Here are 81 books that Spin fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’ve been a science fiction writer since I was old enough to read, and I’ve spent probably way too much of my life reading and writing and researching and thinking about aliens. I’ve worked in the aerospace industry, launching rockets to the moon and Mars and Saturn, and five of the books I’ve published have touched on alien life in one way or another. I’ve worked as a contributing editor for WIRED magazine and the science and technology correspondent for the SyFy channel, and I hold patents in seven countries, including 31 issued U.S. patents.
Of all of Clarke’s works, this one had, for me, the grandest sense of adventure and mystery. We never do find out who the aliens are or what their goals might be, but we get to join them for part of their journey.
There are puzzles to solve, wonders to behold, and dangers bravely faced. I first read the book when I was nine years old, and it communicated to me just as clearly then as it does today.
In the year 2130, a mysterious and apparently untenanted alien spaceship, Rama, enters our solar system. The first product of an alien civilisation to be encountered by man, it reveals a world of technological marvels and an unparalleled artificial ecology.
Whereas many seek out stories of human triumph and heroic deeds, I have always been captivated by stories that show humanity for what it is–a bastion of innovation and wonder but also a complex and ethically questionable force of nature. I began writing my book when I was twelve years old, and I immediately knew that my characters would not be one-sided, cast in light or shadow. Instead, they would love at times and hate others, try their hardest to do what is right, but sometimes end up doing more harm than good. Remember that a ‘hero’ is a product of perspective when reading these books.
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.
Before The Matrix, before Star Wars, before Ender's Game and Neuromancer, there was Dune: winner of the prestigious Hugo and Nebula awards, and widely considered one of the greatest science fiction novels ever written.
Melange, or 'spice', is the most valuable - and rarest - element in the universe; a drug that does everything from increasing a person's lifespan to making interstellar travel possible. And it can only be found on a single planet: the inhospitable desert world of Arrakis.
Whoever controls Arrakis controls the spice. And whoever controls the spice controls the universe.
I grew up on a trail mix-style melange of 80’s action movies, Stephen King and The Lord of the Rings (with a special melancholy fondness also for The Once and Future King). High and low brow and everything in between that turned into a fascination for science fiction crossed with military adventure and doomed–or at least long-suffering–heroes. War is getting increasingly technological, detached, and even surreal, with drones, satellites, and hackers now increasingly on the front. But even as tactics and weapons change, the carnage doesn’t. From The Iliad to today, wars and the people who fight and die in them make for stories worth telling.
All the good war stories capture the absurd alongside the epic, and what I love about this book is that both themes are core to this story. The soldiers can only find and fight their alien enemies by traveling thousands of light years almost instantly via “collapsars.”
However, the time dilation caused by each jump means dozens or even hundreds of years elapse on Earth between each fight. So, after each battle, they return to a home that’s increasingly alien to them. As much as I cheered for the heroes, in the end, I think I pitied them more than anything. Some wars just end up being more trouble than they’re worth.
The monumental Hugo and Nebula award winning SF classic-- Featuring a new introduction by John Scalzi
The Earth's leaders have drawn a line in the interstellar sand--despite the fact that the fierce alien enemy they would oppose is inscrutable, unconquerable, and very far away. A reluctant conscript drafted into an elite Military unit, Private William Mandella has been propelled through space and time to fight in the distant thousand-year conflict; to perform his duties and do whatever it takes to survive the ordeal and return home. But "home" may be even more terrifying than battle, because, thanks to the time…
Five days before the end of humanity, five unlikely heroes find themselves on an impossible quest to outlive the apocalypse.
5 Stars is the survival story of a mother and her baby facing impossible odds amidst a global apocalypse. Set in a dying world overseen by “The Neon God,” the…
I can’t help but smile when I read stories about the underdog and the weak rising in strength. The small things that are overlooked are often what is most important, and something in me just itches to watch that tiny mustard seed grow into a powerful entity in its own right. When I started writing in earnest, I didn’t intentionally set my feet along the same paths. Nevertheless, the stories I write have my DNA within them. Though these books vary in genre, I’m excited to recommend them, and I expect that you’ll enjoy them as much as I did.
I found this book to be a fascinating science-fiction pandemic thriller that covers an epic time scale and some really crazy ideas. The writing captured my attention quickly, and I found this story to be an intense read. The plot surfaced moments in my imagination where I couldn’t help but question the likelihood of these events happening in our modern-day world.
I also relate to Christopher Dicken (the protagonist), a virus hunter who makes an unbelievable discovery. His attempts to uncover the truth about human evolution and save his family against what seems like every power on earth felt very real to me. It’s a wild story that has stuck with me over the years, and it’s definitely worth reading again.
