Here are 10 books that The Maiden Voyage fans have personally recommended if you like
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I was a happy child until I went to school. When my teacher turned her back, I ran home. My mom sent me back. The umbilical cord broken, I held a grudge. That enmity remained until my ninth-grade English teacher read us Richard Brautigan’s post-apocalyptic, proto-hippie fantasy In Watermelon Sugar. There was much to imagine: a multicolored sun, an infinite garbage dump, and mathematical, parent-eating tigers. Like the narrator, I wanted to live in a shack, not have a regular name, and hook up with a proto-hippie, hot cake-making artist girlfriend who made “a long and slow love” possible. Since then, I have devoured fiction, poetry, art, film, you name it.
Maybe you’ve read this book, but maybe you haven’t. The kids like me who used to carry the 95¢ Dell paperbacks are now dead or thinking about it.
The author, Kurt Vonnegut, was an American prisoner of war and spent 24 hours underground in a meat locker during the Allied firebombing of Dresden, Germany. He said of his experience the bombing “killed 250,000 people in 24 hours and destroyed all of Dresden—possibly the world’s most beautiful city. But not me.” It’s fair to say that this book was his imagination’s way of dealing with the war. “One” acts as a preface, so the novel really begins with “Two,” “Listen:/Billy Pilgrim is unstuck in time,” and then imagination fights its way out.
A special fiftieth anniversary edition of Kurt Vonnegut’s masterpiece, “a desperate, painfully honest attempt to confront the monstrous crimes of the twentieth century” (Time), featuring a new introduction by Kevin Powers, author of the National Book Award finalist The Yellow Birds
Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time
Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had…
I love to read, and sometimes I want to be lost in a story or world for just an hour or two. Oh, I’m always sorry when a good story ends, no matter how long or short. But a good novella is like a slice of homemade chocolate cake. I might want to eat more, but if it’s perfectly done, there’s nothing quite as satisfying as that first, warm slice out of the oven.
This entire series is awesome. The humor is out of this world funny (pun intended). It didn’t take me more than a few pages to warm up to Murderbot, even if he/she is a robot. Oh, there’s enough of a human brain stem left to ensure a soul filled with humor and the best parts of humanity: self-sacrifice, empathy, and cleverness, not to mention a bad attitude towards life and work in general that I could totally sympathize with.
This first adventure includes kidnappings, rescues, intrigue, and burgeoning friendships. These books are a mix of space opera and science fiction. My husband, not much of a reader, listened to the audiobooks and is also a huge fan of the series.
All Systems Red by Martha Wells begins The Murderbot Diaries, a new science fiction action and adventure series that tackles questions of the ethics of sentient robotics. It appeals to fans of Westworld, Ex Machina, Ann Leckie's Imperial Raadch series, or lain M. Banks' Culture novels. The main character is a deadly security droid that has bucked its restrictive programming and is balanced between contemplative self discovery and an idle instinct to kill all humans. In a corporate dominated s pa cef a ring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by…
I read and write lots and love doing so. So when I need a break, the last thing I want is another book, right? Wrong! I take a break with books, and I love fun books that are an escape from the normal day-to-day, ones that won’t lull you to sleep, ones that end too quickly. It’s a sickness, I know, and I’ll deal with it as soon as I have worked through this pile of books on my desk.
Oh, what’s not to love? Space travel, poetry writing aliens, a criminal galactic president, the end of the world, a depressed robot … this book has it all, and I reread it (and the other 4 volumes in the trilogy, yes, trilogy) every year or so.
This is a fun escape, I discovered this volume as a kid, fell in love with it, and it’s my favorite book still to this day all these centuries later.
This box set contains all five parts of the' trilogy of five' so you can listen to the complete tales of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Bebblebrox and Marvin the Paranoid Android! Travel through space, time and parallel universes with the only guide you'll ever need, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Read by Stephen Fry, actor, director, author and popular audiobook reader, and Martin Freeman, who played Arthur Dent in film version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He is well known as Tim in The Office.
The set also includes a bonus DVD Life, the Universe and…
I’ve written across genres, including mysteries like The Last Policeman and big works of alternate history like Underground Airlines. But Bedbugs—now republished as The Bonus Room—was one of my first books, and very dear to my heart. I’ve always loved books that pit a single, relatively helpless protagonist against some inexplicable force that he or she cannot begin to fathom. A force that can’t be reasoned with or bargained with. You just have to beat it. Perhaps that’s why I love these books about man vs. beast—the natural world is our friend, and animal are subservient to us…until suddenly, terrifyingly, they’re not.
When we think of scary animals we think of gnashing teeth and tearing claws, but obviously Orwell’s famous parable presents a very different kind of malevolence: that of overweaning ambition and our deep-seated instinct to control.
