awesome-awesomeness/html/scifi.html

<h1 id="awesome-sci-fi-awesome">Awesome Sci-Fi <a
href="https://awesome.re"><img src="https://awesome.re/badge.svg"
alt="Awesome" /></a></h1>
<blockquote>
<p>Sci-Fi worth consuming</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I <a
href="https://twitter.com/sindresorhus/status/557586610850897920">asked
on Twitter</a> for recommendations as I want to get into reading Sci-Fi
novels. The below is the result. Thanks everyone for recommending your
favorites! :)</p>
<p><em>For fantasy books, see <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt/awesome-fantasy">awesome-fantasy</a>.</em></p>
<p><img
src="https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/170270/7630100/242bda3a-fa33-11e4-881a-589cffa0c421.gif" /></p>
<h2 id="contents">Contents</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="#novels">Novels</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#science-fiction">Science Fiction</a></li>
<li><a href="#hard-science-fiction">Hard Science Fiction</a></li>
<li><a href="#cyberpunk">Cyberpunk</a></li>
<li><a href="#Utopia">Utopia</a></li>
<li><a href="#dystopia">Dystopia</a></li>
<li><a href="#space-opera">Space Opera</a></li>
<li><a href="#post-apocalyptic">Post Apocalyptic</a></li>
<li><a href="#military-science-fiction">Military Science
Fiction</a></li>
<li><a href="#police-procedural-science-fiction">Police Procedural
Science Fiction</a></li>
<li><a href="#techno-thriller">Techno Thriller</a></li>
<li><a href="#fantasy">Fantasy</a></li>
<li><a href="#drama">Drama</a></li>
<li><a href="#biopunk">Biopunk</a></li>
<li><a href="#speculative-fiction">Speculative Fiction</a></li>
<li><a href="#time-travel">Time Travel</a></li>
<li><a href="#comedy">Comedy</a></li>
<li><a href="#horror">Horror</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="#short-story-collections">Short Story Collections</a></li>
<li><a href="#movies">Movies</a></li>
<li><a href="#movie-series">Movie Series</a></li>
<li><a href="#tv-series">TV Series</a></li>
<li><a href="#comic-books">Comic Books</a></li>
<li><a href="#links">Links</a></li>
</ul>
<h2 id="novels">Novels</h2>
<p>🌟 means that it’s a classic.</p>
<p>🔥 means that it has more than 100 000 ratings on Goodreads.</p>
<p><em>The <code>[number]</code> at the end is the rounded version of
the rating on Goodreads.</em></p>
<h3 id="science-fiction">Science Fiction</h3>
<h4 id="accelerando-2005-by-charles-stross-3.9"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17863.Accelerando">Accelerando</a>
(2005) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Stross">Charles
Stross</a></em> [3.9]</h4>
<p>Accelerando is an excellent exploration of Posthumanism. It’s my go
to recommendation for people wanting to read about that stuff. - <a
href="https://github.com/erbridge"><span class="citation"
data-cites="erbridge">@erbridge</span></a></p>
<p>It’s also worth mentioning that <a
href="https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accelerando-intro.html">the
ebook is available for free in a variety of formats on Stross’s
website</a>. - <a href="https://github.com/alex-keyes"><span
class="citation" data-cites="AlexKeyes">@AlexKeyes</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The Singularity. It is the era of the posthuman. Artificial
intelligences have surpassed the limits of human intellect.
Biotechnological beings have rendered people all but extinct. Molecular
nanotechnology runs rampant, replicating and reprogramming at will.
Contact with extraterrestrial life grows more imminent with each new
day.</p>
<p>Struggling to survive and thrive in this accelerated world are three
generations of the Macx clan: Manfred, an entrepreneur dealing in
intelligence amplification technology whose mind is divided between his
physical environment and the Internet; his daughter, Amber, on the run
from her domineering mother, seeking her fortune in the outer system as
an indentured astronaut; and Sirhan, Amber’s son, who finds his destiny
linked to the fate of all of humanity.</p>
<p>For something is systemically dismantling the nine planets of the
solar system. Something beyond human comprehension. Something that has
no use for biological life in any form.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="babel-17-1966-by-samuel-r.-delany-3.8"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1199688.Babel_17">Babel-17</a>
(1966) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_R._Delany">Samuel R.
Delany</a></em> [3.8]</h4>
<p>This intense linguistic thriller will change the way you think about
language. - <a href="https://github.com/helderroem"><span
class="citation" data-cites="helderroem">@helderroem</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Babel-17 is all about the power of language. Humanity, which has
spread throughout the universe, is involved in a war with the Invaders,
who have been covertly assassinating officials and sabotaging
spaceships. The only clues humanity has to go on are strange alien
messages that have been intercepted in space. Poet and linguist Rydra
Wong is determined to understand the language and stop the alien
threat.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="barsoom-series-1912-1927-by-edgar-rice-burroughs-3.8"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/43942-barsoom">Barsoom series</a>
(1912-1927) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Rice_Burroughs">Edgar Rice
Burroughs</a></em> [3.8] 🌟</h4>
<p>Now more than a century old, has that unique writing style you can
only find in adventure classics. - <a
href="https://github.com/uraimo"><span class="citation"
data-cites="uraimo">@uraimo</span></a></p>
<p>Books:</p>
<ul>
<li><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40395.A_Princess_of_Mars">A
Princess of Mars</a> [3.8]</li>
<li><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/841973.The_Gods_of_Mars">The
Gods of Mars</a> [3.8]</li>
<li><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40379.The_Warlord_of_Mars">The
Warlord of Mars</a> [3.8]</li>
<li><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40387.Thuvia_Maid_of_Mars">Thuvia,
Maid of Mars</a> [3.7]</li>
<li><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40378.The_Chessmen_of_Mars">The
Chessmen of Mars</a> [3.7]</li>
<li><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40385.The_Master_Mind_of_Mars">The
Master Mind of Mars</a> [3.8]</li>
<li><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40386.A_Fighting_Man_of_Mars">A
Fighting Man of Mars</a> [3.8]</li>
<li><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40376.Swords_of_Mars">Swords
of Mars</a> [4.0]</li>
<li><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40384.Synthetic_Men_of_Mars">Synthetic
Men of Mars</a> [3.8]</li>
<li><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/215954.Llana_of_Gathol">Llana
of Gathol</a> [3.7]</li>
<li><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40388.John_Carter_of_Mars">John
Carter of Mars</a> [3.8]</li>
</ul>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Barsoom is planet Mars from American Edgar Rice Burroughs. First
serialized as Under the Moons of Mars in 1912, published as A Princess
of Mars in 1917. Dying Mars was based on outdated scientific ideas of
canals. The savage, frontier world has honor, noble sacrifice and
constant struggle, where martial prowess is paramount and races fight
over dwindling resources.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="bobiverse-series-2016-by-dennis-e.-taylor-4.35"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32109569-we-are-legion-we-are-bob">Bobiverse
Series</a> (2016) <em>by <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12130438.Dennis_E_Taylor">Dennis
E. Taylor</a></em> [4.35]</h4>
<p>Like Accelerando, this series is an excellent exploration of
posthumanism. It also has themes of space exploration, references to
various other series, and is all around a great amount of fun to read.
It’s also free if you have kindle unlimited. - <a
href="https://github.com/alex-keyes"><span class="citation"
data-cites="AlexKeyes">@AlexKeyes</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Bob Johansson has just sold his software company and is looking
forward to a life of leisure. There are places to go, books to read, and
movies to watch. So it’s a little unfair when he gets himself killed
crossing the street.</p>
<p>Bob wakes up a century later to find that corpsicles have been
declared to be without rights, and he is now the property of the state.
He has been uploaded into computer hardware and is slated to be the
controlling AI in an interstellar probe looking for habitable planets.
The stakes are high: no less than the first claim to entire worlds. If
he declines the honor, he’ll be switched off, and they’ll try again with
someone else. If he accepts, he becomes a prime target. There are at
least three other countries trying to get their own probes launched
first, and they play dirty.</p>
<p>The safest place for Bob is in space, heading away from Earth at top
speed. Or so he thinks. Because the universe is full of nasties, and
trespassers make them mad - very mad.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="childhoods-end-1953-by-arthur-c.-clarke-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/414999.Childhood_s_End">Childhood’s
End</a> (1953) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke">Arthur C.
Clarke</a></em> [4.0]</h4>
<p>This book is interesting for its view of what a golden age of mankind
would look like, and what would the shortcomings of that be. It also has
a very interesting take on mass psychology - I don’t want to give away
too much, but the Overlords are a nifty bunch. This is a good early
Clarke, and has two of his favorite themes; the first that remote work
will be possible with technology, and the second that any sufficiently
advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Without warning, giant silver ships from deep space appear in the
skies above every major city on Earth. Manned by the Overlords, in fifty
years, they eliminate ignorance, disease, and poverty. Then this golden
age ends—and then the age of Mankind begins…</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="cities-in-flight-1970-by-james-blish-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/141805.Cities_in_Flight">Cities
in Flight</a> (1970) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Blish">James Blish</a></em>
[4.0]</h4>
<p>This is a long book, but absolutely fantastic. It redefined for me
the scale at which science fiction was possible, especially given the
human elements are very fleshed out (as opposed to other massive space
epics, like Olaf Stapledon’s ‘Last and First Men’). A brilliant look at
the future, going off of only two small changes - what if we had drugs
to defeat death, and cities could fly. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Originally published in four volumes nearly fifty years ago,
<em>Cities in Flight</em> brings together the famed “Okie novels” of
science fiction master James Blish. Named after the migrant workers of
America’s Dust Bowl, these novels convey Blish’s “history of the
future,” a brilliant and bleak look at a world where cities roam the
Galaxy looking for work and a sustainable way of life.</p>
<p>In the first novel, <em>They Shall Have Stars</em>, man has
thoroughly explored the Solar System, yet the dream of going even
further seems to have died in all but one man. His battle to realize his
dream results in two momentous discoveries anti-gravity and the secret
of immortality. In <em>A Life for the Stars</em>, it is centuries later
and antigravity generations have enabled whole cities to lift off the
surface of the earth to become galactic wanderers. In <em>Earthman, Come
Home</em>, the nomadic cities revert to barbarism and marauding rogue
cities begin to pose a threat to all civilized worlds. In the final
novel, <em>The Triumph of Time</em>, history repeats itself as the
cities once again journey back in to space making a terrifying discovery
which could destroy the entire Universe. A serious and haunting vision
of our world and its limits, <em>Cities in Flight</em> marks the return
to print of one of science fiction’s most inimitable writers.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="contact-1985-by-carl-sagan-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61666.Contact">Contact</a>
(1985) <em>by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan">Carl
Sagan</a></em> [4.1]</h4>
<p>Based on Sagan’s own studies as an astrophysicist and philosopher,
Contact provides a possible glimpse of the world’s reaction to
extraterrestrial life - <span class="citation"
data-cites="augustopedro">@augustopedro</span></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>At first it seemed impossible - a radio signal that came not from
Earth but from far beyond the nearest stars. But then the signal was
translated, and what had been impossible became terrifying. For the
signal contains the information to build a Machine that can travel to
the stars. A Machine that can take a human to meet those that sent the
message. They are eager to meet us: they have been watching and waiting
for a long time. And now they will judge.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="dark-matter-2016-by-blake-crouch-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27833670-dark-matter">Dark
Matter</a> (2016) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blake_Crouch">Blake Crouch</a></em>
[4.1] 🔥</h4>
<p>An interesting take on the possibility of the multiverse,
Schrödinger’s cat, and how every choice, big or small, has led to this
exact moment. - <a href="https://github.com/thedeany"><span
class="citation" data-cites="thedeany">@thedeany</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Jason Dessen is walking home through the chilly Chicago streets one
night, looking forward to a quiet evening in front of the fireplace with
his wife, Daniela, and their son, Charlie—when his reality shatters.</p>
<p>It starts with a man in a mask kidnapping him at gunpoint, for
reasons Jason can’t begin to fathom—what would anyone want with an
ordinary physics professor?—and grows even more terrifying from there,
as Jason’s abductor injects him with some unknown drug and watches while
he loses consciousness.</p>
<p>When Jason awakes, he’s in a lab, strapped to a gurney—and a man he’s
never seen before is cheerily telling him “welcome back!”</p>
<p>Jason soon learns that in this world he’s woken up to, his house is
not his house. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born.</p>
<p>And someone is hunting him.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="doorways-in-the-sand-1976-by-roger-zelazny-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61998.Doorways_in_the_Sand">Doorways
in the Sand</a> (1976) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Zelazny">Roger
Zelazny</a></em> [4.0]</h4>
<p>What a weird, funny and lovely little book. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Fred Cassidy, a perpetual student, scrounger, and acrophile, is the
last known person to have seen an important stone that his friend had.
Various criminals, Anglophile zealots, government agents and aliens
torture, shoot, beat, trick, chase, terrorize, assault telepathically,
stalk, and importune Fred in attempts to get him to tell them the
location of the stone. He denies any knowledge of its whereabouts, and
decides to make his own investigation.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="dune-chronicles-1963-1994-by-frank-herbert-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/45935-dune-chronicles">Dune
Chronicles</a> (1963-1994) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Herbert">Frank
Herbert</a></em> [4.1] 🌟 🔥</h4>
<p>I think what is most fascinating about Dune isn’t that it is so
commonly read, but the ubiquity with which it is referenced. Once you
read this, you start seeing Dune quotes everywhere. Dune is monumental
in scope, and the cautionary tone in which it was written - this is what
happens when you put faith in a single person trained scientifically -
almost completely backfires in an amazing story of heroism, revenge, and
reconciliation. A book worth reading multiple times. Of course, it is
also a series - the first stands alone, and I haven’t read beyond the
first two. There almost isn’t a need. Dune alone is that good. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Set in the far future amidst a sprawling feudal interstellar empire
where planetary dynasties are controlled by noble houses that owe an
allegiance to the imperial House Corrino, <em>Dune</em> tells the story
of young Paul Atreides (the heir apparent to Duke Leto Atreides and heir
of House Atreides) as he and his family accept control of the desert
planet Arrakis, the only source of the “spice” melange, the most
important and valuable substance in the cosmos. The story explores the
complex, multilayered interactions of politics, religion, ecology,
technology and human emotion, as the forces of the empire confront each
other for control of Arrakis.</p>
<p>Published in 1965, it won the Hugo Award in 1966 and the inaugural
Nebula Award for Best Novel. <em>Dune</em> is frequently cited as the
world’s best-selling SF novel.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="embassytown-2011-by-china-miéville-3.8"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9265453-embassytown">Embassytown</a>
(2011) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Mi%C3%A9ville">China
Miéville</a></em> [3.8]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In the far future, humans have colonized a distant planet, home to
the enigmatic Ariekei, sentient beings famed for a language unique in
the universe, one that only a few altered human ambassadors can
speak.</p>
<p>Avice Benner Cho, a human colonist, has returned to Embassytown after
years of deep-space adventure. She cannot speak the Ariekei tongue, but
she is an indelible part of it, having long ago been made a figure of
speech, a living simile in their language.</p>
<p>When distant political machinations deliver a new ambassador to
Arieka, the fragile equilibrium between humans and aliens is violently
upset. Catastrophe looms, and Avice is torn between competing
loyalties—to a husband she no longer loves, to a system she no longer
trusts, and to her place in a language she cannot speak yet speaks
through her.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="expanse-2011-2021-by-james-s.a.-corey-4.17-avg"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/56399-expanse">Expanse</a>
(2011-2021) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_S._A._Corey">James S.A.
Corey</a></em> [4.17 (avg)]</h4>
<p>A series comprised (as of 2019) of eight full-length novels with a
total of nine entries planned. Several shorts not relevant to the main
plot also exist. Notable for this series is the attention to detail
regarding the actual physics involved in space travel and the challenges
of daily life outside a friendly biosphere. The narrative, which is told
from the changing perspectives of a cast of diverse characters, offers a
healthy mix of humor and suspension, making it an entertaining read. -
<a href="https://github.com/jpkempf"><span class="citation"
data-cites="jpkempf">@jpkempf</span></a></p>
<p>The books are real page turners with its mix of high politics, space
battles, ancient mysteries, day-to-day grit and cultural differences,
and the world Expanse starts out with really changes over the course of
the books. You may find book four (Cibola Burn) a bit slow, but keep at
it, subsequent books really pay dividends. - <a
href="https://github.com/nahkampf"><span class="citation"
data-cites="nahkampf">@nahkampf</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Humanity has colonized the solar system - Mars, the Moon, the
Asteroid Belt and beyond - but the stars are still out of our reach.</p>
<p>Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn
to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a
derelict ship, “The Scopuli,” they find themselves in possession of a
secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for -
and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in
the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<p>Books: - <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8855321-leviathan-wakes">Leviathan
Wakes</a> [4.2] 🔥 - <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12591698-caliban-s-war">Caliban’s
War</a> [4.3] 🔥 - <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16131032-abaddon-s-gate">Abaddon’s
Gate</a> [4.2] - <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18656030-cibola-burn">Cibola
Burn</a> [4.2] - <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22886612-nemesis-games">Nemesis
Games</a> [4.4] - <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25877663-babylon-s-ashes">Babylon’s
Ashes</a> [4.2] - <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34600958-persepolis-rising">Persepolis
Rising</a> [4.3] - <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28335698-tiamat-s-wrath">Tiamat’s
Wrath</a> [4.5] - <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28335699-leviathan-falls">Leviathan
Falls</a> [4.5]</p>
<h4 id="flatland-1884-by-edwin-a.-abbott-3.8"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/433567.Flatland">Flatland</a>
(1884) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Abbott_Abbott">Edwin A.
Abbott</a></em> [3.8] 🌟</h4>
<p>This book will teach you to stretch your imagination and see things
in a different way. - <a href="https://github.com/elssar"><span
class="citation" data-cites="elssar">@elssar</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>This masterpiece of science (and mathematical) fiction is a
delightfully unique and highly entertaining satire that has charmed
readers for more than 100 years. The work of English clergyman, educator
and Shakespearean scholar Edwin A. Abbott (1838-1926), it describes the
journeys of A. Square, a mathematician and resident of the
two-dimensional Flatland, where women—thin, straight lines—are the
lowliest of shapes, and where men may have any number of sides,
depending on their social status.</p>
<p>Through strange occurrences that bring him into contact with a host
of geometric forms, Square has adventures in Spaceland (three
dimensions), Lineland (one dimension) and Pointland (no dimensions) and
ultimately entertains thoughts of visiting a land of four dimensions—a
revolutionary idea for which he is returned to his two-dimensional
world. Charmingly illustrated by the author, Flatland is not only
fascinating reading, it is still a first-rate fictional introduction to
the concept of the multiple dimensions of space. “Instructive,
entertaining, and stimulating to the imagination.” — <em>Mathematics
Teacher</em></p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="flowers-for-algernon-1959-by-daniel-keyes-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18373.Flowers_for_Algernon">Flowers
for Algernon</a> (1959) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Keyes">Daniel Keyes</a></em>
[4.0] 🌟 🔥</h4>
<p>This book is often given to high school students, but stands up well
as an adult read. I think the best part about it is what Charlie does
once he starts being intelligent; he suddenly likes art and making
things and scientific theory. I think the altruism and openness of that
time shows that the experiment, such as it was, didn’t change
everything. It’s fun to think about. Also, this book made me cry the
first time I read it. I was 25. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>With more than five million copies sold, <em>Flowers for
Algernon</em> is the beloved, classic story of a mentally disabled man
whose experimental quest for intelligence mirrors that of Algernon, an
extraordinary lab mouse. In poignant diary entries, Charlie tells how a
brain operation increases his IQ and changes his life. As the
experimental procedure takes effect, Charlie’s intelligence expands
until it surpasses that of the doctors who engineered his metamorphosis.
The experiment seems to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount
importance—until Algernon begins his sudden, unexpected deterioration.
Will the same happen to Charlie?</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="foundation-trilogy-1951-by-isaac-asimov-4.22-avg"><a
href="%5Bhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29579.Foundation%5D(https://www.goodreads.com/series/59386-foundation-publication-order)">Foundation
Trilogy</a> (1951) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov">Isaac Asimov</a></em>
[4.22 (avg)] 🌟 🔥</h4>
<p>Isaac Asimov’s original “Foundation Trilogy” is a mesmerizing voyage
into the realm of science fiction, presenting a grand game of 4D chess
spread over centuries, propelled by the innovative concept of
‘psychohistory’. Its thought-provoking exploration of power, control,
and inevitability underscores its status as a seminal piece in the
pantheon of sci-fi literature. - <a
href="https://github.com/edoardodanna"><span class="citation"
data-cites="edoardodanna">@edoardodanna</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now
it is dying. But only Hari Sheldon, creator of the revolutionary science
of psychohistory, can see into the future—to a dark age of ignorance,
barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve
knowledge and save mankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the
Empire—both scientists and scholars—and brings them to a bleak planet at
the edge of the Galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for a future
generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation.</p>
<p>But soon the fledgling Foundation finds itself at the mercy of
corrupt warlords rising in the wake of the receding Empire. Mankind’s
last best hope is faced with an agonizing choice: submit to the
barbarians and be overrun—or fight them and be destroyed.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<p>Books: - <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29579.Foundation">Foundation</a>
[4.2] 🔥 - <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29581.Foundation_and_Empire">Foundation
and Empire</a> [4.2] 🔥 - <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29580.Second_Foundation">Second
Foundation</a> [4.3] 🔥</p>
<h4
id="frankenstein-or-the-modern-prometheus-1818-by-mary-wollstonecraft-shelley-3.7"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18490.Frankenstein">Frankenstein;
or, The Modern Prometheus</a> (1818) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Shelley">Mary Wollstonecraft
Shelley</a></em> [3.7] 🌟 🔥</h4>
<p>Archetypal tale of mad science with the theme of ‘how far can Science
go’ that arguably spawned the modern genre of Science Fiction. - <a
href="https://github.com/katamaritaco"><span class="citation"
data-cites="katamaritaco">@katamaritaco</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein when she was only eighteen.
At once a Gothic thriller, a passionate romance, and a cautionary tale
about the dangers of science, Frankenstein tells the story of committed
science student Victor Frankenstein. Obsessed with discovering the cause
of generation and life and bestowing animation upon lifeless matter,
Frankenstein assembles a human being from stolen body parts but; upon
bringing it to life, he recoils in horror at the creature’s hideousness.
Tormented by isolation and loneliness, the once-innocent creature turns
to evil and unleashes a campaign of murderous revenge against his
creator, Frankenstein.</p>
<p>Frankenstein, an instant bestseller and an important ancestor of both
the horror and science fiction genres, not only tells a terrifying
story, but also raises profound, disturbing questions about the very
nature of life and the place of humankind within the cosmos: What does
it mean to be human? What responsibilities do we have to each other? How
far can we go in tampering with Nature? In our age, filled with news of
organ donation genetic engineering, and bioterrorism, these questions
are more relevant than ever.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="glasshouse-2006-by-charles-stross-3.8"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17866.Glasshouse">Glasshouse</a>
(2006) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Stross">Charles
Stross</a></em> [3.8]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>When Robin wakes up in a clinic with most of his memories missing, it
doesn’t take him long to discover that someone is trying to kill him.
It’s the twenty-seventh century, when interstellar travel is by teleport
gate and conflicts are fought by network worms that censor refugees’
personalities and target historians. The civil war is over and Robin has
been demobilized, but someone wants him out of the picture because of
something his earlier self knew.</p>
<p>On the run from a ruthless pursuer and searching for a place to hide,
he volunteers to participate in a unique experimental polity, the
Glasshouse, constructed to simulate a pre-accelerated culture.
Participants are assigned anonymized identities: It looks like the ideal
hiding place for a posthuman on the run. But in this escape-proof
environment, Robin will undergo an even more radical change, placing him
at the mercy of the experimenters—and at the mercy of his own unbalanced
psyche…</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="home-fires-2011-by-gene-wolfe-3.3"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8694515-home-fires">Home
Fires</a> (2011) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Wolfe">Gene Wolfe</a></em>
[3.3]</h4>
<p>This is a pretty good book. Like later Gene Wolfe books, it reads a
bit dry, and the main character is sometimes one sided. But the context
and the fleshed out world entirely make up for it, as does Gene Wolfe’s
standard of never mentioning an important detail more than once as a
foreshadowing. - <a href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span
class="citation" data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Gene Wolfe takes us to a future North America at once familiar and
utterly strange. A young man and woman, Skip and Chelle, fall in love in
college and marry, but she is enlisted in the military, there is a war
on, and she must serve her tour of duty before they can settle down. But
the military is fighting a war with aliens in distant solar systems, and
her months in the service will be years in relative time on Earth.
Chelle returns to recuperate from severe injuries, after months of
service, still a young woman but not necessarily the same person—while
Skip is in his forties and a wealthy businessman, but eager for her
return.</p>
<p>Still in love (somewhat to his surprise and delight), they go on a
Caribbean cruise to resume their marriage. Their vacation rapidly
becomes a complex series of challenges, not the least of which are
spies, aliens, and battles with pirates who capture the ship for ransom.
