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 wonāt give you all my favesābut 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.
Katniss Everdeen is the type of hero you want to root for. Sheās kind, good, self-reliant, and the type of person who makes the world a better place. And her world needs itābadly. But her world is trying to kill her, and she has to fight.
I love this book. Iāve always been drawn to underdog stories where the underdog has a heart of gold but is put in terrible situationsāsituations that test them until they almost break. But they donāt. They survive. And they do so on their terms even when everyone else is playing by different rules.
Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. But Katniss has been close to death before - and survival, for her, is second nature. The Hunger Games is a searing novel set in a future with unsettling parallels to our present. Welcome to the deadliest reality TV show ever...
I love stories where the hero is a normal guy that we can all identify with in some way or another and where there is an arc to the story that transforms that normal guy into something extraordinary.
With just wits and creativity, our hero, Wade Watts, finds a way to survive against all odds. And no matter how bad things get, he never quits. He embodies the best of the human spiritāand by the end of the book, youāre cheering for him. Because he is you (or who you want to be), the "everyman" who stands up to injustice, unfairness, and those powers that are wrecking humanity (which in this case happens to be a trillion-dollar Mega Corporation).
SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE DIRECTED BY STEVEN SPIELBERG
It's the year 2044, and the real world has become an ugly place. We're out of oil. We've wrecked the climate. Famine, poverty, and disease are widespread.
Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes this depressing reality by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia where you can be anything you want to be, where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets. And like most of humanity, Wade is obsessed by the ultimate lottery ticket thatā¦
Annie Kurtz joins the Marines, deploys to Afghanistan, and has to make a split-second decision. She can follow her orders. Or she can follow her conscience. Nick Willard is a journalist who has pined for Annie since they were in prep school together. While doing his job, he discovers whatā¦
Okay, Iāve only read this book once, but I can tell you Iāll be reading it again. Itās 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 heās a middle school science teacher. And heās in a spaceship. Alone. And he may happen to be humanityās only hope to survive.
Wow! Talk about a new spin on the amnesia trope. Iām 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 authorās writing style.
Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance missionāand if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.
Except that right now, he doesnāt know that. He canāt even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.
All he knows is that heās been asleep for a very, very long time. And heās 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 throughā¦
This is an oldie but a goody. I read this as a kid and have read it since then many times as an adult, and itās still great. The writing is dated, but the story absolutely rocks.
Our hero, John Carter, is a Civil War veteran. When he enters a mysterious cave, he is transported to Mars. A version of Mars where Mars is inhabited by all sorts of incredible beings.
Everything about this story is larger than life. The description of Mars. The warring tribes. The fight scenes. Our hero as he tackles the villains. How he saves a world in peril. In the end, our hero gets the girl (who is a beautiful princess). The dynamic between both of them over the course of the story is well worth the read alone.
Rediscover the adventure-pulp classic that gave the world its first great interplanetary romance-now featuring an introduction by Junot Diaz
In the spring of 1866, John Carter, a former Confederate captain prospecting for gold in the Arizona hills, slips into a cave and is overcome by mysterious vapors. He awakes to find himself naked, alone, and forty-eight million miles from Earth-a castaway on the dying planet Mars. Taken prisoner by the Tharks, a fierce nomadic tribe of six-limbed, olive-green giants, he wins respect as a cunning and able warrior, who by grace of Mars's weak gravity possesses the agility of aā¦
Zoe Lorel, an elite operative in an international spy agency, is sent to abduct a nine-year-old girl. The girl is the only one who knows the riddle that holds the code to unleash the most lethal weapon on earthāthe first ever āinvisibilityā nano weapon, a cloaking spider bot. But whenā¦
If you havenāt read any of Piers Anthony's amazing works, then youāre missing out. His Xanth fantasy series is amazing, but Iām still partial to his Apprentice Adept series. Itās the perfect amalgamation of great sci-fi and fantasy all in one package. This, the first book of the series, has our hero, Stile, living in Proton as a serf. Everyone in Proton, except for citizens, walks around naked.
Yeah, thatās a little crazy, but go with it. Youāll be glad you did. This is a fun read. Stile is an expert gamer and happens to be quite short (just shy of five feet), but heāll defy everyone and show heās a giant in this world and in the other world, a parallel dimension called Phaze, where magic exists.
The arc of this series and the cast of characters are what I loved most. Stile has a gift for making friends, and those friends make all the difference in this story.
On the technological, decadent world of Proton, someone was trying to destroy Stile, serf and master Gamesman. His only escape lay through a mysterious ācurtainā revealed by a loving robot.
Beyond the curtain lay Phazeāa world totally ruled by magic. There, his first encounter was with an amulet that turned into a demon determined to choke him to death. And there, he soon learned, his alternate self had already been murdered by sorcery, and he was due to be the next victim.
āKnow thyself!ā the infallible Oracle told him. But first he must save himself as he shuttled between worlds.ā¦
A fascination with numbers and belief in positive thinking gives a former athlete and game designer the ability to change his reality.
Thereās only one small problem. Heās not the first to discover this. A secret cabal already controls reality, and they donāt take kindly to those messing with the code.
Worcester Glendenis is a 12-year-old wannabe private detective. He models himself on his hero, the fictional private eye Philip Marlowe, of course without the booze, cigarettes, and violence. After all, he is only twelve.
He's a likable and smart kid with two pesky 7-year-old twin sisters, and a Mum andā¦
Cleo Cooper is living the dream with ocean-dipping weekends, a good job, good friends, fair boyfriend, and a good dog. But, paradise is shaken when the body of a young woman is dragged onto a university research vessel during a class outing in Hilo Bay.