Fans pick 86 books like The Last Legends of Earth

By A.A. Attanasio,

Here are 86 books that The Last Legends of Earth fans have personally recommended if you like The Last Legends of Earth. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Dhalgren

Blair Austin Author Of Dioramas

From my list on opening strange worlds.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a former librarian I have long been fascinated with Borges’s view of books: their metaphysical shape and their tendency to open into the uncanny and the infinite. Illness early in life drove me to books, to their particular isolation. Since then, I’ve found that worlds can open almost anywhere in literature by way of a mood, a patina of language, a vision, a set of images completely beyond the control of the writer. Now, I read these books to remind me of what fiction can do, the places it can go, the worlds it will open.

Blair's book list on opening strange worlds

Blair Austin Why did Blair love this book?

Samuel R. Delaney’s masterpiece, Dhalgren, is set in a city in the Midwest that has been emptied by an unnamed catastrophe.

A sense of freedom, violence and disaster hang everywhere as the hero – Kidd, Kid, or the kid, a man with no memory and of ambiguous race (he remembers his mother was Native American) – gains entry into the subcultures that remain behind: parties, high-rise poetry readings with older white people, gun fights, gangs, graphic sex.

Time and perspective seem fluxive, inconstant, and looping. 

This is beautiful, destabilized world building. Dhalgren answers no questions yet evokes a time, place, and milieu that shifts as you read.

I first found it when I was working as a librarian in a prison out on the plains. I didn’t last in prison.

By Samuel R. Delany,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Dhalgren as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Nebula Award Finalist: Reality unravels in a Midwestern town in this sci-fi epic by the acclaimed author of Babel-17. Includes a foreword by William Gibson.

A young half–Native American known as the Kid has hitchhiked from Mexico to the midwestern city Bellona—only something is wrong there . . . In Bellona, the shattered city, a nameless cataclysm has left reality unhinged. Into this desperate metropolis steps the Kid, his fist wrapped in razor-sharp knives, to write, to love, to wound.
 
So begins Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany’s masterwork, which in 1975 opened a new door for what science fiction could mean.…


Book cover of Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said

Nicolas Lietzau Author Of Dreams of the Dying: The Dark Corners of Our Minds

From my list on best mind bending books I’ve ever read.

Why am I passionate about this?

Quoting Aristotle when writing about yourself probably comes off as pretentious, but looking back at how I became a writer, his idea of how good stories must be “surprising yet inevitable” rings true: from a childhood split in rural Bavaria, where dark German fairytales sparked my love for books to experiments with lucid dreaming that ended in a loss of reality, my ending up as a game writer and novelist focused on the mind and dreams does sound somewhat inevitable—even if it took me some detours and distractions to get there. Now, I couldn’t be happier. 😊

Nicolas' book list on best mind bending books I’ve ever read

Nicolas Lietzau Why did Nicolas love this book?

From the strange title to the premise of a futuristic television star who suddenly no one remembers, this book, is the essence of why PKD remains one of my favorite authors: futurism, psychology, and existential angst distilled into a mind-bending cocktail whose characters somehow still feel perfectly grounded and believable. 

By Philip K. Dick,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Jason Taverner has a glittering TV career, millions of fans, great wealth and something close to eternal youth. He is one of a handful of brilliant, beautiful people, the product of top-secret government experiments forty years earlier. But suddenly, all records of him vanish. He becomes a man with no identity, in a police state where everyone us closely monitored. Can he ever be rich and famous again? Or was that life just an illusion?


Book cover of Winterlong

Brent Hayward Author Of Filaria

From my list on sci-fi able to stand toe to toe with any genre.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a Canadian science fiction writer who writes very, very slowly. I’m interested in experimental fiction and books that are unique, both thematically and stylistically. I’d like to think my books fall into this category, or at least that’s what I aspire to. I used to read science fiction exclusively, and the five books I’ve listed here were all read during those formative years; they were fundamental stepping-stones for me, as a writer, and each of them left a profound mark on my idea of how good, or effective, novels can be.

Brent's book list on sci-fi able to stand toe to toe with any genre

Brent Hayward Why did Brent love this book?

