Here are 66 books that Wandering Stars fans have personally recommended if you like
Wandering Stars.
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I love mythological creatures! I grew up gravitating toward fantasy books but because I have a narcissistic parent, I got teased for reading them. To avoid the teasing, I ended up reading a lot of mythology because that was a “safe” fantasy option; reading mythology was “educational” rather than “silly.” When I got older, I discovered that there’s a whole category of fantasy books that retell myths from alternative points of view. This subgenre opened new doors of understanding and empathy for me. Reading old stories from new perspectives opens my eyes to a myriad of different types of people and broadens my view of the world. And I’ve been reading them ever since.
The story of two mystical creatures stuck in 1899 New York who have to make their own way in the world. Despite their different natures, they become unlikely friends and have to work together to survive.
While I enjoyed the perspective of both supernatural beings in this book, I found the golem especially engaging. Through her eyes, the reader gets an amazingly detailed view of turn-of-the-century New York as well as the intricacies of human behavior.
The jinni faces different challenges—he’s lost a chunk of his memory—but he also has to adapt to life among people. Wrapped in a rich tapestry of historical details, the story walks us through their processes of acclimating to human society and facing the dangers of their pasts.
'One of only two novels I've ever loved whose main characters are not human' BARBARA KINGSOLVER
For fans of The Essex Serpent and The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock.
'By far my favourite book of of the year' Guardian
Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life by a disgraced rabbi who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic. When her master, the husband who commissioned her, dies at sea on the voyage from Poland, she is unmoored and adrift as the ship arrives in New York in 1899.
Telescopes, microscopes, computer modeling–these exist because some things are easier to study when you change their shape. That’s how we learned about planets, germs, and the economy. Enlarging, shrinking, and filling in details lets us examine and understand. I think literature can do the same thing with ideas. Asking ‘what if?’ lets us probe things we can’t with our gadgets. Concepts. Hypotheticals. A story that pulls a big idea like taffy? That is a treat. I’ve got five in this dish.
What if Jews settled in Alaska instead of Israel? There is a question I’d never asked, but I loved chewing on it. Alternative histories are great at exploring questions of cause and effect, the rippling power of people and places, and the very existence of fate.
They are not to everyone’s taste, so how about a murder mystery instead? Let’s call it that, and you won’t be put off by worries about excessive background and explanation. When exposition comes in the form of detective work, it is so much more palatable. And personal. Chabon feeds the reader ideas the way one might sneak a dog medicine–wrapped in something that goes down easy.
The brilliantly original new novel from Michael Chabon, author of THE ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY and WONDER BOYS.
What if, as Franklin Roosevelt once proposed, Alaska - and not Israel - had become the homeland for the Jews after the Second World War? In Michael Chabon's Yiddish-speaking 'Alyeska', Orthodox gangs in side-curls and knee breeches roam the streets of Sitka, where Detective Meyer Landsman discovers the corpse of a heroin-addled chess prodigy in the flophouse Meyer calls home. Marionette strings stretch back to the hands of charismatic Rebbe Gold, leader of a sect that seems to have drawn its…
While doing a college humor column I was hoping to be the next Art Buchwald, but instead ended up first as a lawyer, then a film critic and college professor. When I finally got around to writing fiction, the blending of science fiction and comedy was a natural fit (with occasional forays into horror and fantasy). I’ve done four novels and a couple of dozen published stories to date and when readers tell me they’ve enjoyed them I answer, “If it made you laugh, I did my job.” When I came up with the mashup title of “Father of the Bride of Frankenstein” I said, “I have to write this.”
Robert Sheckley was a major influence on me as he mixed SF and humor, sometimes broadly and sometimes darkly. This “best of” collection – on which I got to offer my suggestions as to what should be included – really is the cream of the crop. I will always be grateful that I had the chance to meet him while he was still with us… and that before I could say a word, he thanked me for a blurb I did on another collection of his works. It was the perfect fanboy moment.
While doing a college humor column I was hoping to be the next Art Buchwald, but instead ended up first as a lawyer, then a film critic and college professor. When I finally got around to writing fiction, the blending of science fiction and comedy was a natural fit (with occasional forays into horror and fantasy). I’ve done four novels and a couple of dozen published stories to date and when readers tell me they’ve enjoyed them I answer, “If it made you laugh, I did my job.” When I came up with the mashup title of “Father of the Bride of Frankenstein” I said, “I have to write this.”
