I like science and math. I’m better at science than math. I grew up reading books from the early pioneers of sci-fi when imagination trumped hard science. Oh, the science was around, there was just a lot more leeway to make up the physics when you needed something to work. As science advanced, authors got more into the technical and theoretical aspects of what they were writing about. I usually skim over technical writing, so when I began to write, it was natural for me to limit what I found to be superfluous to the story. The recommended books are the kind of books I like to read and write.
I like math and science. Too much though, and I start to skim. I didn’t skip anything in this book, and I found it a page turner from the start.
The math and science involved in the character’s survival is explained well enough for it to make sense to the average person. After reading it, I think I would probably feel comfortable growing potatoes in [spoiler alert] human feces. Maybe not as comfortable having to eat them, but if I was [spoiler alert] stranded on Mars…
Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.
Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there.
After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he's alive--and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.
Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old human error are…
I got hooked on Vonnegut after reading his short story, Harrison Bergeron. Most of his books straddle the genres of literary fiction and science fiction, with just enough information to make the science believable.
In Slaughterhouse Five, there’s a time travel element, but how it happens really isn’t as important as where the main character ends up. With some historical content about World War II, which is another subject I enjoy, this book will take you on an interesting ride as the character becomes unstuck in time.
A special fiftieth anniversary edition of Kurt Vonnegut’s masterpiece, “a desperate, painfully honest attempt to confront the monstrous crimes of the twentieth century” (Time), featuring a new introduction by Kevin Powers, author of the National Book Award finalist The Yellow Birds
Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time
Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had…
It was already a cult classic when I heard of it, and as a college student it was a must read.
The humour is weird, the science even weirder, and it has everything I enjoy in a science fiction story. Aliens? Check. Space travel? Check. Spaceships? Check. A restaurant at the end of the universe? What? Shouldn’t every sci-fi story have one? Well, probably not.
This is the first of four books in this trilogy. No, that’s not an error. That’s what it says on the book.
This box set contains all five parts of the' trilogy of five' so you can listen to the complete tales of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Bebblebrox and Marvin the Paranoid Android! Travel through space, time and parallel universes with the only guide you'll ever need, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Read by Stephen Fry, actor, director, author and popular audiobook reader, and Martin Freeman, who played Arthur Dent in film version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He is well known as Tim in The Office.
The set also includes a bonus DVD Life, the Universe and…
This was one of the first science fiction stories I remember reading on my own and it is one of the books I have reread most often.
It had everything to capture the imagination of a teenage mind. A story featuring two humans, a three-legged, two-headed alien, and a cat-warrior. Throw in a spaceship with an indestructible hull and the title structure and you have a great adventure story with minimal hard science. Even Mr. Niven got it wrong and had to correct it in later stories.
Pierson's puppeteers, strange, three-legged, two-headed aliens, have discovered an immense structure in a hitherto unexplored part of the universe. Frightened of meeting the builders of such a structure, the puppeteers set about assembling a team consisting of two humans, a puppeteer and a kzin, an alien not unlike an eight-foot-tall, red-furred cat, to explore it. The artefact is a vast circular ribbon of matter, some 180 million miles across, with a sun at its centre - the Ringworld. But the expedition goes disastrously wrong when the ship crashlands and its motley crew faces a trek across thousands of miles of…
How good is it? I just decided to put it on my reread list. Parallel universes? The Multi-verse? Don’t get nervous. Even I was able wrap my mind around the leaps between them all.
This thriller packed within a sci-fi novel is a rollercoaster of a ride, quantum mechanics and all. No PhD required.
'Brilliant. . . I think Blake Crouch just invented something new' - Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher series.
From Blake Crouch, the author of the bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy, Dark Matter is sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human - a relentlessly surprising thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we'll go to claim the lives we dream of, perfect for fans of Stranger Things and Ready Player One.
'Are you happy in your life?' Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. Before he awakes to find…
Thomas sets out on a hike he has done many times before. Taking only what he needs for the three or four hours he expects to be gone, he passes a vehicle in the parking lot. The handwritten note on the dashboard read: Not Abandoned. The view at the end of the trail was not what he expected—neither were the friendships.
Two people in an unknown world. Only their physical fitness and combined knowledge will get them through everything they may encounter.
Two adventurous people. A strange world. One goal. Unravel the mystery.
I have been writing for many years, and my main preference is political thrillers with criminal overtones. I first became interested in politics when I worked at several political conferences in the 60’s and 70’s. I have been involved in several criminal cases, including my own, and within my family, I have a nephew in the police force. For many years I have had the opportunity to mix with the upper tiers of society as well as the criminal classes and this has given me great insight into creating my characters and plots.
Pete West, a political columnist, travels to Prague to find a missing diplomat, later found murdered. He attempts to discover more about a cryptic note received from the diplomat and is immediately entangled in the secret Bilderberg Club’s strategy to form a world federation.
Pete meets a Czechian agent who wants asylum. She has a murdered EU Commissioner’s diary containing clues to the civil unrest planned by the club, encrypted in algebraic chess notations. West seeks answers and links up with retired MI6 officer Tosh. While escaping would-be captors, they decode enough chess moves to reveal the anarchy of the…
Pete West, a political columnist, travels to Prague to find a missing diplomat, later found murdered. He attempts to discover more about a cryptic note received from the diplomat and is immediately entangled in the secret Bilderberg Club’s strategy to form a world federation.
Pete meets a Czechian agent who wants asylum. She has a murdered EU Commissioner’s diary containing clues to the civil unrest planned by the club, encrypted in algebraic chess notations. West seeks answers and links up with retired MI6 officer Tosh. While escaping would-be captors, they decode enough chess moves to reveal the anarchy of the…