The pigs that present themselves as heroes and then slowly, greedily, inexorable turn into murderous dictators, forcing the other animals to do their bidding and then slaughtering them when they become too old, are of course not really pig-like at all—they are human-like, and therefore all the more terrifying.
The perfect edition for any Orwell enthusiasts' collection, discover Orwell's classic dystopian masterpiece beautifully reimagined by renowned street artist Shepard Fairey
'All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others.'
Mr Jones of Manor Farm is so lazy and drunken that one day he forgets to feed his livestock. The ensuing rebellion under the leadership of the pigs Napoleon and Snowball leads to the animals taking over the farm. Vowing to eliminate the terrible inequities of the farmyard, the renamed Animal Farm is organised to benefit all who walk on four legs. But as time passes, the…
As a child, I became enthralled with both science and history. Also, who doesn’t enjoy a good laugh? The chance to combine all three? A dream come true!
The penultimate time traveler? What is not to love here. A time lord racing through time, saving the world past and present maintaining the status quo in a phone. Adventure, romance all done with a chuckle that will warm the coldest heart. Of course, a steady diet of this might lead one to become a cosplay addict existing from one Comic-con to the next.
We live forever, barring accidents. Just like everyone else in the universe.
The Doctor travels back to the Ancient Days, an era where life flourishes and death is barely known...
Then come the Kotturuh - creatures who spread through the cosmos dispensing mortality. They judge each and every species and decree its allotted time to live. For the first time, living things know the fear of ending. And they will go to any lengths to escape this grim new spectre, death.
The Doctor is an old hand at cheating death. Now, at last, he can stop it at source. He…
My tagline is “sci-fi with heart and humor,” and that’s the core of who I am. Making others smile is my reason for being—whether that’s through the books I write, the silly things I say, or the crazy things I do. I’ve written twenty-eight books so far, and the purpose of every one of them is to make you giggle. I’ve written funny sci-fi, cheerful space opera, and a series of terrestrial romantic comedies set in a kitschy, over-the-top small town.
Some might claim this book is more urban fantasy than science fiction, but the characters are aliens who fly spaceships and travel through portals, and to me, that means science fiction. And although they are vampires and werewolves, they’re still aliens.
Dina Demille runs a bed and breakfast that serves a very special clientele—aliens visiting the protected planet Earth. Dina is an amazing protagonist. She’s smart enough to pull off daring schemes but human enough to make me love her. I also love the supporting characters who constantly distract her from her goals in often hilarious ways. And, of course, my favorite part is the happy ending.
***Notice: This is a special Collectors Edition, trade-paperback volume, which includes Black and White original illustrations. It is a short novel, of approximately 60,000 words in length/227 pages***
On the outside, Dina Demille is the epitome of normal. She runs a quaint Victorian Bed and Breakfast in a small Texas town, owns a Shih Tzu named Beast, and is a perfect neighbor, whose biggest problem should be what to serve her guests for breakfast. But Dina is...different: Her broom is a deadly weapon; her Inn is magic and thinks for itself. Meant to be a lodging for otherworldly visitors, the…
My tagline is “sci-fi with heart and humor,” and that’s the core of who I am. Making others smile is my reason for being—whether that’s through the books I write, the silly things I say, or the crazy things I do. I’ve written twenty-eight books so far, and the purpose of every one of them is to make you giggle. I’ve written funny sci-fi, cheerful space opera, and a series of terrestrial romantic comedies set in a kitschy, over-the-top small town.
This book isn’t objectively funny, but it left me with a smile on my face. It has a well-written, believable, neurodiverse character who grabbed my heart. I have a child on the autistic spectrum, and Booth captured the essence of autism without slipping into the depressing parts.
Nexus’s confusion over things “normal” people do, for example, tickled my funny bone but didn’t make me laugh. The characters who help him on his journey aren’t sappy do-gooders but people who genuinely like him and want to help. The overall tone of the book made me believe the world could be a better place.
When Nexus catches the attention of the alien croc ambassador, his first space travel goes weirdly astray.
A backwoods Earth terraformer, young Nexus is awkward with people, good with creatures, at a time when the human worlds are bumping against the alien races who surround them.
He sets off to explore human space.
But to leave home, he must first repay a debt of honor, and smuggle a highly illegal sentient robot off-planet. Memory murky, the poor robot got stranded on Earth before Nexus was born.