There is no writer in SF like Gene Wolfe and no SF novel like <em>Home
Fires</em>.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4
id="jean-le-flambeur-series-2010-2012-2014-by-hannu-rajaniemi-4.0-avg"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/57134-jean-le-flambeur">Jean le
Flambeur Series</a> (2010, 2012, 2014) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannu_Rajaniemi">Hannu
Rajaniemi</a></em> [4.0 (avg)]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Jean le Flambeur gets up in the morning and has to kill himself
before his other self can kill him first. Just another day in the
Dilemma Prison. Rescued by the mysterious Mieli and her flirtatious
spacecraft, Jean is taken to the Oubliette, the Moving City of Mars,
where time is a currency, memories are treasures, and a
moon-turned-singularity lights the night. Meanwhile, investigator
Isidore Beautrelet, called in to investigate the murder of a
chocolatier, finds himself on the trail of an arch-criminal, a man named
le Flambeur…</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="jem-1979-by-frederik-pohl-3.6"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/591572.Jem">Jem</a> (1979)
<em>by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederik_Pohl">Frederik
Pohl</a></em> [3.6]</h4>
<p>This book has a few beautiful passages. It deals mainly with the
ethics of using alien species for nationalistic purposes, and for that
alone was an interesting read. Like a lot of science fiction, I found it
a bit hard to empathize with any particular characters, but it’s a short
read and worth it anyway. The politics are a bit dated. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The discovery of another habitable world might spell salvation to the
three bitterly competing power blocs of the resource-starved 21st
century; but when their representatives arrive on Jem, with its multiple
intelligent species, they discover instead the perfect situation into
which to export their rivalries. Subtitled, with savage irony, “<em>The
Making of a Utopia</em>”, Jem is one of Frederik Pohl’s most powerful
novels.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="lord-of-light-1967-by-roger-zelazny-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13821.Lord_of_Light">Lord of
Light</a> (1967) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Zelazny">Roger
Zelazny</a></em> [4.1]</h4>
<p>This was like if Hermann Hesse decided he was tired of writing
Steppenwolf and Siddhartha and wanted to do something interesting for a
change. What a weird book. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Earth is long since dead. On a colony planet, a band of men has
gained control of technology, made themselves immortal, and now rule
their world as the gods of the Hindu pantheon. Only one dares oppose
them: he who was once Siddhartha and is now Mahasamatman. Binder of
Demons, Lord of Light.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="planet-wizard-1969-by-john-jakes-3.3"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11796889-the-planet-wizard">Planet
Wizard</a> (1969) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Jakes">John Jakes</a></em>
[3.3]</h4>
<p>This book has a banger name. The story of a conman wizard who’s not
really a wizard, forced to travel to another planet in order to exorcize
the demons of a ruined sister planet. John Jakes is more well known for
his historical fiction, so it’s interesting to read his take on a
different genre. - <a href="https://github.com/just-an-e"><span
class="citation" data-cites="just-an-e">@just-an-e</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>On a post-apocalyptic world far from Earth, Magus Blacklaw, a
traveling mountebank, is in trouble with the law. He and his daughter
soon fall in with a young man, and pretty soon all three are condemned
to ride a skysled to exorcize the demons of a formerly commercial sister
planet.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="red-dwarf-1989-by-grant-naylor-4.3"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/70956.Red_Dwarf_Omnibus">Red
Dwarf</a> (1989) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Naylor">Grant Naylor</a></em>
[4.3]</h4>
<p>Actually four books by two authors. It was made into a TV series but
the books should be consumed instead. Very high quality over the top
deep space trouble with anti-hero Lister and his crew. - <a
href="https://github.com/montao"><span class="citation"
data-cites="montao">@montao</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>…three million years from Earth, marooned in the wrong dimension of
the wrong reality, and down to his last two cigarettes.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="remembrance-of-earths-past-trilogy-2014-2016-by-liu-cixin"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/189931-remembrance-of-earth-s-past">Remembrance
of Earth’s Past Trilogy</a> (2014-2016) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Cixin">Liu Cixin</a></em></h4>
<p>Although each part can be read independently, the whole trilogy has a
consistent story line which happens in a very huge time-space context
and the first just a beginning. The later two are especially much more
hardcore and dramatical, however, gloomy as well. While the first one
got the Hugo Award, I’d like to say that it really worth a try for the
whole trilogy, don’t miss the later two. - <a
href="https://github.com/cp4"><span class="citation"
data-cites="cp4">@cp4</span></a></p>
<p>Books: - <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20518872-the-three-body-problem">The
Three-Body Problem</a> [4.0] 🔥 - <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23168817-the-dark-forest">The
Dark Forest</a> [4.4] - <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25451264-death-s-end">Death’s
End</a> [4.4]</p>
<h5 id="the-three-body-problem-2014-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20518872-the-three-body-problem">The
Three Body Problem</a> (2014) [4.0]</h5>
<p>This book is not just filled to the brim with interesting and novel
ideas about technology and civilization, it also offers some really
great insights into China and its recent history.</p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution, a secret
military project sends signals into space to establish contact with
aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the
signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps
start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help
them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the
invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope
and vision.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h5 id="the-dark-forest-2015-4.4"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23168817-the-dark-forest">The
Dark Forest</a> (2015) [4.4]</h5>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In The Dark Forest, Earth is reeling from the revelation of a coming
alien invasion — four centuries in the future. The aliens’ human
collaborators have been defeated but the presence of the sophons, the
subatomic particles that allow Trisolaris instant access to all human
information, means that Earth’s defense plans are exposed to the enemy.
Only the human mind remains a secret.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h5 id="deaths-end-2016-4.4"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25451264-death-s-end">Death’s
End</a> (2016) [4.4]</h5>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Now this epic trilogy concludes with Death’s End. Half a century
after the Doomsday Battle, the uneasy balance of Dark Forest Deterrence
keeps the Trisolaran invaders at bay. Earth enjoys unprecedented
prosperity due to the infusion of Trisolaran knowledge. With human
science advancing daily and the Trisolarans adopting Earth culture, it
seems that the two civilizations will soon be able to co-exist
peacefully as equals without the terrible threat of mutually assured
annihilation. But the peace has also made humanity complacent.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="rendezvous-with-rama-1973-by-arthur-c.-clarke-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/112537.Rendezvous_with_Rama">Rendezvous
with Rama</a> (1973) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke">Arthur C.
Clarke</a></em> [4.0]</h4>
<p>This book is filled with a quiet suspense that is almost palpable; in
that, it does an extraordinary job of showing how humans respond to
alien encounters. The otherworldliness of Rama isn’t always interesting,
but the reaction of the reader to it is. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>At first, only a few things are known about the celestial object that
astronomers dub Rama. It is huge, weighing more than ten trillion tons.
And it is hurtling through the solar system at an inconceivable speed.
Then a space probe confirms the unthinkable: Rama is no natural object.
It is, incredibly, an interstellar spacecraft. Space explorers and
planet-bound scientists alike prepare for mankind’s first encounter with
alien intelligence. It will kindle their wildest dreams… and fan their
darkest fears. For no one knows who the Ramans are or why they have
come. And now the moment of rendezvous awaits—just behind a Raman
airlock door.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4
id="roadside-picnic-1972-by-arkady-strugatsky-boris-strugatsky-4.2"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/331256.Roadside_Picnic">Roadside
Picnic</a> (1972) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkady_and_Boris_Strugatsky">Arkady
Strugatsky &amp; Boris Strugatsky</a></em> [4.2]</h4>
<p>Twitter user: One of the best books I have ever read.</p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those strange misfits compelled to
venture illegally into the Zone and collect the strange artifacts that
the alien visitors left scattered there. His whole life, even the nature
of his daughter, is determined by the Zone.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="solaris-1961-by-stanisław-lem-3.9"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/95558.Solaris">Solaris</a>
(1961) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Lem">Stanisław
Lem</a></em> [3.9] 🌟</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A classic work of science fiction by renowned Polish novelist and
satirist Stanisław Lem.</p>
<p>When Kris Kelvin arrives at the planet Solaris to study the ocean
that covers its surface, he finds a painful, hitherto unconscious memory
embodied in the living physical likeness of a long-dead lover. Others
examining the planet, Kelvin learns, are plagued with their own
repressed and newly corporeal memories. The Solaris ocean may be a
massive brain that creates these incarnate memories, though its purpose
in doing so is unknown, forcing the scientists to shift the focus of
their quest and wonder if they can truly understand the universe without
first understanding what lies within their hearts.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4
id="space-trilogy-out-of-the-silent-planet-perelandra-and-that-hideous-strength-by-c.-s.-lewis-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30628.Out_of_the_Silent_Planet_Perelandra_That_Hideous_Strength?ac=1">Space
Trilogy: Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous
Strength</a> <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis">C. S. Lewis</a></em>
[4.1]</h4>
<h5 id="out-of-the-silent-planet-1938-by-c.-s.-lewis-3.9"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25350.Out_of_the_Silent_Planet">Out
of the Silent Planet</a> (1938) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis">C. S. Lewis</a></em>
[3.9]</h5>
<p>A fairly well-wrapped first book in a trilogy, that has some very
imaginative and well worked through takes on what Martian life may have
looked like at the time. I love the imagery, and the theology isn’t as
worked through everything as the other books. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In the first novel of C. S. Lewis’s classic science fiction trilogy,
Dr. Ransom, a Cambridge academic, is abducted and taken on a spaceship
to the red planet of Malacandra, which he knows as Mars. His captors are
plotting to plunder the planet’s treasures and plan to offer Ransom as a
sacrifice to the creatures who live there. Ransom discovers he has come
from the “silent planet”–Earth–whose tragic story is known throughout
the universe…</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h5 id="perelandra-1944-by-c.-s.-lewis-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/100924.Perelandra">Perelandra</a>
(1944) <em>by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis">C. S.
Lewis</a></em> [4.0]</h5>
<p>This book has a wonderful look at non-technological space travel and
what paradise might look like on another planet. Lots of good
philosophy, too. - <a href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span
class="citation" data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The second novel in Lewis’s science fiction trilogy tells of
Dr. Ransom’s voyage to the planet of Perelandra (Venus). Dr. Ransom is
sent by the Elida to Perelandra (Venus) to battle against evil incarnate
and preserve a second Eden from the evil forces present in the possessed
body of his enemy, Weston. Through these works, Lewis explores issues of
good and evil, and his remarkable and vividly imaginative descriptions
of other worlds cements his place as a first-class author of science
fiction adventure.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h5 id="that-hideous-strength-1945-by-c.-s.-lewis-3.9"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/100933.That_Hideous_Strength">That
Hideous Strength</a> (1945) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis">C. S. Lewis</a></em>
[3.9]</h5>
<p>One of the weirdest books I have read and enjoyed. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The third novel in the science-fiction trilogy by C. S. Lewis. This
final story is set on Earth, and tells of a terrifying conspiracy
against humanity. The story surrounds Mark and Jane Studdock, a newly
married couple. Mark is a sociologist who is enticed to join an
organization called N.I.C.E. which aims to control all human life. His
wife, meanwhile, has bizarre prophetic dreams about a decapitated
scientist, Alcasan. As Mark is drawn inextricably into the sinister
organization, he discovers the truth of his wife’s dreams when he meets
the literal head of Alcasan which is being kept alive by infusions of
blood. Jane seeks help concerning her dreams at a community called
St. Anne’s, where she meets their leader—Dr. Ransom (the main character
of the previous two titles in the trilogy). The story ends in a final
spectacular scene at the N.I.C.E. headquarters where Merlin appears to
confront the powers of Hell.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="speaker-for-the-dead-1994-by-orson-scott-card-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7967.Speaker_for_the_Dead">Speaker
for the Dead</a> (1994) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Scott_Card">Orson Scott
Card</a></em> [4.0]</h4>
<p>I had been putting off reading this book for years, after reading
<em>Ender’s Game</em> and not knowing wanting to belittle it with a bad
sequel (like I thought <em>Ender’s Shadow</em> had been). I regret that
immensely, having now read this book; it is deep, insightful, and
brilliantly written. - <a href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span
class="citation" data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In the aftermath of his terrible war, Ender Wiggin disappeared, and a
powerful voice arose: the Speaker for the Dead, who told of the true
story of the Bugger War.</p>
<p>Now long years later, a second alien race has been discovered, but
again the aliens’ ways are strange and frightening…again, humans die.
And it is only the Speaker for the Dead, who is also Ender Wiggin the
Xenocide, who has the courage to confront the mystery…and the truth.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="spin-2005-by-robert-charles-wilson-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/910863.Spin">Spin</a> (2005)
<em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Charles_Wilson">Robert
Charles Wilson</a></em> [4.0]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>One night in October when he was ten years old, Tyler Dupree stood in
his back yard and watched the stars go out. They all flared into
brilliance at once, then disappeared, replaced by a flat, empty black
barrier. He and his best friends, Jason and Diane Lawton, had seen what
became known as the Big Blackout. It would shape their lives.</p>
<p>Life on Earth is about to get much, much stranger.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="stand-on-zanzibar-1968-by-john-brunner-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41069.Stand_on_Zanzibar">Stand
on Zanzibar</a> (1968) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brunner_%28novelist%29">John
Brunner</a></em> [4.0]</h4>
This book was written about 2010, and what the world would be like when
the world is over populated. It is still very pertinent today,
especially given the style of writing, which seems to have too much
information packed in than needed. ‘Muckers’, the idea of people who go
crazy without reason due to overcrowdedness, are a really interesting
concept given the rise in anti-terrorist rhetoric in recent years. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Norman Niblock House is a rising executive at General Technics, one
of a few all-powerful corporations. His work is leading General Technics
to the forefront of global domination, both in the marketplace and
politically—it’s about to take over a country in Africa. Donald Hogan is
his roommate, a seemingly sheepish bookworm. But Hogan is a spy, and
he’s about to discover a breakthrough in genetic engineering that will
change the world… and kill him. These two men’s lives weave through one
of science fiction’s most praised novels. Written in a way that echoes
John Dos Passos’ <em>U.S.A.</em> trilogy, <em>Stand on Zanzibar</em> is
a cross-section of a world overpopulated by the billions. Where society
is squeezed into hive-living madness by god-like mega computers,
mass-marketed psychedelic drugs, and mundane uses of genetic
engineering. Though written in 1968, it speaks of 2010, and is
frighteningly prescient and intensely powerful.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="star-maker-1937-by-olaf-stapledon-3.9"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/525304.Star_Maker">Star
Maker</a> (1937) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaf_Stapledon">Olaf
Stapledon</a></em> [3.9] 🌟</h4>
<p>If you’re going to read one Science Fiction book to get a broader
perspective on what it means to be human and the size of space and time,
read this one. It blew me away. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p><em>Star Maker</em> is a science fiction novel by Olaf Stapledon,
published in 1937. The book describes a history of life in the universe,
dwarfing in scale Stapledon’s previous book, <em>Last and First Men</em>
(1930), a history of the human species over two billion years. <em>Star
Maker</em> tackles philosophical themes such as the essence of life, of
birth, decay and death, and the relationship between creation and
creator. A pervading theme is that of progressive unity within and
between different civilizations. Some of the elements and themes briefly
discussed prefigure later fiction concerning genetic engineering and
alien life forms. Arthur C. Clarke considered <em>Star Maker</em> to be
one of the finest works of science fiction ever written.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-deep-range-1957-by-arthur-c.-clarke-3.7"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20410412-the-deep-range">The
Deep Range</a> (1957) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke">Arthur C.
Clarke</a></em> [3.7]</h4>
<p>This is one of Arthur C. Clarke’s novels that is less about space and
more about humanity, and the oceans. Clarke lived for a large part of
his later life in Sri Lanka, and always loved the sea; in this book,
that sentiment really comes out. I love it for that. It also has a nice
view of ocean management, which is rare for books set in the future. -
<a href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A century into the future, humanity lives mostly on the sea. Gigantic
whale herds are tended by submariners, and vast plankton farms feed the
world.</p>
<p>Walter Franklin, once a space engineer, now works on a submarine
patrol. This novel tells the story of his adventures, including
Franklin’s capture of an enormous kraken at 12,000 feet under the sea;
his search for a monstrous sea serpent; and the thrilling rescue of a
sunken submarine-all set against the backdrop of a futuristic world
that’s both imaginative and believable.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-fifth-head-of-cerberus-1972-by-gene-wolfe-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/845501.The_Fifth_Head_of_Cerberus">The
Fifth Head of Cerberus</a> (1972) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Wolfe">Gene Wolfe</a></em>
[4.0]</h4>
<p>This is an incredible book. Absolutely incredible. The first section,
about a son of a scientist, is a great example of Wolfe’s ability to
make the future sound like the Victorian past, and to add decay to what,
to our eyes, seems incredibly futuristic. The story about the traveler
and the aborigines on Saint Croix is something I think about a lot -
“old men think long thoughts”, in particular, is a thought that I love,
especially given its context. Gene Wolfe also uses the epistolary novel
technique incredibly well in the third story. But the best part is how
you come to realize that each of these stories is intertwined with the
others, subtly. Amazing storytelling. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Gene Wolfe’s <em>The Fifth Head of Cerberus</em> is a universally
acknowledged masterpiece of science fiction by one of the field’s most
brilliant writers. Far out from Earth, two sister planets, Saint Anne
and Saint Croix, circle each other in an eternal dance. It is said a
race of shapeshifters once lived here, only to perish when men came. But
one man believes they can still be found, somewhere in the back of the
beyond.</p>
<p>In <em>The Fifth Head of Cerberus</em>, Wolfe skillfully interweaves
three bizarre tales to create a mesmerizing pattern: the harrowing
account of the son of a mad genius who discovers his hideous heritage; a
young man’s mythic dreamquest for his darker half; the bizarre chronicle
of a scientists’ nightmarish imprisonment. Like an intricate, braided
knot, the pattern at last unfolds to reveal astonishing truths about
this strange and savage alien landscape.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4
id="the-first-fifteen-lives-of-harry-august-2014-_by-claire-north-4.01"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35066358-the-first-fifteen-lives-of-harry-august">The
First Fifteen Lives of Harry August</a> (2014) _by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Webb">Claire North</a>
[4.01]</h4>
<p>An awesome book. Intriguing ,funny and moving. Never mind the
negative reviews…I would have given it a 6th star if I could. - <a
href="https://github.com/naz2001"><span class="citation"
data-cites="naz2001">@naz2001</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Some stories cannot be told in just one lifetime. Harry August is on
his deathbed. Again. No matter what he does or the decisions he makes,
when death comes, Harry always returns to where he began, a child with
all the knowledge of a life he has already lived a dozen times before.
Nothing ever changes. Until now. As Harry nears the end of his eleventh
life, a little girl appears at his bedside. “I nearly missed you, Doctor
August,” she says. “I need to send a message.” This is the story of what
Harry does next, and what he did before, and how he tries to save a past
he cannot change and a future he cannot allow.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-gods-themselves-1972-by-isaac-asimov-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41821.The_Gods_Themselves">The
Gods Themselves</a> (1972) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov">Isaac Asimov</a></em>
[4.1]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In the twenty-second century Earth obtains limitless, free energy
from a source science little understands: an exchange between Earth and
a parallel universe, using a process devised by the aliens. But even
free energy has a price. The transference process itself will eventually
lead to the destruction of Earth’s Sun—and of Earth itself.</p>
<p>Only a few know the terrifying truth—an outcast Earth scientist, a
rebellious alien inhabitant who senses the imminent annihilation of the
Sun. They know the truth—but who will listen? They have foreseen the
cost of abundant energy—but who will believe? These few beings, human
and alien, hold the key to Earth’s survival.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-golden-age-2002-2003-by-john-c.-wright-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/41545-golden-age">The Golden
Age</a> (2002, 2003) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Wright_%28author%29">John C.
Wright</a></em> [4.1]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The Golden Age is 10,000 years in the future in our solar system, an
interplanetary utopian society filled with immortal humans.</p>
<p>Phaethon, of Radamanthus House, is attending a glorious party at his
family mansion celebrating the thousand-year anniversary of the High
Transcendence. There he meets an old man who accuses him of being an
imposter, and then a being from Neptune who claims to be an old friend.
The Neptunian tells him that essential parts of his memory were removed
and stored by the very government that Phaethon believes to be wholly
honorable. It shakes his faith. Is he indeed an exile from himself? He
can’t resist investigating, even though to do so could mean the loss of
his inheritance, his very place in society. His quest must be to regain
his true identity and fulfill the destiny he chose for himself.</p>
<p><em>The Golden Age</em> is just the beginning of Phaethon’s story,
which continues in <em>The Phoenix Exultant</em>.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-ice-people-1968-by-rené-barjavel-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/106753.The_Ice_People">The Ice
People</a> (1968) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Barjavel">René
Barjavel</a></em> [4.1]</h4>
<p>A really good book. Many people have described it as “the best book
of Sci-Fi / romance”. I would like to see it, one day, as a movie. - <a
href="https://github.com/Gibet"><span class="citation"
data-cites="Gibet">@Gibet</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>When a French expedition in Antarctica reveals ruins of a 900,000
year old civilization, scientists from all over the world flock to the
site to help explore &amp; understand. The entire planet watches via
global satellite tv, mesmerized, as they uncover a chamber in which a
man &amp; a woman have been in suspended animation since, as the French
title suggests, ‘the night of time’. The woman, Eléa, is awakened. Thru
a translating machine she tells the story of her world, herself &amp;
her husband Paikan &amp; how war destroyed her civilization. She also
hints at an incredibly advanced knowledge her still-dormant companion
possesses, knowledge that could give energy &amp; food to all humans at
no cost. But the superpowers of the world are not ready to let Eléa’s
secrets spread, &amp; show that, 900,000 years &amp; an apocalypse
later, humankind has not grown up &amp; is ready to make the same
mistakes again.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-invisible-man-1897-by-h.-g.-wells-3.6"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17184.The_Invisible_Man">The
Invisible Man</a> (1897) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells">H. G. Wells</a></em>
[3.6] 🌟 🔥</h4>
<p>This is more of a read about what happens when you are outside the
law than anything else. Fascinating, and kind of reads like Sherlock
Holmes at times. - <a href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span
class="citation" data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>This masterpiece of science fiction is the fascinating story of
Griffin, a scientist who creates a serum to render himself invisible,
and his descent into madness that follows.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-left-hand-of-darkness-1969-by-ursula-le-guin-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18423.The_Left_Hand_of_Darkness">The
Left Hand of Darkness</a> (1969) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_K._Le_Guin">Ursula Le
Guin</a></em> [4.1]</h4>
<p>Ursula Le Guin is an amazing writer, and this is one of her seminal
works. It explores sexuality and humanity in ways that I didn’t know
were possible. I loved it. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A groundbreaking work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness
tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose
inhabitants can choose -and change - their gender. His goal is to
facilitate Winter’s inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization.
But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of
the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters.</p>
<p>Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an
alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement
in the annals of intellectual science fiction.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4
id="the-long-way-to-a-small-angry-planet-2014-by-becky-chambers-4.17"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22733729-the-long-way-to-a-small-angry-planet">The
Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet</a> (2014) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becky_Chambers_(author)">Becky
Chambers</a></em> [4.17]</h4>
<p>Funny, touching, and full of unexpected details. - <a
href="https://github.com/lgierth"><span class="citation"
data-cites="lgierth">@lgierth</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Follow a motley crew on an exciting journey through space—and one
adventurous young explorer who discovers the meaning of family in the
far reaches of the universe—in this light-hearted debut space opera from
a rising sci-fi star.</p>
<p>Life aboard the Wayfarer is chaotic and crazy—exactly what Rosemary
wants. It’s also about to get extremely dangerous when the crew is
offered the job of a lifetime. Tunneling wormholes through space to a
distant planet is definitely lucrative and will keep them comfortable
for years. But risking her life wasn’t part of the plan. In the far
reaches of deep space, the tiny Wayfarer crew will confront a host of
unexpected mishaps and thrilling adventures that force them to depend on
each other. To survive, Rosemary’s got to learn how to rely on this
assortment of oddballs—an experience that teaches her about love and
trust, and that having a family isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the
universe.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-murderbot-diaries-2017--by-martha-wells-4.3"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/191900">The Murderbot Diaries</a>
(2017-) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Wells">Martha Wells</a></em>
[4.3]</h4>
<p><em>The Murderbot Diaries</em> is a series of novellas, each one
around 150 pages starring a human-like android who keeps getting sucked
back into adventure after adventure, though it just wants to be left
alone, away from humanity and small talk and watch tv series. If you
enjoy Ann Leckie’s <em>Imperial Raadch</em> series or Iain M. Banks’
<em>Culture</em> novels, this series of novellas might be for you. They
are light, fun to read but yet still engaging enough to get your
synapses fired up. - <a href="https://github.com/oschrenk"><span
class="citation" data-cites="oschrenk">@oschrenk</span></a></p>
<p>Books:</p>
<ul>
<li><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32758901-all-systems-red">All
Systems Red</a> [4.2]</li>
<li><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36223860-artificial-condition">Artificial
Condition</a> [4.3]</li>
<li><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35519101-rogue-protocol">Rogue
Protocol</a> [4.4]</li>
<li><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35519109-exit-strategy">Exit
Strategy</a> [4.4]</li>
</ul>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must
be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are
accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.
But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder,
safety isn’t a primary concern.</p>
<p>On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface
tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ’droid — a self-aware SecUnit
that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though
never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants
is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.</p>
<p>But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it’s up to the scientists
and their Murderbot to get to the truth.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-polity-1998-2018-by-neal-asher-4.11"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/49128-polity-universe-chronological-order">The
Polity</a> (1998-2018) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Asher">Neal Asher</a></em>
[4.11]</h4>
<p>Neal Asher has written almost 20 books (if you include short story
compilations) set within the universe of the Polity, an interstellar
human civilization ruled by (mostly) benevolent AIs, all overseen by the
most powerful AI of all: Earth Central. There are several distinct
series within the larger Polity collection, as well as several
standalone novels and short story collections. The <em>Ian Cormac</em>
series follows a human agent of Earth Central as he investigates threats
towards the Polity. The <em>Spatterjay</em> series explores the hostile
world of Spatterjay and the lives of its hoopers: humans infected by an
alien virus that grants its hosts functional immortality, immense
strength, and incredible durability, but not without a cost. The
<em>Transformations</em> series focuses on a rogue AI named Penny Royal
capable of granting almost any wish, but its help is always a
double-edged sword. His most recent series, <em>Rise of the Jain</em>,
is about the re-emergence of an ancient and incredibly powerful alien
race that disappeared after seeding the galaxy with technological seeds
designed to destroy any intelligent civilization that came across
one.</p>
<p>All of Asher’s <em>Polity</em> novels are chock full of amazing
technology, vibrant characters, picture-painting prose, and themes that
explore the nature and limits of humanity. I was tempted to put this
series under the Hard Sci-Fi category, as Asher introduces very few
technologies that can’t be extrapolated from existing tech, but a few
things (e.g. FTL travel) and the distance in the future in which the
series is set convinced me it should probably not be included in the
“hard” category. - <a href="https://github.com/isochronous"><span
class="citation" data-cites="isochronous">@isochronous</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The phrase ‘world-building’ brings immediately to mind fantasy
especially places like the Middle Earth of Tolkien but we don’t hear
‘universe-building’ nearly enough. SF authors not only have to create
the history and society for one place, which isn’t usually even a planet
in fantasy, but for an almost unimaginable universe, which needs to be
filled with a multitude of races and planets with their own technology
and vast history.</p>
<p>In the universe of the Polity Neal Asher has created ancient, but no
longer completely active, races who remain a threat to the existence of
humanity. He tells in passing of how a ‘Quiet War’ replaced humans with
the artificial intelligence and in doing so allowed humans more freedom
than if they’d remained under their own governance. We get to see a
world pre-Polity in The Line of the Polity and post-Polity twenty years
later in The Technician, though the comparison is an aside to the
storytelling.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-voyage-of-the-space-beagle-1950-by-a.e.-van-vogt-3.9"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1981484.The_Voyage_of_the_Space_Beagle">The
Voyage of the Space Beagle</a> (1950) <em>by <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1293688.A_E_van_Vogt">A.E.