Hand’s sentences are always beautiful, and this novel, her first, is dense with new ideas and original imagery. She evokes a bizarre future in a post-apocalyptic city where twins go on a hallucinogenic quest. Reads like a somewhat disturbing mythology. Gods and talking animals, autistic prophets, feral children, and death is personified. Unforgettable.

By Elizabeth Hand,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Winterlong as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The “sensuous and evocative” debut of the Nebula Award–winning author of Waking the Moon: A dystopian journey through a world unburdened by moral taboos (Library Journal).
 Set in the surreal, post-apocalyptic City of Trees, Winterlong centers on Wendy Wanders, a girl who can tap into the dreams and emotions of the people around her, and her long-lost twin brother, Raphael, a seductive, sacred courtesan to the City’s decadent elite. During their voyage, they encounter man-made and godlike monstrosities—both hideous and gorgeous—in their effort to stop an ancient power from consuming all. Blending science fiction and fantasy, Winterlong is a dark…


Book cover of The Shadow of the Torturer

Matt Weber Author Of Brimstone Slipstream

From my list on fantasy that reimagines society.

Why am I passionate about this?

Science fiction is rightly famous for experimenting with new and strange social worlds, but fantasy tends to fall back on the usual feudal tropes: the whims of kings, the valor of knights, the always-temporary powerlessness of farm boys, the technicalities of succession. Which is a shame, because fantasy provides just as much opportunity to reimagine what society could look like. That’s what I try to do in my books, and at my job, where I’m working to bring 21st-century data literacy and quantitative reasoning to a state government stuck resolutely in the ’90s. When I think of books that have done what I’m trying to do, these five are at the front of my mind.

Matt's book list on fantasy that reimagines society

Matt Weber Why did Matt love this book?

The action in this book begins when Severian, an apprentice in the Torturers’ Guild, gives a convict a weapon to kill herself rather than be tortured.

The reason there’s a Torturers’ Guild is, allegedly, that it beats prison: Better to deliver a punishment and then let the punished person return to their life, the thinking goes, than confine them to a useless existence as a ward of the state. Severian is expelled from the Guild, but not from the profession, and wanders the world plying his trade, at least until the plot can’t spare him.

It’s a constant dissonance, looking through the eyes of a character whose training and purpose is the infliction of pain, who seems so decent and forthright in the story he narrates. (But don’t be fooled.)

By Gene Wolfe, Don Maitz (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Shadow of the Torturer as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In a thoroughly decadent world of the future, Severian the torturer is cast out from the torturer's guild when he falls in love with one of his victims and allows her to die


Book cover of Rebel Moon

Justin Oldham Author Of Showdown at the Kodiak Starport

From my list on science fiction showcasing future war scenarios.

Why am I passionate about this?

As intense as the Cold War was, I have always found myself looking toward the future. Nuclear annihilation was a real possibility in my youth. Even so, I have always been curious about the next threat beyond our current crisis would be. Beyond nuclear, biological, and chemical threats, I see that we now face possible dangers from rogue AI and climate change. If that’s not enough, let’s remember that conventional weapons are getting more powerful with the passing of each decade. That’s why the storyteller in me loves this stuff so much.

Justin's book list on science fiction showcasing future war scenarios

Justin Oldham Why did Justin love this book?

I am old enough to remember the first lunar landing. I watched it as it happened, on a black-and-white TV screen. I was intrigued by the notion that we, here on Earth, would someday be in conflict with people who were born and raised on the Moon. It’s almost inevitable that you will eventually argue with your neighbors. This novel marks the first occasion that I can recall reading about how such a conflict might start. Even if I do live long enough to see humans walk on the moon again, I will still be thinking about this book.

By Bruce Bethke,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Rebel Moon as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Rebel Moon [Mass Market Paperback] [Jan 01, 2004] Bethke, Bruce


Book cover of Priest

Elijah Menchaca Author Of They Met in a Tavern

From my list on heroes haunted by their adventures.

Why am I passionate about this?

The past is a powerful thing. It’s what we turn to when confronted with the question “how did we get here?” When I began my journey as an author in earnest, that was the question I was facing, and it was the one I wanted my characters to explore. But one book wasn’t enough to satisfy me, and I went searching for other titles that scratched that same itch of examining and confronting our pasts to work out our future. For me, these books were the ones that struck that cord the hardest.