Nexus is delighted when the alien ambassador boards his space train to Luna. Most…
A computer programmer turned author; I’ve been a fan of science fiction for as long as I remember. Star Wars, Dune, Alien, you name it. I’ve also been a follower of Christ since childhood and so enjoy stories where authors have a faith component to their work. It’s hard to imagine a future where belief systems won’t be in play—for good and evil. So, why not explore that element? Even if it means taking the Amish into space to encounter vampires? (As I did in one of my stories.) Hopefully, we discover something about ourselves and the world we live in along the way.
Are you a fan of Galaxy Quest, Futurama, or The Orville? Then this is the series for you.
There are scant few science fiction stories that have caused me to laugh out loud, but Paul Regnier’s Space Drifters did. Often. All three Space Drifters books are witty, action-packed, and fun. The main character, Captain Glint Starcrost, is perpetually broke, with a less-than-adequate starship and a bounty on his head. To make matters worse, he has a passive-aggressive ship computer, a pacifist alien “warrior,” and a time-traveling teen as his crew. Of course, there’s an unattainable love interest in the mix, along with a quest or two. Space Drifters is enjoyable and unique.
Captain Glint Starcrost is not having the carefree, adventurous life the space academy brochures promised star pilots.
Broke, with an unreliable star freighter and a bounty on his head, Glint is desperate enough to try anything. Even set out on a quest to find a fabled good luck charm, the Emerald Enigma.
Now for a crew. A passive aggressive ship computer, a peaceable alien warrior, and time-traveling teen from the past aren’t what he had in mind. But they’ll have to do.
The Emerald Enigma won’t wait forever and neither will the bounty hunter tracking…
Growing up, I’d always been fascinated by science fiction narratives, having been suckered in by Star Warsat a very young age. But it wasn’t until I stumbled upon The Hitchhiker’s GuideTo The Galaxy that I realized stories didn’t have to take everything so seriously. This pivoted to an obsession with comedy, leading me to write skits for the stage and screen in my late 20s as a fun side-gig along with my own comedic sci-fi novel series. I’ve always appreciated stories that lean into the lighter side of things. Reality is grim and dark enough as it is, our escapism doesn’t need to double down on that.
Carmen Loup's The Audacity is the successor to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that I've been looking for for a long time. Loup takes strands of Hitchhiker's Guide DNA lovingly engineers it into its own unique tale filled with bright, colorful, and snarky characters and a fun, insightful (and, indeed, inciteful) voice that rings incredibly true to an Americanized Douglas Adams (that is, lacking in British poise and restraint). The Audacity is simply an amazing sci-fi comedy from start to finish and feels like a love letter to The Hitchhiker's Guide and, indeed, to all its fans. Plus, the entire first trilogy is available now (with more to come!).
Rocket racing can be deadly, but working in food service is worse.
May’s humdrum life is flung into hyperdrive when she’s abducted, but not all aliens are out to probe her. She’s inadvertently rescued by Xan, an “I Love Lucy” obsessed alien with the orangest rocket ship in the universe.
But you still have to eat in space, and rocket racing is a quick, if life-threatening, way to make a living.
Finally, May has a career she loves and a friend to share her winnings with. Until a Chaos goddess possessing Xan’s ex decides to start a cult on Earth…
Peeking over the American fence, I found myself in China in 2004 as the nation was transitioning from its quaint 1980s/90s self into the futuristic “China 2.0” we know it today. My occupation, like many expats, was small-town English teacher. I later departed for what would become a two-year backpacking sojourn across all 33 Chinese provinces, the first foreigner on record to do so. Since then, I have published three books about China; my anthology Unsavory Elements was intended as a well-meaning tribute to the expatriate experience, however my own essay – a bawdy account of a visit to a rural brothel – was understandably demonized. The following five books expand on that illicit theme.
Whilst studying in the U.S. in the early-2000s, Tiantian Zheng decided to return to her home city of Dalian, in northeast China, to embed herself for over two years with sex workers at local karaoke parlors. There, she witnessed, and at times personally endured, all manner of customer abuse, police crackdowns, government corruption, and catty relationships between hostesses, while somehow managing to keep copious secret notes for her ethnographic fieldwork (which eventually became Red Lights). It is an eye-opening but purely academic text, not a mass-market page-turner, which will primarily be of interest only to those of us researching socioeconomic conditions in China.
In China today, sex work cannot be untangled from the phenomenon of rural-urban migration, the entertainment industry, and state power. In Red Lights, Tiantian Zheng highlights the urban karaoke bar as the locus at which these three factors intersect and provides a rich account of the lives of karaoke hostesses-a career whose name disguises the sex work and minimizes the surprising influence these women often have as power brokers.
Zheng embarked on two years of intensely embedded ethnographic fieldwork in her birthplace, Dalian, a large northeastern Chinese seaport of over six million people. During this time, Zheng lived and worked…
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