the world that she once knew in order to discover her place in the new dangerous world. The pillars that held civilization have been destroyed. Now, what remains is only power and the strong ones possessing it. Several other women like the midwife also survived, but their number is very scarce. And out of those scarce women, fewer are able to keep themselves safe from the clans of cruel men, who try to control them under the effect of fear.

To keep herself away from being held in the captivity of men, the midwife takes up the appearance of men. She wears the clothing of men and gives false names whenever someone asks her. Also, the midwife avoids talking to other people as much as possible so that her disguise remains intact and she remains free. However, as the world keeps getting affected by the terrible circumstances, the midwife realizes that she will have to undertake a greater role than chasing the independence of women. She decides to become a guide that will help humanity in getting reborn. This book is utterly absorbing, thought-provoking, eye-opening, and meaningful. It is filled with exciting and believable characters.

As the main protagonist impersonates a man, the readers get to see different gender roles. The plot is dark, bleak, grim, scary, but also gives the message of keeping hope. Author Elison has done a great job in telling the good, bad, and ugly about the time that lies ahead for the human civilization. Her writing is excellent and makes the readers follow the journey of the lone female survivor as she attempts to protect the women around her and help humanity take its form again. The novel successfully reached out to a large number of readers all across the globe and received huge praise from one and all.

The second volume of the series is known as ‘The Book of Etta’. It was also published by 47 North in 2017. This novel depicts the lead character in the role of Etta. Initially, Etta is introduced as hailing from Nowhere, which is a village filled with people who survived the great epidemic and killed the majority of earth’s population. Now, the number of women left in the world is quite less and childbearing has taken a dangerous form, resulting in the death of both the infant and the mother. But, it is necessary to find a way to enable childbirth otherwise the whole of humankind will go extinct. The Nowhere village considers its midwives and mothers as sacred. But, Etta has come with a different purpose. She is a scavenger and shows her loyalty towards the village, however, she is adamant about living by and following her terms.

Etta roams around the desolate region outside the village and salvages useful relics from the destroyed past. While doing so, she braves the deadly slave traders’ threat. The slave traders are in search of girls and women to make them slaves and sell. When some of her beloved ones get captured and turned into slaves, Etta decides to avenge them and find a way to ensure their freedom. The mission takes Etta into the den of a tyrant ruler named Lion, who rules over the innocent with violence and terror. Etta is all alone and possesses only her will and wits as weapons. She is determined to rescue her loved ones and thereby by liberating the destiny of the new world.