Van Vogt</a></em> [3.9]</h4>
<p>This space opera novel reminds me of a series of <em>Star Trek</em>
episodes, if <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_V:_The_Final_Frontier">Roddenberry’s
final frontier</a> had been a Machiavellian rather than a utopian vision
of the future. Unlike the crew of Trek’s <em>Enterprise</em>, the
<em>Beagle</em> crew engage in power struggles between its civilian and
military leaders. The plot of the third section is very reminiscent of
the <em>Alien</em> movie. - <a href="https://github.com/neontapir"><span
class="citation" data-cites="neontapir">@neontapir</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The book can be roughly divided into four sections corresponding to
the four short stories on which it was based. In the first part, the
<em>Space Beagle</em> is infiltrated by Coeurl, a starving, intelligent
and vicious cat-like carnivore with tentacles on its shoulders. In the
second, the ship is almost destroyed by internal warfare caused by
telepathic contact with a race of bird-like aliens. The third features
Ixtl, a scarlet alien that kidnaps several crew members in order to
implant parasitic eggs in their stomachs. In the last section, the crew
battles Anabis, a galaxy-spanning consciousness.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-war-of-the-worlds-1898-by-h.-g.-wells-3.8"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8909.The_War_of_the_Worlds">The
War of the Worlds</a> (1898) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells">H. G. Wells</a></em>
[3.8] 🌟 🔥</h4>
<p>This is always fun; it’s a classic, and it is fun remembering what
science fiction was like before there were tropes. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Man had not yet learned to fly when H. G. Wells conceived this story
of a Martian attack on England. Giant cylinders crash to Earth,
disgorging huge, unearthly creatures armed with heat-rays and fighting
machines. Amid the boundless destruction they cause, it looks as if the
end of the world has come.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="xenogenesis-trilogy-1987-1989-by-octavia-butler"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39334343-lilith-s-brood">Xenogenesis
Trilogy</a> (1987-1989) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavia_E._Butler">Octavia
Butler</a></em></h4>
<p>Very interesting exploration of what happens when aliens arrive on
earth, after the planet has been ravaged by war, with their own ideas of
a path forward. Humans must learn to coexist with the Oankali, genetic
colonizers of the cosmos, and confront what this means for their future
— deciding whether to give up an essential part of their identity in
order to survive. I enjoyed the first book the most, for the
worldbuilding and the way it introduces the Oankali and key concepts,
but the series has a satisfying arc so I think it’s worth reading all
three books. - <a href="https://github.com/bschlagel"><span
class="citation" data-cites="bschlagel">@bschlagel</span></a></p>
<h5 id="dawn-1987-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36694961-dawn">Dawn</a> (1987)
[4.1]</h5>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Lilith Iyapo has just lost her husband and son when atomic fire
consumes Earth—the last stage of the planet’s final war. Hundreds of
years later Lilith awakes, deep in the hold of a massive alien
spacecraft piloted by the Oankali—who arrived just in time to save
humanity from extinction. They have kept Lilith and other survivors
asleep for centuries, as they learned whatever they could about Earth.
Now it is time for Lilith to lead them back to her home world, but life
among the Oankali on the newly resettled planet will be nothing like it
was before.</p>
<p>The Oankali survive by genetically merging with primitive
civilizations—whether their new hosts like it or not. For the first time
since the nuclear holocaust, Earth will be inhabited. Grass will grow,
animals will run, and people will learn to survive the planet’s untamed
wilderness. But their children will not be human. Not exactly.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h5 id="adulthood-rites-1988-4.2"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19105727-adulthood-rites">Adulthood
Rites</a> (1988) [4.2]</h5>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In this sequel to Dawn, Lilith Iyapo has given birth to what looks
like a normal human boy named Akin. But Akin actually has five parents:
a male and female human, a male and female Oankali, and a sexless Ooloi.
The Oankali and Ooloi are part of an alien race that rescued humanity
from a devastating nuclear war, but the price they exact is a high one
the aliens are compelled to genetically merge their species with other
races, drastically altering both in the process.</p>
<p>On a rehabilitated Earth, this “new” race is emerging through
human/Oankali/Ooloi mating, but there are also “pure” humans who choose
to resist the aliens and the salvation they offer. These resisters are
sterilized by the Ooloi so that they cannot reproduce the genetic defect
that drives humanity to destroy itself, but otherwise they are left
alone (unless they become violent).</p>
<p>When the resisters kidnap young Akin, the Oankali choose to leave the
child with his captors, for he the most “human” of the Oankali children
will decide whether the resisters should be given back their fertility
and freedom, even though they will only destroy themselves again.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h5 id="imago-1989-4.2"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17609348-imago">Imago</a>
(1989) [4.2]</h5>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Child of two species, but part of neither, a new being must find his
way.</p>
<p>Human and Oankali have been mating since the aliens first came to
Earth to rescue the few survivors of an annihilating nuclear war. The
Oankali began a massive breeding project, guided by the ooloi, a sexless
subspecies capable of manipulating DNA, in the hope of eventually
creating a perfect starfaring race.</p>
<p>Jodahs is supposed to be just another hybrid of human and Oankali,
but as he begins his transformation to adulthood he finds himself
becoming ooloi—the first ever born to a human mother. As his body
changes, Jodahs develops the ability to shapeshift, manipulate matter,
and cure or create disease at will. If this frightened young man is able
to master his new identity, Jodahs could prove the savior of what’s left
of mankind. Or, if he is not careful, he could become a plague that will
destroy this new race once and for all.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h3 id="hard-science-fiction">Hard Science Fiction</h3>
<p><em>Novels which place an emphasis on scientific accuracy and/or
technical detail; where the science itself is a central topic.</em></p>
<h4 id="a-deepness-in-the-sky-2000-by-vernor-vinge-4.32"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/226004.A_Deepness_in_the_Sky">A
Deepness in the Sky</a> (2000) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernor_Vinge">Vernor Vinge</a></em>
[4.32]</h4>
<p>Though written after <em>A Fire upon the Deep</em>, <em>A Deepness in
the Sky</em> is a prequel to Vinge’s earlier novel, and shares one of
its protagonists: the Qeng Ho trader Pham Nuwen. Though I read <em>A
Fire upon the Deep</em> once and enjoyed it, I’ve read <em>A Deepness in
the Sky</em> at least half a dozen times, and consider it my favorite
hard sci-fi novel, period. Vernor Vinge was one of the first people to
propose the idea of the technological singularity, and the near-future
novels he wrote a decade or more ago have revealed themselves to be
almost eerily prescient. - <a
href="https://github.com/isochronous"><span class="citation"
data-cites="isochronous">@isochronous</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>After thousands of years searching, humans stand on the verge of
first contact with an alien race. Two human groups: the Qeng Ho, a
culture of free traders, and the Emergents, a ruthless society based on
the technological enslavement of minds.</p>
<p>The group that opens trade with the aliens will reap unimaginable
riches. But first, both groups must wait at the aliens’ very doorstep
for their strange star to relight and for their planet to reawaken, as
it does every two hundred and fifty years….</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="a-fire-upon-the-deep-1992-by-vernor-vinge-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77711.A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep">A
Fire Upon the Deep</a> (1992) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernor_Vinge">Vernor Vinge</a></em>
[4.1]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p><em>A Fire upon the Deep</em> is the big, breakout book that fulfills
the promise of Vinge’s career to date: a gripping tale of galactic war
told on a cosmic scale.</p>
<p>Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a
mind’s potential is determined by its location in space, from
superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the
Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can
function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these
“regions of thought,” but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient
Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome
power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and
artificial intelligence.</p>
<p>Fleeing the threat, a family of scientists, including two children,
are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval
culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle. A rescue
mission, not entirely composed of humans, must rescue the children—and a
secret that may save the rest of interstellar civilization.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="aurora-2015-by-kim-stanley-robinson-3.7"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23197269-aurora">Aurora</a>
(2015) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Stanley_Robinson">Kim Stanley
Robinson</a></em> [3.7]</h4>
<p>This was, I thought, an emotional read. I really connected with the
characters and their struggle. It was interesting seeing the ways they
overcame each obstacle despite overwhelming odds. It also shows what
could happen when desperate people are left to fend for themselves
without a governing force. - <a
href="https://github.com/davidmerrique"><span class="citation"
data-cites="davidmerrique">@davidmerrique</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A major new novel from one of science fiction’s most powerful voices,
AURORA tells the incredible story of our first voyage beyond the solar
system.</p>
<p>Brilliantly imagined and beautifully told, it is the work of a writer
at the height of his powers.</p>
<p>Our voyage from Earth began generations ago.</p>
<p>Now, we approach our new home.</p>
<p>AURORA.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="blindsight-firefall-1-2006-by-peter-watts-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48484.Blindsight">Blindsight
(Firefall #1)</a> (2006) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Watts_%28author%29">Peter
Watts</a></em> [4.0]</h4>
<p>A cast of strange and wonderful characters. Overarching themes on
consciousness, transhumanism, humanity and first contact. This book has
everything. - <a href="https://github.com/davidmerrique"><span
class="citation"
data-cites="davidmerrique">@davidmerrique</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s been two months since a myriad of alien objects clenched about
the Earth, screaming as they burned. The heavens have been silent
since—until a derelict space probe hears whispers from a distant comet.
Something talks out there: but not to us. Who to send to meet the alien,
when the alien doesn’t want to meet? Send a linguist with
multiple-personality disorder, and a biologist so spliced to machinery
he can’t feel his own flesh. Send a pacifist warrior, and a vampire
recalled from the grave by the voodoo of paleogenetics. Send a man with
half his mind gone since childhood. Send them to the edge of the solar
system, praying you can trust such freaks and monsters with the fate of
a world. You fear they may be more alien than the thing they’ve been
sent to find—but you’d give anything for that to be true, if you knew
what was waiting for them.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4
id="children-of-time-children-of-time-1-2015-by-adrian-tchaikovsky-4.29"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25499718-children-of-time">Children
of Time (Children of Time #1)</a> (2015) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Tchaikovsky">Adrian
Tchaikovsky</a></em> [4.29]</h4>
<p>A truly epic “evolutionary science fiction” story about animal uplift
that feels very well researched. Tchaikovsky manages to perfectly
immerse the reader in a radically different mindset. Even arachnofobics
will root for the protagonists of the story. - <a
href="https://github.com/nahkampf"><span class="citation"
data-cites="nahkampf">@nahkampf</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to
find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their
ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age — a world
terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this
new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of
its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for
them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge
into mankind’s worst nightmare. Now two civilizations are on a collision
course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As
the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of
this new Earth?</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="diaspora-1997-by-greg-egan-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/156785.Diaspora">Diaspora</a>
(1997) <em>by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Egan">Greg
Egan</a></em> [4.1]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>By the end of the 30th century humanity has the capability to travel
the universe, to journey beyond earth and beyond the confines of the
vulnerable human frame.</p>
<p>The descendants of centuries of scientific, cultural and physical
development divide into three: fleshers—true Homo sapiens; Gleisner
robots—embodying human minds within machines that interact with the
physical world; and polises—supercomputers teeming with intelligent
software, containing the direct copies of billions of human
personalities now existing only in the virtual reality of the polis.</p>
<p>Diaspora is the story of Yatima—a polis being created from random
mutations of the Konishi polis base mind seed—and of humankind, Of an
astrophysical accident that spurs the thousandfold cloning of the
polises. Of the discovery of an alien race and of a kink in time that
means humanity—whatever form it takes—will never again be threatened by
acts of God.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="dragons-egg-1980-by-robert-l.-forward-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/263466.Dragon_s_Egg">Dragon’s
Egg</a> (1980) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_L._Forward">Robert L.
Forward</a></em> [4.1]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In a moving story of sacrifice and triumph, human scientists
establish a relationship with intelligent life forms—the cheela—living
on Dragon’s Egg, a neutron star where one Earth hour is equivalent to
hundreds of their years. The cheela culturally evolve from savagery to
the discovery of science, and for a brief time men are their diligent
teachers.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="echopraxia-firefall-2-2014-by-peter-watts-3.8"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18490708-echopraxia">Echopraxia
(Firefall #2)</a> (2014) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Watts_%28author%29">Peter
Watts</a></em> [3.8]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Prepare for a different kind of singularity in this follow-up to the
Hugo-nominated novel Blindsight</p>
<p>It’s the eve of the twenty-second century: a world where the dearly
departed send postcards back from Heaven and evangelicals make
scientific breakthroughs by speaking in tongues; where genetically
engineered vampires solve problems intractable to baseline humans and
soldiers come with zombie switches that shut off self-awareness during
combat. And it’s all under surveillance by an alien presence that
refuses to show itself.</p>
<p>Daniel Bruks is a living fossil: a field biologist in a world where
biology has turned computational, a cat’s-paw used by terrorists to kill
thousands. Taking refuge in the Oregon desert, he’s turned his back on a
humanity that shatters into strange new subspecies with every heartbeat.
But he awakens one night to find himself at the center of a storm that
will turn all of history inside-out.</p>
<p>Now he’s trapped on a ship bound for the center of the solar system.
To his left is a grief-stricken soldier, obsessed by whispered messages
from a dead son. To his right is a pilot who hasn’t yet found the man
she’s sworn to kill on sight. A vampire and its entourage of zombie
bodyguards lurk in the shadows behind. And dead ahead, a handful of
rapture-stricken monks takes them all to a meeting with something they
will only call “The Angels of the Asteroids.”</p>
<p>Their pilgrimage brings Dan Bruks, the fossil man, face-to-face with
the biggest evolutionary breakpoint since the origin of thought
itself.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="manifold-series-1999-2003-by-stephen-baxter-3.8-avg"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/49783-manifold">Manifold
series</a> (1999-2003) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Baxter_(author)">Stephen
Baxter</a></em> [3.8 avg]</h4>
<p>Stephen Baxter explores the Fermi Paradox in different ways over the
course of three books (and a collection of novellas), in a gloriously
hard scifi style. It is very thought provoking, and also utterly brutal
and bleak. Space and time is cold and uncaring. - <a
href="https://github.com/nahkampf"><span class="citation"
data-cites="nahkampf">@nahkampf</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Each one of the main novels deals with a possible resolution to the
Fermi paradox. The first, Time, is set in a universe that is completely
devoid of intelligent life beyond that of mankind and its creations
(i.e. A.I. and uplifted animals).</p>
<p>The second in the series, Space, proposes the opposite: that life is
endemic to the universe, and there is intelligence in nearly all
possible places of the cosmos. The solution to the Fermi Paradox in this
novel is that intelligent life is continually wiped out by cosmic
disasters before it has time to spread too far.</p>
<p>The third novel, Origin, is set in a multiverse that is a compromise
between the ideals in the first two novels: that life is only on Earth,
but at the same time is everywhere. This novel solves the Fermi Paradox
by suggesting that intelligent life is segregated into separate parallel
universes.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="nexus-2012-by-ramez-naam-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24968342-nexus">Nexus</a>
(2012) <em>by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramez_Naam">Ramez
Naam</a></em> [4.1]</h4>
<p>Near-future hard Sci-Fi at its best. Lots of awards and endorsements,
even a <a
href="https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/494337667035697152">thumbs
up</a> from John Carmack. Can’t go wrong. - <a
href="https://github.com/christianboyle"><span class="citation"
data-cites="christianboyle">@christianboyle</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In the near future, the experimental nano-drug Nexus can link humans
together, mind to mind. There are some who want to improve it. There are
some who want to eradicate it. And there are others who just want to
exploit it.</p>
<p>When a young scientist is caught improving Nexus, he’s thrust over
his head into a world of danger and international espionage—for there is
far more at stake than anyone realizes.</p>
<p>From the halls of academe to the halls of power; from the
headquarters of an elite agency in Washington, D.C. to a secret lab
beneath Shanghai; from the underground parties of San Francisco to the
illegal biotech markets of Bangkok; from an international neuroscience
conference to a remote monastery in the mountains of Thailand—Nexus is a
thrill ride through a future on the brink of explosion.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="permutation-city-1994-by-greg-egan-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/156784.Permutation_City">Permutation
City</a> (1994) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Egan">Greg Egan</a></em>
[4.1]</h4>
<p>With all the ideas contained in Permutation City, a typical Sci-Fi
author would have written at least 5 separate books. - <a
href="https://github.com/uraimo"><span class="citation"
data-cites="uraimo">@uraimo</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In the not-too-distant future, technology has given birth to a form
of immortality. The human mind can be scanned and uploaded into a
virtual reality program to become a perfect electronic “Copy,” aware of
itself. A new Copy finds himself forced to cooperate in scientific
experiments with the flesh-and-blood man he was copied from.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="red-mars-1993-by-kim-stanley-robinson-3.8"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77507.Red_Mars">Red Mars</a>
(1993) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Stanley_Robinson">Kim Stanley
Robinson</a></em> [3.8]</h4>
<p>An interesting take on the near-future colonization of Mars by one
hundred of the world’s greatest scientists, filled with political
intrigue and “hard science” alike. Admittedly some parts can be a slog,
think A Song of Ice and Fire: awesome narrative in the grand scheme,
with perhaps a bit too much description of Martian landscape/house
sigils. - <a href="https://github.com/rubzo"><span class="citation"
data-cites="rubzo">@rubzo</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>For eons, sandstorms have swept the barren desolate landscape of the
red planet. For centuries, Mars has beckoned to mankind to come and
conquer its hostile climate. Now, in the year 2026, a group of one
hundred colonists is about to fulfill that destiny. John Boone, Maya
Toitavna, Frank Chalmers, and Arkady Bogdanov lead a mission whose
ultimate goal is the terraforming of Mars. For some, Mars will become a
passion driving them to daring acts of courage and madness; for others
it offers and opportunity to strip the planet of its riches. And for the
genetic “alchemists,” Mars presents a chance to create a biomedical
miracle, a breakthrough that could change all we know about life… and
death.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="schilds-ladder-2002-by-greg-egan-3.9"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/156780.Schild_s_Ladder">Schild’s
Ladder</a> (2002) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Egan">Greg Egan</a></em>
[3.9]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Twenty thousand years into the future, an experiment in quantum
physics has had a catastrophic result, creating an enormous, rapidly
expanding vacuum that devours everything it comes in contact with. Now
humans must confront this deadly expansion. Tchicaya, aboard a starship
trawling the border of the vacuum, has allied himself with the
Yielders—those determined to study the vacuum while allowing it to grow
unchecked. But when his fiery first love, Mariama, reenters his life on
the side of the Preservationists—those working to halt and destroy the
vacuum—Tchicaya finds himself struggling with an inner turmoil he has
known since childhood.</p>
<p>However, in the center of the vacuum, something is developing that
neither Tchicaya and the Yielders nor Mariama and the Preservationists
could ever have imagined possible: life.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-martian-2012-by-andy-weir-4.4"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18007564-the-martian">The
Martian</a> (2012) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Weir_%28writer%29">Andy
Weir</a></em> [4.4]</h4>
<p>This is a fun read; Weir manages to write an evocative
techno-thriller without having his characters stoop to constant navel
gazing and lonesome pining. This could be described as Robinson Crusoe -
in Space. The characters on the earth side aren’t the greatest, but the
humor throughout the book really pulls it together, and watching a
master at work as far as mechanical engineering goes was fascinating.
Loved it. - <a href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span
class="citation" data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p><em>Apollo 13</em> meets <em>Cast Away</em> in this grippingly
detailed, brilliantly ingenious man-vs-nature survival thriller, set on
the surface of Mars. Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of
the first men to walk on the surface of Mars. Now, he’s sure he’ll be
the first man to die there.</p>
<p>It started with the dust storm that holed his suit and nearly killed
him, and that forced his crew to leave him behind, sure he was already
dead. Now he’s stranded millions of miles from the nearest human being,
with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could
get word out, his food would be gone years before a rescue mission could
arrive. Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The
damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old “human error”
are much more likely to get him first.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his
engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he
steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the
next. But will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible
odds against him?</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-sands-of-mars-1951-by-arthur-c.-clarke-3.7"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/149063.The_Sands_of_Mars">The
Sands of Mars</a> (1951) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke">Arthur C.
Clarke</a></em> [3.7]</h4>
<p>This book is most interesting for its pretty cool take on
terraforming a planet, and how that goes both for the inhabitants and
what it means for nationalism (or planetism, as it were). - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Space writers holiday. When a celebrated science fiction writer takes
to space on his first trip to Mars, he’s sure to be in for some heckling
from the spaceship crew. But Martin Gibson, man about space, takes it
all in his stride. That is, until he lands on the red planet. Once there
the intrepid author causes one problem after another as he stumbles upon
Mars’ most carefully hidden secrets and threatens the future of an
entire planet.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h3 id="cyberpunk">Cyberpunk</h3>
<p><em>Future-based novels with advanced science and technology coupled
with a disrupted social order.</em></p>
<h4 id="altered-carbon-2002-by-richard-k.-morgan-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40445.Altered_Carbon">Altered
Carbon</a> (2002) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_K._Morgan">Richard K.
Morgan</a></em> [4.1]</h4>
<p>A fun and fast-paced hard-boiled cyberpunk noir, almost impossible to
put down. - <a href="https://github.com/helderroem"><span
class="citation" data-cites="helderroem">@helderroem</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s the twenty-fifth century, and advances in technology have
redefined life itself. A person’s consciousness can now be stored in the
brain and downloaded into a new body (or “sleeve”,) making death nothing
more than a minor blip on a screen. Onetime U.N. Envoy Takeshi Kovacs
has been killed before, but his last death was particularly painful.
Resleeved into a body in Bay City (formerly San Francisco,) Kovacs is
thrown into the dark heart of a shady, far-reaching conspiracy that is
vicious even by the standards of a society that treats existence as
something that can be bought and sold. For Kovacs, the shell that blew a
hole in his chest was only the beginning.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="greg-mandel-series-1993-1994-1995-by-peter-f.-hamilton-3.9"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/43978-greg-mandel">Greg Mandel
Series</a> (1993, 1994, 1995) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_F._Hamilton">Peter F.
Hamilton</a></em> [3.9]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Greg Mandel, late of the Mindstar Battalion, has been many things in
his life. Commando. Freedom fighter. Assassin. Now he’s a freelance
operative with a very special edge: telepathy.</p>
<p>In the high-tech, hard-edged world of computer crime, zero-gravity
smuggling, and artificial intelligence, Greg Mandel is the man to call
when things get rough. But when an elusive saboteur plagues a powerful
organization known as Event Horizon, Mandel must cut his way through a
maze of corporate intrigue and startling new scientific discoveries.</p>
<p>And nothing less than the future is at stake.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4
id="hard-boiled-wonderland-and-the-end-of-the-world-1985-by-haruki-murakami-4.2"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10374.Hard_Boiled_Wonderland_and_the_End_of_the_World">Hard-Boiled
Wonderland and the End of the World</a> (1985) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruki_Murakami">Haruki
Murakami</a></em> [4.2]</h4>
<p>My favorite of Murakami’s. Great mix of quirky, mundane, and
fascinating ideas. Short read too. - <a
href="https://github.com/desandro"><span class="citation"
data-cites="desandro">@desandro</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A narrative particle accelerator that zooms between Wild Turkey
Whiskey and Bob Dylan, unicorn skulls and voracious librarians, John
Coltrane and <em>Lord Jim</em>. Science fiction, detective story and
post-modern manifesto all rolled into one rip-roaring novel,
<em>Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World</em> is the tour de
force that expanded Haruki Murakami’s international following. Tracking
one man’s descent into the Kafkaesque underworld of contemporary Tokyo,
Murakami unites East and West, tragedy and farce, compassion and
detachment, slang and philosophy.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="neuromancer-1984-by-william-gibson-3.9"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22328.Neuromancer">Neuromancer</a>
(1984) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gibson">William
Gibson</a></em> [3.9] 🌟 🔥</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The Matrix is a world within the world, a global consensus
hallucination, the representation of every byte of data in
cyberspace…</p>
<p>Case had been the sharpest data-thief in the business, until vengeful
former employers crippled his nervous system. But now a new and very
mysterious employer recruits him for a last-chance run. The target: an
unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence orbiting Earth in service
of the sinister Tessier-Ashpool business clan. With a dead man riding
shotgun and Molly, mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case
embarks on an adventure that ups the ante on an entire genre of
fiction.</p>
<p>Hotwired to the leading edges of art and technology,
<em>Neuromancer</em> ranks with <em>1984</em> and <em>Brave New
World</em> as one of the century’s most potent visions of the
future.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="reamde-2011-by-neal-stephenson-3.9"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10552338-reamde">REAMDE</a>
(2011) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Stephenson">Neal
Stephenson</a></em> [3.9]</h4>
<p>With REAMDE (sic) Neal Stephenson returns with a much more down to
earth cyberpunk story, closer to our own future and shaped not by the
cyberpunk futures imagined in the early nineties but rather what we
actually got instead in the 2000s. A few wrong turns quickly turns into
a world-spanning chase, featuring terrorists, russian mobsters, online
gaming and a more realistic, contemporary take on cyberpunk
storytelling. - <a href="https://github.com/nahkampf"><span
class="citation" data-cites="nahkampf">@nahkampf</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Four decades ago, Richard Forthrast, the black sheep of an Iowa
family, fled to a wild and lonely mountainous corner of British Columbia
to avoid the draft. Smuggling backpack loads of high-grade marijuana
across the border into Northern Idaho, he quickly amassed an enormous
and illegal fortune. With plenty of time and money to burn, he became
addicted to an online fantasy game in which opposing factions battle for
power and treasure in a vast cyber realm. Like many serious gamers, he
began routinely purchasing virtual gold pieces and other desirables from
Chinese gold farmers—young professional players in Asia who accumulated
virtual weapons and armor to sell to busy American and European
buyers.</p>
<p>For Richard, the game was the perfect opportunity to launder his
aging hundred dollar bills and begin his own high-tech start up—a
venture that has morphed into a Fortune 500 computer gaming group,
Corporation 9592, with its own super successful online role-playing
game, T’Rain. But the line between fantasy and reality becomes
dangerously blurred when a young gold farmer accidently triggers a
virtual war for dominance—and Richard is caught at the center.</p>
<p>In this edgy, 21st century tale, Neal Stephenson, one of the most
ambitious and prophetic writers of our time, returns to the terrain of
his cyberpunk masterpieces Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, leading readers
through the looking glass and into the dark heart of imagination.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="snow-crash-1992-by-neal-stephenson-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/830.Snow_Crash">Snow Crash</a>
(1992) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Stephenson">Neal
Stephenson</a></em> [4.0] 🔥</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo’s
CosoNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he’s a warrior prince.
Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that’s
striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on
a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening
to bring about infocalypse. <em>Snow Crash</em> is a mind-altering romp
through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous… you’ll recognize it
immediately.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-demolished-man-1951-by-alfred-bester-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/76740.The_Demolished_Man">The
Demolished Man</a> (1951) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Bester">Alfred
Bester</a></em> [4.0]</h4>
<p>I think of this book often, even though initially I had consigned it
as a cheap paperback crime thriller set in space. The main part of this
book that is interesting is the implications regarding policed thoughts,
especially given recent advances in government surveillance. The other
part of this book I think about a lot is the advertising jingle -
<em>Tenser, Tenser, said the tensor</em> - which plays a major role.
