Here are 79 books that The Restaurant at the End of the Universe fans have personally recommended if you like
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
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I’m a writer and musician with a background in mathematics, which is what originally led to my intrigue in cosmology. For writing speculative fiction, I’ve dug into a range of topics from quantum mechanics to cognitive theory, but spacetime had the opposite causality: my interest later spawned my writing. When I first learned about special relativity, many aspects seemed counterintuitive but were mathematically sound, leading me to obsessively read books, watch videos, and perform hours of calculations to get a feel for it. And what draws my adoration most to the cosmos is the quality it shares with dinosaurs—the more I learn, the more majestic it becomes.
I’d characterize the title story of this book as having Animal Farm energy—a huge idea in a short story—and a prime example of why Heinlein’s era is called the “Golden Age” of science fiction. I listened to multiple sections of this story twice after realizing my bearings had been off, slowed the audio to normal speed (I typically listen at 1.25x), and even looked up diagrams online outlining the order of plot events, which exist because this story pushes time travel to its limits.
Completing the story wasn’t the end, either. I wanted to read the analysis, discussions, and the aforementioned diagrams. It is a masterfully written, thought-provoking tale whose big reveals and revelations were legitimately jaw-dropping at times.
The story "All You Zombies—" is the basis for PREDESTINATION from Sony Pictures, just released in the US on January 9, 2015, starring Ethan Hawke, directed and written by the Spierig Brothers.
Robert A. Heinlein's brilliance and diverse talents are on display in this collection of five short stories that range from mind-twisters ("All You Zombies—"), paranoia and surprise ("They—"), hilarious engineering conundrums ("—And They Built a Crooked House"), fantasies ("Our Fair City), and the beautiful, heart-breaking "The Man Who Travelled in Elephants".
"Not only America's premier writer of speculative fiction, but the greatest writer of such fiction in the…
Since I was a young boy, I’ve been fascinated with the concept of time. I’ve spent hours studying the physics of time as a hobby, and to this day, as an adult, that fascination continues. Whenever the topic of time arises in conversation, I will be the first to contribute my understanding of this mystery that has baffled humankind since the beginning of...well, time.
I loved this book because it’s the granddaddy of time travel stories that use a machine method of transportation to the past or future. The protagonist creates a machine capable of moving through time without actually moving through space.
I easily suspended my 21st-century pragmatic understanding of time travel and was immersed in Wells's plot for a world of the future, one with a socialist propensity. For a book that would be considered a Novella, this has a ‘big story’ feeling—for me anyway.
A brilliant scientist constructs a machine, which, with the pull of a lever, propels him to the year AD 802,701.
Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition of The Time Machine features an introduction by Dr Mark Bould.
The Time Traveller finds himself in a verdant, seemingly idyllic landscape where he is greeted by the diminutive Eloi people. The Eloi are beautiful but weak and indolent, and the explorer is perplexed by…
I’m an award-winning astronomy author, writer, and speaker who has talked to over half a million people about the universe, including schools, the public, and businesses. My eighteen books have sold more than 350,000 copies worldwide and have been translated into 21 languages. I’ve written over 200 popular science articles for publications including The Guardian, New Scientist, The Wall Street Journal, and European Space Agency.
In recognition of my efforts to popularise astronomy, the asteroid (15347) Colinstuart is named after me. I also won The Margaret Mallett Award for Children’s Non-Fiction in 2020, was a runner-up in the European Astronomy Journalism Prize and am a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.
I'm a sucker for time travel stories and they don't come much more bountiful than in the long-running TV show Doctor Who. I love it, particularly the juxtaposition between the ancient Gallifreyan's boundless enthusiasm and deep emotional trauma from seeing everyone he (and now she) loves come and go over time. Over the last 60 years, the show has tackled pretty much every paradox and possibility. Brake's book weaves the physics behind the TARDIS into backstage insights into the show.
Geek out over the TARDIS, aliens, alternate timelines, parallel worlds, and all your favorite characters from the Doctor Who Universe!
Doctor Who arrived with the Space Age, when the Doctor first began exploring the universe in a time-traveling spaceship. Over half a century since, the Doctor has gone global. Millions of people across this planet enjoy Doctor Who in worldwide simulcast and cinema extravaganzas. Doctor Who has infused our minds and our language and made it much richer.
What a fantastic world we inhabit through the Doctor. The program boils over withballsy women, bisexual companions, scientific passion, and a billion…
What happens when you’re face-to-face with a truth that shakes you? Do you accept it, or pretend it was never there?
