75 books like Quicksilver

Like The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Frank Herbert’s book tells the story of a man who could be the villain or the hero, depending on who you ask. I love watching how an intelligent yet malleable person can be swept up in feelings of duty, responsibility, and leadership only to make highly questionable decisions.

Paul Atreides’ moral ambiguity is undeniably engineered by the shifting and slimy political landscape of the Dune universe, driving home the idea in my mind that good worldbuilding can set the stage for truly complicated characters.

This was my first venture into science fiction, and it is the greatest novel by one of the genre's masters. I found it to be truly inspiring in both scope and concept. 

The story deals with the collapse of the imperial empire, the rise of a new federation, and a future of possibilities I had never imagined. I simply could not put it down and went on to read all the other books in the series. Asimov makes the everyday sound extraordinary.

I was drawn to the way the main characters in this story are normal people, more or less like you and me, but in circumstances that exist only in our imaginations. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to expand their appreciation of the genre.     

O’Brien performed some sort of alchemy in turning a previously dry and underpopulated section of the historical fiction genre into literary gold, at once gripping and supremely well-written. One follows the adventures of a Royal Navy Commander and his Irish doctor friend–a man with a secret life–through the war at sea in the Napoleonic era, and I found the balance between naval exploits–Jack Aubrey being a swashbuckler of renown–and period history made for fascinating counter-points.

Over and above that, I loved the way O’Brien built an ensemble cast and proceeded to draw the reader into their lives, making the death of any one of them a personal loss. I know that I benefitted from learning this writing trick and used it myself in my Empire series, and I know at least one other Roman author who did much the same. Wonderful stories that kept me coming back, and this is… show more.

Being a romantic I loved Time and Again (as well as the movie) for the story’s construction. I appreciate verisimilitude in historical novels and Finney has done his homework. Having briefly visited New York City twice, I do not know it personally. 

Finney makes it breathe in 1882 with fascinating detail that never bores, and by using photographs. I thought the novel was perfect, and it stuck in my head as much for production/construction values as well as the story. When I first researched Treadwell at the Alaska Historical Library in Juneau I came across dozens of photographs, and the form for the novel coalesced in my head.

In retrospect I realize the novels I loved taught me about the architecture of story as well as entertaining me.

Dead Wake is fact that reads like fiction. Not often do I choose a book already knowing how it ends. His artistic rendering of the world in 1915 is alone worth the read. He introduces us to the passengers of the SS Lusitania, who they are, why they are on the ship, and he makes us care.

Larson limns Captains Turner of the Lusitania, and Schweiger of the U-20, the Imperial German submarine. The author carefully choreographs the final voyage of the doomed ship. The sinking is not the end of the story. 

The last third of the book is devoted to what happened after the torpedo hit. Captain Turner survives the attack as well as many of the passengers. This is a beautifully researched, but heartrending read. 

I first read 1919 by Dos Passos when I was a teenager in the Navy. Having a yen for history since the age of eight, I was transported to an era where hopes and dreams have shattered or vanished. The author created the gritty and tawdry ambiance of characters as far out of their depth as was the reader.

We meet many limned characters with engaging flaws and hopes. The point-of-view shifts constantly and the narrative is spaced with advertising jingles from period radio programs and magazines to promote visualization.

The USA trilogy never left me. After pursuing art and making my living as a commercial artist for 15 years I turned to writing. I realized I wanted to create an immersive portrait of Juneau using similar tactics. I believe I succeeded.

This omnibus collects eleven short stories about space merchant Nicholas Van Rijn. Van Rijn (no coincidence that he’s Dutch) is literate, clever, eccentric in speech, archaic in dress, and occasionally valiant in battle – but he’d much rather trade than fight, and although he describes trade as “swindling each other,” he characteristically strikes deals that benefit all parties.

Van Rijn’s trade-in spices (he is CEO of the Solar Spice and Liquors Company) is a callout to the history of the Dutch East India Company. The great early modern companies (and specifically, the British East India Company) are one of the inspirations in my book: they founded some fortunes and give to startling adventure stories, but the contradictions inherent in their nature also led to corruption and oppression.

I found this book, the first of four in the series, to be fascinating in its portrayal of a race of intelligent, upright-walking lions. Cherryh’s ability to invent believable and fully fleshed-out alien races is delightful.

In this series, humans are the aliens. I loved how Cherryh made the reader root for the lions and their strange but understandable culture. It's a great concept by a great writer.

No airships here, but there is a hot-air balloon, as well as a dark conspiracy afoot. This classic children's book, first published in 1964, introduces Dido Twite, a character so vivid that she took over the series this is part of. Back in the Cretaceous period, when I read this book for the very first time, I didn't notice this nineteenth-century London is not the one Dickens wrote of. Now I revel in the sly details that Aiken gives us.

Geraldine DeRuiter validates the outrage I feel at the absolute absurdity of being a woman in America. This is because she is just as outraged, but she conveys it with sarcastic, self-deprecating, and biting humor. 

Reading If You Can’t Take The Heat is like having margaritas with your BFF and tipsily yelling at the top of your voices about the injustices of everyday misogyny. Your hilarious, ferocious, fantastically brilliant BFF, that is. All while stuffing your face with chips and guacamole and simultaneously worrying about packing on the pounds. You’ll gossip about food, family, and feminism, and all will magically be linked together by DeRuiter. It’s absurd. It’s infuriating. It's cathartic. And I have never felt so seen.