Jeanette Winterson, Weight, 2005

A mischievous (and brief) retelling of the myths of Atlas and Heracles infused with some imaginative cosmology. It somehow resolves into a curiously direct form of science fiction, one that cuts through the tropes and gets down to a core theme: the self-imposed boundaries we have and our necessary liberation from them. One of those off-centre book many SF fans would like.