I’ve still got no idea what it is meant to mean. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In a world in which the police have telepathic powers, how do you get
away with murder? Ben Reichs heads a huge 24th century business empire,
spanning the solar system. He is also an obsessed, driven man determined
to murder a rival. To avoid capture, in a society where murderers can be
detected even before they commit their crime, is the greatest challenge
of his life.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4
id="the-diamond-age-or-a-young-ladys-illustrated-primer-1995-by-neal-stephenson-4.2"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/827.The_Diamond_Age">The
Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer</a> (1995) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Stephenson">Neal
Stephenson</a></em> [4.2]</h4>
<p>This book had me looking up more words than any book had me do for a
long time. A mildly interesting story, with cunning turns and twists, in
a very interesting world. What surprised me most was that the book
already foresaw cryptocurrencies, 3d-printers and fleets of UAV’s while
already being 20+ years old. - <a
href="https://github.com/fritzvd"><span class="citation"
data-cites="fritzvd">@fritzvd</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p><em>The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer</em> is a
postcyberpunk novel by Neal Stephenson. It is to some extent a science
fiction coming-of-age story, focused on a young girl named Nell, and set
in a future world in which nanotechnology affects all aspects of life.
The novel deals with themes of education, social class, ethnicity, and
the nature of artificial intelligence.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-stars-my-destination-1955-by-alfred-bester-4.2"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/333867.The_Stars_My_Destination">The
Stars My Destination</a> (1955) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Bester">Alfred
Bester</a></em> [4.2]</h4>
<p>This book is fantastic not for the novelty of non-technological
teleportation, but because of the main character. What happens when
someone who has been ignored by society finds himself in a position of
power? This book reminds me a tiny bit of Ender’s Game - imagine what
would happen if Mazer Rackham, another tattooed Maori hero, wanted more
than to be a military genius. I loved it. I quote the poem to myself all
the time, and have set a variant of it as my twitter bio for years now.
- <a href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In this pulse-quickening novel, Alfred Bester imagines a future in
which people “jaunte” a thousand miles with a single thought, where the
rich barricade themselves in labyrinths and protect themselves with
radioactive hit men—and where an inarticulate outcast is the most
valuable and dangerous man alive. <em>The Stars My Destination</em> is a
classic of technological prophecy and timeless narrative enchantment by
an acknowledged master of science fiction.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="thin-air-2018-by-richard-k.-morgan-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25835917-thin-air">Thin
Air</a> (2018) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_K._Morgan">Richard K.
Morgan</a></em> [4.0]</h4>
<p>Modernized cyberpunk with the noir grit dialled up to eleven. - <a
href="https://github.com/nahkampf"><span class="citation"
data-cites="nahkampf">@nahkampf</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>An ex-corporate enforcer, Hakan Veil, is forced to bodyguard Madison
Madekwe, part of a colonial audit team investigating a disappeared
lottery winner on Mars. But when Madekwe is abducted, and Hakan nearly
killed, the investigation takes him farther and deeper than he had ever
expected. And soon Hakan discovers the heavy price he may have to pay to
learn the truth.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="walkaway-2017-by-cory-doctorow-3.7"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40604388-walkaway">Walkaway</a>
(2017) <em>by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Doctorow">Cory
Doctorow</a></em> [3.7]</h4>
<p>Idea-driven scifi about a tech-savvy movement of “walkaways”,
disenchanted people walking away from an increasingly oppressive
capitalist society and creating their own ad-hoc societies. Doctorow
manages to combine cyberpunk “high tech, low life” with a bit of utopian
science fiction which feels very refreshing. - <a
href="https://github.com/nahkampf">nahkampf</a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In a world of non-work, ruined by human-created climate change and
pollution, and where people are under surveillance and ruled over by a
mega-rich elite, Hubert, Etc, his friend Seth, and Natalie, decide that
they have nothing to lose by turning their backs and walking away from
the everyday world or “default reality”.</p>
<p>With the advent of 3D printing – and especially the ability to use
these to fabricate even better fabricators – and with machines that can
search for and reprocess waste or discarded materials, they no longer
have need of Default for the basic essentials of life, such as food,
clothing and shelter.</p>
<p>As more and more people choose to “walkaway”, the ruling elite do not
take these social changes sitting down. They use the military, police
and mercenaries to attack and disrupt the walkaways’ new
settlements.</p>
<p>One thing that the elite are especially interested in is scientific
research that the walkaways are carrying out which could finally put an
end to death – and all this leads to revolution and eventual war.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="ware-1982-2000-by-rudy-rucker-3.7"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/41816-ware">Ware</a> (1982-2000)
<em>by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Rucker">Rudy
Rucker</a></em> [3.7]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Cobb Anderson created the “boppers,” sentient robots that overthrew
their human overlords. But now Cobb is just an aging alcoholic waiting
to die, and the big boppers are threatening to absorb all of the little
boppers—and eventually every human—into a giant, melded consciousness.
Some of the little boppers aren’t too keen on the idea, and a full-scale
robot revolt is underway on the moon (where the boppers live).
Meanwhile, bopper Ralph Numbers wants to give Cobb immortality by
letting a big bopper slice up his brain and tape his “software.” It
seems like a good idea to Cobb.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h3 id="utopia">Utopia</h3>
<p><em>Utopian novels deal with imaginary communities or societies that
are desirable or pleasant.</em></p>
<h4
id="a-psalm-for-the-wild-built-monki-and-robot-1-2021-by-becky-chambers-4.3"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40864002-a-psalm-for-the-wild-built">A
Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monki and Robot #1)</a> (2021) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becky_Chambers">Becky
Chambers</a></em> [4.3]</h4>
<p>A lovely balm for the weary science fiction reader about a
post-collapse utopian society and the friendship between a human and a
robot. -<a href="https://github.com/nahkampf"><span class="citation"
data-cites="nahkampf">@nahkampf</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Centuries before, robots of Panga gained self-awareness, laid down
their tools, wandered, en masse into the wilderness, never to be seen
again. They faded into myth and urban legend. Now the life of the tea
monk who tells this story is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to
honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the
question of “what do people need?” is answered. But the answer to that
question depends on who you ask, and how. They will need to ask it a
lot. Chambers’ series asks: in a world where people have what they want,
does having more matter?</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-rolling-stones-1952-by-robert-a.-heinlein-3.9"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50848.The_Rolling_Stones">The
Rolling Stones</a> (1952) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein">Robert A.
Heinlein</a></em> [3.9]</h4>
<p>A charming, fast-paced space adventure following the Stone family as
they journey through the solar system, offering a delightful mix of
humor, family dynamics, and interplanetary escapades. -<a
href="https://github.com/Russolves"><span class="citation"
data-cites="Russolves">@Russolves</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>It doesn’t seem likely for twins to have the same middle name. Even
so, it’s clear that Castor and Pollux Stone both have “Trouble” written
in that spot on their birth certificates. Of course, anyone who’s met
their grandmother Hazel would know that they came by it honestly… Join
the Stone twins as they connive, cajole, and bamboozle their way across
the Solar System in the company of the most high-spirited and hilarious
family in all of science fiction. This light-hearted tale has some of
Heinlein’s sassiest dialogue (not to mention the famous Flat Cats
incident!). Oddly enough, it’s also a true example of real family
values–for when you’re a Stone, your family is your highest
priority.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-songs-of-distant-earth-1986-by-arthur-c.-clarke-3.9"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/117842.The_Songs_of_Distant_Earth">The
Songs of Distant Earth</a> (1986) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke">Arthur C.
Clarke</a></em> [3.9]</h4>
<p>My first Arthur C. Clarke Sci-fi book that introduced me to the world
of Arthur C. Clarke. The book deals with the utopian society where the
aliens are human beings from the old earth. -<a
href="https://github.com/DibeshMSShrestha"><span class="citation"
data-cites="DibeshMSShrestha">@DibeshMSShrestha</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Just a few islands in a planetwide ocean, Thalassa was a veritable
paradise—home to one of the small colonies founded centuries before by
robot Mother Ships when the Sun had gone nova and mankind had fled
Earth.</p>
<p>Mesmerized by the beauty of Thalassa and overwhelmed by its vast
resources, the colonists lived an idyllic existence, unaware of the
monumental evolutionary event slowly taking place beneath their
seas…</p>
<p>Then the Magellan arrived in orbit carrying one million refugees from
the last, mad days on Earth. And suddenly uncertainty and change had
come to the placid paradise that was Thalassa.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h3 id="dystopia">Dystopia</h3>
<p><em>Dystopian novels deal with imaginary communities or societies
that are undesirable or frightening.</em></p>
<h4 id="by-george-orwell-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5470.1984">1984</a> (1949)
<em>by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell">George
Orwell</a></em> [4.1] 🌟 🔥</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Written in 1948, <em>1984</em> was George Orwell’s chilling prophecy
about the future.</p>
<p>While 1984 has come and gone, Orwell’s narrative is more timely that
ever. <em>1984</em> presents a “negative utopia,” that is at once a
startling and haunting vision of the world—so powerful that it’s
completely convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the power of
this novel, its hold on the imaginations of entire generations of
readers, or the resiliency of its admonitions—a legacy that seems to
grow, not lessen, with the passage of time.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="a-clockwork-orange-1962-by-anthony-burgess"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/227463.A_Clockwork_Orange">A
Clockwork Orange</a> (1962) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Burgess">Anthony
Burgess</a></em></h4>
<p>[3.99]</p>
<p>Better than the movie IMHO. Written in a slang language called
Nadsat, the book really draws you into the world Alex occupies, as
opposed to Kubrick’s version of the story, portrayed in the movie. The
endings are also different! - <a
href="https://github.com/alex-keyes"><span class="citation"
data-cites="alexkeyes">@alexkeyes</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A vicious fifteen-year-old “droog” is the central character of this
1963 classic, whose stark terror was captured in Stanley Kubrick’s
magnificent film of the same title.</p>
<p>In Anthony Burgess’s nightmare vision of the future, where criminals
take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex,
who talks in a brutal invented slang that brilliantly renders his and
his friends’ social pathology. A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable
about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. When the state
undertakes to reform Alex — to “redeem” him — the novel asks, “At what
cost?”</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="brave-new-world-1932-by-aldous-huxley-3.9"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5129.Brave_New_World">Brave
New World</a> (1932) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley">Aldous
Huxley</a></em> [3.9] 🌟 🔥</h4>
<p>This book is insidiously horrifying in its applicability, more so
than <em>1984</em> or <em>Fahrenheit 451</em>. <a
href="https://abetterkuwait.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/orwell-huxley.jpg">Here’s
a comic</a> that sums up the difference. Well worth the read. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Far in the future, the World Controllers have created the ideal
society. Through clever use of genetic engineering, brainwashing and
recreational sex and drugs, all its members are happy consumers. Bernard
Marx seems alone harbouring an ill-defined longing to break free. A
visit to one of the few remaining Savage Reservations, where the old,
imperfect life still continues, may be the cure for his distress…</p>
<p>Huxley’s ingenious fantasy of the future sheds a blazing light on the
present and is considered to be his most enduring masterpiece.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="dads-nuke-1985-by-marc-laidlaw-3.6"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/730945.Dad_s_Nuke">Dad’s
Nuke</a> (1985) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Laidlaw">Marc Laidlaw</a></em>
[3.6]</h4>
<p>The debut novel from the guy who would go on to write Half-Life and
Portal. A dizzyingly funny dystopia straight from the heart of the 80s.
Deftly manages the tightrope walk of absurdity without the world
crumbling underneath it. Philip K. Dick would be proud. - <a
href="https://github.com/jackflips"><span class="citation"
data-cites="jackflips">@jackflips</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The US is divided into independent, heavily defended neighborhoods;
Cobblestone Hill is a planned, self-sufficient community, dreamed up and
secretly controlled by the mysterious Doc Edison; here Dad Johnson
struggles to raise his oddball family and defend his house against
potentially hostile neighbors.</p>
<p>One-upmanship is still alive, though, and when Jock Smith plants a
rocket launcher in his backyard, Dad responds with a nuclear reactor in
his garage. (Doc Edison thoughtfully gene-splices the new Johnson baby
so that she eats nuclear waste.)</p>
<p>Dad’s son P.J., discovering that he’s been programmed to be gay (as
part of Doc Edison’s notions of a “balanced family”), flees the enclave,
only to be captured, drugged, and brainwashed by Christian Soldiers.
Dad’s wife Connie runs off with a salesman from the ubiquitous Cartel; a
bunch of Doc Edison clones show up, all quite mad; the Christian
Soldiers attempt a computerized invasion; and the feud between Dad and
Jock Smith comes to a head.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="divergent-2012-by-veronica-roth-4.2"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13335037-divergent">Divergent</a>
(2012) <em>by <a
href="https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronica_Roth">Veronica
Roth</a></em> [4.2] 🔥</h4>
<p>One of my favorite trilogies! Divergent is a young adult science
fiction trilogy. This book is about a dystopian Chicago society divided
by five factions: Abnegation, Erudite, Dauntless, Amity, and Candor.
Factions that were created to maintain peace within the society. In this
book you follow the story of Beatrice, who’s decisions leads her to
discover who she really is and what is really happening. Through the
trilogy you are able to see how the character evolves and becomes more
mature with her decisions… decisions that not only impact her life but
others too. I highly recommend this book! The ending of the trilogy left
me astonished for 3 days after I finished it! (good thing I got to
discuss it with one of my friends!) - <a
href="https://github.com/GracielaGarcia"><span class="citation"
data-cites="GracielaGarcia">@GracielaGarcia</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into
five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular
virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the
brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an
appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the
faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice,
the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really
is—she can’t have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone,
including herself.</p>
<p>During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice
renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to
live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme
physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some
with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris
must determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance
with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the
life she’s chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she’s kept hidden
from everyone because she’s been warned it can mean death. And as she
discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her
seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help
her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="fahrenheit-451-1953-by-ray-bradbury-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17470674-fahrenheit-451">Fahrenheit
451</a> (1953) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Bradbury">Ray Bradbury</a></em>
[4.0] 🌟 🔥</h4>
<p>A classic, beautiful book. A short read that does a good job of
making the reader think about the ramifications of censorship, and is
still entertaining and beautiful in its own way. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The terrifyingly prophetic novel of a post-literate future.</p>
<p>Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are
forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so,
Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in
his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a
lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those
dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books.</p>
<p>The classic dystopian novel of a post-literate future, <em>Fahrenheit
451</em> stands alongside Orwell’s <em>1984</em> and Huxley’s <em>Brave
New World</em> as a prophetic account of Western civilization’s
enslavement by the media, drugs and conformity.</p>
<p>Bradbury’s powerful and poetic prose combines with uncanny insight
into the potential of technology to create a novel which, decades on
from first publication, still has the power to dazzle and shock.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="oryx-and-crake-2003-2009-2013-by-margaret-atwood-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/55674-maddaddam">Oryx and
Crake</a> (2003, 2009, 2013) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Atwood">Margaret
Atwood</a></em> [4.0] 🔥</h4>
<p>This book is a wonderfully constructed tale that can be seen as
warning for an age where genetic engineering is up and coming and we
haven’t the faintest clue where this might lead us. I loved it to bits
and only found out there was a sequel by reading about the final episode
coming out when I was well done with the first part and devoured the
other two as eagerly as the first. That said, I find the first the best
of the three books. - <a href="https://github.com/fritzvd"><span
class="citation" data-cites="fritzvd">@fritzvd</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p><em>Oryx and Crake</em> is at once an unforgettable love story and a
compelling vision of the future. Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind
was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where
he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend,
Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In
search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey–with the help of the
green-eyed Children of Crake–through the lush wilderness that was so
recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an
uncontrolled genetic engineering ride. Margaret Atwood projects us into
a near future that is both all too familiar and beyond our
imagining.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="ready-player-one-2011-by-ernest-cline-4.3"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9969571-ready-player-one">Ready
Player One</a> (2011) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Cline">Ernest Cline</a></em>
[4.3] 🔥</h4>
<p>This is easily in one of my top 5 favorite books I’ve ever read. It’s
SO fun to read, and every single person I’ve recommended it to has loved
it. Even if you don’t understand every single reference, it’s still a
great story to follow. It has an excellent amount of humor, adventure,
and nostalgia. It also has one of the best endings I’ve ever read, which
any reader knows is a hard thing to nail. Ernest Cline really hit it out
of the park with this one. Highly recommend it. - <a
href="https://github.com/cassidoo">cassidoo</a></p>
<p>This book is AWESOME. It’s so AWESOME that it makes me want to go
back and play arcade games and rewatch all of the Macross saga. The plot
is great, the writing is great, it makes you laugh out loud if you’re a
geek and know the references, and the story is kickass. Warning: Might
be a good idea to brush up on your old school fantasy and scifi before
reading this. Just don’t go rewatch Krull, OK? - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt">RichardLitt</a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.</p>
<p>Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by
spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual
utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can
live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.</p>
<p>And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover
the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual
world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS
creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will
yield massive fortune—and remarkable power—to whoever can unlock
them.</p>
<p>For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize,
knowing only that Halliday’s riddles are based in the pop culture he
loved—that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have
found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy,
obsessive study of Halliday’s icons. Like many of his contemporaries,
Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes’s
oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging
power to run his OASIS rig.</p>
<p>And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.</p>
<p>Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors
join the hunt—among them certain powerful players who are willing to
commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for
Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do
so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and
face up to life—and love—in the real world he’s always been so desperate
to escape.</p>
<p>A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready?</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-dispossessed-1974-by-ursula-k.-le-guin-4.2"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13651.The_Dispossessed">The
Dispossessed</a> (1974) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_K._Le_Guin">Ursula K. Le
Guin</a></em> [4.2]</h4>
<p>Sci-Fi, sociology and philosophy. - <a
href="https://twitter.com/NaxYoMizmo"><span class="citation"
data-cites="NaxYoMizmo">@NaxYoMizmo</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Shevek, a brilliant physicist, decides to take action. He will seek
answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls
of hatred that have isolated his planet of anarchists from the rest of
the civilized universe. To do this dangerous task will mean giving up
his family and possibly his life—Shevek must make the unprecedented
journey to the utopian mother planet, Urras, to challenge the complex
structures of life and living, and ignite the fires of change.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-handmaids-tale-1986-by-margaret-atwood-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12961964-the-handmaid-s-tale">The
Handmaid’s Tale</a> (1986) <em>by <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3472.Margaret_Atwood">Margaret
Atwood</a></em> [4.1]</h4>
<p>A bleak and haunting tale, easy to picture playing out in today’s
political climate. There’s a reason the TV series adaptation is popular.
- <a href="https://github.com/neontapir"><span class="citation"
data-cites="neontapir">@neontapir</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Set in the near future, it describes life in what was once the United
States, now called the Republic of Gilead, a monotheocracy that has
reacted to social unrest and a sharply declining birthrate by reverting
to, and going beyond, the repressive intolerance of the original
Puritans. The regime takes the Book of Genesis absolutely at its word,
with bizarre consequences for the women and men of its population.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="make-room-make-room-1966-by-harry-harrison-3.7"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/473850.Make_Room_Make_Room_">Make
Room! Make Room!</a> (1966) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Harrison_(writer)">Harry
Harrison</a></em> [3.7]</h4>
<p>Great dystopian work shows the impact of <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_income">Universal
basic income</a> to society. - <a href="https://github.com/4ndrej"><span
class="citation" data-cites="4ndrej">@4ndrej</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Set in a future August 1999, novel of an overpopulated urban jungle,
a divided class system—operating within an atmosphere of riots, food
shortages, and senseless acts of violence—and a desperate hunt for the
truth by a cynical NYC detective tells a classic tale of a dark future.
The 1973 science fiction movie Soylent Green is loosely based on this
novel.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-man-in-the-high-castle-1962-by-philip-k.-dick-3.8"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/216363.The_Man_in_the_High_Castle">The
Man in the High Castle</a> (1962) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick">Philip K.
Dick</a></em> [3.8]</h4>
<p>My favourite of all Philip K. Dick’s novels, the I Ching and the
alternate history within an alternate history novel being interesting
elements. - <a href="https://github.com/roryrjb"><span class="citation"
data-cites="roryrjb">@roryrjb</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>An alternate history novel set in 1962, fifteen years after an
alternate ending to World War II which in the novel lasted until 1947,
the novel concerns intrigues between the victorious Axis Powers—Imperial
Japan and Nazi Germany—as they rule over the former United States, as
well as daily life under the resulting totalitarian rule.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4
id="the-metamorphosis-of-prime-intellect-2002-by-roger-williams-4.2"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64341.The_Metamorphosis_of_Prime_Intellect">The
Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect</a> (2002) <em>by <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2765575.Roger_Williams">Roger
Williams</a></em> [4.2]</h4>
<p>An interesting take on the possibly negative consequences of the
singularity. A little more vulgar than the average Sci-Fi novel. - <a
href="https://github.com/sylvarant"><span class="citation"
data-cites="sylvarant">@sylvarant</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In a time not far from our own, Lawrence sets out simply to build an
artificial intelligence that can pass as human, and finds himself
instead with one that can pass as a god. Taking the Three Laws of
Robotics literally, Prime Intellect makes every human immortal and
provides instantly for every stated human desire. Caroline finds no
meaning in this life of purposeless ease, and forgets her emptiness only
in moments of violent and profane exhibitionism. At turns shocking and
humorous, Prime Intellect looks unflinchingly at extremes of human
behavior that might emerge when all limits are removed.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="wool-omnibus-2011-by-hugh-howey-4.3"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13453029-wool-omnibus">Wool
Omnibus</a> (2011) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Howey">Hugh Howey</a></em>
[4.3]</h4>
<p>Set in the near future, the story follows a number of characters as
their lives unfold living in an underground silo. Life underground seems
quite grim, people have obviously been down there quite a while, and
even though they seem to have quite advanced technology, it’s old and
decaying. The engineers and mechanics do their best to keep the
electricity throughout the 100 levels of the silo, it’s a lottery to see
who gets to start a family as the population needs to be strictly
controlled.</p>
<p>It’s set close enough to the present that you can see how things
could end up the way they are in the silo, the political structures, the
way the silo is organized, the rivalry between the various levels and
departments; but what happened to lead to humanity living this way in
the first place? Why are they all down there, and what’s wrong with the
surface?</p>
<p>This series of books is well worth a read, I couldn’t put it down
once I got into the first few chapters. I think this series will be
recognized as a sci-fi classic in the coming years.</p>
<p>Also, the first book is available free on Kindle, so it won’t cost
you anything to check it out - except maybe a Kindle. - <a
href="https://github.com/elektrovert"><span class="citation"
data-cites="elektrovert">@elektrovert</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>This Omnibus Edition collects the five <em>Wool</em> books into a
single volume. It is for those who arrived late to the party and who
wish to save a dollar or two while picking up the same stories in a
single package.</p>
<p>This is the story of mankind clawing for survival, of mankind on the
edge. The world outside has grown unkind, the view of it limited, talk
of it forbidden. But there are always those who hope, who dream. These
are the dangerous people, the residents who infect others with their
optimism. Their punishment is simple. They are given the very thing they
profess to want: They are allowed outside.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h3 id="space-opera">Space Opera</h3>
<p><em>Novels which emphasize adventure, set mainly or entirely in outer
space, usually involving conflict between opponents possessing advanced
abilities, weapons, and other technology.</em></p>
<h4 id="ancillary-justice-2013-by-ann-leckie-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17333324-ancillary-justice">Ancillary
Justice</a> (2013) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Leckie">Ann Leckie</a></em>
[4.0]</h4>
<p><em>(And all the following <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20706284-ancillary-sword">Ancillary
Sword</a>)</em></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer
to completing her quest.</p>
<p>Once, she was the Justice of Toren—a colossal starship with an
artificial intelligence linking thousands of soldiers in the service of
the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy.</p>
<p>Now, an act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with one
fragile human body, unanswered questions, and a burning desire for
vengeance.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="battlefield-earth-1982-by-l.-ron-hubbard-3.4"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/769658.Battlefield_Earth">Battlefield
Earth</a> (1982) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Ron_Hubbard">L. Ron
Hubbard</a></em> [3.4]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Earth has been dominated for 1,000 years by an alien invader—and man
is an endangered species. From the handful of surviving humans a
courageous leader emerges—Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, who challenges the
invincible might of the alien Psychlo empire in a battle of epic scale,
danger and intrigue with the fate of the Earth and of the universe in
the tenuous balance.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="commonwealth-saga-2004-2005-by-peter-f.-hamilton-4.2"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/40740-commonwealth-saga">Commonwealth
Saga</a> (2004, 2005) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_F._Hamilton">Peter F.
Hamilton</a></em> [4.2]</h4>
<p><em>(And the sequels in the <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/43520-void">Void
Trilogy</a>)</em></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The year is 2380. The Intersolar Commonwealth, a sphere of stars some
four hundred light-years in diameter, contains more than six hundred
worlds, interconnected by a web of transport “tunnels” known as
wormholes. At the farthest edge of the Commonwealth, astronomer Dudley
Bose observes the impossible: Over one thousand light-years away, a
star… vanishes. It does not go supernova. It does not collapse into a
black hole. It simply disappears. Since the location is too distant to
reach by wormhole, a faster-than-light starship, the Second Chance, is
dispatched to learn what has occurred and whether it represents a
threat. In command is Wilson Kime, a five-time rejuvenated ex-NASA pilot
whose glory days are centuries behind him.</p>
<p>Opposed to the mission are the Guardians of Selfhood, a cult that
believes the human race is being manipulated by an alien entity they
call the Starflyer. Bradley Johansson, leader of the Guardians, warns of
sabotage, fearing the Starflyer means to use the starship’s mission for
its own ends.</p>
<p>Pursued by a Commonwealth special agent convinced the Guardians are
crazy but dangerous, Johansson flees. But the danger is not averted.
Aboard the Second Chance, Kime wonders if his crew has been infiltrated.
Soon enough, he will have other worries. A thousand light-years away,
something truly incredible is waiting: a deadly discovery whose
unleashing will threaten to destroy the Commonwealth… and humanity
itself. Could it be that Johansson was right?</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="fallen-dragon-2001-by-peter-f.-hamilton-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45258.Fallen_Dragon">Fallen
Dragon</a> (2001) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_F._Hamilton">Peter F.
