Here are 67 books that Quietus fans have personally recommended if you like
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Science fiction for grownups not only means avoiding magic and supernatural elements but grounding the stories’ “what-ifs” in hard science and/or narrative anthropology. When we (readers) are invited to a story, we come with a willing suspension of disbelief, and I have as strong a suspension of disbelief as anyone—what if dinosaurs could be grown from ancient DNA, or what if an asteroid struck the earth? However, the ground rules of what-ifs should be laid out and should not include a sweeping suspension of the laws of physics, nature, and common sense. So, no hundred-and-ten-pound woman, with toothpick arms and dressed in cleavage-revealing spandex, beating up twelve burly guys.
I’m drawn to this futuristic murder mystery because it lays out the rules of the “created world” and invites the reader to solve it. A murderer and a limited number of suspects/victims are all confined on a spaceship.
I love the setup, and I was immersed from the start.
In this Hugo nominated science fiction thriller by Mur Lafferty, a crew of clones awakens aboard a space ship to find they're being hunted-and any one of them could be the killer.
Maria Arena awakens in a cloning vat streaked with drying blood. She has no memory of how she died. This is new; before, when she had awakened as a new clone, her first memory was of how she died.
Maria's vat is one of seven, each one holding the clone of a crew member of the starship Dormire, each clone waiting for its previous incarnation to die so…
I grew up in a house of books. Bookcases in almost every room. At an early age, I discovered some great ones that were usually recommended by my dad. The Odyssey. Tarzan of the Apes. Princess of Mars. It is a long, long list, and I won’t give you all my faves—but one thing about it: I was drawn to books with heroes, particularly when those heroes were clearly good. There are no shades of gray for me. I like my heroes to have honor and humility and to always strive to do the right thing.
Okay, I’ve only read this book once, but I can tell you I’ll be reading it again. It’s that good.
It's a classic amnesia story. The hero wakes up from a coma and has no recollection of who he is. Over the course of the story, he discovers he’s a middle school science teacher. And he’s in a spaceship. Alone. And he may happen to be humanity’s only hope to survive.
Wow! Talk about a new spin on the amnesia trope. I’m rooting for Ryland Grace from the jump. No matter how crazy bad it gets, and it gets bad, our hero never loses his sense of humor. I laughed out loud many times. I loved the science, and I dug the author’s writing style.
Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.
All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.
His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through…
Science fiction for grownups not only means avoiding magic and supernatural elements but grounding the stories’ “what-ifs” in hard science and/or narrative anthropology. When we (readers) are invited to a story, we come with a willing suspension of disbelief, and I have as strong a suspension of disbelief as anyone—what if dinosaurs could be grown from ancient DNA, or what if an asteroid struck the earth? However, the ground rules of what-ifs should be laid out and should not include a sweeping suspension of the laws of physics, nature, and common sense. So, no hundred-and-ten-pound woman, with toothpick arms and dressed in cleavage-revealing spandex, beating up twelve burly guys.
I loved the complex plot structure and the moral questions!
Earth discovers a sentient civilization with the potential to surpass our own. But the aliens are trapped in a solar system that they cannot escape without Earth’s faster-than-light technology. How should Earth respond?
Aliens - Moties - were first contacted in AD3017 in the region of space known as the Coalsack. The eponymous mote in his eye, which has winked out, much to the distress of pious Himmists, just might have been Motie laser light. It might even indicate the position of their home planet.
Science fiction for grownups not only means avoiding magic and supernatural elements but grounding the stories’ “what-ifs” in hard science and/or narrative anthropology. When we (readers) are invited to a story, we come with a willing suspension of disbelief, and I have as strong a suspension of disbelief as anyone—what if dinosaurs could be grown from ancient DNA, or what if an asteroid struck the earth? However, the ground rules of what-ifs should be laid out and should not include a sweeping suspension of the laws of physics, nature, and common sense. So, no hundred-and-ten-pound woman, with toothpick arms and dressed in cleavage-revealing spandex, beating up twelve burly guys.
I love Charles Sheffield’s good, hard science fiction. An astronomer and mathematician, Charles Sheffield, could craft plotlines supported by hard science like few others.
I'm drawn to his competent, realistic characters and the way his narratives create drama reminiscent of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Unfortunately, he passed away in 2002.
Jay Hara is an ordinary young man growing up on the isolated planet of Erin. But Jay dreams of adventure and escapades and the legend of the lost “Godspeed” drive which allowed humans to travel at faster-than-light speeds.
His life changes when he joins up with the seedy spacer, Paddy Enderton and Captain Daniel Shaker. Captain Shaker is a charming but ruthless adventurer who inspires both fear and admiration in equal measure, and he and his questionable crew are joined by Jay as they race to find the legendary drive Jay Hara used to dream about.
