Here are 100 books that Columbus Day fans have personally recommended if you like
Columbus Day.
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I’ve been a fan of dinosaurs and other mega-monsters ever since I watched the original Godzilla movie as a kid. It scared me half out of my wits! There’s something about big, scaly, dangerous beasts that makes for a great adventure story. Add fascinating human characters and you’ve got my full attention. I started writing my Dinosaur Wars books precisely to fill the void where there are far too few stories of this type in current literature. Challenges between human heroes and giant beasts have been part of literature from the start, featuring dragons, titans, and ocean leviathans. I see my writings as efforts to continue that tradition.
This book by Robert Heinlein is an action-packed space adventure featuring creepy insect foes in an interstellar battle with Earth. It follows Trooper Johnny Rico in an epic war story set on distant worlds.
The book features a number of combat engagements with gigantic insect-like “Arachnids” and other bug-like creatures. Meanwhile, several love affairs arise and crumble in the face of Rico’s commitment to the warrior life. While the book has been criticized as preachy and moralizing, these are foibles that I tolerated well, knowing that another action sequence would not be long in coming.
'The historians can't seem to settle whether to call this one 'The Third Space War' (or the fourth), or whether 'The First Interstellar War' fits it better. We just call it 'The Bug War'. Everything up to then and still later were 'incidents', 'patrols' or 'police actions'. However, you are just as dead if you buy the farm in an 'incident' as you are if you buy it in a declared war.'
5,000 years in the future, humanity faces total extermination. Our one defence: highly-trained soldiers who scour the metal-strewn blackness of space to hunt down a terrifying enemy: an…
I've been writing since I was 7 years old. Star Wars had a big influence on me, but as I got older I gravitated toward Halo: Combat Evolved and Starship Troopers. Modern stories by the likes of Jason Anspach and Nick Cole, JN Chaney, and Rick Partlow...these are the stories that keep me up at night, my mind reeling with the insanity of what I've just read, pondering how close we are as a society to achieving the outlandish adventures contained in these books. I was in the Air Force for 14 years as an F-16 mechanic. I found my voice by combining my experiences and my passion for Science Fiction.
This book is the first entry in the Galaxy's Edge series and is quintessential military science fiction.
Anspach and Cole are a dynamic duo that delivers the craziest series I've read in decades. For me, Galaxy's Edge redefined what storytellers are capable of, and I consider it the pinnacle of the genre. From the gritty realism of the daily life of a space grunt all the way to a mystical element that is an homage to Star Wars—but better—the twists and turns keep coming.
Packed with action, mystery, intrigue, and constantly breaking the "rules of writing" in unique and compelling ways, this series is an absolute must for fans of SF, Mil SF, and great stories in general. Just wait till you get to the character of Tom. It's wild!
A hot, stinking, dumpster fire. And most days I don’t know if the legionnaires are putting out the flames, or fanning them into an inferno.
A hostile force ambushes Victory Company during a reconnaissance-in-force deep inside enemy territory. Stranded behind enemy lines, a sergeant must lead a band of survivors against merciless insurgents on a deadly alien world somewhere along the galaxy’s edge. With no room for error, the Republic’s elite fighting force must struggle to survive under siege while waiting on a rescue that might never come.
I've been writing since I was 7 years old. Star Wars had a big influence on me, but as I got older I gravitated toward Halo: Combat Evolved and Starship Troopers. Modern stories by the likes of Jason Anspach and Nick Cole, JN Chaney, and Rick Partlow...these are the stories that keep me up at night, my mind reeling with the insanity of what I've just read, pondering how close we are as a society to achieving the outlandish adventures contained in these books. I was in the Air Force for 14 years as an F-16 mechanic. I found my voice by combining my experiences and my passion for Science Fiction.
Looking at the cover of this book, you might be scratching your head, wondering, "just what the hell is that?" It's a delicious, genre-bending twist on Fantasy and Military SF that is a must-read, I assure you.
Army Rangers, as part of a top-secret DARPA program, travel a few years into the future...to find out they're accidentally 10,000 years in the future, and the world they knew is now a Forgotten Ruin (see what I did there?) filled with monsters, magic, and mayhem.
Navigating these disastrous circumstances takes some serious ranger grit and a lot of firepower.The story is told from the perspective of a young ranger who is a linguist, and his communication skills are essential to the ranger's survival. But more than that...the Ruin changes people.
Orcs. Trolls. Wraith riders. Dark wizards. Together, they form an unstoppable force. Or so they thought.
Dark Army… meet the U.S. Army Rangers.
When a Joint Task Force of elite Rangers are transported to a strange and fantastic future where science and evolution have incarnated the evils of myth and legend, they find themselves surrounded, pinned down, and in a desperate fight for their very survival—against nightmares of flesh and blood made real. Which means only one thing.
