Here are 14 books that How Much for Just the Planet fans have personally recommended if you like
How Much for Just the Planet.
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For the last decade, I’ve spent the majority of each year traveling. I’ve been to 60 countries across 6 continents and every US state. My love of travel was inspired and encouraged by my parents from a very early age. I’ve also been inspired by a wide variety of other sources, like movies, TV, photography, and, of course, books. Often, I’ll plan an adventure around a cool location I saw or read about and then just go. I’ll just show up and see what happens. All it takes is that little initial nudge, like what I found in these books.
No book has had a bigger influence on me as a person or a writer than this one. I suppose a lot of hoopy froods could say the same. It’s an adventure on a galactic scale, and yet, at its core, it’s just about a guy who wants to go home and have a cup of tea.
It’s a brilliantly funny satire and full of jokes and moments I’ll never forget. All four books in the series are amazing, and I’ve re-read them countless times. The fifth and final book is a downer worth skipping.
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 am a writer of science fiction and fantasy, and a humorist. My husband and I fell in love over Star Trek and puns, and we both share a deep abiding hatred of people acting stupidly to further a plot. I read to escape, so I’m looking for laughs but also compelling characters who live their stories rather than act out the author’s wishes. I will toss a book as soon as it insults my intelligence or bores me. Thus, when I write, I let the characters run the show—and they never fail me.
Willard J. Phule, the rich son of a millionaire arms manufacturer, reforms a group of misfits in the Space Legion, a fictional organization similar to the French Foreign Legion, into an “elite fighting force.” What I love about this book is the mix of humor and common sense. I’m a big fan of out-of-the-box thinking in tactical situations, and Phule’s Company uses it in spades.
Willard J. Phule, the rich son of a millionaire arms manufacturer, reforms a group of misfits in the Space Legion, a fictional organization similar to the French Foreign Legion, into an "elite fighting force".
I am a writer of science fiction and fantasy, and a humorist. My husband and I fell in love over Star Trek and puns, and we both share a deep abiding hatred of people acting stupidly to further a plot. I read to escape, so I’m looking for laughs but also compelling characters who live their stories rather than act out the author’s wishes. I will toss a book as soon as it insults my intelligence or bores me. Thus, when I write, I let the characters run the show—and they never fail me.
Rifts happen, so you should be ready when universes collide. A policy with Stranger & Stranger can cover all of your interdimensional insurance needs. But Tom Stranger faces his greatest challenge yet. Despite being assigned the wrong—and woefully inadequate—intern, Tom must still provide quality customer service to multiple alternate Earths, all while battling tentacle monsters, legions of the damned, an evil call center in Nebraska, and his archnemesis, Jeff Conundrum. It's time to kick ass and adjust claims. This is my go-to for road trips. Tom Stranger is such a straight man, but the humor never stops.
Have you ever seen a planet invaded by rampaging space mutants from another dimension or Nazi dinosaurs from the future?
Don't let this happen to you!
Rifts happen, so you should be ready when universes collide. A policy with Stranger & Stranger can cover all of your interdimensional insurance needs. Rated "Number One in Customer Satisfaction" for three years running, no claim is too big or too weird for Tom Stranger to handle.
But now Tom faces his greatest challenge yet. Despite being assigned the wrong - and woefully inadequate - intern, Tom must still provide quality customer service to…
I am a writer of science fiction and fantasy, and a humorist. My husband and I fell in love over Star Trek and puns, and we both share a deep abiding hatred of people acting stupidly to further a plot. I read to escape, so I’m looking for laughs but also compelling characters who live their stories rather than act out the author’s wishes. I will toss a book as soon as it insults my intelligence or bores me. Thus, when I write, I let the characters run the show—and they never fail me.
Captain Bristol and his ship Blue 87 are taken prisoner by scientists who want to take Blue’s cognizant brain and use Bristol in regeneration experiments along with the others they have plucked from history. Outgunned, outnumbered, and definitely outdated, this unlikely gaggle of prisoners must find a way to save not only themselves, but the British Galactic Empire. I’ve read this book twice this year and it kept me laughing every time with its crazy antics. I’m dying for the sequel. (Hope they can resurrect me!)
The scientists who work aboard a mysterious station hidden in deep space are pleased to get hold of a useful human test subject when British pilot Bob Bristol and his sentient, battle-damaged fighter Blue 87 drift into the station’s path. The scientists, who are experimenting with the most efficient method of stasis – reversible death – add Bristol to their collection of six involuntary American test subjects who have been revived after centuries of natural preservation on Earth.