Award-winning author Mark A. Rayner smudges the lines between realist and fabulist, literary and speculative in this collection of stories that examines this question—what Homer called passing through The…
My favorite books all show me that reality is much, much richer and stranger than it seems. And that is exactly what makes me write myself. Already as a child, I wanted the world to be different. I longed for the other, richer realities that were, I felt, just around the corner. So I started to travel, to Senegal and beyond, and learn about other people’s life experiences. When I became a researcher of world literature, it truly came home to me how one-sided my view of the world was. Ouch. Fortunately, there is a wealth of stories out there to tell us about everything we have been blind to.
Carlos Rovelli’sThe Order of Time is not at all a fantasy book—it is science—but nevertheless the most inspiring, life changing fantasy I’ve ever read. If I look around me with scientist Rovelli’s eyes, I too see that “the world is made up of networks of kisses, not of stones.” Beautiful, weird, and scientifically accurate. True fantasy!
One of TIME's Ten Best Nonfiction Books of the Decade
'Captivating, fascinating, profoundly beautiful. . . Rovelli is a wonderfully humane, gentle and witty guide for he is as much philosopher and poet as he is a scientist' John Banville
'We are time. We are this space, this clearing opened by the traces of memory inside the connections between our neurons. We are memory. We are nostalgia. We are longing for a future that will not come'
Time is a mystery that does not cease to puzzle us. Philosophers, artists and poets have long explored…
I love fantasy, particularly comic fantasy. But there's an art to making something that is mind-meltingly silly feel real and meaningful, at the same time. To make it feel solid. If something is too chaotic, too randomly silly, then the narrative integrity disintegrates. You're left feeling, ‘yes, I know that the troll has now mysteriously turned into a chicken; but really, what’s the point?’ On the other hand, if the story isn’t silly enough…well, then it becomes straight fantasy, which is wonderful when it’s done well, but can feel mundane and derivative when it is not. I've deliberately limited this list to include only two Discworld books. To include any more would seem, well—silly.
I first read this when I was a teenager because I loved the TV show. But though the book has a lot of cleverly mad humour, there is more of a melancholy undercurrent here. The science fiction ideas are creatively insane, but they are always brought down to Earth by the palpably flawed characters, which give the whole book a reality it would otherwise lack. This elevates it from whimsical science fantasy to something solid and substantial. For smeg’s sake, give it a read!
Awakening from a drunken spree in a London pub to find himself on one of Saturn's moons, Lister joins the Space Corps and boards the Red Dwarf, determined to return to Earth
I love fantasy, particularly comic fantasy. But there's an art to making something that is mind-meltingly silly feel real and meaningful, at the same time. To make it feel solid. If something is too chaotic, too randomly silly, then the narrative integrity disintegrates. You're left feeling, ‘yes, I know that the troll has now mysteriously turned into a chicken; but really, what’s the point?’ On the other hand, if the story isn’t silly enough…well, then it becomes straight fantasy, which is wonderful when it’s done well, but can feel mundane and derivative when it is not. I've deliberately limited this list to include only two Discworld books. To include any more would seem, well—silly.
This is the second book in the Guards sequence, but it’s easy enough to start here. This detective story set in the sprawling, smelly metropolis of Ankh-Morpork, featuring dwarves, werewolves, and (occasionally) humans, is a laugh-out-loud and anarchic book, managing to be hugely joyous and page-turningly compelling at the same time. Insanely silly and utterly real, with characters so solid you can see (or in some cases, smell) them long after you turn the last page.
There's evil in the air and murder afoot. The City Watch needs all the help it can get, as Captain Vimes is about to hang up his badge. From the author of "Small Gods" and "Lords and Ladies", this book is part of the "Discworld" humorous fantasy series.
The Festival of Sin is a three-story light sci-fi arc about a young boy rescued in 6000 BCE and taken to the home planet of the Hudra. Parts two and three are exploratory excursions. It's a fish-out-of-water series. More than fish-out-of-water. Fish-on-another-planet.
After a lifetime of reading fantasy, I have a career professionally writing fantasy! Whether it’s for animation, video games, or children’s books, crafting adventures in worlds of whimsy and wonder is a treat. Writing has sharpened my senses to recognize and appreciate well-crafted stories in all their forms, and the books on this list are some of the very finest romps.
From multi-award-winning Neil Gaiman comes a spectacularly silly, mind-bendingly clever, brilliantly bonkers adventure - with lip-smackingly gorgeous illustrations by Chris Riddell.
Mum's away. Dad's in charge. There's no milk. So Dad saves the day by going to buy some.
Really, that's all that happens. Very boring. YAAAAAAAAAWN.
There are absolutely none of the following inside: GLOBBY GREEN ALIENS! INTERGALACTIC POLICE! PIRATES! And most definitely NOT a time-travelling hot-air balloon piloted by the brilliant Professor Steg ...