Oy, forget the mediocre movie. George Burns was perfectly cast but the reason God appears as a little old Jewish man is that he’s granting an interview to a Jewish freelance journalist, not a white bread grocery store clerk played by John Denver. This book taught me that a writer could be laugh out loud funny and still have something serious to say, something I’ve aspired to in my own fiction.
For a God whom philosophers have proclaimed dead, it’s time for a little PR in this novel from the New York Times–bestselling author of Kramer vs. Kramer. “God grants you an interview. Go to 600 Madison Ave., room 3700, Monday, at 11 a.m.” When a struggling writer receives this typed note in the mail one morning, curiosity wins out and he finds himself keeping this mysterious appointment. Soon he’s in an ordinary conference room with an intercom on the floor, furiously scribbling shorthand notes as he interviews God, a deity who badly wants to improve His public profile. Sometimes God…
While doing a college humor column I was hoping to be the next Art Buchwald, but instead ended up first as a lawyer, then a film critic and college professor. When I finally got around to writing fiction, the blending of science fiction and comedy was a natural fit (with occasional forays into horror and fantasy). I’ve done four novels and a couple of dozen published stories to date and when readers tell me they’ve enjoyed them I answer, “If it made you laugh, I did my job.” When I came up with the mashup title of “Father of the Bride of Frankenstein” I said, “I have to write this.”
Laumer’s satirical books about Jame Retief, a functionary in Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne, were inspired by his real-life career in the U.S. Foreign Service. They don’t have to be read in any order and mix short stories (as in this collection) and novels. Much of the humor comes from Retief ignoring the diplomatic niceties in dealing with the problems involving Earth and various alien races.
The first-ever collection of Retief stories by Keith Laumer. Includes "Protocol," "Sealed Orders," "Cultural Exchange," "Aide Memoire," "Policy," and "Palace Revolution."
While doing a college humor column I was hoping to be the next Art Buchwald, but instead ended up first as a lawyer, then a film critic and college professor. When I finally got around to writing fiction, the blending of science fiction and comedy was a natural fit (with occasional forays into horror and fantasy). I’ve done four novels and a couple of dozen published stories to date and when readers tell me they’ve enjoyed them I answer, “If it made you laugh, I did my job.” When I came up with the mashup title of “Father of the Bride of Frankenstein” I said, “I have to write this.”
Brown was another author who mixed SF and humor. Here he stood the alien invasion premise on its head. Instead of spaceships from an advanced civilization laying waste to our great cities, Brown wonders how we’d react if the invaders weren’t interested in mass murder or enslaving humanity but simply annoying the hell out of us. His little green men from Mars enjoy insulting and pestering Earthlings. After a while, “War of the Worlds” might be a preferable encounter.
THEY WERE GREEN, THEY WERE LITTLE, THEY WERE BALD AS BILLIARD BALLS AND THEY WERE EVERYWHERE!
Luke Devereaux was a science fiction writer, holed up in a desert shack waiting for inspiration. He was the first to see a Martian - but he certainly wasn't the last.
It was estimated that one billion of them had arrived - one to every three human beings on Earth. Obnoxious green creatures who could be seen and heard (but not harmed) and who probed private sex lives as shamelessly as they exposed government secrets.
I grew up in a secular Jewish household where Yiddish culture, history, and politics were a part of daily life. As a result, when I began reading (and eventually writing) science fiction and fantasy, I would take note if I found a novel or short story collection that reflected any of the many flavors of Judaism and Jewish culture. While it is not all I read or write about (I make my living as a tech journalist and I have very eclectic tastes in literature), I find that my curiosity is particularly piqued when confronted with a new book that covers both those genres.
It’s hard to describe Lavie Tidhar’s Central Station, except to say that it is a fascinating study of various humans and non-humans residing—some permanently, some temporarily—in a hot, dusty spaceport/city that has sprung up between Tel Aviv and Jaffa sometime in our future. They confront questions and answers about family, memory, reality, and what is human—and occasionally come up with answers. A wonderfully written, almost hypnotic book.