Elijah's book list on heroes haunted by their adventures

Elijah Menchaca Why did Elijah love this book?

This is the book that made me want to write fantasy. It is the story of a soldier coming home from war, of a person trying to be better than the worst things they’ve ever done, and of rekindling a sense of purpose when you’ve been lost for too long. I’ve never felt a world more lived-in, prose more decisively punchy, or tiny moments with more perfect poignancy. I re-read this book all the time, and every time, I am as jealous as I am inspired. If you check out nothing else from this list, check out Priest.

By Matthew Colville,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Priest as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

For centuries the people of Ollghum Keep relied on the knights of the Green Order to protect them from the horrors of the haunted wood. Now, as before, a monstrous army marches on their small town. But this time, the Green Order is nowhere to be found.

The Bishop sends the priest Heden into the wood, to find out why. Arriving at their secret priory, Heden discovers their commander is dead, the remaining knights paralyzed with despair. They will not act, they will not tell him what happened, and with each hour the monstrous army gets closer to Ollghum Keep.…


Book cover of Heart of the Sun Warrior

Ella d’Avoine Author Of The Crimson Warrior

From my list on fantasy strong female protagonists.

Why am I passionate about this?

One might read for many reasons, but one of the main reasons for me is to connect and relate to the character. Female voices are very underheard, and I feel incredibly passionate about changing that and creating and reading stories where the female protagonists have strong voices and are not afraid to be heard. I think it’s important that we continue to create female characters that are raw and real and that portray subjects and feelings that need to be heard more.

Ella's book list on fantasy strong female protagonists

Ella d’Avoine Why did Ella love this book?

I loved this book for so many reasons. The world-building is beautiful, the plot line is intriguing, and the main female character has a lot of depth to her. She’s beautiful and courageous, kind but strong, and she does anything for those she loves.

I saw much of myself in her character, which helped immerse me in the book as I read it. I’m a sucker for any book with a female protagonist that has a lot of depth; I feel it makes them more real, as we all have different sides to our personalities. 

By Sue Lynn Tan,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Heart of the Sun Warrior as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'Epic, romantic, and enthralling from start to finish' Stephanie Garber

The stunning conclusion to the Celestial Kingdom Duology

After winning her mother's freedom from the Celestial Emperor, Xingyin thrives in the enchanting tranquility of her home. But her fragile peace is threatened by the discovery of a strange magic on the moon, and the unsettling changes in the Celestial Kingdom as the emperor tightens his grip on power.

While Xingyin is determined to keep clear of the rising danger, the discovery of a shocking truth spurs her into a perilous confrontation.
Forced to flee her…


Book cover of To the End of the Land

Raphael Cohen-Almagor Author Of Israeli Institutions at the Crossroads

From my list on Israel studies.

Why am I passionate about this?

Raphael Cohen-Almagor, DPhil, St. Catherine’s College, University of Oxford, is Professor of Politics, Founding Director of the Middle East Study Centre, University of Hull; Global Fellow, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and Vice President of The Association for Israel Studies. Raphael taught, inter alia, at Oxford (UK), Jerusalem, Haifa (Israel), UCLA, Johns Hopkins (USA), and Nirma University (India). He was twice a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and Distinguished Visiting Professor, Faculty of Laws, University College London. Raphael Has published extensively about Israel, including Basic Issues in Israeli Democracy (Hebrew), Israeli Democracy at the Crossroads, and Public Responsibility in Israel (with Ori Arbel-Ganz and Asa Kasher Hebrew).

Raphael's book list on Israel studies

Raphael Cohen-Almagor Why did Raphael love this book?

Grossman has a way with words. There are not many people who master Hebrew as he does. His ability to express ideas, thoughts, sentiments, characters, the inner human streams that run in our hearts and minds is admirable. Grossman takes you by the hand, slowly makes you immerse in the story, your soul intertwined with the pictures he paints, you become part of all that is happening to the heroes, all the twists and turns, the emotions, the turmoil, the storms, the fears, the hopes, the love. This book is about the love for the land of Israel and about the love of a mother to her child. There are similarities and differences between the two that Grossman delicately deciphers. I have never read such a characterization of a relationship between parents and children. It is deep. It is penetrating. It is true. It sweeps you off your feet.