Don't miss this gloriously entertaining novel about time-travel, dinosaurs, milk and dads.
I love fantasy, particularly comic fantasy. But there's an art to making something that is mind-meltingly silly feel real and meaningful, at the same time. To make it feel solid. If something is too chaotic, too randomly silly, then the narrative integrity disintegrates. You're left feeling, ‘yes, I know that the troll has now mysteriously turned into a chicken; but really, what’s the point?’ On the other hand, if the story isn’t silly enough…well, then it becomes straight fantasy, which is wonderful when it’s done well, but can feel mundane and derivative when it is not. I've deliberately limited this list to include only two Discworld books. To include any more would seem, well—silly.
I said I would limit myself to two Discworld books, so here we have my other favourite. This is quite an early one, before the world is fully formed, but the portrayal of the wizards and their University is beginning to emerge, full of chaos and joy and demented energy. But again, this madcap, surreal mania is corralled masterfully, the characters feeling like real people with real agency, moving through a world that—while full of vivid colours and impossible, surreal things—is also somehow solid and real. It is a testament to Pratchett’s incredible storytelling powers that Ankh Morpork is more real to me than several cities I have actually, physically visited. It is unreal and yet hyper-real at the same time. You should go visit. It is wonderful.
'May well be considered his masterpiece . . . Humour such as his is an endangered species' The Times
The Discworld is very much like our own - if our own were to consist of a flat planet balanced on the back of four elephants which stand on the back of a giant turtle, that is . . .
All this books and stuff, that isn't what it should all be about. What we need is real wizardry.
Once there was an eighth son of an eighth son, a wizard squared, a source of magic. A Sourcerer.
My name is Annemarie and I’ve been reading stories almost as soon as I was taught how to read. I’ve also been writing them. My fascination with the supernatural came about, I guess because an active imagination for a small child comes almost naturally from a fear of the dark. The dark held many terrors for me, and in a perverse contrariness, this prompted an interest in supernatural beings. As far as I’m concerned, it’s all real, and the more we know about them, the better. Or at least, that’s what I deduce from my never flagging interest, and I guess that’s why there’s always an element of the supernatural/paranormal in all my stories.
My cousin gave me this book off his bookshelf, and I thought it’d just be some funny shit. And it was very funny. But it was also original and thought provoking and kind of accurate. Dolphins aren’t technically supernatural, though…or are they?
But again, the thing that sets this book apart is the originality of the premise. Dolphins as aliens? Living on earth and just letting us feed them? I mean, come on. The plausibility of it is kind of intriguing is it not?
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish is the fourth installment in Douglas Adams' bestselling cult classic, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 'trilogy'.
This edition includes exclusive bonus material from the Douglas Adams archives, and an introduction by Neil Gaiman.
There is a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. It's not an easy thing to do and Arthur Dent thinks he's the only human who's been able to master this nifty little trick - until he meets Fenchurch, the girl of his dreams.
The Secret Order of the Scepter & Gavel
by
Nicholas Ponticello,
Vanderough University prepares its graduates for life on Mars. Herbert Hoover Palminteri enrolls at VU with the hope of joining the Martian colony in 2044 as a member of its esteemed engineer corps. But then Herbert is tapped to join a notorious secret society: the Order of the Scepter and…
If you regard science fiction, fantasy, and horror as throwaway literature, think again. It is within such tales that the contest between good and evil is given center stage, wherein heroic acts are celebrated, and virtue discussed in all its many permutations. I would call speculative fiction a worthy successor to the medieval morality play, a dramatic form that used allegorical characters to teach moral lessons. To wit—stories are an instrument of culture, a way to promote common values and an important activity for any civilization that intends to stick around. You won’t find an abundance of this vibe in ‘serious’ fiction—and when you do, it’s not as much fun.
Let us move toward the light, shall we, into the realm of satire and farce—and set aside for a moment the profoundly significant intentions of the author. At least long enough to say the book was fun to read. Witty, sophomoric, frivolous, irreverent, ridiculous. Meanwhile, taking a jab at pride, greed, sloth, ignorance, carelessness, and all the other deadly sins, as demonstrated by the cruel, blind, destructive arrogance of bureaucracy.
A political/philosophical manifesto, if you will, penned by a Literature MFA who wrote gags for the Monty Python troupe and scripts for the BBC television show Doctor Who. (Cover art by fellow Python alumnus Terry Gilliam.)
The book was a huge success and is still worth reading for entertainment value. If, somewhere along the journey, you begin to fret over the cost of surrendering autonomy to unelected pencil-pushers, good for you.
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…
