Here are 100 books that The Midwich Cuckoos fans have personally recommended if you like
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I am a retired university professor who taught creative writing at the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade, and a not-yet-retired author, although I have on several occasions solemnly stated that I have written my last prose book. I believe these two qualities make me competent to create a list of 5 books that I have reread the most often.
This is, in my humble view, the best science fiction novel ever written. I have read it no less than ten times so far and intend to keep rereading it. What nowadays seems incredible is that it was written back in 1961, when most science fiction was still in its age of innocence, full of naïve assumptions about extraterrestrials and their malevolent ambitions.
It will be many years before the first ideas of benevolent aliens appear and even more before we fully realize Lem's wisdom from Solaris: there isn't going to be any First Contact because Others are neither bad nor good, but indifferent, as it is the planetary intelligent ocean on Solaris. We aren't still mature enough even for contacts with ourselves, let alone Others.
When Kris Kelvin arrives at the planet Solaris to study the ocean that covers its surface he is forced to confront a painful, hitherto unconscious memory embodied in the physical likeness of a long-dead lover. Others suffer from the same affliction and speculation rises among scientists that the Solaris ocean may be a massive brain that creates incarnate memories, but its purpose in doing so remains a mystery . . .
Solaris raises a question that has been at the heart of human experience and literature for centuries: can we truly understand the universe around us without first understanding what…
I’ve been a fan of dinosaurs and other mega-monsters ever since I watched the original Godzilla movie as a kid. It scared me half out of my wits! There’s something about big, scaly, dangerous beasts that makes for a great adventure story. Add fascinating human characters and you’ve got my full attention. I started writing my Dinosaur Wars books precisely to fill the void where there are far too few stories of this type in current literature. Challenges between human heroes and giant beasts have been part of literature from the start, featuring dragons, titans, and ocean leviathans. I see my writings as efforts to continue that tradition.
H.G. Wells delivers an astonishing tale of space invaders from Mars, with breathtaking scenes of monstrously huge three-legged walking machines terrorizing the populace of London and its surrounds. For sheer imagery, few science fiction stories before or since have come close to its gripping, real-world feel.
The story is told by an unnamed protagonist who goes on an odyssey in ravaged London as towering alien war machines chase, kill, or capture fleeing citizens in chaotic scenes of panic and fear. That fear sent chills along my spine on rereading this classic recently.
Notable were touching humanistic scenes with Dr. Ogilvy, an astronomer who leads an ill-fated attempt at truce-making, and a defeated soldier whose counterattack with artillery failed horribly.
But planet Earth was not only being watched - soon it would be invaded by monstrous creatures from Mars who strode about the land in great mechanical tripods, bringing death and destruction with them. What can possibly stop an invading army equipped with heat-rays and poisonous black gas, intent on wiping out the human race? This is one man's story of that incredible invasion, from the time the first Martians land near his home town, to the destruction of London. Is this the end of human life on Earth?
I am a business and technology journalist with a particular interest in mobility startups. I penned my book after purchasing an EV from startup Better Place, only to discover the company was nearly bankrupt. How did I miss that? I’m supposed to be able to do due diligence! I started writing about cars as a reporter for the Advanced Interactive Media Group. I’m a regular contributor to The Jerusalem Post and Israel21c and have also ghostwritten four business books. Before I wrote about tech, I was starting companies: My own Internet publishing startup, Neta4, raised $3.2 million in 1998. I received my B.A. in Creative Writing from Oberlin College.
I had to include this book in the list. It’s not a business book, per se—this is hard science fiction—but the Earth’s response to a far-off alien invasion leads to all kinds of business and technological innovation, from “hibernation chambers” to the development of spacecraft that can travel at close to light-speed.
I then went on to watch the Netflix series, but the book is the real deal. I’m a slow reader, which meant I spent at least a year reading through all three books—but it was so worth it!
Read the award-winning, critically acclaimed, multi-million-copy-selling science-fiction phenomenon - soon to be a Netflix Original Series from the creators of Game of Thrones.
1967: Ye Wenjie witnesses Red Guards beat her father to death during China's Cultural Revolution. This singular event will shape not only the rest of her life but also the future of mankind.
Four decades later, Beijing police ask nanotech engineer Wang Miao to infiltrate a secretive cabal of scientists after a spate of inexplicable suicides. Wang's investigation will lead him to a mysterious online game and immerse him in a virtual world ruled by the intractable…
I grew up on a diet of dystopian fiction, and when I first began taking craft more seriously and diving into short stories, that was the genre I found myself writing most. I suppose what draws me to the genre is how dystopian fiction has the ability to illuminate society’s faults and injustices and humanity as a whole, the bleak futures that it could create if certain ideologies were allowed to persist, the way individual behaviours and actions can well shape the future and dictate whether it becomes one filled with hope or one that falls into disaster.