What the captors don’t suspect, however, is that Captain Bristol and Blue 87 are not the dimwit, B-team pilot and broken-down old…
I’ve been a lover of fantasy stories, mythology, and folklore for a long time, mostly because fully realized fictional settings beyond our world enthralled me. My first forays into writing dwelt on fantasy with a strong historical slant, even when I dabbled in romance. It was also then that I realized my male characters had more chemistry with each other than with the females I’d paired them with. This is how I wound up in fan fiction, where virtually anything goes. During those years, I honed my writing, deepened my fascination with world-building, and crafted stories that would feed the wellspring of my first historical fantasy novel.
Of the novels based on the classic Star Trek TV series, this book is one of a handful that delves extensively into the background of arguably the show’s most iconic character. Diane Duane created a history for Spock and his birth world Vulcan, skillfully merged it with the show’s canon and used that as the backdrop for a political crisis that threatens to affect the United Federation of Planets.
Trekkie that I am, it felt like a pilgrimage of sorts when I read this book. I was fascinated with the past events that shaped the planet due to the extraordinary world-building covering Vulcan’s prehistory all the way to its peoples’ ventures into space exploration and, of course, the development of the famous Vulcan ethic of logic. What’s not to love about a novel that makes the most fascinating world in the Star Trek universe come alive in every aspect?
It is the twenty-third century. On the planet Vulcan, a crisis of unprecedented proportion has caused the convocation of the planet's ruling council -- and summoned the U.S.S. Enterprise from halfway across the galaxy, to bring Vulcan's most famous son home in its hour of need. As Commander Spock, his father Sarek, and Captain James T. Kirk struggle to preserve Vulcan's future, the planet's innermost secrets are laid before us, from its beginnings millions of years ago to its savage prehistory, from merciless tribal warfare to medieval court intrigue, from the exploration of space to the the development of o'thia…
I’m a lifelong raving Star Trek fan; I literally can’t remember a time I didn’t love Trek, which I was watching in syndication by the time I was in the second or third grade over fifty years ago. I started reading Trek novels in the seventies when the books and the underrated animated series were the only new Trek to be had. My dedication to the franchise eventually turned professional, first by writing some stories and novellas published by Simon & Schuster and then by becoming the freelance copyeditor of the novels. (In fact, I copyedited the last novel on this list.) Choosing just five was painfully difficult!
A novel from Greg Cox is always going to bring me the kind of deep-cut Trek continuity I love, but Foul Deeds Will Rise goes above and beyond by bringing me the sequel I didn’t know I needed: the return of Lenore Karidian, last seen twenty years earlier suffering a psychotic break after accidentally killing her mass-murderer father in the episode “The Conscience of the King.”
I also love when Trek plays in other genres, and here we get a murder mystery: Kirk has to investigate whether Lenore was successfully rehabilitated after serving her time for psychiatric treatment, or if has she fallen off the wagon and gone on a killing spree that could derail an entire peace process. Beyond the immediate plot, it plays amusingly well off Kirk’s long history of getting involved in doomed relationships.
In the year 2288, not long after the events of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier: Captain James T. Kirk, in command of the Enterprise-A, is on a peacekeeping mission to an independent star system, where two rival planets, Oyolo and Pavak, are attempting to negotiate a settlement after years of bitter conflict. Oyolo has fought violently against Pavak's past attempts to exploit and colonize it, with atrocities and bloodshed on both sides. Neither world is aligned with the Federation, which has been aware of the situation in this sector for some time, but stayed out of the conflict until…
I was born in Coatbridge, in the West of Scotland, more years ago than I care to remember. I recently took the big step of moving east to Edinburgh, by way of Birmingham, London, Lagos, Nigeria, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and New York: a necessary detour because traffic on the direct route is really, really bad. I’m a graduate of Birmingham University and Harvard Law School, and work in the field of counter-terrorist financing, which sounds way cooler than it is. Basically, I write emails, fill in forms, and use spreadsheets to help choke off the money supply that builds weapons of mass destruction, narcotics empires, and human trafficking networks. And sometimes I write science fiction.
Long before Captain Kirk and Starfleet, Smith’s Galactic Patrol served to protect the galaxy from the evil designs of those who would do us harm. First serialised in Astoundingmagazine in 1937 and then published in book form in 1950, Galactic Patrolis the great-great granddaddy of galaxy-spanning space opera, both military and otherwise. Make allowances for when it was written (woke, it ain’t), and it is difficult to think of a modern space opera theme that Smith didn’t play around with beforehand.