Hamilton</a></em> [4.0]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Deploying invulnerable twenty-fifth-century soldiers called Skins,
Zantiu-Braun’s corporate starships loot entire planets. But as the Skins
invade bucolic Thallspring, Z-B’s strategy is about to go awry, all
because of: Sgt. Lawrence Newton, a dreamer whose twenty years as a Skin
have destroyed his hopes and desires; Denise Ebourn, a school teacher
and resistance leader whose guerrilla tactics rival those of Che Guevara
and George Washington and Simon Roderick, the director who serves Z-B
with a dedication that not even he himself can understand. Grimly
determined to steal, or protect, a mysterious treasure, the three
players engage in a private war that will explode into unimaginable
quests for personal grace… or galactic domination.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="house-of-suns-2008-by-alastair-reynolds-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1126719.House_of_Suns">House
of Suns</a> (2008) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alastair_Reynolds">Alastair
Reynolds</a></em> [4.1]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Six million years ago, at the dawn of the star-faring era, Abigail
Gentian fractured herself into a thousand male and female clones, which
she called shatterlings. But now, someone is eliminating the Gentian
line. Campion and Purslane—two shatterlings who have fallen in love and
shared forbidden experiences—must determine exactly who, or what, their
enemy is, before they are wiped out of existence.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="hyperion-1989-by-dan-simmons-4.2"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77566.Hyperion">Hyperion</a>
(1989) <em>by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Simmons">Dan
Simmons</a></em> [4.2] 🌟 🔥</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man,
there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship
it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to
destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding
structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all. On
the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set
forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved
riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope—and a terrible
secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands.</p>
<p>A stunning tour de force filled with transcendent awe and wonder,
<em>Hyperion</em> is a masterwork of science fiction that resonates with
excitement and invention, the first volume in a remarkable new science
fiction epic by the multiple-award-winning author of <em>The Hollow
Man</em>.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="nights-dawn-trilogy-1996-1997-1999-by-peter-f.-hamilton-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/43318-night-s-dawn">Night’s Dawn
Trilogy</a> (1996, 1997, 1999) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_F._Hamilton">Peter F.
Hamilton</a></em> [4.1]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The trilogy is set in a universe with a wealth of worlds and
artificial orbiting colonies. The plot is centered on the souls of the
dead coming back from a hellish “beyond” to possess the living, and the
latter fighting back. It was followed by a companion to the series,
<em>The Confederation Handbook</em>, an informational book containing
data about the universe of the <em>Night’s Dawn</em> trilogy. Hamilton
re-set several earlier short stories in the Confederation timeline,
published as the collection <em>A Second Chance at Eden</em>, including
the newly written title novella.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="revelation-space-2000-2018-by-alastair-reynolds-4.0-avg"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/56392-revelation-space">Revelation
Space</a> (2000-2018) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alastair_Reynolds">Alastair
Reynolds</a></em> [4.0 avg]</h4>
<p>Alastair Reynolds’ take on the Fermi Paradox is a vast and brutal
epic, consisting of the three “main” books (forming the “Inhibitor
Trilogy”) and a few other books and novellas set in the same universe.
Revelation Space is page-turning “hard space opera” - believable but
fantastic, and delightfully bizarre at times. - <a
href="https://github.com/nahkampf"><span class="citation"
data-cites="nahkampf">@nahkampf</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Nine hundred thousand years ago, something annihilated the Amarantin
civilization just as it was on the verge of discovering space flight.
Now one scientist, Dan Sylveste, will stop at nothing to solve the
Amarantin riddle before ancient history repeats itself. With no other
resources at his disposal, Sylveste forges a dangerous alliance with the
cyborg crew of the starship Nostalgia for Infinity. But as he closes in
on the secret, a killer closes in on him. Because the Amarantin were
destroyed for a reason — and if that reason is uncovered, the
universe—and reality itself — could be irrecoverably altered…</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="salvation-2018-2020-by-peter-f.-hamilton-4.19-avg"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34068552-salvation">Salvation</a>
(2018-2020) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_F._Hamilton">Peter F.
Hamilton</a></em> [4.19 avg]</h4>
<p>Peter Hamilton is back with another story featuring a wormhole-based
multi-planetary society, and this one has elements of both space opera
and cyberpunk. The perspective shifts between 2204 and several thousand
years into the future. Starts slow but when the shit hits the fan it
hits with a vengeance. Three books in total, a very good read. - <a
href="https://github.com/nahkampf"><span class="citation"
data-cites="nahkampf">@nahkampf</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In 2204, humanity is expanding into the wider galaxy in leaps and
bounds. A new technology of linked jump gates has rendered most forms of
transporation–including starships–virtually obsolete. Every place on
earth, every distant planet mankind has settled, is now merely a step
away from any other. And all seems wonderful…until a crashed alien
spaceship is found on a newly-located world 89 light years from Earth,
harboring seventeen human victims. And of the high-powered team
dispatched to investigate the mystery, one is an alien spy…</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-culture-series-1987-2012-by-iain-m.-banks-4.5-avg"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/49118-culture">The Culture
Series</a> (1987-2012) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Banks">Iain M. Banks</a></em>
[4.5 (avg)]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more
were doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, faced
destruction, cold-blooded, brutal, and worse, random. The Idirans fought
for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles
were at stake. There could be no surrender.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h3 id="post-apocalyptic">Post Apocalyptic</h3>
<p><em>Novels concerning the end of civilization, usually based in a
future resulting from a catastrophe of some sort, where only scattered
elements of technology remain.</em></p>
<h4 id="a-canticle-for-leibowitz-1959-by-walter-m.-miller-jr.-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/164154.A_Canticle_for_Leibowitz">A
Canticle for Leibowitz</a> (1959) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_M._Miller,_Jr.">Walter M.
Miller, Jr.</a></em> [4.0]</h4>
<p>This has a particularly arid and inspired view of humanity after a
nuclear holocaust. The discovery of small things and their new
importance down the line is well done here. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Winner of the 1961 Hugo Award for Best Novel and widely considered
one of the most accomplished, powerful, and enduring classics of modern
speculative fiction, Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s <em>A Canticle for
Leibowitz</em> is a true landmark of twentieth-century literature—a
chilling and still provocative look at a post-apocalyptic future.</p>
<p>In a nightmarish ruined world slowly awakening to the light after
sleeping in darkness, the infant rediscoveries of science are secretly
nourished by cloistered monks dedicated to the study and preservation of
the relics and writings of the blessed Saint Isaac Leibowitz. From here
the story spans centuries of ignorance, violence, and barbarism, viewing
through a sharp, satirical eye the relentless progression of a human
race damned by its inherent humanness to recelebrate its grand foibles
and repeat its grievous mistakes. Seriously funny, stunning, and tragic,
eternally fresh, imaginative, and altogether remarkable, <em>A Canticle
for Leibowitz</em> retains its ability to enthrall and amaze. It is now,
as it always has been, a masterpiece.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="borne-2017-by-jeff-vandermeer-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31451186-borne">Borne</a>
(2017) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_VanderMeer">Jeff
VanderMeer</a></em> [4.0]</h4>
<p>A weird, beautiful book, reminiscent of Lovecraft, Stephen King, and
Brautigan’s <em>Watermelon Sugar</em> all wrapped up in a
post-apocalyptic landscape populated by poisonous fire-breathing bears
and deprecated biotech. This book is a survival story - how to hang on
to the edges of civilization, and what that means for humanity. It also
questions identity, love, mothering, and meaning itself. Some of the
passages were astoundingly beautiful, and as much as the world would be
an awful place to live in, I found myself missing it when I finished. -
<a href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In the ruins of a nameless city of the future, ruled by a giant
grizzly called Mord, a woman named Rachel lives as a scavenger,
collecting genetically engineered organisms and experiments created by
the biotech firm the Company. Hidden in Mord’s fur, she finds a sea
anemone shaped creature she calls Borne.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4
id="do-androids-dream-of-electric-sheep-1968-by-philip-k.-dick-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7083.Do_Androids_Dream_of_Electric_Sheep_">Do
Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?</a> (1968) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick">Philip K.
Dick</a></em> [4.1] 🌟 🔥</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A final, apocalyptic, world war has killed millions, driving entire
species into extinction and sending the majority of mankind off-planet.
Those who remain, venerate all remaining examples of life, and owning an
animal of your own is both a symbol of status and a necessity. For those
who can’t afford an authentic animal, companies build incredibly
realistic simulacrae: horses, birds, cats, sheep… even humans.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="earth-abides-1949-by-george-r.-stewart-3.9"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/93269.Earth_Abides">Earth
Abides</a> (1949) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_R._Stewart">George R.
Stewart</a></em> [3.9]</h4>
<p>Highly plausible outcome after a near-extinction event, the human
race will hopelessly go down the path of least resistance. Great and
somewhat disheartening ending. - <a
href="https://github.com/uraimo"><span class="citation"
data-cites="uraimo">@uraimo</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A disease of unparalleled destructive force has sprung up almost
simultaneously in every corner of the globe, all but destroying the
human race. One survivor, strangely immune to the effects of the
epidemic, ventures forward to experience a world without man. What he
ultimately discovers will prove far more astonishing than anything he’d
either dreaded or hoped for.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="riddley-walker-1980-by-russell-hoban-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/776573.Riddley_Walker">Riddley
Walker</a> (1980) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Hoban">Russell
Hoban</a></em> [4.1]</h4>
<p>I traveled 500 miles from Edinburgh to Kent just to go to the
Canterbury Cathedral to see the painting that inspired this book. It is
that good. It was hard for me to read as I normally speed read, and the
invented language makes it slow going, but it sticks with you and the
imagination of Hoban is uniquely vivid. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p><em>Riddley Walker</em> is a brilliant, unique, completely realized
work of fiction. One reads it again and again, discovering new wonders
every time through. Set in a remote future in a post-nuclear holocaust
England (Inland), Hoban has imagined a humanity regressed to an
iron-age, semi-literate state—and invented a language to represent it.
Riddley is at once the Huck Finn and the Stephen Dedalus of his
culture—rebel, change agent, and artist. Read again or for the first
time this masterpiece of 20th-century literature with new material by
the author.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="severance-2018-by-ling-ma-3.8"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36348525-severance">Severance</a>
(2018) <em>by <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17343848.Ling_Ma">Ling
Ma</a></em> [3.8]</h4>
<p>Although I’d like to believe I’d do well in the apocalypse, this
story spells out how a younger me might’ve fared. - <a
href="https://github.com/neontapir"><span class="citation"
data-cites="neontapir">@neontapir</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>An offbeat office novel turns apocalyptic satire as a young woman
transforms from orphan to worker bee to survivor.</p>
<p>Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan
office tower, is devoted to routine. She barely notices when a plague of
biblical proportions sweeps New York. Her bosses enlist her as part of a
dwindling skeleton crew with a big end-date payoff. Soon entirely alone,
still unfevered, she photographs the eerie, abandoned city as the
anonymous blogger NY Ghost. Candace won’t be able to make it on her own
forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT
tech Bob. They’re traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob
promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But
Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. Should she
escape from her rescuers?</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-city-and-the-stars-1956-by-arthur-c.-clarke-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/250024.The_City_and_the_Stars">The
City and the Stars</a> (1956) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke">Arthur C.
Clarke</a></em> [4.1]</h4>
<p>One of Arthur C. Clarke’s best novels. It makes <em>Childhood’s
End</em> seem a bit immature in comparison, and evokes that strange
concept of deep space that was prevalent in the 50s and in the early
Star Trek series which seems to be out of fashion more recently. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Clarke’s masterful evocation of the far future of humanity,
considered his finest novel. <em>The City and the Stars</em> takes place
one billion years in the future, in the city of Diaspar. By this time,
the Earth is so old that the oceans have gone and humanity has all but
left. As far as the people of Diaspar know, they are the only city left
on the planet. The city of Diaspar is completely enclosed. Nobody has
come in or left the city for as long as anybody can remember, and
everybody in Diaspar has an instinctive insular conservatism. The story
behind this fear of venturing outside the city tells of a race of
ruthless invaders which beat humanity back from the stars to Earth, and
then made a deal that humanity could live—if they never left the
planet.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-city-of-ember-2003-by-jeanne-duprau-3.9"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/307791.The_City_of_Ember">The
City of Ember</a> (2003) <em>by <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2347.Jeanne_DuPrau">Jeanne
DuPrau</a></em> [3.9]</h4>
<p>A less violent coming of age story in the vein of <em>Hugo</em> or
<em>The Hunger Games</em>. - <a
href="https://github.com/neontapir"><span class="citation"
data-cites="neontapir">@neontapir</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Many hundreds of years ago, the city of Ember was created by the
Builders to contain everything needed for human survival. It worked…but
now the storerooms are almost out of food, crops are blighted,
corruption is spreading through the city and worst of all—the lights are
failing. Soon Ember could be engulfed by darkness…</p>
<p>But when two children, Lina and Doon, discover fragments of an
ancient parchment, they begin to wonder if there could be a way out of
Ember. Can they decipher the words from long ago and find a new future
for everyone? Will the people of Ember listen to them?</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-drowned-world-1963-by-j.-g.-ballard-3.6"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16234584-the-drowned-world">The
Drowned World</a> (1963) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._G._Ballard">J. G.
Ballard</a></em> [3.6]</h4>
<p>This had some very haunting scenes. The last pages, in particular,
will stick with me for a while. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>First published in 1962, J. G. Ballard’s mesmerizing and ferociously
prescient novel imagines a terrifying future in which solar radiation
and global warming have melted the ice caps and Triassic-era jungles
have overrun a submerged and tropical London. Set during the year 2145,
the novel follows biologist Dr. Robert Kerans and his team of scientists
as they confront a surreal cityscape populated by giant iguanas, albino
alligators, and endless swarms of malarial insects. Nature has swallowed
all but a few remnants of human civilization, and, slowly, Kerans and
his companions are transformed—both physically and psychologically—by
this prehistoric environment. Echoing Joseph Conrad’s <em>Heart of
Darkness</em>—complete with a mad white hunter and his hordes of native
soldiers—this “powerful and beautifully clear” (Brian Aldiss) work
becomes a thrilling adventure and a haunting examination of the effects
of environmental collapse on the human mind.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-machine-stops-1909-by-edward-morgan-forster-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4711854-the-machine-stops">The
Machine Stops</a> (1909) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._M._Forster">Edward Morgan
Forster</a></em> [4.0] 🌟</h4>
<p>A short and rather old post-apocalyptic story which remained stuck in
my mind like a ROM data. Being under strong impressions after consuming
it in an instant, I described this rare pearl of a story to a Norwegian
<a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_University_of_Science_and_Technology">NTNU</a>
professor. To my surprise it ended as a further recommendation to his
students or/and an actual part of their course reading materials. You’ll
definitely want to read about this machine out of wedlock between
‘Facebook’ and ‘Google’ from the beginning of 20th century. I have yet
to see other such power of prediction as to where the world is now or
might go. Advice to readers: Keep in mind while reading that the text
has been coined about 100 years ago - it’s part of the magic. - <a
href="https://github.com/zarko-tg"><span class="citation"
data-cites="zarko-tg">@zarko-tg</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The story, set in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity lives
underground and relies on a giant machine to provide their needs,
predicted new technologies such as instant messaging, and the Internet.
It describes a world in which most of the human population has lost the
ability to live on the surface of the Earth. Each individual now lives
in isolation below ground in a standard ‘cell’, with all bodily and
spiritual needs met by the omnipotent, global Machine. Travel is
permitted but unpopular and rarely necessary. Communication is made via
a kind of instant messaging/video conferencing machine with which people
conduct their only activity: the sharing of ideas and what passes for
knowledge.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-road-2006-by-cormac-mccarthy-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6288.The_Road">The Road</a>
(2006) <em>by <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4178.Cormac_McCarthy">Cormac
McCarthy</a></em> [4.0]</h4>
<p>A dreary story that compels you forward with its unyielding backdrop
and vivid characters. - <a href="https://github.com/neontapir"><span
class="citation" data-cites="neontapir">@neontapir</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves
in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to
crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their
destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything,
awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves
against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are
wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other. It boldly imagines a
future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son,
“each the other’s world entire,” are sustained by love. Winner of the
2007 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-stand-1978-by-stephen-king-4.3"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/149267.The_Stand">The
Stand</a> (1978) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_King">Stephen King</a></em>
[4.3] 🔥</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error
in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that
form the links in a chain letter of death.</p>
<p>And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of
its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in
which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides—or are chosen. A world
in which good rides on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother
Abagail—and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a
lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man.</p>
<p>In 1978 Stephen King published <em>The Stand</em>, the novel that is
now considered to be one of his finest works. But as it was first
published, <em>The Stand</em> was incomplete, since more than 150,000
words had been cut from the original manuscript.</p>
<p>Now Stephen King’s apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by plague
and embroiled in an elemental struggle between good and evil has been
restored to its entirety. <em>The Stand: The Complete and Uncut
Edition</em> includes more than five hundred pages of material
previously deleted, along with new material that King added as he
reworked the manuscript for a new generation. It gives us new characters
and endows familiar ones with new depths. It has a new beginning and a
new ending. What emerges is a gripping work with the scope and moral
complexity of a true epic.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="time-storm-1977-by-gordon-r.-dickson-3.7"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/536951.Time_Storm">Time
Storm</a> (1977) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_R._Dickson">Gordon R.
Dickson</a></em> [3.7]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A time storm has devastated the Earth, and only a small fraction of
humankind remains. From the rubble, three survivors form an unlikely
alliance: a young man, a young woman, and a leopard.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="where-late-the-sweet-birds-sang-1974-by-kate-wilhelm-3.9"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/968827.Where_Late_the_Sweet_Birds_Sang">Where
Late the Sweet Birds Sang</a> (1974) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Wilhelm">Kate Wilhelm</a></em>
[3.9]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The spellbinding story of an isolated post-holocaust community
determined to preserve itself, through a perilous experiment in cloning.
Sweeping, dramatic, rich with humanity, and rigorous in its science,
<em>Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang</em> is widely regarded as a high
point of both humanistic and hard SF, winning SF’s Hugo Award and Locus
Award on its first publication.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h3 id="military-science-fiction">Military Science Fiction</h3>
<p><em>Novels featuring the use use of technology, mainly weapons, for
military purposes and principal characters that are members of a
military organization involved in military activity; sometimes occurring
in outer space or other planets.</em></p>
<h4 id="armor-1984-by-john-steakley-4.12"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/102327.Armor">Armor</a> (1984)
<em>by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Steakley">John
Steakley</a></em> [4.12]</h4>
<p>Steakley puts his readers inside the mind of an armored soldier who
lives in constant fear of being torn apart by the enemy he was sent to
fight. The book plays brilliantly on our innate fear of bugs and
describes the visceral terror of fighting a nearly unstoppable enemy. -
<a href="https://github.com/phmullins"><span class="citation"
data-cites="phmullins">@phmullins</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Felix is an Earth soldier, encased in special body armor designed to
withstand Earth’s most implacable enemy-a bioengineered, insectoid alien
horde. But Felix is also equipped with internal mechanisms that enable
him, and his fellow soldiers, to survive battle situations that would
destroy a man’s mind. This is a remarkable novel of the horror, the
courage, and the aftermath of combat–and how the strength of the human
spirit can be the greatest armor of all.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-aurora-cycle-series-2019-2021-by-amie-kaufman-4.2"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/179394-the-aurora-cycle">The
Aurora Cycle Series</a> (2019-2021) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amie_Kaufman">Amie Kaufman</a></em>
[4.2]</h4>
<p>This novel starts as a simple rescue by a cadet that led to the
entire universe fighting an epic battle they have no hope of
winning.</p>
<p>What makes this novel awesome is the build up to the final epic
battle. It starts as a small team of ragtags who were framed for a crime
and later find out that the least of their worry is the intergalactic
military but rather an incomprehensible galaxy ending force whose sole
existence is to added all living things to its hive. - <a
href="https://github.com/sammy4gh"><span class="citation"
data-cites="sammy4gh">@sammy4gh</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The year is 2380, and the graduating cadets of Aurora Academy are
being assigned their first missions. Star pupil Tyler Jones is ready to
recruit the squad of his dreams, but his own boneheaded heroism sees him
stuck with the dregs nobody else in the Academy would touch…</p>
<p>A cocky diplomat with a black belt in sarcasm, A sociopath scientist
with a fondness for shooting her bunkmates ,A smart-ass techwiz with the
galaxy’s biggest chip on his shoulder, An alien warrior with anger
management issues ,A tomboy pilot who’s totally not into him, in case
you were wondering</p>
<p>And Ty’s squad isn’t even his biggest problem—that’d be Aurora
Jie-Lin O’Malley, the girl he’s just rescued from interdimensional
space. Trapped in cryo-sleep for two centuries, Auri is a girl out of
time and out of her depth. But she could be the catalyst that starts a
war millions of years in the making, and Tyler’s squad of losers,
discipline-cases and misfits might just be the last hope for the entire
galaxy.</p>
<p>They’re not the heroes we deserve. They’re just the ones we could
find. Nobody panic.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<p>Books:</p>
<ul>
<li><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30075662-aurora-rising">Aurora
Rising</a> [4.1]</li>
<li><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40516960-aurora-burning">Aurora
Burning</a> [4.3]</li>
<li><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40516976-aurora-s-end">Aurora’s
End</a> [4.2]</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="enders-game-1985-by-orson-scott-card-4.3"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/375802.Ender_s_Game">Ender’s
Game</a> (1985) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Scott_Card">Orson Scott
Card</a></em> [4.3] 🌟 🔥</h4>
<p>This is a quick read, but it has a slow burn; the more times I read
this book, and the more I think of it, the better it becomes. This book
is one of the most strategically interesting books I have read. At every
turn, you can feel Orson Scott Card manipulating you into seeing how
brilliant Ender is. A masterpiece. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<p>I’ve lost count of the amount of times I have read <em>Ender’s
Game</em>. I generally read it around once a year, at least. It is part
of a larger series, including <em>Speaker for the Dead</em>, and
<em>Xenocide</em> - follow-ups which build on <em>Ender’s Game</em> and
which are, in their own right, great books. <em>EG</em> was originally
just a short story, a kind of prequel to the themes spoken of in
<em>Speaker for the Dead</em>. It shows Card’s talent that he was able
to so fluently make it a stand-alone book.</p>
<p>I love <em>Ender’s Game</em>. All things considered, this is not a
book about emotional development, or about coming of age. It’s not about
taking on the weight of the world. Rather, this is a book about
strategy. More happens in the gaps between the pages than in the
chapters themselves - taking the time to figure out how Ender worked out
an advantage in a game room, and how you would have done it, is an
incredibly rewarding experience. Every now and then, there is a
wonderful feeling of ‘Damn, I wish I had done that! So smart.’ And, as
Card notes in the prologue:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Fiction, because it is not about somebody who actually lived in the
real world, always has the possibility of being about ourself.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, you’re able to share in Ender’s cleverness, too. That’s what
makes this book a fun read. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race’s
next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as
soldiers. A brilliant young boy—Andrew “Ender” Wiggin—lives with his
kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he
loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine
were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn’t make the
cut—young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for
rigorous military training.</p>
<p>Ender’s skills make him a leader in school and respected in the
Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet
growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers
greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult
teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His
psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like
the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to
his beloved sister.</p>
<p>Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of
the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a
hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway
for almost as long. Ender’s two older siblings are every bit as unusual
as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the
abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="frontlines-series-2013--by-marko-kloos-4.05"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/125903-frontlines">Frontlines
Series</a> (2013-) <em>by <a href="https://www.markokloos.com/">Marko
Kloos</a></em> [4.05]</h4>
<p>A very entertaining military drama that has continued to grow on me,
book by book. <a href="https://github.com/alex-keyes"><span
class="citation" data-cites="AlexKeyes">@AlexKeyes</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The year is 2108, and the North American Commonwealth is bursting at
the seams. For welfare rats like Andrew Grayson, there are only two ways
out of the crime-ridden and filthy welfare tenements, where you’re
restricted to two thousand calories of badly flavored soy every day.</p>
<p>You can hope to win the lottery and draw a ticket on a colony ship
settling off-world, or you can join the service.</p>
<p>With the colony lottery a pipe dream, Andrew chooses to enlist in the
armed forces for a shot at real food, a retirement bonus, and maybe a
ticket off Earth. But as he starts a career of supposed privilege, he
soon learns that the good food and decent health care come at a steep
price…and that the settled galaxy holds far greater dangers than
military bureaucrats or the gangs that rule the slums.</p>
<p>The debut novel from Marko Kloos, Terms of Enlistment is a new
addition to the great military sci-fi tradition of Robert Heinlein, Joe
Haldeman, and John Scalzi.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="old-mans-war-2005-2015-by-john-scalzi-4.2"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/40789-old-man-s-war">Old Man’s
War</a> (2005-2015) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Scalzi">John Scalzi</a></em>
[4.2]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p><em>Old Man’s War</em>, <em>The Last Colony</em> and <em>Zoe’s
Tale</em> were each nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in their
respective years. <em>Zoe’s Tale</em> was additionally nominated for the
Andre Norton Award for Best Young Adult Science Fiction/Fantasy. <em>The
Ghost Brigades</em> was nominated for the Prometheus Award. <em>Old
Man’s War</em> was the winner of the Geffen Award in Israel; <em>The
Last Colony</em> the recipient of the Seiun Award in Japan.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="starship-troopers-1959-by-robert-a.-heinlein-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17214.Starship_Troopers">Starship
Troopers</a> (1959) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein">Robert A.
Heinlein</a></em> [4.0]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In one of Robert Heinlein’s most controversial bestsellers, a recruit
of the future goes through the toughest boot camp in the Universe—and
into battle with the Terran Mobile Infantry against mankind’s most
frightening enemy.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-forever-war-1974-by-joe-haldeman-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21611.The_Forever_War">The
Forever War</a> (1974) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Haldeman">Joe Haldeman</a></em>
[4.1]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The Earth’s leaders have drawn a line in the interstellar
sand—despite the fact that the fierce alien enemy that 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 without rancor and even rise up through
military ranks. Pvt. Mandella is willing to 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 dilation caused by
space travel, Mandella is aging months while the Earth he left behind is
aging centuries.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-ultramarines-omnibus-2008-by-graham-mcniell-3.96"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31638.The_Ultramarines_Omnibus">The
Ultramarines Omnibus</a> (2008) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_McNeill">Graham
Mcniell</a></em> [3.96]</h4>
<p>Conan the Barbarian in space. - <a
href="https://github.com/alex-keyes"><span class="citation"
data-cites="alex-keyes">@alex-keyes</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The Ultramarines are a byword for loyalty and courage, their martial
prowess is legendary and is second only to the God-Emperor.</p>
<p>Graham Mcneill’s epic trilogy of Ultramarines novels is a masterpiece
of non-stop action! Containing the novels Nightbringer, Warriors of
Ultramar and Dead Sky, Black Sun, plus a connected short story, Chains
of Command, the series follows the adventures of Space Marine Captain
Uriel Ventris and the Ultramarines as they battle against the enemies of
mankind. From their home world of Macragge, into the dreaded Eye of
Terror and beyond, Graham McNeill’s prose rattles like gunfire and
brings the Space Marines to life like never before.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h3 id="police-procedural-science-fiction">Police Procedural Science
Fiction</h3>
<h4 id="lock-in-2014-by-john-scalzi-3.8"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21418013-lock-in">Lock In</a>
(2014) <em>by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Scalzi">John
Scalzi</a></em> [3.8]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A novel of our near future, from one of the most popular authors in
modern SF.</p>
<p>Fifteen years from now, a new virus sweeps the globe. 95% of those
afflicted experience nothing worse than fever and headaches. Four
percent suffer acute meningitis, creating the largest medical crisis in
history. And one percent find themselves “locked in”—fully awake and
aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus.</p>
<p>One per cent doesn’t seem like a lot. But in the United States,
that’s 1.7 million people “locked in”… including the President’s wife
and daughter.</p>
<p>Spurred by grief and the sheer magnitude of the suffering, America
undertakes a massive scientific initiative. Nothing can restore the
ability to control their own bodies to the locked in. But then two new
technologies emerge. One is a virtual-reality environment, “The Agora,”
in which the locked-in can interact with other humans, both locked-in
and not. The other is the discovery that a few rare individuals have
brains that are receptive to being controlled by others, meaning that
from time to time, those who are locked in can “ride” these people and
use their bodies as if they were their own.</p>
<p>This skill is quickly regulated, licensed, bonded, and controlled.
