100 books like All My Sins Remembered

Oh, the delicious snark of it all. Murderbot may—or may not—have a human heart, but what it does have is attitude with a capital A.

System Collapse focuses on the further adventures of the cyberbot security unit that has hacked itself free from dangerous behavioral controls and named itself Murderbot. The gender-free bot is suffering from PTSD resulting in memory lapses and odd behavior that endangers not only Murderbot but the humans they're protecting from being killed/enslaved by evil Corporate raiders and/or contaminated by deadly alien biotech.

Some of the funniest moments come when human characters try to get touchy-feely with Murderbot, much to their horror. Honestly, Murderbot would rather just watch soap operas with buddy/significant other, ART, the AI ship they live on. It helps to have read the previous 6 books to know who all the characters are and their histories.

All of these stories are superb but my favorite here is "The Last Garden," in which a woman with mother issues finds a surprising solution to them via hardware. Runnerup: "Arlington," with its brilliant use of time travel leavened by a nice dash of romance.

Jack Skillingstead is a cult writer who keeps a fine focus on the human condition, its pathos, comedy, kindness, and cruelty which he captures in surreal and satirical situations in the near and far future. I love his mordant humor, his playful imagination, and the crazy compounding situations he drops his characters into. Odd twists and unexpected endings. Very funny use of sentient hardware, 

Characters who are damaged and find healing in unexpected places, ways, and times. His notes on the background of these stories and generous essay about writing make this much more than a short story collection: the reader will gain insight into… show more.

What happens when Charlie Fitzer, a former journalist and divorcee down on his luck inherits his great-uncle's evil empire?

Hugo Award-winner John Scalzi (Redshirts, Old Man's War) had me at his knowing depiction of cats and their ways of communicating. His other characters aren't bad, either, including the viewpoint character who receives an unexpected and highly daunting inheritance, and most especially Matilda Morrison, a woman of extreme agency. Known for his humorous take on various literary genres, Scalzi here provides action that is laugh-out-loud funny,

 It's worth the price of admission just to read his dolphin scenes or the peculiar behavior of mourners at his uncle's funeral, but there's much much more including a clever satirical treatment of deep-state private clubs belonged to by so-called masters of the universe. Light, funny, heart-warming, and inventive.

The title story of this brilliant collection is a very funny alien invasion story told from the point of view of a woman who is convinced that the invasion is all about her. The other stories are similarly quirky and delightful.

The late Carol Emshwiller was a groundbreaking visionary writer who began publishing her funny, intriguing, unusual work after she was 30 and had to pry writing time away from the demands of her growing family.

When necessary, she would empty out the playpen in her living room, get into it with her typewriter, and work on her fiction while her preschool children enjoyed the freedom of the apartment. She was known for avant-garde approach, unreliable narrators, quirky humor, and a liberal, feminist outlook. 

Recipient of the Nebula and the  Philip K. Dick Award. The late Ursula K. LeGuin called her "a major fabulist, a marvelous magical realist, one of… show more.

Peter set out during the Vietnam War era to walk all the way across the United States with only a camera, a backpack, and a dog. His books, which I read as a teenager, brought fascinating strangers into my world and taught me how much those strangers can change our lives. Thanks to Peter's writing, I've always felt safe talking to strangers, and I seek them out to find out who they are and what their lives are like. 

If you like graphic memoirs and want one on the Vietnam War, Marcelino Truong’s Such a Lovely Little War is for you.

It’s an autobiographical tale of Truong’s life as the son of a Vietnamese diplomat working for the South Vietnam government and a French mother. We see the war through his eyes, but we also see the world he encountered as a teenager in London, Washington, and then back in Saigon.

The dialogue and the graphics are superb. The juxtaposition between his family and this “lovely little war” turning around it makes this memoir of the Vietnam War a highly original one. 

Women participated in the Vietnam War, and Duong Thu Huong was among them. In 1965, she joined the Communist Youth Brigade in Hanoi and found herself within months serving in it on the frontlines in South Vietnam.

Like Bao Ninh, she experienced the horrors of the Vietnam War close-up. In her Novel Without a Name, however, Duong Thu Huong tells her story through the eyes of a young male soldier, Quan. We don’t go into battle with him; rather, we follow him behind the lines, on visits home, in meetings with friends and former lovers, and even into his dreams, where he begins to question the war he is fighting.

It’s a journey into disillusionment, convincingly told by someone who knew what she was talking about. 

After my mother was committed, I went through five foster homes by sixteen. Wolff’s early years mirrored mine in some respects—broken home, high school dropout, military service a path forward. He even served in the Mekong Delta, arriving early in 1968 just as the Tet Offensive was trigged. I arrived one week later. Wolff’s tight dialogue and crazy exploits such as the color television resonated. But “Last Shot”—the last two pages really touched me as he reflects on a lost friend Hugh—no chance to live life and have a family. Many years ago my daughter went to Washington D.C. She asked if I knew anyone on the Wall. She returned with thirteen etchings. Each day I reflect on why I have lived so long and they never had a chance. Wolff shares that emotion so masterfully throughout his book.

It is rare when an actual participant of a battle can produce such a chilling and accurate narrative that keeps a reader’s attention page after page. This was the Tet Offensive urban battle for the Citadel, a walled city containing a labyrinth of buildings and houses jammed around numerous narrow streets. This was city fighting at its worst. In the end, many thousands of the enemy lay dead.

Titled after the cost of a single sniper round, this book details the performance and accomplishment of scout snipers in the 5th Marine Regiment. Culberson and his fellow Marine snipers exhibited patience, stealth, marksmanship, and pure courage to make their sniper platoon the most decorated in the Corps. Uncommon valor was a common virtue among these one-shot killers.