4 Stories with Awesome Autistic Protagonists

On the Edge of Gone, by Corinne Duyvis
Denise is a biracial autistic girl trying to find a place on a generation ship before a comet hits the world. Duyvis’s near-future YA novel subverts the usual tropes of apocalyptic fiction, in which scarce resources are often distributed only to those judged worthy. Denise is resourceful, helpful, and often utterly overwhelmed by the difficulties of trying to arrange for her marginalized family’s survival. But rather than focusing simply on Denise’s struggle, the book builds to a wholesale re-imagining of the assumptions that underlie these kinds of fictional problems in the first place – and of what is owed, to the rest of the post-apocalyptic world, by those who survive.

Experimental Film, by Gemma Files
Lois Cairns is an undiagnosed autistic woman and the mother of a high-support autistic son, who finds her family menaced by a mysterious figure from an old film. This horror novel deals very intimately with relationships between different disabled people, internalized ableism, and the desire to push oneself to work no matter the cost. Lois is depressed and feels broken because of her neurotype, and some of her thoughts will be too close to home for some autistic readers. But the way that she begins to change over the story, and the way the disability themes come together at the story’s end, is absolutely breathtaking.

An Unkindness of Ghosts, by Rivers Solomon
Aster is a Black intersex autistic woman who lives on a theocratic generation ship. Treated as a slave because of her race and the deck where she grew up, Aster has also managed to pick up skill as a medic and connections on the upper decks. She believes she can use them – and a set of mysterious notes left by her dead mother – to tear her oppressive society down. This is a dark book in which the characters are treated brutally, but also a powerful one. For me, the nuances of how Aster’s peers deal with mental illness, neurodivergence, and trauma are especially fascinating.

Iwunen Interstellar Investigations, by Bogi Takács
Not a novel, but this novella-length web series is just too much fun not to include. Iwunen is set in the far future, on an entire planet of autistic people. The planet Eren was settled by autistic people long ago, and is also rich in magic. The magic teacher Ranai ta-n Iwunen and a mysterious, wounded stranger named Mirun are just two of the autistic inhabitants of this planet. The series is a cheerfully written romp in which both of them team up to solve space mysteries with space magic – and cupcakes. For any reader craving an adventure full of diverse autistic people and cool worldbuilding, set in an accepting fictional society without a huge weight of ableism, and with a happy ending, Iwunen is an absolute must-read.