Nothing can go wrong. Certainly nobody would be tempted to misuse it,
for murder, for political power, or worse…</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h3 id="techno-thriller">Techno Thriller</h3>
<p><em>Novels which draw from sci-fi, thrillers, spying, action and
wars. Include lots of technical detail regarding the subject
matter.</em></p>
<h4 id="cryptonomicon-1999-by-neal-stephenson-4.2"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/816.Cryptonomicon">Cryptonomicon</a>
(1999) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Stephenson">Neal
Stephenson</a></em> [4.2]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p><em>Cryptonomicon</em> zooms all over the world, careening
conspiratorially back and forth between two time periods—World War II
and the present. Our 1940s heroes are the brilliant mathematician
Lawrence Waterhouse, cryptanalyst extraordinaire, and gung-ho,
morphine-addicted marine Bobby Shaftoe. They’re part of Detachment 2702,
an Allied group trying to break Axis communication codes while
simultaneously preventing the enemy from figuring out that their codes
have been broken. Their job boils down to layer upon layer of deception.
Dr. Alan Turing is also a member of 2702, and he explains the unit’s
strange workings to Waterhouse. “When we want to sink a convoy, we send
out an observation plane first… Of course, to observe is not its real
duty—we already know exactly where the convoy is. Its real duty is to be
observed… Then, when we come round and sink them, the Germans will not
find it suspicious.”</p>
<p>All of this secrecy resonates in the present-day story line, in which
the grandchildren of the WWII heroes—inimitable programming geek Randy
Waterhouse and the lovely and powerful Amy Shaftoe—team up to help
create an offshore data haven in Southeast Asia and maybe uncover some
gold once destined for Nazi coffers. To top off the paranoiac tone of
the book, the mysterious Enoch Root, key member of Detachment 2702 and
the Societas Eruditorum, pops up with an unbreakable encryption scheme
left over from WWII to befuddle the 1990s protagonists with
conspiratorial ties.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="daemon-2006-2010-by-daniel-suárez-4.2"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/49858-daemon">Daemon</a> (2006,
2010) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Su%C3%A1rez">Daniel
Suárez</a></em> [4.2]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Already an underground sensation, a high-tech thriller for the
wireless age that explores the unthinkable consequences of a computer
program running without human control—a daemon—designed to dismantle
society and bring about a new world order.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Technology controls almost everything in our modern-day world, from
remote entry on our cars to access to our homes, from the flight
controls of our airplanes to the movements of the entire world economy.
Thousands of autonomous computer programs, or daemons, make our
networked world possible, running constantly in the background of our
lives, trafficking e-mail, transferring money, and monitoring power
grids. For the most part, daemons are benign, but the same can’t always
be said for the people who design them.</p>
<p>Matthew Sobol was a legendary computer game designer—the architect
behind half-a-dozen popular online games. His premature death depressed
both gamers and his company’s stock price. But Sobol’s fans aren’t the
only ones to note his passing. When his obituary is posted online, a
previously dormant daemon activates, initiating a chain of events
intended to unravel the fabric of our hyper-efficient, interconnected
world. With Sobol’s secrets buried along with him, and as new layers of
his daemon are unleashed at every turn, it’s up to an unlikely alliance
to decipher his intricate plans and wrest the world from the grasp of a
nameless, faceless enemy—or learn to live in a society in which we are
no longer in control…</p>
<p>Computer technology expert Daniel Suarez blends haunting high-tech
realism with gripping suspense in an authentic, complex thriller in the
tradition of Michael Crichton, Neal Stephenson, and William Gibson.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="sphere-1987-by-michael-crichton-3.7"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/455373.Sphere">Sphere</a>
(1987) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton">Michael
Crichton</a></em> [3.7] 🌟 🔥</h4>
<p>Twitter user: My favorite novel. Movie was worse than terrible.</p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A group of American scientists are rushed to a huge vessel that has
been discovered resting on the ocean floor in the middle of the South
Pacific. What they find defines their imaginations and mocks their
attempts at logical explanation. It is a spaceship of phenomenal
dimensions, apparently, undamaged by its fall from the sky. And, most
startling, it appears to be at least three hundred years old…</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h3 id="fantasy">Fantasy</h3>
<p><em>Fantasy books which contain elements of science fiction. For pure
fantasy, see <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt/awesome-fantasy">this
list</a>.</em></p>
<h4 id="the-book-of-the-long-sun-1993-1994-1996-by-gene-wolfe-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/43253-the-book-of-the-long-sun">The
Book of the Long Sun</a> (1993, 1994, 1996) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Wolfe">Gene Wolfe</a></em>
[4.0]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Set aboard a vast starship traveling for generations, <em>The Book of
the Long Sun</em> is a masterpiece of science fiction. The series
follows the story of Patera Silk, a priest who becomes a prophet as he
learns about the nature of his world and the gods he serves.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-book-of-the-new-sun-1980-1987-by-gene-wolfe-3.9"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/41474-the-book-of-the-new-sun">The
Book of the New Sun</a> (1980-1987) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Wolfe">Gene Wolfe</a></em>
[3.9]</h4>
<p>This is my favorite book. It is science fiction and, to a certain
extent, fantasy, but at places reads more like a philosophical tract of
a collection of stories. The plot is minimal, but the character of
Severian is fascinating; he forgets nothing, but lies to you. As you
read along, it becomes clear that earlier chapters were wrong or lacked
important details, which heavily contributes to a sense of wonder and
enchantment. Or, in my case, aw at Gene Wolfe’s writing abilities.
Highly suggested. - <a href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span
class="citation" data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p><em>The Book of the New Sun</em> is unanimously acclaimed as Gene
Wolfe’s most remarkable work, hailed as “a masterpiece of science
fantasy comparable in importance to the major works of Tolkien and
Lewis” by <em>Publishers Weekly</em>, and “one of the most ambitious
works of speculative fiction in the twentieth century” by <em>The
Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction</em>.</p>
<p>Young Severian, an apprentice in the Guild of Torturers on the world
called Urth, has been exiled for committing the ultimate sin of his
profession—showing mercy toward his victim.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="there-are-doors-1988-by-gene-wolfe-3.6"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/666601.There_Are_Doors">There
Are Doors</a> (1988) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Wolfe">Gene Wolfe</a></em>
[3.6]</h4>
<p>This is debatably science fiction. I mention it here because certain
elements, like a lot of Gene Wolfe’s works, are science fiction - for
instance, the android-esque doll. This book is much more of a fantasy. I
love it, but it’s a bit weird in places. If you like Gene Wolfe, read
it. - <a href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p><em>There Are Doors</em> is the story of a man who falls in love with
a goddess from an alternate universe. She flees him, but he pursues her
through doorways—interdimensional gateways—to the other place,
determined to sacrifice his life, if necessary, for her love.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h3 id="drama">Drama</h3>
<h4 id="the-bone-clocks-2014-by-david-mitchell-3.9"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20819685-the-bone-clocks">The
Bone Clocks</a> (2014) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mitchell_%28author%29">David
Mitchell</a></em> [3.9]</h4>
<p>If you liked Cloud Atlas this is a good read.</p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Following a scalding row with her mother, fifteen-year-old Holly
Sykes slams the door on her old life. But Holly is no typical teenage
runaway: a sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as
“the radio people,” Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now,
as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and
coincidences reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a
nightmare brought to life.</p>
<p>For Holly has caught the attention of a cabal of dangerous
mystics—and their enemies. But her lost weekend is merely the prelude to
a shocking disappearance that leaves her family irrevocably scarred.
This unsolved mystery will echo through every decade of Holly’s life,
affecting all the people Holly loves—even the ones who are not yet
born.</p>
<p>A Cambridge scholarship boy grooming himself for wealth and
influence, a conflicted father who feels alive only while reporting from
occupied Iraq, a middle-aged writer mourning his exile from the
bestseller list—all have a part to play in this surreal, invisible war
on the margins of our world. From the medieval Swiss Alps to the
nineteenth-century Australian bush, from a hotel in Shanghai to a
Manhattan townhouse in the near future, their stories come together in
moments of everyday grace and extraordinary wonder.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h3 id="biopunk">Biopunk</h3>
<p><em>Novels which focus on the near-future unintended consequences of
biotechnology revolutions.</em></p>
<h4 id="kiln-people-2002-by-david-brin-3.8"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/96478.Kiln_People">Kiln
People</a> (2002) <em>by <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14078.David_Brin">David
Brin</a></em> [3.8]</h4>
<p>This novel explores how society might adapt to affordable temporary
cloning of one’s self. - <a href="https://github.com/neontapir"><span
class="citation" data-cites="neontapir">@neontapir</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In a perilous future where disposable duplicate bodies fulfill every
legal and illicit whim of their decadent masters, life is cheap. No one
knows that better than Albert Morris, a brash investigator with a knack
for trouble, who has sent his own duplicates into deadly peril more
times than he cares to remember. But when Morris takes on a ring of
bootleggers making illegal copies of a famous actress, he stumbles upon
a secret so explosive it has incited open warfare on the streets of
Dittotown. Morris must enter a shadowy, nightmare world of ghosts and
golems where nothing – and no one – is what they seem, memory itself is
suspect, and the line between life and death may no longer exist.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="pandemic-2017-by-a.g.-riddle-4.04"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34811896-pandemic">Pandemic</a>
(2017) <em>by <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3087199.A_G_Riddle">A.G.
Riddle</a></em> [4.04]</h4>
<p>The first book in a two part series called the extinction files, the
story explores a bioterrorist plot attempting to usurp the major world
governments, with an extra scifi twist . Not what I would call hard
SciFi and it has its fair share of cheese and cliche, but enough action
and suspense to keep the party going without getting boring. - <a
href="https://github.com/Rogue-System"><span class="citation"
data-cites="Rogue-System">@Rogue-System</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A deadly outbreak in Kenya. A conspiracy beyond imagination. And a
race to save humanity in its darkest hour.</p>
<p>From A.G. Riddle, the worldwide bestselling author of The Atlantis
Gene and Departure, comes a novel that will change everything you think
you know about pandemics.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-windup-girl-2009-by-paolo-bacigalupi-3.7"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6597651-the-windup-girl">The
Windup Girl</a> (2009) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paolo_Bacigalupi">Paolo
Bacigalupi</a></em> [3.7]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen’s Calorie Man in Thailand.
Under cover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok’s street
markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap
the bounty of history’s lost calories. There, he encounters Emiko…</p>
<p>Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of
the New People, Emiko is not human; instead, she is an engineered being,
creche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto
businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok. Regarded as
soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves,
soldiers, and toys of the rich in a chilling near future in which
calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side
effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe.</p>
<p>What happens when calories become currency? What happens when
bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits, when said
bio-terrorism’s genetic drift forces mankind to the cusp of post-human
evolution? Award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi delivers one of the
most highly acclaimed science fiction novels of the twenty-first
century.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h3 id="speculative-fiction">Speculative Fiction</h3>
<h4 id="anathem-2008-by-neal-stephenson-4.2"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2845024-anathem">Anathem</a>
(2008) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Stephenson">Neal
Stephenson</a></em> [4.2]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Fraa Erasmas is a young avout living in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, a
sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, protected
from the corrupting influences of the outside “saecular” world by
ancient stone, honored traditions, and complex rituals. Over the
centuries, cities and governments have risen and fallen beyond the
concent’s walls. Three times during history’s darkest epochs violence
born of superstition and ignorance has invaded and devastated the
cloistered mathic community. Yet the avout have always managed to adapt
in the wake of catastrophe, becoming out of necessity even more austere
and less dependent on technology and material things. And Erasmas has no
fear of the outside—the Extramuros—for the last of the terrible times
was long, long ago.</p>
<p>Now, in celebration of the week-long, once-in-a-decade rite of Apert,
the fraas and suurs prepare to venture beyond the concent’s gates—at the
same time opening them wide to welcome the curious “extras” in. During
his first Apert as a fraa, Erasmas eagerly anticipates reconnecting with
the landmarks and family he hasn’t seen since he was “collected.” But
before the week is out, both the existence he abandoned and the one he
embraced will stand poised on the brink of cataclysmic change.</p>
<p>Powerful unforeseen forces jeopardize the peaceful stability of
mathic life and the established ennui of the Extramuros—a threat that
only an unsteady alliance of saecular and avout can oppose—as, one by
one, Erasmas and his colleagues, teachers, and friends are summoned
forth from the safety of the concent in hopes of warding off global
disaster. Suddenly burdened with a staggering responsibility, Erasmas
finds himself a major player in a drama that will determine the future
of his world—as he sets out on an extraordinary odyssey that will carry
him to the most dangerous, inhospitable corners of the planet… and
beyond.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="never-let-me-go-2005-by-kazuo-ishiguro-3.8"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6334.Never_Let_Me_Go">Never
Let Me Go</a> (2005) <em>by <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4280.Kazuo_Ishiguro">Kazuo
Ishiguro</a></em> [3.8] 🔥</h4>
<p>A heartbreaking coming of age novel with a speculative, mysterious
twist. Definitely a character-driven story. - <a
href="https://github.com/sunrein"><span class="citation"
data-cites="sunrein">@sunrein</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>As children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an
exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a
place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were
constantly reminding their charges of how special they were. Now, years
later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life,
and for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared
past and understand just what it is that makes them special— and how
that gift will shape the rest of their time together.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="stranger-in-a-strange-land-1961-by-robert-a.-heinlein-3.9"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/350.Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land">Stranger
in a Strange Land</a> (1961) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein">Robert A.
Heinlein</a></em> [3.9] 🌟 🔥</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>NAME: Valentine Michael Smith ANCESTRY: Human ORIGIN: Mars</p>
<p>Here is Heinlein’s masterpiece—the brilliant spectacular and
incredibly popular novel that grew from a cult favorite to a bestseller
to a classic in a few short years. It is the story of Valentine Michael
Smith, the man from Mars who taught humankind grokking and
water-sharing. And love.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-end-of-eternity-1955-by-isaac-asimov-4.2"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/509784.The_End_of_Eternity">The
End of Eternity</a> (1955) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov">Isaac Asimov</a></em>
[4.2]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Andrew Harlan is an Eternal, a man whose job it is to range through
past and present Centuries, monitoring and, where necessary, altering
Time’s myriad cause-and-effect relationships. But when Harlan meets and
falls for a non-Eternal woman, he seeks to use the awesome powers and
techniques of the Eternals to twist time for his own purposes, so that
he and his love can survive together.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-shrinking-man-1956-by-richard-matheson-3.8"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33549.The_Shrinking_Man">The
Shrinking Man</a> (1956) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Matheson">Richard
Matheson</a></em> [3.8] 🔥</h4>
<p>This was pretty good; it’s pretty obvious what it is about, and it
reads predictably, but the ending is strong enough to make the entire
book worth reading. - <a href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span
class="citation" data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>While on holiday, Scott Carey is exposed to a cloud of radioactive
spray shortly after he accidentally ingests insecticide. The
radioactivity acts as a catalyst for the bug spray, causing his body to
shrink at a rate of approximately 1/7 of an inch per day. A few weeks
later, Carey can no longer deny the truth: not only is he losing weight,
he is also shorter than he was and deduces, to his dismay, that his body
will continue to shrink.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-years-of-rice-and-salt-2002-by-kim-stanley-robinson-3.7"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2723.The_Years_of_Rice_and_Salt">The
Years of Rice and Salt</a> (2002) <em>by <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1858.Kim_Stanley_Robinson">Kim
Stanley Robinson</a></em> [3.7]</h4>
<p>The alternate history worldbuilding is the draw here, and the scale
and depth of it is impressive. - <a
href="https://github.com/neontapir"><span class="citation"
data-cites="neontapir">@neontapir</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>It is the fourteenth century and one of the most apocalyptic events
in human history is set to occur - the coming of the Black Death.
History teaches us that a third of Europe’s population was destroyed.
But what if? What if the plague killed 99 percent of the population
instead? How would the world have changed? This is a look at the history
that could have been: a history that stretches across centuries, a
history that sees dynasties and nations rise and crumble, a history that
spans horrible famine and magnificent innovation. These are the years of
rice and salt.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h3 id="time-travel">Time Travel</h3>
<h4 id="behold-the-man-1969-by-michael-moorcock-3.8"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60146.Behold_the_Man">Behold
the Man</a> (1969) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Moorcock">Michael
Moorcock</a></em> [3.8]</h4>
<p>Easily one of the most disrespectful, sacrilegious, memorable and
funny books I have read. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Karl Glogauer is a disaffected modern professional casting about for
meaning in a series of half-hearted relationships, a dead-end job, and a
personal struggle. His questions of faith surrounding his father’s
run-of-the-mill Christianity and his mother’s suppressed Judaism lead
him to a bizarre obsession with the idea of the messiah. After the
collapse of his latest affair and his introduction to a reclusive
physics professor, Karl is given the opportunity to confront his
obsession and take a journey that no man has taken before, and from
which he knows he cannot return.</p>
<p>Upon arriving in Palestine, A.D. 29, Glogauer finds that Jesus Christ
is not the man that history and faith would like to believe, but that
there is an opportunity for someone to change the course of history by
making the ultimate sacrifice.</p>
<p>First published in 1969, <em>Behold the Man</em> broke through
science fiction’s genre boundaries to create a poignant reflection on
faith, disillusion and self-sacrifice. This is the classic novel that
established the career of perhaps contemporary science fiction’s most
cerebral and innovative author.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="future-times-three-1968-by-rené-barjavel-3.8"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2509242.Future_Times_Three">Future
Times Three</a> (1968) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Barjavel">René
Barjavel</a></em> [3.8]</h4>
<p>A really good story about time travels, their consequences and the
famous <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandfather_paradox">Grandfather
paradox</a>. - <a href="https://github.com/Gibet"><span class="citation"
data-cites="Gibet">@Gibet</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Here is a fantastic journey that takes you from the past into the
near-future—then to the year 300,000 A.D. into a world where a single
female creature, the size of a mountain, gives birth to all of
society!</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-dancers-at-the-end-of-time-1977-by-michael-moorcock-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60147.The_Dancers_at_the_End_of_Time">The
Dancers at the End of Time</a> (1977) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Moorcock">Michael
Moorcock</a></em> [4.0]</h4>
<p>I liked this series so much I got a tattoo partially inspired by it.
- <a href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p><em>The Dancers at the End of Time</em> is a series of science
fiction novels and short stories, the setting of which is the End of
Time, an era “where entropy is king and the universe has begun
collapsing upon itself.” The inhabitants of this era are immortal
decadents, who create flights of fancy using power rings which draw on
energy devised and stored by their ancestors millions of years prior.
Time travel is possible, and throughout the series various points in
time are visited and revisited. Space travellers are also common, but
most residents of the End of Time find leaving the planet distasteful
and clichéd.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-door-into-summer-1957-by-robert-a.-heinlein-4.0"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/348.The_Door_Into_Summer">The
Door Into Summer</a> (1957) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein">Robert A.
Heinlein</a></em> [4.0]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>It is 1970, and electronics engineer Dan Davis has finally made the
invention of a lifetime: a household robot with extraordinary abilities,
destined to dramatically change the landscape of everyday routine. Then,
with wild success just within reach, Dan’s greedy partner and even
greedier fiancée steal his work and leave him penniless, and trick him
into taking the long sleep—suspended animation for thirty years.</p>
<p>They never imagine that the future time in which Dan awakens has a
very limited form of time travel, just enough that Davis can travel back
and recover his research. He then again undergoes suspended animation,
and awakens again in the high-tech future of the year 2000, with his
reputation, fortune, and his sweetheart.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-eyre-affair-2001-by-jasper-fforde-3.9"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27003.The_Eyre_Affair">The
Eyre Affair</a> (2001) <em>by <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4432.Jasper_Fforde">Jasper
Fforde</a></em> [3.9]</h4>
<p>This novel is absurd fun – think Douglas Adams style with a literary
flair. Though flawed, the later novels in the series are in my reading
pile. - <a href="https://github.com/neontapir"><span class="citation"
data-cites="neontapir">@neontapir</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Great Britain circa 1985: time travel is routine, cloning is a
reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is
taken very, very seriously. Acheron Hades, Third Most Wanted Man In the
World, steals the original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit and kills a
minor character, who then disappears from every volume of the novel ever
printed! Hades’ real target is the beloved Jane Eyre, and it’s not long
before he plucks her from the pages of Bronte’s novel. Enter Thursday
Next, the Special Operative’s renowned literary detective. With the help
of her uncle Mycroft’s Prose Portal, Thursday enters the novel to rescue
Jane Eyre from this heinous act of literary homicide. Can Thursday save
Jane Eyre and Bronte’s masterpiece?</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-gone-world-2018-by-tom-sweterlitsch-3.94"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33413556-the-gone-world">The
Gone World</a> (2018) <em>by <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6981174.Tom_Sweterlitsch">Tom
Sweterlitsch</a></em> [3.94]</h4>
<p>This novel shows interesting mix of hard sci-fi, Nordic noir,
parallel / alternative universe tree and path backtracking. The main
protagonist is fighting the global cataclysm in its own style. The
storytelling is so unique I’m afraid no one would be able to make a film
based on this masterpiece. There is a <a
href="https://www.thisisbarry.com/book/the-gone-world-ending-explained-tom-sweterlitsch-book/">great
book ending explanation</a> there. - <a
href="https://github.com/4ndrej"><span class="citation"
data-cites="4ndrej">@4ndrej</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Shannon Moss is part of a clandestine division within the Naval
Criminal Investigative Service. In western Pennsylvania, 1997, she is
assigned to solve the murder of a Navy SEAL’s family–and to locate his
vanished teenage daughter. Though she can’t share the information with
conventional law enforcement, Moss discovers that the missing SEAL was
an astronaut aboard the spaceship U.S.S. Libra—a ship assumed lost to
the currents of Deep Time. Moss knows first-hand the mental trauma of
time-travel and believes the SEAL’s experience with the future has
triggered this violence. Determined to find the missing girl and driven
by a troubling connection from her own past, Moss travels ahead in time
to explore possible versions of the future, seeking evidence to crack
the present-day case. To her horror, the future reveals that it’s not
only the fate of a family that hinges on her work, for what she
witnesses rising over time’s horizon and hurtling toward the present is
the Terminus: the terrifying and cataclysmic end of humanity itself.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-time-machine-1895-by-h.-g.-wells-3.8"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2493.The_Time_Machine">The
Time Machine</a> (1895) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells">H. G. Wells</a></em>
[3.8] 🌟 🔥</h4>
<p>Worth the read, mostly because it is the first time the words ‘time
machine’ were used, and because the story, while a bit cliched to modern
ears, is still good and gripping. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>“I’ve had a most amazing time…”</p>
<p>So begins the Time Traveller’s astonishing firsthand account of his
journey 800,000 years beyond his own era—and the story that launched H.
G. Wells’s successful career and earned him his reputation as the father
of science fiction. With a speculative leap that still fires the
imagination, Wells sends his brave explorer to face a future burdened
with our greatest hopes… and our darkest fears. A pull of the Time
Machine’s lever propels him to the age of a slowly dying Earth. There he
discovers two bizarre races—the ethereal Eloi and the subterranean
Morlocks—who not only symbolize the duality of human nature, but offer a
terrifying portrait of the men of tomorrow as well. Published in 1895,
this masterpiece of invention captivated readers on the threshold of a
new century. Thanks to Wells’s expert storytelling and provocative
insight, <em>The Time Machine</em> will continue to enthrall readers for
generations to come.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h3 id="comedy">Comedy</h3>
<h4 id="magic-2.0-series-2013-2014-2015-2017-by-scott-meyer-3.9"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/131379-magic-2-0">Magic 2.0
Series</a> (2013, 2014, 2015, 2017) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Meyer_(author)">Scott
Meyer</a></em> [3.9]</h4>
<p>A quick, fun mashup of two if my favorite genres. - <a
href="https://github.com/damenleeturks"><span class="citation"
data-cites="damenleeturks">@damenleeturks</span></a></p>
<p>Books:</p>
<ul>
<li><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18616975-off-to-be-the-wizard">Off
to Be the Wizard</a> [3.98]</li>
<li><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21483760-spell-or-high-water">Spell
or High Water</a> [4.02]</li>
<li><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23249416-an-unwelcome-quest">An
Unwelcome Quest</a> [3.98]</li>
<li><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36566205-fight-and-flight">Fight
and Flight</a> [3.61]</li>
<li><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39751936-out-of-spite-out-of-mind">Out
of Spite, Out of Mind</a> [3.79]</li>
</ul>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Martin Banks is just a normal guy who has made an abnormal discovery:
he can manipulate reality, thanks to reality being nothing more than a
computer program. With every use of this ability, though, Martin finds
his little “tweaks” have not escaped notice. Rather than face
prosecution, he decides instead to travel back in time to the Middle
Ages and pose as a wizard.</p>
<p>What could possibly go wrong?</p>
<p>An American hacker in King Arthur’s court, Martin must now train to
become a full-fledged master of his powers, discover the truth behind
the ancient wizard Merlin… and not, y’know, die or anything.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4
id="the-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy-1979-by-douglas-adams-4.2"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11.The_Hitchhiker_s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy">The
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy</a> (1979) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams">Douglas
Adams</a></em> [4.2] 🌟 🔥</h4>
<p>One of the funniest series I have ever read. I laugh to myself and
think about this all of the time. Changed how I view the galaxy and lost
pens irreversibly. I also celebrate <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towel_Day">International Towel
Day</a> every year now. - <a href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span
class="citation" data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic
freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford
Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of <em>The Hitchhiker’s
Guide to the Galaxy</em> who, for the last fifteen years, has been
posing as an out-of-work actor.</p>
<p>Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by
quotes from <em>The Hitchhiker’s Guide</em> (“A towel is about the most
massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have”) and a
galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox—the two-headed,
three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy;
Trillian, Zaphod’s girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur
tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a
paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a
former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all
the ballpoint pens he bought over the years.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-laundry-series-2004-by-charles-stross-3.9"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/101869.The_Atrocity_Archives">The
Laundry Series</a> (2004) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Stross">Charles
Stross</a></em> [3.9]</h4>
<p>A bit of a lighthearted series, it’s a great drama - <a
href="https://github.com/alex-keyes"><span class="citation"
data-cites="alexkeyes">@alexkeyes</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>NEVER VOLUNTEER FOR ACTIVE DUTY …Bob Howard is a low-level techie
working for a super-secret government agency. While his colleagues are
out saving the world, Bob’s under a desk restoring lost data. His world
was dull and safe - but then he went and got Noticed. Now, Bob is up to
his neck in spycraft, parallel universes, dimension-hopping terrorists,
monstrous elder gods and the end of the world. Only one thing is
certain: it will take more than a full system reboot to sort this mess
out …This is the first novel in the Laundry Files.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h3 id="horror">Horror</h3>
<h4 id="house-of-leaves-2000-by-mark-z.-danielewski-4.12"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24800.House_of_Leaves">House
of Leaves</a> (2000) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Z._Danielewski">Mark Z.
