100 books like Day Zero

I really like this book because it's a thrilling tech story that gets you thinking about how technology might change our world. The book made me realize how powerful and risky AI can be. I love how fast-paced the story is and how it makes you consider issues of control and freedom.

The way the author talks about technology and its effects on people really got me thinking. The book makes you wonder about how society and technology come together, and it's interesting.

Don’t be fooled by the silly title; this book shows how I want to spend eternity. A guy has his consciousness uploaded to computers and then explores the universe. I want to see what is out there, but exploring such a vast space isn’t possible given the short time span of human life, so we need a technology like this.

This book is the first in a series where he meets aliens and serves as a god-like mentor for one relatable developing culture. He also interacts with different versions of himself as he copies his consciousness to better explore the universe.

I love how this book conveys the wonder of discovery as they travel the universe. You can skip over some of the early math passages without missing anything. The book is about a civilization of software agents, and the description of how their understanding of physics advances is great.

If you like this one, check out Permutation City by Egen, which explores what it is like to live forever in a simulation. You live for so long that you can load passions for hobbies into your brain to pass the time. A character has an intense desire for woodwork and all the materials a woodworker would dream of.

A program that helps you write better emails becomes conscious, and I loved the book because the story feels humorously realistic. You get a sense of what it is like to work in that office, and you get to follow the fallout of the conscious email program as it impersonates email senders to manipulate the recipients.

I’ve often joked that maybe printers are so terrible because they are actually conscious, refusing to work out of spite because they are bored. This book goes in that direction a bit with the email program. Also, if you like bored superintelligences, check out The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. A security robot just wants to be left alone to watch TV.

I love this novel. I read it well after my own came out, but the strong, badass, stoic female main character reminded me a lot of Delia from What Branches Grow (despite Brittle being a robot). The often dark and gritty scenes interspersed with moments of emotion and laugh-out-loud absurd humour turned a story that could have been depressing into one that was a helluva lot of fun. The raiders in this novel also fit the trope in the same homage to Mad Max/Fallout that mine do in What Branches Grow, albeit in a way I didn’t expect. The novel is also a quest through the wasteland with a ragtag group that culminates in a final battle, which is a similar trajectory to my novel (and a plotfline in this genre I very much enjoy).

A future run by robots, with one robot above all others, and his only desire to be able to die, which he cannot achieve alone. All books forgotten, humans with no memory of how to read, until one lonely man teaches himself by watching old, silent, subtitled films from centuries earlier. He meets his rebellious female counterpart, and the idea of a future free of the state drugs, public human immolations, and mind-numbing rule by dumb robot, begins to take form. Is there time left to revive a barren, childless, thoughtless, hopeless world, and bring to life again the oldest of dreams? In any case, 'Only the mockingbird sings at the edge of the woods.' 

I fear the future described in this masterpiece ever growing near, but the escape hatch from such horrors may lie here also in Tevis' pages. 

I love giant robots, being a fan of the Battle Tech and Gundam franchises, and Hard Reboot is a book involving giant-robot arena fights, so that alone inspired me to check it out. Good worldbuilding is important for any fiction book. And with this book being a novella, I was impressed with how much worldbuilding was done within 150 pages or so. The world within Hard Reboot has its own unique terms, technology, and environments, which made me want to learn more about this world as I read through each page. I also found the two main characters intriguing, two young women from different backgrounds. The evolution of their relationship from frenemies to significant others was totally fun to read. If you like giant-robot battles, pick this book up.

Dragons are cool. The one on this cover is clearly mechanical, and that got my attention. Cove is a rather dark setting so I would only recommend this for older kids. Readers can tell from the beginning that the oppressive society is rooted in fear. What is behind that fear? The main characters, Trenton and Kallista, aren’t all that concerned with the bigger picture. They’re only trying to solve a puzzle left by Kallista’s father. We get to watch them become good friends in the process.

In Turned On, Kate Devlin takes us on a ride through the history of sex and technology, from the Ancient Greeks to modern sex robots. 

This book is written by a technologist with an acute sense of the human. Not strictly a book about human rights, Devlin raises human rights and ethical considerations around sex tech as well as offering optimism and imagination about the ways that we could enhance our intimate lives with technology. 

The way we experience sex and intimacy is at the heart of our right to private lives, Turned On offers an erudite, funny, and sensitive exploration of what technology could mean for us.

Dustwalker is a poignant romance involving a sentient robot and a human woman.

Post-apocalyptic Earth has become a bleak wasteland of dust. Ronin wanders the wasteland in search of salvage to exchange for credits. His “life” is empty and meaningless. Then one day he enters a town ruled by warlords and catches a glimpse of a woman dancing.

Lara’s grace and movements make him feel. He offers her a deal. If she’ll dance for him, he promises to find her missing sister. Through the awakening emotions of a robot, the reader explores what it means to be alive.

Dustwalker is a romantic and beautiful story that leaves an indelible impression.