I've been writing since I was 7 years old. Star Wars had a big influence on me, but as I got older I gravitated toward Halo: Combat Evolved and Starship Troopers. Modern stories by the likes of Jason Anspach and Nick Cole, JN Chaney, and Rick Partlow...these are the stories that keep me up at night, my mind reeling with the insanity of what I've just read, pondering how close we are as a society to achieving the outlandish adventures contained in these books. I was in the Air Force for 14 years as an F-16 mechanic. I found my voice by combining my experiences and my passion for Science Fiction.
Think Starship Troopers updated for a modern audience, with a compelling main character whose rough upbringing launches his career as a military leader against a vicious and unique enemy.
I found myself mesmerized by the nuance, feeling, and technology in this book. No detail is too small to be left out, and it really fleshes out the universe presented in this book. The military lifestyle is captured with stark clarity, political intrusions on the military's operations are poignant and realistic, and the characters come alive with every turn of the page.
Do not sleep on this one, it's exactly the kind of story that will keep you up at night, thinking that the future could turn out just like the ideas presented in this epic story.
For small-time street hustler Cam Alvarez, the choice is simple. He has no family, no friends, no place in the world…nothing to lose. When his latest con results in the death of a cartel hitman, Cam opts to join the Marines and leave Earth to fight a vicious alien enemy.
Drafted into the Marine Drop-Troopers, Cam discovers there’s one thing he’s even better at than running street-con games, and that’s killing the enemy. Wrapped in an armored battlesuit, Cam finds purpose amidst the horror and destruction of the war, and the opportunity for…
I am an African Australian writer and have a deep passion for black people's stories. I write across genres and forms, and my award-winning works are mostly Afrocentric. I have a master's degree in distributed computer systems, with distinction, a master's degree in creative writing, and a PhD in creative writing. I am especially curious about unique voices in black speculative fiction in transformative stories of culture, diversity, climate change, writing the other, and betwixt. I am an author of several novels and fiction collections, and a finalist in the 2022 World Fantasy Award. I was announced in the honor list of the 2022 Otherwise Fellowships for ‘doing exciting work in gender and speculative fiction’.
This Nommo-award-winning collection is experiential in its offerings of literary fragments yet bold and playful—a clean taste of Wole Talabi’s creativity and curiosity on genre and reimagining a future Africa. Talabi is unlike your typical short story writer, if there’s ever one. His stories are sharp, brisk, hauling the reader to mindful captivation. The collection is a transcultural odyssey into Yoruba mythology in stories of logic, illogic, the known and unknown, relationship and fallout, trust and betrayal, transposition, exposition, and much escapade. Virtual reality has a role here, as do gods and goddesses, victors, and survivors. Incomplete Solutions is a cross-genre degustation of possibilities and impossibilities that deconstruct the reader’s mindset.
An elderly woman in early 22nd century Lagos is called in to help test the artificial intelligence built from her genius mother’s mind, but all is not as it seems in the Nommo-award winning story, “The Regression Test”.
Exiled from Earth for a crime of passion, a young man must learn to survive a barely habitable prison planet and come to peace with his past in “Polaris”.
“Wednesday’s Story”, nominated for the 2018 Caine Prize, is at once a retelling of nursery rhymes and folklore and a meta-fictional meditation on the mechanics, art and power of storytelling.
I’m a Black woman who writes stories that will give readers an insight into areas of corporate and governmental politics, with a touch of reality, suspense, humor, and romance. Oh, let me add…a touch of fantasy. At times, I will mix the genres simply because that is where the story takes me. Writing is a passion; messaging is a responsibility (I aim to intrigue you!), and humor is my way of balancing the intense topic. I have a degree in Organizational Management, 30 years of working in state agencies, and a vivid imagination to share. I'm enjoying the second chapter of my life by doing what I love…writing stories that entice your mind.
How Long 'til Black is a collection of short stories all worthy of your attention. "Red Dirt Witch" takes you through a journey of history. The main character’s dreams give her the ability to see when danger is about to touch her family (I mean, how fascinating is that!), so of course I wanted to read more about this superpower. While Emmaline used her gift to protect her daughter, her daughter used hers to protect the family. Surprisingly, this did not have them at odds with each. As it turns out, they worked as a cohesive team to secure the future of the civil rights movement. I was fascinated from the start.
Three-time Hugo Award winner and NYT bestselling author N. K. Jemisin challenges and delights readers with thought-provoking narratives of destruction, rebirth, and redemption that sharply examine modern society in her first collection of short fiction, which includes never-before-seen stories.
"Marvelous and wide-ranging." -- Los Angeles Times"Gorgeous" -- NPR Books"Breathtakingly imaginative and narratively bold." -- Entertainment Weekly
Spirits haunt the flooded streets of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In a parallel universe, a utopian society watches our world, trying to learn from our mistakes. A black mother in the Jim Crow South must save her daughter from a…
I’ve been writing professionally for an entire decade now, and for most of that time sci-fi has been my bread and butter. I love the genre’s varied aesthetics, and its tightrope of creativity and believability. The sci-fi books I love most of all are, for whatever reason, the ones that make me think deep, none-too-happy thoughts. Bestis subjective, but these are five of my very favorites.