Danielewski</a></em> [4.12] 🔥</h4>
<p>This book has a cult following, and upon reading it this summer, I
fully understand why people are still so enamored with it almost twenty
years after its first publish. I still think back to it often, and I
will eventually re-read it (at least once) to get details I missed the
first time. You can get lost in this book both figuratively and
literally, so it’s best to take your time with it. Shout-out to <a
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLpAd9j9n7k">Austin McConnell’s
video</a> for introducing me to <em>House of Leaves!</em> - <a
href="https://github.com/thedeany"><span class="citation"
data-cites="thedeany">@thedeany</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was
nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would
occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the
small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command.
Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth—musicians, tattoo
artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline
junkies—the book eventually made its way into the hands of older
generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged
pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged
children.</p>
<p>Now, for the first time, this astonishing novel is made available in
book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes,
and newly added second and third appendices.</p>
<p>The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves
into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is
terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the
outside.</p>
<p>Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will
Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the
consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little
children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another
story—of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet
door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through
their walls and consume all their dreams.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h2 id="short-story-collections">Short Story Collections</h2>
<h4 id="axiomatic-1995-by-greg-egan-4.2"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/156783.Axiomatic">Axiomatic</a>
(1995) <em>by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Egan">Greg
Egan</a></em> [4.2]</h4>
<p>Hard-as-nails science fiction, but wonderfully fresh and imaginative
(especially if you haven’t had a chance to read anything written by Greg
Egan before.) The stories have aged surprisingly well — which only
underlines Egan’s penchant for sounding out the shape of the future. -
<a href="https://github.com/mihailim"><span class="citation"
data-cites="mihailim">@mihailim</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p><em>Axiomatic</em> is a collection of Greg Egan’s short stories that
appeared in various science fiction magazines (mostly <em>Interzone</em>
and <em>Asimov’s</em>) between 1989 and 1992. Like most of Egan’s work,
the stories focus on science and ideas, sometimes at the expense of the
writing. But although Egan may lack a certain stylistic flair, he more
than makes up for it with his wonderful visions of the future. Some of
the more interesting stories include <em>Into Darkness</em>, the tale of
a rescue worker whose territory is a runaway wormhole, and the title
story <em>Axiomatic</em>, which is about a man looking to find meaning
in the senseless death of his wife.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Contents: <em>The Infinite Assassin</em> (1991), <em>The Hundred
Light-Year Diary</em> (1992), <em>Eugene</em> (1990), <em>The
Caress</em> (1990), <em>Blood Sisters</em> (1991), <em>Axiomatic</em>
(1990), <em>The Safe-Deposit Box</em> (1990), <em>Seeing</em> (1995),
<em>A Kidnapping</em> (1995), <em>Learning to Be Me</em> (1990), <em>The
Moat</em> (1991), <em>The Walk</em> (1992), <em>The Cutie</em> (1989),
<em>Into Darkness</em> (1992), <em>Appropriate Love</em> (1991), <em>The
Moral Virologist</em> (1990), <em>Closer</em> (1992), <em>Unstable
Orbits in the Space of Lies</em> (1992)</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="city-1952-by-clifford-d.-simak-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/222093.City">City</a> (1952)
<em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_D._Simak">Clifford D.
Simak</a></em> [4.1]</h4>
<p>You will never think about ants the same way again. - <a
href="https://github.com/uraimo"><span class="citation"
data-cites="uraimo">@uraimo</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Simak’s “City” is a series of connected stories, a series of legends,
myths, and campfire stories told by Dogs about the end of human
civilization, centering on the Webster family, who, among their other
accomplishments, designed the ships that took Men to the stars and gave
Dogs the gift of speech and robots to be their hands.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="i-robot-1950-by-isaac-asimov-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41804.I_Robot">I, Robot</a>
(1950) <em>by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov">Isaac
Asimov</a></em> [4.1] 🌟 🔥</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The three laws of Robotics:</p>
<ol type="1">
<li><p>A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow
a human being to come to harm.</p></li>
<li><p>A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where
such orders would conflict with the First Law.</p></li>
<li><p>A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection
does not conflict with the First or Second Law.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>With these three, simple directives, Isaac Asimov changed our
perception of robots forever when he formulated the laws governing their
behavior. In <em>I, Robot</em>, Asimov chronicles the development of the
robot through a series of interlinked stories: from its primitive
origins in the present to its ultimate perfection in the not-so-distant
future—a future in which humanity itself may be rendered obsolete.</p>
<p>Here are stories of robots gone mad, of mind-read robots, and robots
with a sense of humor. Of robot politicians, and robots who secretly run
the world—all told with the dramatic blend of science fact and science
fiction that has become Asimov’s trademark.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="manhattan-in-reverse-2011-by-peter-f.-hamilton-3.9"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10710770-manhattan-in-reverse">Manhattan
in Reverse</a> (2011) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_F._Hamilton">Peter F.
Hamilton</a></em> [3.9]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>This is a collection of short stories from the master of space opera.
Peter F. Hamilton takes us on a journey from a murder mystery in an
alternative Oxford in the 1800s to a story featuring Paula Mayo, deputy
director of the Intersolar Commonwealth’s Serious Crimes
Directorate.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Contents: <em>Watching Trees Grow</em> (2000), <em>Footvote</em>
(2004), <em>If at First…</em> (2007), <em>The Forever Kitten</em>
(2005), <em>Blessed by an Angel</em> (2007), <em>The Demon Trap</em>
(2008), <em>Manhattan in Reverse</em> (2011)</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="of-time-and-stars-1972-by-arthur-c.-clarke-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21798296-of-time-and-stars">Of
Time and Stars</a> (1972) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke">Arthur C.
Clarke</a></em> [4.1]</h4>
<p>I can’t praise this book enough. <em>The Nine Billion Names of
God</em> is brilliantly done; well written, executed, and
frisson-inducing. <em>If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth</em> is also a stark
reminder that we only have one planet. One of the most memorable Science
Fiction stories I have ever read. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p><em>Of Time and Stars</em> is a collection of short stories by
science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke. The stories all originally
appeared in a number of different publications including the periodicals
<em>Dude</em>, <em>The Evening Standard</em>, <em>Lilliput</em>, <em>The
Magazine of Fantasy &amp; Science Fiction</em>, <em>Future</em>, <em>New
Worlds</em>, <em>Startling Stories</em>, <em>Astounding</em>,
<em>Fantasy</em>, <em>King’s College Review</em>, <em>Satellite</em>,
<em>Amazing Stories</em>, <em>London Evening News</em>, <em>Infinity
Science Fiction</em> and <em>Ten Story Fantasy</em> as well as the
anthologies <em>Star Science Fiction Stories No.1</em> edited by
Frederik Pohl and <em>Time to Come</em> edited by August Derleth.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Contents: <em>The Nine Billion Names of God</em> (1953), <em>An Ape
About the House</em> (1962), <em>Green Fingers</em> (1956), <em>Trouble
with the Natives</em> (1951), <em>Into the Comet</em> (1960), <em>No
Morning After</em> (1954), <em>‘If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth…’</em>
(1951), <em>Who’s There?</em> (1958), <em>All the Time in the World</em>
(1952), <em>Hide and Seek</em> (1949), <em>Robin Hood, F.R.S.</em>
(1956), <em>The Fires Within</em> (1949), <em>The Forgotten Enemy</em>
(1953), <em>The Reluctant Orchid</em> (1956), <em>Encounter at Dawn</em>
(1953), <em>Security Check</em> (1957), <em>Feathered Friend</em>
(1957), <em>The Sentinel</em> (1951)</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="radicalized-2019-by-cory-doctorow-4.03"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41447687-radicalized">Radicalized</a>
(2019) <em>by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Doctorow">Cory
Doctorow</a></em> [4.03]</h4>
<p>The all-too-near-future novella <em>Unauthorized Bread</em> embodies
what cyberpunk should be all about: high tech, low life.
<em>Radicalized</em> and <em>The Masque of the Red Death</em> delve deep
into some dark corners of society, while <em>Model Minority</em> is a
pretty interesting take on Superman and racism. The book had me turning
pages late into the night. - <a href="https://github.com/nahkampf"><span
class="citation" data-cites="nahkampf">@nahkampf</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Radicalized explores such issues as digital rights management, police
brutality, radicalization in internet communities, and doomsday
preppers. Doctorow has stated that the collection was inspired by
“dealing with the stress and anxiety of being alive in the Trump era,”
and that the stories are not meant to be predictive, but rather
allegorical.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Contents: <em>Unauthorized Bread</em> (2019), <em>Model Minority</em>
(2019), <em>Radicalized</em> (2019), <em>The Masque of the Red
Death</em> (2019)</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="stories-of-your-life-and-others-2002-by-ted-chiang-4.4"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/729760.Stories_of_Your_Life_and_Others">Stories
of Your Life and Others</a> (2002) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Chiang">Ted Chiang</a></em>
[4.4]</h4>
<p>What amazes me most about Ted Chiang’s stories is their
<em>richness</em>—the level of detail which the author managed to weave
into the stories without having them turn into fluff. Artfully executed,
uniformly good through excellent—which is by no means par for the course
in single-author collections! Reminds me the most of Greg Egan’s
<em>Axiomatic</em> collection, except Chiang manages to keep his
characters optimistic. - <a href="https://github.com/mihailim"><span
class="citation" data-cites="mihailim">@mihailim</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Ted Chiang’s first published story, “<em>Tower of Babylon</em>,” won
the Nebula Award in 1990. Subsequent stories have won the Asimov’s SF
Magazine reader poll, a second Nebula Award, the Theodore Sturgeon
Memorial Award, and the Sidewise Award for alternate history. He won the
John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1992. Story for story, he
is the most honored young writer in modern SF.</p>
<p>What if men built a tower from Earth to Heaven—and broke through to
Heaven’s other side? What if we discovered that the fundamentals of
mathematics were arbitrary and inconsistent? What if there were a
science of naming things that calls life into being from inanimate
matter? What if exposure to an alien language forever changed our
perception of time? What if all the beliefs of fundamentalist
Christianity were literally true, and the sight of sinners being
swallowed into fiery pits were a routine event on city streets? These
are the kinds of outrageous questions posed by the stories of Ted
Chiang. Stories of your life… and others.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Contents: <em>Tower of Babylon</em> (1990), <em>Understand</em>
(1991), <em>Division by Zero</em> (1991), <em>Story of Your Life</em>
(1998), <em>Seventy-Two Letters</em> (2000), <em>The Evolution of Human
Science</em> (2000), <em>Hell Is the Absence of God</em> (2001),
<em>Liking What You See: A Documentary</em> (2002)</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-illustrated-man-1951-by-ray-bradbury-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24830.The_Illustrated_Man">The
Illustrated Man</a> (1951) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Bradbury">Ray Bradbury</a></em>
[4.1] 🌟</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>That <em>The Illustrated Man</em> has remained in print since being
published in 1951 is fair testimony to the universal appeal of Ray
Bradbury’s work. Only his second collection (the first was <em>Dark
Carnival</em>, later reworked into <em>The October Country</em>), it is
a marvelous, if mostly dark, quilt of science fiction, fantasy, and
horror. In an ingenious framework to open and close the book, Bradbury
presents himself as a nameless narrator who meets the Illustrated Man—a
wanderer whose entire body is a living canvas of exotic tattoos. What’s
even more remarkable, and increasingly disturbing, is that the
illustrations are themselves magically alive, and each proceeds to
unfold its own story, such as “The Veldt,” wherein rowdy children take a
game of virtual reality way over the edge. Or “Kaleidoscope,” a
heartbreaking portrait of stranded astronauts about to reenter our
atmosphere—without the benefit of a spaceship. Or “Zero Hour,” in which
invading aliens have discovered a most logical ally—our own children.
Even though most were written in the 1940s and 1950s, these 18 classic
stories will be just as chillingly effective 50 years from now. —Stanley
Wiater</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4
id="the-island-of-dr.-death-and-other-stories-and-other-stories-1980-by-gene-wolfe-4.1"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/271587.The_Island_of_Dr_Death_and_Other_Stories_and_Other_Stories">The
Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories and Other Stories</a> (1980)
<em>by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Wolfe">Gene
Wolfe</a></em> [4.1]</h4>
<p>I think of these stories often; The Death of Dr. Island won a Nebula
and offers a startling view into the rehabilitation and justice system
we currently deal with and what we might have. The Doctor of Death
Island is the same - I often think of him taking off the book cover,
“like Mephistopholes”. It takes an amazing talent to make three
beautiful short stories out of permutations on a title. Also, Feather
Tigers made me view the jungles in South East Asia a bit differently
than I would have, and I think about Nashwonk a lot more than I should.
I highly suggest this book. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A superb collection of science fiction and fantasy stories, <em>The
Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories</em> is a
book that transcends all genre definitions. The stories within are mined
with depth charges, explosions of meaning and illumination that will
keep you thinking and feeling long after you have finished reading.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Contents: <em>The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories</em>
(1970), <em>Alien Stones</em> (1972), <em>La Befana</em> (1973), <em>The
Hero as Werwolf</em> (1975), <em>Three Fingers</em> (1976), <em>The
Death of Dr. Island</em> (1973), <em>Feather Tigers</em> (1973),
<em>Hour of Trust</em> (1973), <em>Tracking Song</em> (1975), <em>The
Toy Theater</em> (1971), <em>The Doctor of Death Island</em> (1978),
<em>Cues</em> (1974), <em>The Eyeflash Miracles</em> (1976), <em>Seven
American Nights</em> (1978)</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h2 id="movies">Movies</h2>
<h4 id="a-space-odyssey-1968-8.3"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/">2001: A Space Odyssey</a>
(1968) [8.3]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>space</code> <code>ai</code>
<code>singularity</code><br> Director: <em>Stanley Kubrick</em></p>
<p>Cinematically, this movie is a masterpiece. This is one of the few
films on this list that is important as a film in itself, not just to
the genre. From the beginning to the end, it is captivating - if you
don’t mind a bit of a slower pace than most of the other films on here.
- <a href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Humanity finds a mysterious, obviously artificial, object buried
beneath the Lunar surface and, with the intelligent computer H.A.L.
9000, sets off on a quest.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="a-clockwork-orange-1971-8.4"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066921/">A Clockwork Orange</a>
(1971) [8.4]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>dystopia</code></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In future Britain, charismatic delinquent Alex DeLarge is jailed and
volunteers for an experimental aversion therapy developed by the
government in an effort to solve society’s crime problem—but not all
goes according to plan.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="a-scanner-darkly-2006-7.1"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405296/">A Scanner Darkly</a> (2006)
[7.1]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>dystopia</code> <code>cyberpunk</code></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>An undercover cop in a not-too-distant future becomes involved with a
dangerous new drug and begins to lose his own identity as a result.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="akira-1988-8.1"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094625/">Akira</a> (1988) [8.1]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>anime</code> <code>dystopia</code>
<code>thriller</code></p>
<p>One of the first mainstream anime movies. Psychologically horrifying
in more than a few ways. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A secret military project endangers Neo-Tokyo when it turns a biker
gang member into a rampaging psionic psychopath that only two kids and a
group of psionics can stop.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="arrival-2016-8.3"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2543164/">Arrival</a> (2016)
[8.3]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>aliens</code> <code>linguistics</code><br />
Director: <em>Denis Villeneuve</em></p>
<p>A beautiful film, weaving together memory, languages, and the other.
The film is less about aliens and more about our perception of them;
like District 9, this film functions as a good mirror for how different
people and governments deal with alien interaction. The music is also
exceptional. - <a href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span
class="citation" data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>When 12 mysterious spacecraft appear around the world, linguistics
professor Louise Banks is tasked with interpreting the language of the
apparent alien visitors.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="blade-runner-1982-8.2"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/">Blade Runner</a> (1982)
[8.2]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>dystopia</code> <code>ai</code>
<code>cyberpunk</code> <code>singularity</code><br> Director: <em>Ridley
Scott</em></p>
<p>Very few films can stand up to as many rewatches as this film can -
there are layers upon layers, and the bleak image of the future hasn’t
lost its power in the thirty years the film has been around. This was a
reworking of the Phillip K. Dick book (above), but without a lot of
unnecessary or largely spurious subplots, and it focuses much more on
identity, sexuality, and the psychological ramifications of technology.
A masterpiece. - <a href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span
class="citation" data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A blade runner must pursue and try to terminate four replicants who
stole a ship in space and have returned to Earth to find their
creator.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="blade-runner-2049-2017-8.0"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1856101/">Blade Runner 2049</a>
(2017) [8.0]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>dystopia</code> <code>ai</code>
<code>cyberpunk</code> <code>thriller</code> <code>mystery</code><br>
Director: <em>Denis Villeneuve</em></p>
<p>Blade Runner 2049 returns to the original book’s deep philosophical
questions about the nature of humanity, and expressed through a
captivating, epic mystery it amounts to a breathtaking, mind-bending
cinematic experience. - <a
href="https://github.com/TheSherlockHomie"><span class="citation"
data-cites="TheSherlockHomie">@TheSherlockHomie</span></a>s</p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A young blade runner’s discovery of a long-buried secret leads him to
track down former blade runner Rick Deckard, who’s been missing for
thirty years.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="brazil-1985-8.0"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/">Brazil</a> (1985)
[8.0]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>dystopia</code> <code>police</code></p>
<p>If you’re looking to replicate the experience of taking acid without
actually doing drugs, than this film is for you. Weird as hell, and De
Niro’s cameo is strange, but this film is very good. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A bureaucrat in a retro-future world tries to correct an
administrative error and himself becomes an enemy of the state.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="cargo-2009-6.2"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0381940/">Cargo</a> (2009) [6.2]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>space</code> <code>dystopia</code></p>
<p>Why not try something out of the ordinary with this Swiss sci-fi
thriller? <a href="https://github.com/lekoaf"><span class="citation"
data-cites="Lekoaf">@Lekoaf</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In 2270, Earth is completely depleted and no one lives there anymore.
Those that have money move to Rhea; but most of the population lives in
orbit in space stations. Dr. Laura Portmann decides to work in the cargo
ship Kassandra in an eight year travel to Station 42 that is in orbit of
RH278 to raise money to meet her sister Arianne in Rhea.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="chappie-2015-7.1"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1823672/">Chappie</a> (2015)
[7.1]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>ai</code> <code>police</code></p>
<p>A movie about an AI robot “growing up” (as in, learning about the
world and learning the difference between good and bad). An amazing
story, you really feel like Chappie is your friend by the end of the
movie. Visual effects are not that great in a couple of scenes. - <a
href="https://github.com/aleksandar-todorovic"><span class="citation"
data-cites="aleksandar-todorovic">@aleksandar-todorovic</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In the near future, crime is patrolled by a mechanized police force.
When one police droid, Chappie, is stolen and given new programming, he
becomes the first robot with the ability to think and feel for
himself.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="children-of-men-2006-7.9"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0206634/">Children of Men</a> (2006)
[7.9]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>dystopia</code> <code>drama</code></p>
<p>Imagine a world where no baby has been born for 18 years because of
the global human infertility. Think which kinds of consequences would
that bring. Then, imagine a girl getting pregnant in that kind of world.
This movie is absolutely fantastic! The action shots are magnificent. I
rewatched it tonight and the movie gave me the same kind of goosebumps
it did when I first watched it a couple of years ago. I have no
compaints about this movie. It’s the perfect way to spend two hours. It
gets 10/10 from me. - <a
href="https://github.com/aleksandar-todorovic"><span class="citation"
data-cites="aleksandar-todorovic">@aleksandar-todorovic</span></a></p>
<p>Absolutely beautiful film. The cinematography is fantastic; Michael
Caine has a memorable and well-played role (as ever, I mean, he’s
Michael Caine); and the soundtrack is spectacular, with both Radiohead’s
<em>Life in a Glasshouse</em> and King Crimson’s <em>The Court of the
Crimson King</em> actually managing to work in the same film. The best.
- <a href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In 2027, in a chaotic world in which women have become somehow
infertile, a former activist agrees to help transport a miraculously
pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="cloud-atlas-2012-7.5"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1371111/">Cloud Atlas</a> (2012)
[7.5]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>drama</code> <code>thriller</code></p>
<p>This is an awesome movie. It is a deep movie, with a complex plot.
You don’t want to be distracted while watching it. I liked how the six
different stories played by different characters are played by the same
actors and how the stories can be different but are linked by small
things. Also, if you like non standard narratives this is your movie. -
<a href="https://github.com/damaru2"><span class="citation"
data-cites="damaru2">@damaru2</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>An exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one
another in the past, present and future, as one soul is shaped from a
killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to
inspire a revolution.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="coherence-2013-7.1"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2866360/">Coherence</a> (2013)
[7.1]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Strange things begin to happen when a group of friends gather for a
dinner party on an evening when a comet is passing overhead.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="contact-1997-7.4"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118884/">Contact</a> (1997)
[7.4]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>aliens</code> <code>space</code> <code>drama</code>
<code>mystery</code> <code>thriller</code><br> Director: <em>Robert
Zemeckis</em><br></p>
<p>Based on a novel by the fantastic Carl Sagan, this is a painstakingly
realistic piece of sci-fi art. - <a
href="https://github.com/abhineet97"><span class="citation"
data-cites="abhineet97">@abhineet97</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Dr. Ellie Arroway, after years of searching, finds conclusive radio
proof of extraterrestrial intelligence, sending plans for a mysterious
machine.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="dark-city-1998-7.7"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118929/">Dark City</a> (1998)
[7.7]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>aliens</code> <code>mystery</code>
<code>sci-fi</code> <code>thriller</code><br> Director: <em>Alex
Proyas</em><br></p>
<p>Excellent neo-noir about a man trapped in a city permanently in
nighttime. He suffers from amnesia, and he may or may not have killed
several women. Both the police and a group of men called the Strangers
are hot on his trail. I love the 1940s sci-fi setting and the plot full
of mysteries. - <a href="https://github.com/CodeWritingCow"><span
class="citation"
data-cites="CodeWritingCow">@CodeWritingCow</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A man struggles with memories of his past, including a wife he cannot
remember, in a nightmarish world with no sun.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="district-9-2009-8.0"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1136608/">District 9</a> (2009)
[8.0]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>aliens</code> <code>thriller</code>
<code>apartheid</code><br> Director: <em>Neill Blomkamp</em><br> Writer:
<em>Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell</em></p>
<p>:+1: I liked it. Very original. - <a
href="https://github.com/sindresorhus"><span class="citation"
data-cites="sindresorhus">@sindresorhus</span></a></p>
<p>Yep, the idea is pretty cool and original. Although I have some
doubts about the realization. I hope in twenty years someone will make a
better remake :) - <a href="https://github.com/marcoslhc"><span
class="citation" data-cites="marcoslhc">@marcoslhc</span></a></p>
<p>I thought it was pretty awesome, even just linguistically. Special
effects were great. Interesting given it was South African, too. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>An extraterrestrial race forced to live in slum-like conditions on
Earth suddenly finds a kindred spirit in a government agent who is
exposed to their biotechnology.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="dune-1984-6.6"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087182/">Dune</a> (1984) [6.6]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>space</code> <code>aliens</code><br> Director:
<em>David Lynch</em></p>
<p>This is based on the Dune book by Herbert, listed above. This version
is legendary - it has Patrick Stewart and Sting as actors, and David
Lynch’s direction is weird and weighty. The soundtrack, by Toto, is good
enough to stand on its own. I can’t imagine reading the books without
thinking of this viewing. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A Duke’s son leads desert warriors against the galactic emperor and
his father’s evil nemesis when they assassinate his father and free
their desert world from the emperor’s rule.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="edge-of-tomorrow-2014-7.9"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1631867/">Edge of Tomorrow</a> (2014)
[7.9]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>thriller</code> <code>police</code>
<code>aliens</code></p>
<p>Thrilling and original. Feels like a cross between Halo (the game),
Groundhog Day and The Butterfly Effect. - <a
href="https://github.com/sindresorhus"><span class="citation"
data-cites="sindresorhus">@sindresorhus</span></a></p>
<p>I was thinking that this movie would be like the rest of the movies
starring Tom Cruise, but I was pleasantly surprised. The first half of
the movie had nice humoristic scenes. They made the repeating of the day
far more interesting than in the Groundhog Day. The love story between
the main characters doesn’t look cheap. The visual effects is not in the
center of the attention, it’s the story. I have to say that the movie
was way better than I expected it to be by looking at the trailers for
it. I highly recommend it. - <a
href="https://github.com/aleksandar-todorovic"><span class="citation"
data-cites="aleksandar-todorovic">@aleksandar-todorovic</span></a></p>
<p>It was pretty good, the premise is quiet interesting, and the acting
was quite good. - <a href="https://github.com/elssar"><span
class="citation" data-cites="elssar">@elssar</span></a></p>
<p>I thought it was great, and I was a bit anxious about there being so
many scenes repeating the same thing, but it worked! - <a
href="https://github.com/tjFogarty"><span class="citation"
data-cites="tjFogarty">@tjFogarty</span></a></p>
<p>One of my favorite sci-fi movies of all time. The source material is
supposed to be good too, which is a manga called “All You Need is Kill”.
Haven’t read it yet, but if you liked the movie then you would probably
like this too. - <a href="https://github.com/wulfshadow"><span
class="citation" data-cites="wulfshadow">@wulfshadow</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A military officer is brought into an alien war against an
extraterrestrial enemy who can reset the day and know the future. When
this officer is enabled with the same power, he teams up with a Special
Forces warrior to try and end the war.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="eraserhead-1977-7.4"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074486/">Eraserhead</a> (1977)
[7.4]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry
girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant
child.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="europa-report-2013-6.5"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2051879/">Europa Report</a> (2013)
[6.5]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>space</code></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>An international crew of astronauts undertakes a privately funded
mission to search for life on Jupiter’s fourth largest moon.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="ex-machina-2015-7.9"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0470752/">Ex Machina</a> (2015)
[7.9]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>ai</code></p>
<p>Thought-provoking movie that explores what it means to be human.