I’ve always been a sucker for a good time travel novel. So when I started writing my Librarian Chronicles I quickly learned that there is just so much you can do with the theory of time. My characters have gone to many places and times and in order to perfect these locations and eras that required tons of research. For my first novel, The Librarian, I researched for nearly a year before I wrote the book. I sincerely hope you’ll enjoy my Librarian Chronicles and I look forward to writing more in the series. Each novel is unique and they can all be read in any order.
I was lucky enough to read this book when it was first released in 2011. I had just gotten my first eReader, a Nook, and downloaded this book based on the cover. I won’t lie, I am a cover fanatic. Once I read it though, I quickly realized this book was more than the cover. It is well-written and pulled me out of a pretty deep reading slump.
Even better, it's an independently published book and I love to support Indie’s. But let’s get into why I love this book so much. Wander Dust dances that line between fantasy and time travel, and has all the allure of romance that I just love about a book. There is a lot of information thrown at you from the very beginning about the society in which our young character is thrust into, which for me is just what I need when I…
Ever since her sixteenth birthday, strange things keep happening to Seraphina Parrish.
The Lady in Black burns Sera’s memories.
Unexplainable Premonitions catapult her to other cities.
The Grungy Gang wants to kill her.
And a beautiful, mysterious boy stalks her.
But when Sera moves to Chicago, and her aunt reveals their family connection to a centuries old, secret society, she is immediately thrust into an unbelievable fantasy world, leading her on a quest to unravel the mysteries that plague her. In the end, their meanings crash into an epic struggle of loyalty and betrayal, and she’ll be forced to choose…
We have always been fascinated by literary masterworks that stage the plague as a pivotal factor in the plot. We added the next ingredients: a whodunnit with a claustrophobic setting, the Baroque Age, a (real) financial thriller between Rome and London, and an unusual protagonist. Rita is a historian of religions, Francesco is a musicologist. After working as journalists, meeting in a newspaper bureau, and getting happily married, we started a writing career publishing 11 novels translated into 26 languages and 60 countries with more than 2 million copies sold. Our novels are a mix of literary creativity and meticulous research, characters and settings are strictly based on original documents and eyewitness accounts.
This epic novel in Walter Scott’s good tradition, but with a plus of philosophical depth, taught us (and generations of authors) how to wave together love and hope, freedom and destiny, pride and courage. The plague’s tragic outcome around 1630 in northern Italy offered such a powerful literary palette that Manzoni had to spin off a chapter about the epidemic and publish it separately. Nevertheless, The Betrothed is still marked by death and devastation, the hysterical witch-hunt against the alleged “plague-spreaders” and the impressive scenes in the lazarettos.
Set in Lombardy during the Spanish occupation of the late 1620s, The Betrothed tells the story of two young lovers, Renzo and Lucia, prevented from marrying by the petty tyrant Don Rodrigo, who desires Lucia for himself. Forced to flee, they are then cruelly separated, and must face many dangers including plague, famine and imprisonment, and confront a variety of strange characters - the mysterious Nun of Monza, the fiery Father Cristoforo and the sinister 'Unnamed' - in their struggle to be reunited. A vigorous portrayal of enduring passion,
As an author of a dual-timeline thriller series set in Venice in the present-day and 16th century, I’ve spent countless hours researching the world’s most mesmerizing city. I’ve been there three times, including on a research trip. I’ve worked with historians and experts on various aspects and have explored the ancient streets and buildings first-hand. I’ve also read dozens of books set in Venice.
While not as famous as Thomas Mann or Anne Rice, Marina Fiorato well deserves her place on this list with The Venetian Bargain. It’s another superbly researched and beautifully written piece of historical fiction set in 1576 during the plague. Grounded in fact, it follows a young Turkish girl, scorned in her homeland, who sneaks aboard a boat bound for Venice. She soon discovers the ship's illicit cargo in the hold—and the sultan’s horrific plan—a man infected with bubonic plague. The man infects the entire city within days. This book is much more than a historical account. It’s a gripping story with compelling characters. What’s more, much of what the world has gone through with Covid-19, from masks to quarantine, was invented by the Venetians and it's covered in The Venetian Bargain through the eyes of wonderful characters.
Venice, 1576. Five years after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Lepanto, a ship steals unnoticed into Venice bearing a deadly cargo. A man, more dead than alive, disembarks and staggers into Piazza San Marco. He brings a gift to Venice from Constantinople. Within days the city is infected with bubonic plague―and the Turkish Sultan has his revenge.
But the ship also holds a secret stowaway―Feyra, a young and beautiful harem doctor fleeing a future as the Sultan's concubine. Only her wits and medical knowledge keep her alive as the plague ravages Venice.