The first sci-fi I ever read, plucked from a dusty shelf on a mission compound in Niger. The physics explanations were beyond me, and honestly still are, but the astronomical imagery rewired my nine-year-old brain. This is a book (and series) that melds the rigor of hard SF with the scope and imagination of the best space opera, following the remnants of humanity as they flee inscrutable, implacable AI monstrosities. It makes the universe feel visceral and terrifyingly beautiful, and makes the reader feel like an ant.
This new, special edition of the classic concluding volume of this defining series by the eminent physicist and Nebula Award-winning author contains a teaser chapter from Benford's, The Sunborn. The final chapter of humanity's future has begun, and three men hold the key to survival. As the fierce, artificially intelligent mechs pursue their savage and unstoppable destruction of the human race, it soon becomes apparent that three men-three generations in a family of voyagers-are their targets. Toby Bishop, his father Kileen, and his longdead grandfather each carry a piece of the lethal secret that can destroy their relentless pursuers. There…
I’m a storyteller writing on business and technology. I specialize in clear views of complex systems. When Juliette showed me her research on tech companies and AI responsibility, I saw the power of a book – the book that ultimately became The AI Dilemma. The core dilemma is that in the right hands the technology is needed, and in the wrong hands it’s dangerous. When Juliette asked me to coauthor it, I jumped at the chance. As we worked, I realized that the topic brought into focus all the research and thinking I’d ever done about human, organizational, and machine behavior.
This is the book I suggest to people who worry that AI will take their jobs or control the world.
These U of Toronto economists make a case for AI as a disruptor of systems and power structures – not on their own, but because of the decision makers who control them. Those companies won’t necessarily be Alphabet, Amazon, or Meta. Their competitive advantage – access to data – will now be available cheaply.
It’s judgment that’s at a premium now. After reading this, I feel pretty trusting of AI. I’m just not so sure about people.
Disruption resulting from the proliferation of AI is coming. The authors of the bestselling Prediction Machines can help you prepare.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has impacted many industries around the world-banking and finance, pharmaceuticals, automotive, medical technology, manufacturing, and retail. But it has only just begun its odyssey toward cheaper, better, and faster predictions that drive strategic business decisions. When prediction is taken to the max, industries transform, and with such transformation comes disruption.
What is at the root of this? In their bestselling first book, Prediction Machines, eminent economists Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, and Avi Goldfarb explained the simple yet…
I spent over forty years developing complex, software-intensive systems, and the Association of Computing Machinery honored me with the title of distinguished engineer. AI and robotics have been my main technical focus for the last 5 years. For the last couple of years, I have been binge-watching videos on advances in AI and robotics and binge-reading books on the topic. I am also a multi-award-winning author of science fiction novels and short stories. Most of the short stories in my coming book involve AI and robots.
I really loved this book because of its wide breadth. If you are only going to read a single book on AI and its ramifications, this would be my top recommendation.
It covers everything from the history of artificial intelligence to what the short- and mid-term future will look like. This book provides a solid foundation to help you prepare for a future dominated by AIs and robots.
"Machines of Tomorrow offers a fascinating journey into the future of AI, providing a unique perspective that combines technology, economics, geopolitics, and history." — PASCAL BORNET, Technology Influencer, 2 million followers.
How AI Will Shape Our World.
Written in an easy-to-read style accessible to everyone, "Machines of Tomorrow" grounds the reader in a thorough history and description of Artificial Intelligence, enabling an appreciation of its real trajectory and ultimately a deeper level of engagement with the core concept of the book: what should societies expect from AI in the coming decades?
I became fascinated by the highest achievements of human intelligence while a graduate student in philosophy working on the discovery and justification of scientific theories. Shortly after I got my PhD, I started working with cognitive psychologists who gave me an appreciation for empirical studies of intelligent thinking. Psychology led me to computational modeling of intelligence and I learned to build my own models. Much later a graduate student got me interested in questions about intelligence in non-human animals. After teaching a course on intelligence in machines, humans, and other animals, I decided to write a book that provides a systematic comparison: Bots and Beasts.
This book provides a good introduction to the current state of machine intelligence through interviews with many leading practitioners including Geoffrey Hinton, Yann LeCun, Stuart Russell, and Demis Hassabis (DeepMind). You will get a sense of both of AI’s recent accomplishments and how far it falls short of full human intelligence.
How will AI evolve and what major innovations are on the horizon? What will its impact be on the job market, economy, and society? What is the path toward human-level machine intelligence? What should we be concerned about as artificial intelligence advances?
Architects of Intelligence contains a series of in-depth, one-to-one interviews where New York Times bestselling author, Martin Ford, uncovers the truth behind these questions from some of the brightest minds in the Artificial Intelligence community.
Martin has wide-ranging conversations with twenty-three…
