99 books like Amazonia

This book was my favorite book for most of my life, so it holds a special place in my heart. It was only bumped by Well Witched (Verdigris Deep). 

This is the book I read over and over to my two children. One of whom loved to act out being the indomitable Bilbo Baggins. The prose is beautiful, the plot is tight, the adventure is fun, the wonder is wondrous. Who doesn’t love forest elves? And the world-building is amazing. I guess we all know that was Tolkien’s specialty!

I will argue with anyone that this is the best story Tolkien ever wrote. The prose is beautiful to read. It doesn’t wander, it doesn’t get off track, there’s a humor, and let’s not forget the dragon, and all packed into 310 pages!

I love this book because although it seems at a casual glance to be written in the mold of 50s and 60s science fiction, with earthmen fighting bug-eyed aliens, it’s, in fact, a profound exploration of the morality of war, of chances, lost and motives misunderstood and of the ruthless use of children as combatants.

The training regimen of the children is gripping, as is the climactic space battle, but it’s the ending of the novel that gives the story its deep spiritual resonance.

I think this is the most influential dinosaur novel of recent times. It has spawned sequels, imitators, and movies galore. Based on a catchy, if unrealistic, premise of cloning dinosaurs from DNA preserved in amber, it delivers a spellbinding plot of life-or-death confrontations with vicious beasts of the past.

I loved the cast of characters from paleontologists Dr. Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler to saboteur computer whiz Dennis Nedry to chaos theorist Dr. Ian Malcolm. This story has elements of techno-thriller, science fiction adventure, and people-vs-monsters tales that I love best.

Dinosaur-focused fiction is way underrepresented due to the industry’s reluctance to publish such books. The series went a long way toward addressing this lack, but I wish there were more than two books in it.

I’ve long been fascinated by the mysteries of the Anasazi, or the Pueblo Dwellers of southwestern Utah. How and why did a thriving culture of literally thousands of people who had built stone buildings into cliff faces suddenly and inexplicably disappear? Having read numerous books by archaeologists on the subject, I was really no closer to an answer. But when Preston and Child wrote a novel, a combination of adventure, tech thriller, and mythology, I was completely on board.

Archaeologist Nora Kelly’s father disappeared without a trace 16 years earlier in the remote desert, searching for the legendary Quivira, a city of gold and wonder, the lost city of the Anasazi Indians. Pulling together a team, using some NASA satellite research to find a starting place, Nora leads a team into the desolate canyonlands in search of the city—only to find extraordinary mythology, life-threatening natural events, and a deadly, dangerous… show more.

This book epitomizes what I want in a book! The worldbuilding has a degree of depth, breadth, and imagination that has kept me coming back for multiple rereads. While the world is fascinating, and the magic system is evocative and intriguing, they are not what put this story at the top of my reading list. 

Character. I love it when there is a full cast of complex characters to get lost in, and Sanderson can (and does) teach a master class on how to write unforgettable characters. The character motivations, the “Why” behind what they are doing, is so profoundly believable if not relatable. Every single character has a past that is drip-fed throughout the story, gradually delivering the formative wounds that made the characters who they are. That so many are written well in one book is just a bonus.

And this by no means detracts from the plot.… show more.

When it comes to tech thrillers, I can be a sucker for exotic locations—Antarctica, the Amazon, a deep-sea trench—and in the case of Lincoln Child’s Deep Storm, a top-secret military undersea research station. There’s a feeling of deep mysteries—not only are many people working at the station showing up with unexplainable medical problems, but the nature of the mystery being investigated doesn’t make sense. They claim they’ve found Atlantis, but the expense and secrecy point to something significantly more bizarre.

This book is many things, and one of them is a classic locked-room mystery writ large, with enormous stakes. Whatever they’ve found at the bottom of the ocean is extremely important and dangerous. World-destroying dangerous. High stakes, anyone?

This book may fall more under dark fantasy and the adventure it takes you on is more emotionally invested rather than swords and sorcery.

But I love origin stories and Kay does a fantastic job creating a world with tragic heartbreak and undying love. This book is based on The Phantom of the Opera and delves deeper into Erik’s origins and how he came to haunt the opera house.

It’s fantasy because while based in reality, the author also weaves a subtle magic that takes us on an adventure into the far reaches of a dark genius’ mind. 

This novel has all the makings of a science fiction novel. But is it? Quantum physicist Matt Bronik is suffering from strange, violent seizures. He doesn’t believe they are tied to his research—studying quantum interference. But when he disappears, his wife Brigid is determined to find him. Is it Matt’s research into the universe’s deepest mysteries that has endangered his life? Is it Chinese competitors, the Department of Defense, or an unscrupulous billionaire? All of the above? None of the above?

Examining these books, it’s clear now that I really like thrillers where there’s science involved (and thrillers in general). I liked how this novel set a series of scientific puzzles in place and then knocked them down one by one. Because no matter how much science is involved, it’s matters of the human heart that can be the most mysterious.

This journey is simultaneously a descent into fear and chaos and an ascent into manhood. An excitable young man on his first solo journey deliberately throwing himself way out of his depth in the Orinoco basin. Allen’s aim to learn how to survive in the jungle from the indigenous peoples who’ve thrived there for centuries is a pattern he came to repeat throughout his career and one that many explorers should learn from. Things take a turn when he overhears a plot on his life and he makes a solo one-month escape from the jungle with only the clothes on his back.

Over and over as I listened to this book, I found myself exclaiming, No way! Whoa! as the real-life adventure unfolded of living entirely with and coming to know an isolated tiny tribe in the South American rainforest.

What I love especially is that the biggest revelations are how people live, think, and interact, as well as the vast differences between those ways and what I know in my life.

This book blew my mind, and I especially recommend the audiobook version with the author reading it so you can hear him—one of the very outsiders in the world to be able to do so—pronounce words in the people’s language.