What fascinates me most about this novella is its ability to capture such depth and fullness in such a short length.
This book explores the concept of time and language, and how the way humans perceive time vastly differs from the alien species, and the way language ultimately affects time perception and decision-making as well.
'A science fiction genius . . . Ted Chiang is a superstar.' - Guardian
With Stories of Your Life and Others, his masterful first collection, multiple-award-winning author Ted Chiang deftly blends human emotion and scientific rationalism in eight remarkably diverse stories, all told in his trademark precise and evocative prose.
From a soaring Babylonian tower that connects a flat Earth with the firmament above, to a world where angelic visitations are a wondrous and terrifying part of everyday life; from a neural modification that eliminates the appeal of physical beauty, to an alien language that challenges our very perception of…
I’ve always enjoyed books that make me think and question. I love that they lead me to further brilliant works that do the same. I love a book that challenges the rules of writing and takes you into another world. As a full-time thriller writer, it’s always good to read a genre different from your own. To enter a realm of magical realism is fantastic.
I loved this book because, again, it was thought-provoking. It was unimaginable to think humans could behave in this way and then it made me realise that we do behave in an unimaginable fashion in real life. This book shows the mob mentality and how ‘tradition’ keeps going despite not knowing where it started and why it continues.
I found the concept of the lottery both disturbing and thought provoking. How far will people go in the name of superstition and fear. I loved that Shirley Jackson with a short story should produce such darkness and depth in humanity and it had me thinking for quite a while.
'Shirley Jackson's stories are among the most terrifying ever written' Donna Tartt
This is the definitive collection of Shirley Jackson's short stories, including 'The Lottery' - one of the most terrifying and iconic stories of the twentieth century, and an influence on writers such as Neil Gaiman and Stephen King.
In these stories an excellent host finds himself turned out of home by his own guests; a woman spends her wedding day frantically searching for her husband-to-be; and in Shirley Jackson's best-known story, a small farming village comes together for a terrible annual ritual. The creeping unease of lives squandered…
My new thriller centers around a small, mysterious cult and their shocking demise. For years, I’ve read true crime books on the subject, and I wanted to infuse the reality and truth of real-life events into my fictional novel. In a similar vein, these books represent a range of thrillers inspired by true events, ranging from cults to serial killers to teenage criminals. I hope you find these books as gripping and haunting as I do.
I find this book to be an unsettling but impactful read, both thought-provoking and complex. We Need to Talk about Kevin follows the mother of a troubled teenager responsible for a school shooting.
It’s about nature versus nurture, the relationship between mother and child, and deeply seated guilt. It draws inspiration from real events, including the 1999 shooting at Columbine, which wasn’t the U.S.’s first mass shooting at a school, but it would become one of the most infamous.
Shriver’s novel raises unsettling questions about a mother’s guilt and self-justification and a community’s heartache and blame. I consider it to be a captivating and moving book.
Eva never really wanted to be a mother; certainly not the mother of a boy named Kevin who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker and a teacher who had tried to befriend him. Now, two years after her son's horrific rampage, Eva comes to terms with her role as Kevin's mother in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her absent husband Franklyn about their son's upbringing. Fearing that her own shortcomings may have shaped what her son has become, she confesses to…
As a horror writer, the evil kid subgenre holds great appeal to me. I’ve written about them a few times, most notably in my novella Sour Candy, which remains the most popular thing I’ve written, perhaps because, like in the books mentioned above, we don’t expect our children to be evil monsters, and when they are, we’re ill-prepared to deal with the threat. They’re still children, after all, and we’re supposed to love and protect them. The emotional quandaries this situation presents are fascinating to write about.
Stage’s wonderfully sinister novel documents the early years of a child who seems to have been born bad. The thrill in this one is the ever-escalating war between a precocious and seemingly sweet child and her anguished mother, who knows she’s being manipulated by her daughter, while the father remains oblivious to the horror. It’s unusual, and fun, to read a book in which we get to see things from the child’s perspective as she tries to drive her mother insane.