Decades ago, I fell madly, gladly, and giddily in love with Italian. This passion inspired La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with the World’s Most Enchanting Language, which became a New York Times best-seller and won an Italian knighthood for my contributions to promoting Italy’s language. Intrigued by the world’s most famous portrait, I wrote Mona Lisa: A Life Discovered, an Amazon Best Book of the Year, translated into seven languages. My most recent journeys through Italian culture are La Passione: How Italy Seduced the World and ‘A’ Is for Amore, an e-book written during the pandemic and available free on my website.
During a plague that killed a quarter of Florence’s citizens, Boccaccio crafted an exuberant, entertaining, death-defying work of literature. In this book, seven young women and three young men taking refuge in a country villa swap 100 tales of love, lust, mischief, and treachery.
I read a translation of The Decameron during a sabbatical in Italy and was swept back in time. In every village, I’d look around a piazza and see characters straight from its pages: wily merchants, corrupt politicians, clever wives, henpecked husbands, bumbling fools. This book still resonates in the 21st century—a tribute to Boccaccio’s skill as a spell-weaver. Some of his stories are shamelessly, laughably bawdy. But all remind us that, even as everything changes, our shared humanity remains the same.
In the summer of 1348, as the Black Death ravages their city, ten young Florentines take refuge in the countryside...
Taken from the Greek, meaning 'ten-day event', Boccaccio's Decameron sees his characters amuse themselves by each telling a story a day, for the ten days of their confinement - a hundred stories of love and adventure, life and death, and surprising twists of fate. Less preoccupied with abstract concepts of morality or religion than earthly values, the tales range from the bawdy Peronella, hiding her lover in a tub, to Ser Cepperallo, who, despite his unholy effrontery, becomes a Saint.…
We're all in this together: public health for all people, no matter their status or wealth, is one of humanity's great achievements. Favoring reason over faith, science over anecdote, and the group over the individual, has led to lowered infant mortality, improved health, and longer human lifespans. During pandemics, however, evidence and reason are often discarded, as people panic and try to save themselves. The odd human behavior we have seen during the Covid-19 pandemic has multiple precedents in the past. Quack cures, snake-oil sales, conspiracy theories, suspicion of authority, the emergence of cults with eccentric, bizarre, and inexplicable beliefs: again and again, this has been the human response to the unknown.
Cantor’s book showed me that when a lethal pandemic arrives, it can change society in ways that make “returning to normal” impossible, because the conditions that made “normal” possible no longer exist. The Black Death - probably a bubonic plague pandemic - wiped out as much as half of China’s population, before traveling the silk road to Europe where, from 1347-1351, a third of the population died. The pandemic also suffocated the feudal order, created the conditions for capitalism, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment, breathed new life into art, and transformed the legal system. In effect, the pandemic plowed the seedbed for the modern Western world. Covid may be a similar epidemiological juggernaut, sweeping away human institutions that we know, leaving us a novel world that will be strange and different in ways we can’t yet imagine.
A New York Times bestseller, In the Wake of the Plague is a fascinating study of the cultural and religious consequences of one of the deadliest tragedies to befall humanity: the black plague. Though rigorously scientific in his approach, Norman F. Cantor has produced an unforgettable narrative that in many ways employs the novelist’s skill for storytelling.
The Black Death was the fourteenth century’s equivalent of a nuclear war. It wiped out one-third of Europe’s population, and irrevocably changed the lives of those who survived. And yet, most of what we know about it is wrong. The details of the…
I have always been fascinated by the history of medicine, particularly the more macabre details. While researching my family lineage, I became especially interested in medieval medicine and the lives of English monarchs. I was honored to be asked to write a book on medicine in the middle ages, and I dove into the research head first. I have been lucky enough to write for several other publications, and I have self-published on Amazon. I enjoy writing historical fiction and my novel, Sleeping with the Impaler, was a book I truly enjoyed writing. I hope the books I recommended spark your interest as they will stay with me forever.
The Great Mortality was a key tool in my research for my book. John covered the Black Death in every country it devastated, such as England, Italy, and France. He touches on the effect the Black Death had on the church and the great lengths that were taken to protect the pope. He goes into morbid detail about the plague, and you get a real understanding of what these people went through. I can not recommend this book enough.
“Powerful, rich with details, moving, humane, and full of important lessons for an age when weapons of mass destruction are loose among us.” — Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb
The Great Plague is one of the most compelling events in human history—even more so now, when the notion of plague has never loomed larger as a contemporary public concern.
The plague that devastated Asia and Europe in the 14th century has been of never-ending interest to both scholarly and general readers. Many books on the plague rely on statistics to tell the story:…
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