Fans pick 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. 

Maybe it’s the millennial in me, but I can’t begin to tell you how much I relate to Murderbot. All it wants to do is get through its workday so it can take a break and watch its shows—and yes, maybe my job is slightly less stressful than acting as security for a science expedition that’s pissed off a bloodthirsty super-corporation, but we all have our struggles. Like socializing with our coworkers. Or capitalism. Or man-eating space worms. 

Probably my favorite thing about Murderbot is the deadpan humor with which it tells its story, which really comes to life in the audiobook thanks to Kevin R. Free’s narration. 

The second in his entertaining detective series in a near future where 2% of the population is paralyzed and has to teleoperate robots in order to interact with the world (interestingly, it was written before the pandemic). The protagonist, Chris (we never are told their gender, making for a delightful guessing game), is an FBI agent investigating a murder and along the way faces the kind of casual discrimination that the disabled undoubtedly face every day. Chris maintains a wry sense of humor through it all, adding an Elmore Leonard or Donald E. Westlake vibe that makes me laugh out loud. 

These educational comics are perfect for kids who devour non-fiction books and graphic novels! I especially liked this book because it touches on drones as well as typical robots. I read this book when I was doing research for my own book, T-Bone the Drone, and found it extremely helpful in seeing how another author explained robotics in a kid-friendly way.

Mattie is an automaton who has studied alchemy to earn independence from her creator, a man who treats her at times like a machine and at times as a woman, and who refuses to give up his control over her. She innocently takes a job to help the city’s gargoyles, never suspecting it will lead her down a path to dark political intrigue, passion, and the worst betrayal of all.

This book is deeply charming and lovely, a pleasure to read whether it’s a description of the city or a scene of action and feelings — of which there are many; Mattie’s rich interior world and her determination bring this story to life. Despite her relative lack of power she is not a woman to be underestimated.