I’m a lifelong raving Star Trek fan; I literally can’t remember a time I didn’t love Trek, which I was watching in syndication by the time I was in the second or third grade over fifty years ago. I started reading Trek novels in the seventies when the books and the underrated animated series were the only new Trek to be had. My dedication to the franchise eventually turned professional, first by writing some stories and novellas published by Simon & Schuster and then by becoming the freelance copyeditor of the novels. (In fact, I copyedited the last novel on this list.) Choosing just five was painfully difficult!
I always wanted to know what happened after the episode "The Corbomite Maneuver," which ended with a young crew member sent off to the mysterious First Federation—never to be heard from again in the shows. I always enjoy Christopher L. Bennett’s meticulous sci-fi world-building, and in his hands, the First Federation is revealed to be a suitably fascinating, if isolated, society.
I loved the sense of vastness achieved by getting beyond the United Federation of Planets. I also enjoy when a story takes full advantage of the continuity of the franchise, and The Face of the Unknown smoothly sets up elements of the often overlooked Animated Series of the 1970s as well as Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
Investigating a series of violent raids by a mysterious predatory species, Captain James T. Kirk discovers that these events share a startling connection with the First Federation, a friendly but secretive civilization contacted early in the USS Enterprise's five-year mission. Traveling to the First Federation in search of answers, the Enterprise suddenly comes under attack from these strange marauders. Seeking refuge, the starship finds its way to the true home of the First Federation, an astonishing collection of worlds hidden from the galaxy beyond. The inhabitants of this isolated realm are wary of outsiders, and some accuse Kirk and his…
I’m a lifelong raving Star Trek fan; I literally can’t remember a time I didn’t love Trek, which I was watching in syndication by the time I was in the second or third grade over fifty years ago. I started reading Trek novels in the seventies when the books and the underrated animated series were the only new Trek to be had. My dedication to the franchise eventually turned professional, first by writing some stories and novellas published by Simon & Schuster and then by becoming the freelance copyeditor of the novels. (In fact, I copyedited the last novel on this list.) Choosing just five was painfully difficult!
One of my favorite “But what happened after that?” moments of the original series was the challenge Kirk issued the goateed Spock at the end of "Mirror, Mirror": What will it be? Past or future? Tyranny or freedom? It's up to you. David Mack weaves a three-decade-long epic that answers the questions—with shades of the psychohistory of Asimov’s classic Foundation trilogy—as Spock plays a three-dimensional chess game of moves and countermoves to bring about the downfall of an empire.
The Sorrows of Empire has everything I want from a Mirror Universe story: revolutionary intrigue, imperial treachery, and a cast of interesting mirror versions of characters we know and often love from the “true” universe. It also deftly incorporates the increasingly complicated canon of the Mirror Universe introduced by the other series over the years.
'In every revolution, there is one man with a vision.' Those prophetic words were spoken by Captain James T. Kirk to Commander Spock of the Terran Empire, hoping to inspire change -- but he could not have imagined the impact his words would have. Armed with a weapon of terrifying power and a vision of a noble Federation within the mirror universe, Spock seizes control of the Terran Empire and institutes the process of democratic reform. Rivals within the Empire try to stop him while enemies outside it unite to destroy it. Few suspect the shocking truth: that Spock is…
Reading has been a passion of mine since I first learned how. Consuming books like a ravenous wolf, I explored worlds beyond my own imagining with a simple purchase of a bound novel (or lending from a library.) It gave me the one thing I couldn’t do in real life – escape from reality. In many ways, I’m only sane because I was able to remove myself from the horrific events of my upbringing. It put my feet in two camps – that of science fiction and of horror. I like to think of what could be and bring my readers to that alternate reality to delight or terrify depending on the genre.
I read all of the initial series of Star Trek books, and this one stood out to me due to the violent terrorist occurrence and the devastating outcome of the evil use of emerging technology. The event in the book left a profound effect on me as a human being. That one person would commit carnage of such an unimaginable level to accomplish their terrorist agenda shocked me. I never looked at the “innocence” of technological advancements the same way; nor did I ever believe again that humanity had only good intentions for itself and others.
Massive computer malfunctions are plaguing the Enterprise(t) when Kirk suddenly receives a shocking message from Star Fleet Command: Centaurus has been bombed and annihilated; thousands are dead. Give whatever help you can. Centaurus is a beautiful, peaceful planet, home to many humans -- including McCoy's daughter Joanna. The crew risks beaming down to investigate. But Kirk is thrown into a deadly struggle between violent enemy terrorists and vengeful Centaurians. Now Lt. Uhura, left alone in command, must jeopardize the cripple Enterprise(t) to save Centaurus, Kirk -- and Joanna McCoy!