Ancient diseases encoded in the DNA of humans wait like sleeping dragons to wake and infect again--or so molecular biologist Kaye Lang believes. And now it looks as if her controversial theory is in fact chilling reality. For Christopher Dicken, a "virus hunter" at the Epidemic Intelligence Service, has pursued an elusive flu-like disease that strikes down expectant mothers and their offspring. Then a major discovery high in the Alps --the preserved bodies of a prehistoric family--reveals a shocking link: something that has slept in our genes for millions of years is waking up.
I’ve always had a longstanding interest in space, and particularly in aliens. In researching my breakthrough novel Not Alone, I extensively read as much nonfiction content on the topic as I could find, including governmental-backed scenario analyses of how things might actually play out in a contact or invasion scenario. Naturally, I have also read widely in the sci-fi genre for my own pleasure, with most of my interest in this specific topic.
This was the first major alien arrival novel I read. I recall being awestruck by Arthur C. Clarke’s masterful mixing of incisive storytelling and a deep sense of grandeur.
The Overlords are hugely memorable, but it was the exploration of human identity that had the biggest effect on me. The story endures as a classic for a very good reason.
Arthur C. Clarke's classic in which he ponders humanity's future and possible evolution
When the silent spacecraft arrived and took the light from the world, no one knew what to expect. But, although the Overlords kept themselves hidden from man, they had come to unite a warring world and to offer an end to poverty and crime. When they finally showed themselves it was a shock, but one that humankind could now cope with, and an era of peace, prosperity and endless leisure began.
But the children of this utopia dream strange dreams of distant suns and alien planets, and…
I’ve always admired epistolary novels—stories told in the form of diaries, letters, or other mass media. They seem so real and so much more believable than plain narratives. When dealing with fantastic subjects, like paranormal phenomena, any technique that can draw the weird back into the real world helps me become more invested as a reader. It’s a quality I’ve also tried to capture as a horror writer. Moreover, the epistolary format pairs well with unreliable narrators, often filtering stories so as to make them more ambiguous and disturbing. From the many epistolary works I’ve read over the years, here are my picks for the most compelling—and creepy.
I know the concept of a sasquatch attack on a remote commune sounds silly on the surface, but Brooks crafts it into a realistic, serious story. As a believer in the possibility of Bigfoot, I was fascinated to see how disastrously an encounter between humans and cryptids could conceivably go.
The naivete of the settlers in the wilderness is even more distressing than the hostility of the animals. Unsettling news reports (of which the characters remain unaware) interspersed with diary entries underscore their desperation and peril. I thought the situation was completely credible. Really, we ought to have more sasquatch horror books.
'TRUE TERROR' Guardian 'NAIL CHOMPING SUSPENSE' Total Film ______________________________________ As the ash and chaos from Mount Rainier's eruption swirled and finally settled, the story of the Greenloop massacre has passed unnoticed, unexamined . . . until now.
But the journals of resident Kate Holland, recovered from the town's bloody wreckage, capture a tale too harrowing - and too earth-shattering in its implications - to be forgotten.
In these pages, Max Brooks brings Kate's extraordinary account to light for the first time, faithfully reproducing her words alongside his own extensive investigations into…
Robin dreamed of attending Yale and using her brain. Kory lived on the streets of Seattle and relied on his brawn. Without the asteroid, they never would have met.
For three years, Robin and her grandfather have been hiding, trusting no one. When a biker gang moves into town, Robin…
My parents always encouraged me to explore the world and express myself. I also grew up in a home where the bookshelves were lined with Stephen King novels, encyclopedias, and VHS tapes containing episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. So it came as little surprise that my interests in astronomy, orbital mechanics, and fantastical technology concepts (who doesn't like the idea of a ringworld?) dominated my life. I also love history and the drive for exploring the endless possibilities behind the question "what if." Science fiction is, at its core, about exploring the human condition—this is where you’ll find my writing and the adventures I bring to you.
In a future US where NASA and the space program is all but defunct, former astronaut Sally Jensen is brought out of an involuntary retirement to lead a new, barely-qualified team on a most intriguing—and dangerous—mission to an asteroid that's slowing down as it approaches Earth. Gripping and addictive, I found myself not able to put this book down once I started it. This definitely falls into the sci-fi horror camp, a blend which—fortunately—this story handles really well. If you’re looking for a hard science fiction novel with a hefty helping of horror mixed throughout, you cannot go wrong with this gem!
Shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2020! "A terrifying tour de force." --James Rollins "Readers will be riveted." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) Sally Jansen was NASA's leading astronaut, until a mission to Mars ended in disaster. Haunted by her failure, she lives in quiet anonymity, convinced her days in space are over. She's wrong. A large alien object has entered the solar system on a straight course toward Earth. It has made no attempt to communicate. Out of time and out of options, NASA turns to Jansen. But as the object reveals its secrets, Jansen and her crew find…
My parents always encouraged me to explore the world and express myself. I also grew up in a home where the bookshelves were lined with Stephen King novels, encyclopedias, and VHS tapes containing episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. So it came as little surprise that my interests in astronomy, orbital mechanics, and fantastical technology concepts (who doesn't like the idea of a ringworld?) dominated my life. I also love history and the drive for exploring the endless possibilities behind the question "what if." Science fiction is, at its core, about exploring the human condition—this is where you’ll find my writing and the adventures I bring to you.
In the mid-21st century, an alien craft appears just beyond the orbit of Saturn and approaches the planet quickly before coming to a halt within its rings... and departs as fast as it arrived. The event shocks the world into a space race not unlike the Soviets and Americans fighting to be the first to put a man on the moon. As a hard science fiction novel, Saturn Run was an incredible read—an absolute joy. I personally loved every little detail provided of the space-station-turned-spacecraft, from the methods by which heat was radiated away from the ship to how it was designed for a multi-month excursion. Overall, I really enjoyed the story and would highly recommend it if you are a stickler for the kind of technical details that hard sci-fi novels should have.
“Fans of Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers will eat this up.” --Stephen King
For fans of THE MARTIAN, an extraordinary new thriller of the future from #1 New York Times–bestselling and Pulitzer Prize–winning author John Sandford and internationally known photo-artist and science fiction aficionado Ctein.
Over the course of thirty-seven books, John Sandford has proven time and again his unmatchable talents for electrifying plots, rich characters, sly wit, and razor-sharp dialogue. Now, in collaboration with Ctein, he proves it all once more, in a stunning new thriller, a story as audacious as it is deeply satisfying.
I became a young man near the end of the sixties, and I have always been enthralled by the era's various idiosyncrasies, both good and bad. For instance, I loved the complex yet pleasant rock music and the freewheeling lifestyle. On the downside, the war in Vietnam cast its pall over the times, and I narrowly escaped being drafted and sent off to Southeast Asia. Overall, it was an era in which good and evil were starkly defined, and many people were attempting to create a better, more peaceful world. There is still much we can learn from this time.
Although this book is ostensibly set in the future, countercultural enthusiasts of the sixties were quick to claim it for their own, with its references to transcendental enlightenment, out-of-body experiences, communal living, and free sex.
It became a best-selling phenomenon as contemporary young people reacted positively to its iconoclastic attitudes. That's what happened to me, too, when I came across the book shortly before the move to the Bay Area that opened my eyes to the reality of the psychedelic sixties.
The original uncut edition of STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND by Hugo Award winner Robert A Heinlein - one of the most beloved, celebrated science-fiction novels of all time. Epic, ambitious and entertaining, STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND caused controversy and uproar when it was first published and is still topical and challenging today.
Twenty-five years ago, the first manned mission to Mars was lost, and all hands presumed dead. But someone survived...
Born on the doomed spaceship and raised by the Martians who saved his life, Valentine Michael Smith has never seen a human being until the day a…
Americans love their Constitution. In seventeen-year-old Liberty Bell’s era it has become a myth. Centuries after the Great Blackout obliterates the world's digitized information, America's history is forgotten. Only confused legends remain, written in "The Americana," a book depicting a golden age where famous Americans from different eras existed together.…
For me, history is always about individuals; what they think and believe and how those ideas motivate their actions. By relegating our past to official histories or staid academic tellings we deprive ourselves of the humanity of our shared experiences. As a “popular historian” I use food to tell all the many ways we attempt to “be” American. History is for everyone, and my self-appointed mission is to bring more stories to readers! These recommendations are a few stand-out titles from the hundreds of books that inform my current work on how food and religion converge in America. You’ll have to wait for Holy Food to find out what I’ve discovered.
Writer Adam Morris picks up the mantle of Gilbert Seldes and revisits the exploits and lasting impact of early American New Religious Movements noted in The Stammering Century with more detail and new 20th Century “messiahs.” Morris, unencumbered by academic constraints, allows his active mind to make connections and see what makes men (mostly men) claim the mantle of divine inspiration.
Beautifully written and laser-focused, Morris traces the growth of rogue religionists with an unsparing assessment of the impact they’ve had on American culture.
Mania surrounding messianic prophets has defined the national consciousness since the American Revolution. From Civil War veteran and virulent anticapitalist Cyrus Teed, to the dapper and overlooked civil rights pioneer Father Divine, to even the megalomaniacal Jim Jones, these figures have routinely been dismissed as dangerous and hysterical outliers.
After years of studying these emblematic figures, Adam Morris demonstrates that messiahs are not just a classic trope of our national culture; their visions are essential for understanding American history. As Morris demonstrates, these charismatic, if flawed, would-be prophets sought to expose and ameliorate deep social ills-such as income inequality, gender…