A…

By David Grossman, Jessica Cohen (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked To the End of the Land as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A stunning novel that tells the powerful story of Ora, an Israli mother, and her extraordinary love for her son, Ofer, in a haunting meditation on war and family.

“One of the few novels that feel as though they have made a difference to the world.” —The New York Times Book Review

Just before his release from service in the Israeli army, Ora’s son Ofer is sent back to the front for a major offensive. In a fit of preemptive grief and magical thinking, so that no bad news can reach her, Ora sets out on an…


Book cover of Death of a Hero

Andrew Scott Author Of Fake History: Ten Great Lies and How They Shaped the World

From my list on to fight fake history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am not a historian but a journalist, and in writing the book I wanted to do what I have done in my political writing. Namely to cut through the lies, to bring accuracy to the distortions, and to point a finger at the politicians and pundits who would prefer that we wallowed in the phony nostalgia of our imagined past. Tackling fake history is like tackling fake news. You need not only to seek out the truth that lies underneath but also discover in whose interests myth-making works in the first place. That's why fighting fake history matters and that is why I wrote the book.

Andrew's book list on to fight fake history

Andrew Scott Why did Andrew love this book?

Perhaps the finest and least well-known novel to come out of the First World War. Imagist poet Richard Aldington takes his own experiences of the home and Western Fronts and turns both barrels on the sanctimony of Edwardian society and its parade of sycophants, socialites, and fools. Unusually, it is a book by a poet that resists turning war into poetry. Unafraid to use realistically coarse military language, it divided the critics at the time and has divided readers ever since. It is a howl of rage that speaks across the century, a timeless reminder that there is no romance in the needless carnage of war.

By Richard Aldington,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Death of a Hero as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One of the great World War I antiwar novels - honest, chilling, and brilliantly satirical

Based on the author's experiences on the Western Front, Richard Aldington's first novel, Death of a Hero, finally joins the ranks of Penguin Classics. Our hero is George Winterbourne, who enlists in the British Expeditionary Army during the Great War and gets sent to France. After a rash of casualties leads to his promotion through the ranks, he grows increasingly cynical about the war and disillusioned by the hypocrisies of British society. Aldington's writing about Britain's ignorance of the tribulations of its soldiers is among…


Book cover of Dinosaurs Love Underpants

John Priest Author Of Where's My Granny Gone?

From my list on funny stories to give your child the giggles.

Why am I passionate about this?

My name is John Priest and I've been writing children's books, mystery stories, and factual articles since the 1980's. I've been traditionally published and have publshed my own books too. I love writing funny books and rhyming stories. Seeing my 5 grandchildren reading a book and laughing is one of the best sights of all. I've worked in schools and really believe that having your imagination ignited by any book is the start of building your own personality and creating wonderment in your own mind. And who knows? Maybe one day your child will write the next batch of  beautiful books!

John's book list on funny stories to give your child the giggles

John Priest Why did John love this book?

This book is just right for the child who loves Dinosaurs and/or mysteries!

It has hilarious images of Dinosaurs and Humans and is another book with rhyming verse. It aims to answer the age-old question about Dinosaurs and what actually caused them to become extinct. 

It's a brilliant book, so funny and has its own solution to the great mystery of the disappearance of the Dinosaurs...

By Claire Freedman, Ben Cort (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Dinosaurs Love Underpants as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 4, 5, 6, and 7.

What is this book about?

The hilarious follow-up to the award-winning Aliens Love Underpants!

The mystery of dinosaur extinction is solved! Scientists have plenty of theories about why dinosaurs are extinct, but the UK's bestselling author/illustrator team of Claire Freedman and Ben Cort knows the real answer: The dinos were wiped out in an Underpants War! This wacky celebration of underpants is perfect for reading aloud, and the hilarious antics of T. rex and the gang are endlessly entertaining. Featuring fun, vibrant art and short, rhyming text, Dinosaurs Love Underpants is a prehistoric pleasure parents and kids will want to read again and again.

Praise…


Book cover of Dhalgren
Book cover of Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said
Book cover of Winterlong

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