Appeals to fans of classic and contemporary science fiction and mainstream fiction
Contains international and multicultural themes
Israeli-born author has also lived in Vanuatu, Laos, South Africa, Israel, and the UK
I grew up in a secular Jewish household where Yiddish culture, history, and politics were a part of daily life. As a result, when I began reading (and eventually writing) science fiction and fantasy, I would take note if I found a novel or short story collection that reflected any of the many flavors of Judaism and Jewish culture. While it is not all I read or write about (I make my living as a tech journalist and I have very eclectic tastes in literature), I find that my curiosity is particularly piqued when confronted with a new book that covers both those genres.
If Wandering Stars was the first short-story anthology to explore Jewish science fiction and fantasy, People of the Book is its descendant. This collection features a variety of stories by modern authors such as Jane Yolen, Theodora Goss, Neil Gaiman, and Michael Chabon, and is an excellent way to discover some of the talents that have emerged in the 21st century—and their approach to the Jewish religion, culture, and society.
From Sholom Aleichem to Avram Davidson, Isaac Bashevis Singer to Tony
Kushner, the Jewish literary tradition has always been one rich in the
supernatural and the fantastic. In these pages, gathered from the best short
fiction of the last ten years, twenty authors prove that their heritage is alive
and well - in the spaces between stars that an alphabet can bridge,
folklore come to life and histories become stories, and all the places where old
worlds and new collide and change.
I became hooked into science fiction as a kid the day I read an illustrated book of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. From then on, science fiction became an important part of my reading repertoire. Having wide-ranging interests, I enjoy military techno-thrillers, Anglo-French naval warfare, Greek/Egyptian/Roman mythology, most sciences, history of religions, with an occasional novel that strays from the norm and adds a sparkle to my reading. Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills are very close to my heart. Just shows that I’m different. After all, I must do something when I am not writing my own novels! Although I have an extensive library of modern science fiction works, I am fond of many oldies.
Set in man’s far future and vast in scope, I was plunged into this novel without managing to catch my breath. This is science fiction that epitomizes the best in the genre: a powerful story, strong characters, vast vision, and lots of drama.
It is a hard book to put down, and I did not want to! I enjoyed the intricate tapestry the story weaves and, importantly, entertains. The interaction between the main characters is vividly real, as are genuine emotions vented when it is revealed an alien species manipulated man’s development. I would be kind of sore at that as well. This novel left me appreciating powerful writing and gave me a lot to think about, influencing my own writing.
Pierson's puppeteers, strange, three-legged, two-headed aliens, have discovered an immense structure in a hitherto unexplored part of the universe. Frightened of meeting the builders of such a structure, the puppeteers set about assembling a team consisting of two humans, a puppeteer and a kzin, an alien not unlike an eight-foot-tall, red-furred cat, to explore it. The artefact is a vast circular ribbon of matter, some 180 million miles across, with a sun at its centre - the Ringworld. But the expedition goes disastrously wrong when the ship crashlands and its motley crew faces a trek across thousands of miles of…
I’ve now completed four books in my New Rock fantasy series; and, while the stories are full-on adventures in a strange (but strangely familiar) new world, they contain lots of comedic characters and situations. I come from a background of comedy writing. Comedy isn’t nice people telling jokes. That’s a dinner party. Comedy is all about pain, fear, misery, confusion, suffering, mistakes, betrayals, accidents, dangers, and things going horribly wrong—and what good adventure doesn't have those? And why wouldn’t any strange new world be full of them? New Rock New Role, the first book in the series, is published on December 12th 2023 by CAEZIK SF & Fantasy.
Robert Sheckley stands out from his contemporaries of the golden age of science fiction by being not just great but also often very funny.
Sheckley has a wry, insightful wit, which puts him in a class of his own among the giants of the post-WW2 era. Start with his eight stories of the AAA Ace Interplanetary Decontamination Service. Great idea, great characters, great settings (two shysters running a fly-by-night planetary fixer-upper service, on the cheap): they are light, effortless, unpretentious, insightful, and brilliant.
It’s basically Ghostbusters in space. What more could you want?
Robert Sheckley (July 16, 1928 – December 9, 2005) was a Hugo- and Nebula-nominated American author. First published in the science fiction magazines of the 1950s, his numerous quick-witted stories and novels were famously unpredictable, absurdist, and broadly comical. Sheckley was named Author Emeritus by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2001.This volume has the following great stories: Warm, Ask A Foolish Question, Beside Still Waters, Cost of Living, Forever, Keep your Shape The Leech, Seventh Victim, Watchbird, Warrior Race, One man's poison, The Perfect Woman
