Who am I to be an expert? I'm not. I know what I like and why, and I also know what I dislike. I have no idea what you like or dislike, and I don't presume to know more than anyone else. I do not have a passion for sci-fi; I have a predilection for it. I've been writing creatively all my life. Sci fi is not all I read or write either. At the end of the day, I only need to know that I've given life my best shot.
Intelligent races travel through wormholes to explore the farthest reaches of the galaxy. Thewls inform Humans of a looming threat. Lokians are a ravenous race of space bugs. Captain O'Hara of Phoenix Crew travels with Thewls to retrieve an ancient vessel from a mysterious race simply known as travelers.
Can a single craft be the key to saving the galaxy? Why do Thewls believe the travelers once visited Earth? Does O'Hara and Phoenix Crew have what it takes to obliterate the space bugs?
This book is at the top of my list because it is the first sci-fi book I recall reading. I found it at a flea market for 99 cents. I liked the title and cover, and when I read it when I was 12 or something, it just really resonated with me. The characters were real. The story was captivating. I still have it somewhere.
The best part of the book was the simplicity of its storytelling. I really mean that in a good way. It was certainly written for teens, and while everyone else was off reading Goosebumps, I was reading sci-fi.
A sequel to "Phule's Company", by the author of the "Myth" series. The Omega Mob was once the most dubious "phorce" in the whole Space Legion, but Captain Willard Phule, the galaxy's youngest trillionaire, has turned a gang of oddballs, nerds and "touphnuts" into a lean, mean "phighting" machine.
This book doesn't really need a reason to be recommended. I mean, c'mon, we've all seen The Edge of Tomorrow, and admittedly, I did not read the novel until after I saw the movie. Most Americans don't know much about, less yet come across, Japanese graphic novels unless they're already into that kind of stuff.
Regardless, reading the book after seeing the movie was a pleasant surprise. It's like reading Dreamcatcher by Stephen King after seeing the movie. The movies never do the books justice.
When the alien Gitai invade, Keiji Kiriya is just one of many raw recruits shoved into a suit of battle armour and sent out to kill. Keiji dies on the battlefield, only to find himself reborn each morning to fight and die again and again. On the 158th iteration though, he sees something different, something out of place: the female soldier known as the Bitch of War. Is the Bitch the key to Keiji's escape, or to his final death?
Like the last book, I read this one after seeing the movie. I've never been a big King fan, but this one is a winner. Spoiler alert: it's about a time-traveling fungus. (That never made it into the movie.) For that reason alone, I think this is a sci-fi worth reading. Plus, there's the element of horror present in most of King's work.
The characters are very cool, distinct, and real. However, there isn't much character growth throughout the book. In this case, that's perfectly fine. I didn't need Henry to go through some psycho-social metamorphosis. Seems like today, everyone looks for a protagonist that has to change over time. Just give this one a read.
From master storyteller Stephen King comes his classic #1 New York Times bestseller about four friends who encounter evil in the Maine woods.
Twenty-five years ago, in their haunted hometown of Derry, Maine, four boys bravely stood together and saved a mentally challenged child from vicious local bullies. It was something that fundamentally changed them, in ways they could never begin to understand. These lifelong friends—now with separate lives and separate problems—make it a point to reunite every year for a hunting trip deep in the snowy Maine woods. This time, though, chaos erupts when a stranger suddenly stumbles into…
I can't have a sci-fi list without this book. Once more, I saw the movie first. I didn't find out it was a book until I was in high school. While I have not read it since, I do recall loving every minute of it. I never could tell if it was meant to be allegorical, given its religious implications, politics, and possibly a reference to both past and future generations.
This is one I may add to my list of summer reading. I want to see how it has evolved over time. This time, I'll read the books before I watch the new movie.
Before The Matrix, before Star Wars, before Ender's Game and Neuromancer, there was Dune: winner of the prestigious Hugo and Nebula awards, and widely considered one of the greatest science fiction novels ever written.
Melange, or 'spice', is the most valuable - and rarest - element in the universe; a drug that does everything from increasing a person's lifespan to making interstellar travel possible. And it can only be found on a single planet: the inhospitable desert world of Arrakis.
Whoever controls Arrakis controls the spice. And whoever controls the spice controls the universe.
I don't know if creating a monster from the remains of the dead qualifies as sci-fi, but I'm adding Mary Shelley's 1818 title anyway. This was one I got to read in middle school; we had a list of books we could read, but it was mandatory to read at least 5 for the year. Other than just a handful of books I've read that were written by female authors, this is the only one that can qualify as sci-fi.
Shelley has a very eloquent yet provocative voice. I think it would be near impossible to liken her tone, pace, choice of words, etc., to any other novelist of our time. At any rate, the fact that this is last on the list by no means suggests that it is not one of my favorites. It just worked out that way.
You've probably seen the movie, but it relied much more on the acting, the cinematography, and the music for its success. The novel's success was solely due to Shelley's unique style, and I enjoy discovering various styles of writing.
One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'
'That rare story to pass from literature into myth' The New York Times
Mary Shelley's chilling Gothic tale was conceived when she was only eighteen, living with her lover Percy Shelley on Lake Geneva. The story of Victor Frankenstein who, obsessed with creating life itself, plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, but whose botched creature sets out to destroy his maker, would become the world's most famous work of horror fiction, and remains a devastating exploration of the limits of human creativity. Based on the third…
I have spent my entire professional life quietly patrolling the frontiers of understanding human consciousness. I was an early adopter in the burgeoning field of biofeedback, then neurofeedback and neuroscience, plus theory and practices of humanistic and transpersonal psychology, plus steeping myself in systems theory as a context for all these other fields of focus. I hold a MS in psychology from San Francisco State University and a PhD from Saybrook Institute. I live in Mount Shasta CA with Molly, my life partner for over 60 years. We have two sons and two grandchildren.
In this thoroughly researched and exquisitely crafted treatise, Jim Brown synthesizes the newest understandings in neuroscience, developmental psychology, and dynamical systems theory for educators and others committed to nurturing human development.
He explains complex concepts in down-to-earth terms, suggesting how these understandings can transform education to engender optimal learning and intelligence. He explores the nature of consciousness, intelligence, and mind.
Brown then offers a model of optimal human learning through lifelong brain development within a supportive culture--drawing on the work of Piaget, Erickson, Maslow, Kohlberg, and Steiner--and how that work is being vastly expanded by neuroscience and dynamical systems thinking.
Mindleap: A Fresh View of Education Empowered by Neuroscience and Systems Thinking
In this thoroughly-researched and exquisitely crafted treatise, Jim Brown synthesizes the newest understandings in neuroscience, developmental psychology, and dynamical systems theory for educators and others committed to nurturing human development. He explains complex concepts in down-to-earth terms, suggesting how these understandings can transform education to truly engender optimal learning and intelligence. He explores the nature of consciousness, intelligence, and mind. Brown then offers a model of optimal human learning through life-long brain development within a supportive culture--drawing on the work of Piaget, Erickson, Maslow, Kohlberg, and Steiner--and how that work is being vastly expanded by neuroscience and dynamical systems thinking.
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