“Unnerving and unputdownable, Baby Teeth will get under your skin and keep you trapped in its chilling grip until the shocking conclusion.”―New York Times bestselling author Lisa Scottoline
One of Entertainment Weekly’s Must-Read Books for July | People Magazine's Book of the Week | One of Bustle's "Fifteen Books With Chilling Protagonists That Will Keep You Guessing" | One of PopSugar's "25 Must-Read Books That Will Make July Fly By!" | One of the "Biggest Thrillers of the Summer"―SheReads | "New & Noteworthy" ―USA Today | "Summer 2018 Must-Read"―Bookish | "One of 11 Crime Novels You Should Read in July"―Crime…
As a horror writer, the evil kid subgenre holds great appeal to me. I’ve written about them a few times, most notably in my novella Sour Candy, which remains the most popular thing I’ve written, perhaps because, like in the books mentioned above, we don’t expect our children to be evil monsters, and when they are, we’re ill-prepared to deal with the threat. They’re still children, after all, and we’re supposed to love and protect them. The emotional quandaries this situation presents are fascinating to write about.
Hugely influential since its publication in the 1970s, Tryon’s deliciously twisted book about a pair of identical twins who happen to have different birthdays and are left to their own (unusual) devices after their father dies, has often been imitated, but never equaled. Shocking upon its initial release, jaded readers may see the ending coming now, but that doesn’t detract from the sheer ingenuity of the horror leading up to it. A masterpiece of psychological terror.
Holland and Niles Perry are identical thirteen-year-old twins. They are close, close enough, almost, to read each other’s thoughts, but they couldn’t be more different. Holland is bold and mischievous, a bad influence, while Niles is kind and eager to please, the sort of boy who makes parents proud. The Perrys live in the bucolic New England town their family settled centuries ago, and as it happens, the extended clan has gathered at its ancestral farm this summer to mourn the death of the twins’ father in a most unfortunate accident. Mrs. Perry still hasn’t recovered from the shock of…
My mother got cancer when I was seven and died when I was in college. So, I began to consider death and the afterlife from a very young age. I don’t know if ghosts are real, but I know that people are haunted. I explore this idea—that haunted houses are really settings for haunted humans—as well as the ambiguity between ghosts and mental descents in my own teaching and writing. I love haunted house novels because they’re wonderful vehicles for this sort of exploration and because they’re so much fun to read! I hope you enjoy these books as much as I do!
I have read this book more times than I have read any other book, and on my seventh read, I think I finally figured it out. I love a book that keeps you guessing, that keeps you wondering what’s real and what’s an illusion, and in this short novel, Henry James achieves just that. Are the ghosts real? Is the governess going insane?
James makes both possibilities equally likely—and equally frightening. My favorite ghost stories and horror novels are those that are ”about” something beyond the surface-level plot, and James creates a subtle queer sub-theme that is another reason why I keep reading this book again and again…
'A most wonderful, lurid, poisonous little tale' Oscar Wilde
The Turn of the Screw, James's great masterpiece of haunting atmosphere and unbearable tension, tells of a young governess sent to a country house to take charge of two orphans, Miles and Flora. Unsettled by a dark foreboding of menace within the house, she soon comes to believe that something, or someone, malevolent is stalking the children in her care. Is the threat to her young charges really a malign and ghostly presence, or a manifestation of something else entirely?
Edited and with an Introduction and Notes by David Bromwich Series…
I’m a Canadian author who thought too much about death as a child. But I was also a happy little goblin who grew up watching Disney fairytales and Transformers cartoons—all of which shine in my blend of twisting horror meeting tales of love and friendship. My degree in History helps me add depth and a political thriller edge. Bands of brothers, found family, and loyal hounds round out my books. I adore being scared, but I also want my characters to find happiness. So I’ll put you on the edge of your seat and have you jumping at the next twist—but don’t worry, the dog always lives.
I love this book’s original take on the “spore” or “fungal” zombie outbreak. It feels like the author took The Last Of Us (which I also adore) and flipped the story on its head. Melanie is this unique character, at once the snarky, hilarious child of the piece and its terrifying monster.
She’s the threat, battlefield, and hope—and I find that combination so compelling. While it’s a grim, often bleak tale set in a decimated UK, this thread of unexpected hope and unusual connections kept me hooked. This story might not give me the future I wanted at the start of the story, but it offers a different vision with its own version of hope for humanity, and because of that, it has a special place on my shelf.
'ORIGINAL, THRILLING AND POWERFUL' - Guardian 'HAUNTING, HEARTHBREAKING' - Vogue The phenomenal million-copy bestseller that is also a BAFTA Award-nominated movie
NOT EVERY GIFT IS A BLESSING
Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite. But they don't laugh.
Melanie is a very special girl.
Emotionally charged and gripping from beginning to end, THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS is the…