Deep, suspenseful, and at times claustrophobic. Acting is to perfection.
Visual effects are so well done and natural you don’t even notice them.
Truly the best sci-fi movie I’ve watched in years. - <a
href="https://sindresorhus.com"><span class="citation"
data-cites="sindresorhus">@sindresorhus</span></a></p>
<p>Kind of a parody about Google. The owner of a huge search provider
creates an A.I. humanoid in a complete secrecy and calls a young
programmer to perform a slight variation of a <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test">Turing test</a> to test
his creation in a secret underground lab. Can be a good introduction to
Turing test to people interested in A.I. To be honest, the end of the
movie was a bit disappointing to me. - <a
href="https://github.com/aleksandar-todorovic"><span class="citation"
data-cites="aleksandar-todorovic">@aleksandar-todorovic</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A young programmer is selected to participate in a breakthrough
experiment in artificial intelligence by evaluating the human qualities
of a breathtaking female A.I.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="existenz-1999-6.8"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120907/">eXistenZ</a> (1999)
[6.8]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>thriller</code></p>
<p>This is an independent movie, their budget wasn’t very good and thus
maybe the shots and the special effects are not the best, but it has all
the good elements of a scifi movie and a thriller. I liked all the
details about how the perfect virtual reality devices work and what the
users feel when in game. - <a href="https://github.com/damaru2"><span
class="citation" data-cites="damaru2">@damaru2</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A game designer on the run from assassins must play her latest
virtual reality creation with a marketing trainee to determine if the
game has been damaged.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="forbidden-planet-1956-7.6"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049223/">Forbidden Planet</a> (1956)
[7.6]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>Action</code> <code>Adventure</code>
<code>Sci-Fi</code></p>
<p>Forbidden Planet is one of, if not the most iconic Science Fiction
movie to have have been released during the 1950’s. It stands shoulder
to shoulder with the likes of “The Day the Earth Stood Still” and “The
Invasion of the Body Snatchers”.</p>
<p>Forbidden Planet takes the “hard” Sci-Fi route, whilst retaining
fantastical elements that are associated with space dramas. The film
carries a level of class that elevates it above its genre contemporaries
due to the fantastic production values. The special effects and set
designs hold up remarkably well even by today’s standards. - <span
class="citation" data-cites="augustopedro">@augustopedro</span></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A starship crew goes to investigate the silence of a planet’s colony
only to find two survivors and a deadly secret that one of them has.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="galaxy-quest-1999-7.3"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0177789/">Galaxy Quest</a> (1999)
[7.3]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>comedy</code> <code>space</code>
<code>aliens</code></p>
<p>If you’ve heard of Star Trek, and like comedy, this is for you - the
entire film is a giant joke on the scifi industry, played by fantastic
actors. Hilarious. - <a href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span
class="citation" data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The alumni cast of a space opera television series have to play their
roles as the real thing when an alien race needs their help.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="gattaca-1997-7.8"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/">Gattaca</a> (1997)
[7.8]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>biopunk</code> <code>space</code></p>
<p>This film gets more relevant every year. Slow at times, the questions
it raises are especially pertinent as your data becomes more important
to insurance companies and governments, and as Western culture is
increasingly becoming aware of genetic advantages and privilege. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A genetically inferior man assumes the identity of a superior one in
order to pursue his lifelong dream of space travel.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="ghost-in-the-shell-1995-8.0"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113568/">Ghost in the Shell</a>
(1995) [8.0]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>anime</code> <code>ai</code>
<code>police</code></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A female cyborg cop and her partner hunt a mysterious and powerful
hacker called the Puppet Master.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="godzilla-1954-7.5"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047034/">Godzilla</a> (1954)
[7.5]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>apocalypse</code> <code>aliens</code>
<code>action</code></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>American nuclear weapons testing results in the creation of a
seemingly unstoppable, dinosaur-like beast.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="hackers-1995-6.2"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113243/">Hackers</a> (1995)
[6.2]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>cyberpunk</code> <code>police</code>
<code>thriller</code></p>
<p>In a strange loop, a lot of the statements made in this film about
who hackers are have gone full circle and been incorporated into our
culture (Substack’s ending most of his slides with ‘Hack the planet’,
for instance). The actual hacking is ridiculous, but the punks on the
edge of society coming into their own makes this worth watching. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A young boy is arrested by the U.S. Secret Service for writing a
computer virus and is banned from using a computer until his 18th
birthday. Years later, he and his new-found friends discover a plot to
unleash a dangerous computer virus, but they must use their computer
skills to find the evidence while being pursued by the Secret Service
and the evil computer genius behind the virus.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="her-2014-8.0"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/">Her</a> (2014) [8.0]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>ai</code> <code>drama</code>
<code>singularity</code></p>
<p>Hey, lets all fall in love in our operating systems! The movie seems
like a plausible love story and it takes the reality of our addiction to
technology to a whole new level. - <a
href="https://github.com/aleksandar-todorovic"><span class="citation"
data-cites="aleksandar-todorovic">@aleksandar-todorovic</span></a></p>
<p>This is a beautiful film; the plot was forced at times, especially
towards the end, but the character development was fantastic, and
Joaquin Phoenix’s acting carries the film. The set design and clothes
are also impeccable, with a few of what the near future might look like.
I cried. - <a href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span
class="citation" data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A lonely writer develops an unlikely relationship with his newly
purchased operating system that’s designed to meet his every need.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="i-origins-2014-7.3"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2884206/">I Origins</a> (2014)
[7.3]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>cyberpunk</code></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A molecular biologist and his laboratory partner uncover evidence
that may fundamentally change society as we know it.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="i-robot-2004-7.1"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0343818/">I, Robot</a> (2004)
[7.1]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>ia</code> <code>crime</code></p>
<p>The name of this movie comes from the Asimov’s book of the same name,
which consists of science fiction short stories. The movie could
perfectly be another of Asimov’s stories. It mimics his style and shows
an interesting movie posing questions about artificial intelligence,
conscience and emotion. - <a href="https://github.com/damaru2"><span
class="citation" data-cites="damaru2">@damaru2</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In 2035, a technophobic cop investigates a crime that may have been
perpetrated by a robot, which leads to a larger threat to humanity.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="inception-2010-8.8"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/">Inception</a> (2010)
[8.8]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>cyberpunk</code></p>
<p>A major blockbuster, this film stretches the limits of recursion
while maintaining its action. Well acted and beautifully shot. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A thief who steals corporate secrets through use of dream-sharing
technology is given the inverse task of planting an idea into the mind
of a CEO.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="interstellar-2014-8.7"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816692/">Interstellar</a> (2014)
[8.7]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>space</code></p>
<p>An interesting (and long) movie about a humanity trying to safe
itself by leaving Earth after a huge climate change that made it
difficult to grow food. Truly remarkable story and amazing graphic. - <a
href="https://github.com/aleksandar-todorovic"><span class="citation"
data-cites="aleksandar-todorovic">@aleksandar-todorovic</span></a></p>
<p>The visuals are pretty good. There are plotholes here and there, but
overall I really liked this movie. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A team of explorers travel through a wormhole in an attempt to ensure
humanity’s survival.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="la-jetée-1962-8.4"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056119/">La Jetée</a> (1962)
[8.4]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>time travel</code> <code>drama</code></p>
<p>This film inspired Twelve Monkeys, but is more notable for being one
of the earliest short scifi films that deals with time travel and its
ramifications for revolutions and society as a whole. Black and white
and beautiful. - <a href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span
class="citation" data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Time travel, still images, a past, present and future and the
aftermath of World War III. The tale of a man, a slave, sent back and
forth, in and out of time, to find a solution to the world’s fate. To
replenish its decreasing stocks of food, medicine and energies, and in
doing so, resulting in a perpetual memory of a lone female, life, death
and past events that are recreated on an airports jetée.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="metropolis-1927-8.3"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017136/">Metropolis</a> (1927)
[8.3]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>apocalypse</code></p>
<p>This is the kind of film that sells out art houses when someone finds
an early roll of the film in a theatre in Buenos Aires, stacked away
behind decades of other movies. Seminal in its ability to show a
technological future when we were just beginning to understand what that
would look like, this film is a masterpiece of class statements, and is
much braver at times than a lot of modern, ‘edgy’ scripts. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In a futuristic city sharply divided between the working class and
the city planners, the son of the city’s mastermind falls in love with a
working class prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate
their differences.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="minority-report-2002-7.7"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181689/">Minority Report</a> (2002)
[7.7]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>ai</code> <code>police</code></p>
<p>Predicting future crimes? Sure, I am all for it, <em>until</em> they
make a mistake and implicate the hero himself. After watching the movie,
you could be thinking, <em>we</em> should probably not try to predict
the future! Nevertheless, great movie! - <a
href="https://github.com/icyflame"><span class="citation"
data-cites="icyflame">@icyflame</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In a future where a special police unit is able to arrest murderers
before they commit their crimes, an officer from that unit is himself
accused of a future murder.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="moon-2009-8.0"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1182345/">Moon</a> (2009) [8.0]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>space</code> <code>drama</code></p>
<p>This is one of the best drawn-out psychodrama films about space out
there, along with 2001: A Space Odyssey and Solaris. Sam Bell is pretty
much the only actor in the film, and his lonely acting makes you feel
the loneliness of isolation. This film is also fantastic for its
powerful score. - <a href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span
class="citation" data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Astronaut Sam Bell has a quintessentially personal encounter toward
the end of his three-year stint on the Moon, where he, working alongside
his computer, GERTY, sends back to Earth parcels of a resource that has
helped diminish our planet’s power problems.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="mr.-nobody-2009-7.9"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0485947">Mr. Nobody</a> (2009)
[7.9]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>drama</code> <code>romance</code></p>
<p>This is one of my favourite movies. A myriad of stories are told: the
different ramifications of how Mr. Nobody’s life would have been if he
had made different choices or if different things happened around him.
What’s best of this movie is that each of these <strong>lifes</strong>
is completely different (and <strong>would have been equally
meaningful</strong> :D) which means a lot of stuff is happening all the
time and you have to follow what is going on now in this life, how it
relates to its past which is probably another life shown in the movie
and it’s the common past of several of the lives you’ll see. At the same
time you have to understand the common theme of the movie, which I think
it is what is trying to communicate after all. The end is surprising and
difficult to grasp at first. The film also makes substantial use of
chaos theory and the butterfly effect to accentuate the lack of control
that humanity as individuals possesses - <a
href="https://github.com/damaru2"><span class="citation"
data-cites="damaru2">@damaru2</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A boy stands on a station platform as a train is about to leave.
Should he go with his mother or stay with his father? Infinite
possibilities arise from this decision. As long as he doesn’t choose,
anything is possible.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="oblivion-2013-7.0"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1483013/">Oblivion</a> (2013)
[7.0]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>apocalypse</code></p>
<p>A post-apocalyptic movie, starring Tom Cruise as Jack Harper (Tech
49) and Andrea Riseborough as Victoria (Vica). Jack has a lot of
questions, Vica shrugs them off, and then, they get answered and Jack
can barely live with it! Beuatifully shot! - <a
href="https://github.com/icyflame"><span class="citation"
data-cites="icyflame">@icyflame</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A veteran assigned to extract Earth’s remaining resources begins to
question what he knows about his mission and himself.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="open-your-eyes-1997-7.8"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0125659/">Open Your Eyes</a> (1997)
[7.8]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>drama</code> <code>romance</code></p>
<p>The original spanish movie <a href="#vanilla-sky-2001-69">Vanilla
Sky</a> was based on, way better acting, you should watch this first. -
<a href="https://github.com/uraimo"><span class="citation"
data-cites="uraimo">@uraimo</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A very handsome man finds the love of his life, but he suffers an
accident and needs to have his face rebuilt by surgery after it is
severely disfigured.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="paprika-2006-7.7"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0851578/">Paprika</a> (2006)
[7.7]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>ai</code></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>When a machine that allows therapists to enter their patients’ dreams
is stolen, all hell breaks loose. Only a young female therapist can stop
it: Paprika.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="possible-worlds-2000-6.9"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0222293/">Possible Worlds</a> (2000)
[6.9]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>philosophy</code> <code>drama</code></p>
<p>This is an extraordinary film that manages to give an expose of
possible worlds without ending with a completely deranged plot. It is
well done, and the mystery and romance of the characters involved adds
to the constanct feeling of apprehension. Which reality is the viewer
in? Also, Tilda Swinton is great in this. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A man lives in parallel worlds, falling in love with the same woman,
while the police hunt down a serial killer who steals brains.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="predestination-2014-7.5"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2397535/">Predestination</a> (2014)
[7.5]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>time travel</code></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The life of a time-traveling Temporal Agent. On his final assignment,
he must pursue the one criminal that has eluded him throughout time.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="primer-2004-7.0"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390384/">Primer</a> (2004)
[7.0]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Four friends/fledgling entrepreneurs, knowing that there’s something
bigger and more innovative than the different error-checking devices
they’ve built, wrestle over their new invention.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="screamers-1995-6.3"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114367/">Screamers</a> (1995)
[6.3]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>apocalyptic</code>
<code>artificial intelligence</code> <code>space</code></p>
<p>A thrilling ride that expertly blends suspense with thought-provoking
themes about technology and warfare. If you enjoy films that challenge
your perceptions of humanity and technology, this is definitely one to
watch! - <a href="https://github.com/johan-stenqvist"><span
class="citation"
data-cites="johan-stenqvist">@johan-stenqvist</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A military commander stationed off planet during an interplanetary
war travels through the devastated landscape to negotiate a peace
treaty, but discovers that the primitive robots they built to kill enemy
combatants have gained sentience.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="serenity-firefly-2005-8.0"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379786/">Serenity (Firefly)</a>
(2005) [8.0]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>space</code> <code>western</code>
<code>action</code></p>
<p>Watch the Firefly series before seeing this film. It is good in
itself, for the special effects if nothing else, but it wraps up and
solidifies a lot of things that the cancelled show left open, to the
equal chagrin and joy of its fanatic fanbase. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The crew of the ship Serenity tries to evade an assassin sent to
recapture one of their number who is telepathic.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="snowpiercer-2013-7.0"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1706620/">Snowpiercer</a> (2013)
[7.0]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>apocalypse</code> <code>action</code></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Set in a future where a failed climate-change experiment kills all
life on the planet except for a lucky few who boarded the Snowpiercer, a
train that travels around the globe, where a class system emerges.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="solaris-1972-8.1"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069293/">Solaris</a> (1972)
[8.1]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>space</code> <code>drama</code><br> Director:
<em>Andrei Tarkovsky</em></p>
<p>This is the original film based on the book. It is much slower than
the remake, but a classic. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A psychologist is sent to a station orbiting a distant planet in
order to discover what has caused the crew to go insane.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="solaris-2002-6.2"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0307479/">Solaris</a> (2002)
[6.2]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>space</code> <code>drama</code><br> Director:
<em>Steven Soderbergh</em></p>
<p>Starring George Clooney and Natasha McElhone, this is much more of a
modern psychodrama with fantastic shots and a more colored atmosphere
than the original film. The original score by Cliff Martinez really adds
to the film, and is great on its own. One of my favorite films. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A troubled psychologist is sent to investigate the crew of an
isolated research station orbiting a bizarre planet.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="source-code-2011-7.5"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0945513/">Source Code</a> (2011)
[7.5]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>ai</code> <code>action</code></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A soldier wakes up in someone else’s body and discovers he’s part of
an experimental government program to find the bomber of a commuter
train. A mission he has only 8 minutes to complete.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="stalker-1979-8.2"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079944/">Stalker</a> (1979)
[8.2]</h4>
<p>Stalker is a philosophical art movie and aesthetic masterpiece, based
on “Roadside Picnic”. - <a href="https://github.com/ggb"><span
class="citation" data-cites="ggb">@ggb</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Near a gray and unnamed city is the Zone, an alien place guarded by
barbed wire and soldiers. Over his wife’s objections, a man rises in the
early morning and leaves her with their disabled daughter to meet two
men. He’s a Stalker, one of a handful who have the mental gifts (and who
risk imprisonment) to lead people into the Zone to the Room, a place
where one’s secret hopes come true.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="strange-days-1995-7.2"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114558/">Strange Days</a> (1995)
[7.2]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>action</code> <code>police</code>
<code>thriller</code> Director: <em>Kathryn Bigelow</em> Writer:
<em>James Cameron</em>, <em>Jay Cocks</em></p>
<p>Borrowing copiously from cyperpunk but giving things enough spin to
keep them interesting, “Strange Days” gives an orginal sci-fi version of
the old washed-up-cop turns soft-hearted criminal. Set in the futuristic
year of 1999, during new years eve, the main character has to solve a
case in which he unwittingly finds himself, if he wants to survive the
night. The movie also contains music performance by Juliette Lewis and
the band Skunk Anansie. - <a href="https://github.com/potherca"><span
class="citation" data-cites="potherca">@potherca</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A former cop turned street-hustler accidentally uncovers a conspiracy
in Los Angeles in 1999.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="sunshine-2007-7.3"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448134/">Sunshine</a> (2007)
[7.3]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>space</code> <code>action</code></p>
<p>This is a pretty good movie. The science is ridiculous, but the
characters are great and the CGI is fantastic. At points, chilling. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A team of international astronauts is sent on a dangerous mission to
reignite the dying Sun with a nuclear fission bomb in 2057.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="tenet-2020-7.3"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6723592/">Tenet</a> (2020) [7.3]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>time travel</code> <code>action</code>
<code>thriller</code></p>
<p>A great watch for those who like complex movies that you probably
have to watch several times to understand everything. - <a
href="https://github.com/gilStettler"><span class="citation"
data-cites="gilStettler">@gilStettler</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Armed with only the word “Tenet,” and fighting for the survival of
the entire world, CIA operative, The Protagonist, journeys through a
twilight world of international espionage on a global mission that
unfolds beyond real time.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-city-of-lost-children-1995-7.7"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112682/">The City of Lost
Children</a> (1995) [7.7]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A scientist in a surrealist society kidnaps children to steal their
dreams, hoping that they slow his aging process.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-fifth-element-1997-7.6"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119116/">The Fifth Element</a>
(1997) [7.6]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>space</code> <code>action</code></p>
<p>This movie is ridiculous. Worth watching just for the amazing opera
scene - the ‘science’ in ‘science fiction’ isn’t really worth it,
though. - <a href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span
class="citation" data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In the colorful future, a cab driver unwittingly becomes the central
figure in the search for a legendary cosmic weapon to keep Evil and Mr
Zorg at bay.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy-2005-6.8"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0371724/">The Hitchhiker’s Guide to
the Galaxy</a> (2005) [6.8]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>adventure</code> <code>comedy</code></p>
<p>Pretty much like the first book of the trilogy of five books with the
same name, with some Holywood adaptations. (Why, Hollywood?). Very funny
and enjoyable. - <a href="https://github.com/damaru2"><span
class="citation" data-cites="damaru2">@damaru2</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Mere seconds before the Earth is to be demolished by an alien
construction crew, journeyman Arthur Dent is swept off the planet by his
friend Ford Prefect, a researcher penning a new edition of “The
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-island-2005-6.9"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0399201/">The Island</a> (2005)
[6.9]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>action</code></p>
<p>I rather liked this film; Steve Buscemi’s acting abilities brings a
poorly-written character above and beyond what I would have thought
possible, and Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johanssen were perfectly cast.
This was a solid film. - <a href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span
class="citation" data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Lincoln Six-Echo is a resident of a seemingly Utopian but contained
facility in the year 2019. Like all of the inhabitants of this carefully
controlled environment, Lincoln hopes to be chosen to go to the “The
Island” - reportedly the last uncontaminated spot on the planet. But
Lincoln soon discovers that everything about his existence is a lie. He
and all of the other inhabitants of the facility are actually human
clones. Lincoln makes a daring escape with a beautiful fellow resident
named Jordan Two-Delta. Relentlessly pursued by the forces of the
sinister institute that once housed them, Lincoln and Jordan engage in a
race for their lives to literally meet their makers.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-man-from-earth-2007-8.0"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0756683/">The Man from Earth</a>
(2007) [8.0]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>An impromptu goodbye party for Professor John Oldman becomes a
mysterious interrogation after the retiring scholar reveals to his
colleagues he never ages and has walked the earth for 14,000 years.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-martian-2015-8.2"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3659388/">The Martian</a> (2015)
[8.2]</h4>
<p>This is a fairly accurate representation of the awesome book, but it
focuses much more on Watney’s personality than on the science (which is
a given, as we can actually see Watney in this, as opposed to just read
his logs in the book). The space shots were incredibly well done, and
one scene with a ribbon like an umbilical chord floating in zero g -
absolutely beautiful. This film had great actors, marvelously cast. And
there’s even a reference to Glorfindel at the council of Elrond; I don’t
think I’ve laughed that hard in a theatre in years. Loved it. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>During a manned mission to Mars, Astronaut Mark Watney is presumed
dead after a fierce storm and left behind by his crew. But Watney has
survived and finds himself stranded and alone on the hostile planet.
With only meager supplies, he must draw upon his ingenuity, wit and
spirit to subsist and find a way to signal to Earth that he is
alive.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-matrix-1999-8.7"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/">The Matrix</a> (1999)
[8.7]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>ai</code> <code>action</code>
<code>apocalypse</code> <code>singularity</code></p>
<p>One of the most well known scifi films, this is a great expose on
what people thought of hackers in the late 90s. The first in a trilogy,
this film stands on its own legs, for its well-written script, great
casting, and solid score. The unworldly choreography combined with slow
motion filming was so influential it is now a cliché. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature
of his reality and his role in the war against its controllers.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-signal-2014-6.2"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2910814/">The Signal</a> (2014)
[6.2]</h4>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>On a road trip, Nic and two friends are drawn to an isolated area by
a computer genius. When everything suddenly goes dark, Nic regains
consciousness - only to find himself in a waking nightmare.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-thirteenth-floor-1999-7.0"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139809/">The Thirteenth Floor</a>
(1999) [7.0]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>thriller</code> <code>ai</code></p>
<p>It’s a classic, came out the same year of the matrix but is focused
on the interactions between the real world and the virtual, no slow
motion gun fights here. - <a href="https://github.com/uraimo"><span
class="citation" data-cites="uraimo">@uraimo</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Computer scientist Hannon Fuller has discovered something extremely
important. He’s about to tell the discovery to his colleague, Douglas
Hall, but knowing someone is after him, the old man leaves a letter in
the computer generated parallel world his company has created (which
looks like the 30’s with seemingly real people with real emotions).
Fuller is murdered in our real world the same night, and his colleague
is suspected. Douglas discovers a bloody shirt in his bathroom and he
cannot recall what he was doing the night Fuller was murdered. He logs
into the system in order to find the letter, but has to confront the
unexpected. The truth is harsher than he could ever imagine…</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-time-machine-2002-4.2"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268695/">The Time Machine</a> (2002)
[4.2]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>remake</code> <code>steampunk</code></p>
<p>It is an entertaining and a well done movie with lots of scifi
topics: time travels, artificial intelligence, a post apocalyptic world
with a new race of humans and more. - <a
href="https://github.com/damaru2"><span class="citation"
data-cites="damaru2">@damaru2</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Hoping to alter the events of the past, a 19th century inventor
instead travels 800,000 years into the future, where he finds humankind
divided into two warring races.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="transcendence-2014-6.3"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2209764/">Transcendence</a> (2014)
[6.3]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>ai</code></p>
<p>A love story between a woman and her husband uploaded into a
computer. What makes the movie a bit scary is that, although a bit
unrealistic, it is placed in a near future. - <a
href="https://github.com/aleksandar-todorovic"><span class="citation"
data-cites="aleksandar-todorovic">@aleksandar-todorovic</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A scientist’s drive for artificial intelligence, takes on dangerous
implications when his consciousness is uploaded into one such
program.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="twelve-monkeys-1996-8.1"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114746/">Twelve Monkeys</a> (1996)
[8.1]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>time travel</code> <code>action</code></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>In a future world devastated by disease, a convict is sent back in
time to gather information about the man-made virus that wiped out most
of the human population on the planet.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="vanilla-sky-2001-6.9"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0259711/">Vanilla Sky</a> (2001)
[6.9]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>drama</code> <code>romance</code></p>
<p>This is an early version of <a href="#inception">Inception</a> in a
lot of ways, and a remake of Possible Worlds in others. While the acting
isn’t spectactular (notably Tom Cruise’s), what is interesting is the
myriad level of interpretations of the film and possibly realities
involved. The budget ensured that the actual plot was well done, as
opposed to just a poor implementation of possible world ideas. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A self-indulgent and vain publishing magnate finds his privileged
life upended after a vehicular accident with a resentful lover.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h2 id="movie-series">Movie Series</h2>
<h3 id="star-trek">Star Trek</h3>
<p><img
src="https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/170270/7905777/f4fc5402-081e-11e5-9a71-8dad63e3b30b.gif" /></p>
<h4 id="star-trek-ii-the-wrath-of-khan-7.7"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084726/">Star Trek II: The Wrath of
Khan</a> [7.7]</h4>
<p>This is a classic film, and well worth watching if only for the
incredible and iconic ‘khaaaaan’ echo. More impressive, however, is
Ricardo Montalban’s performance, which is incredible on its own. As
well, in a move that goes against mainstream whitewashing, a Mexican and
not a Caucasian plays a genetically engineered superhuman, making this a
movie that showed the power of diversity well ahead of its time. This
movie is great to watch. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>With the assistance of the Enterprise crew, Admiral Kirk must stop an
old nemesis, Khan Noonien Singh, from using his son’s life-generating
device, the Genesis Device, as the ultimate weapon.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h2 id="tv-series">TV Series</h2>
<h4 id="babylon-5-19941998-8.2"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105946/">Babylon 5</a> (1994–1998)
[8.2]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>action</code> <code>adventure</code>
<code>drama</code></p>
<p>Babylon 5’s special effects left a lot to be desired, but the plot
was amazing. - <a href="https://github.com/elektrovert"><span
class="citation" data-cites="elektrovert">@elektrovert</span></a></p>
<p>The CGI hasn’t aged well—but the show’s strength lies in character
development and (on a meta level) the pre-planned structure which is
fairly unique for TV series. On the other hand, it’s a polarizing show…
So my vote is a conditional yes :) - <a
href="https://github.com/mihailim"><span class="citation"
data-cites="mihailim">@mihailim</span></a></p>
<p>This is awesome for its nostalgic value, if little else. The line
about frictionless sheets is hilarious. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A space station in neutral territory is the focus of a unique five
year saga.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="battlestar-galactica-20042009-8.8"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407362/">Battlestar Galactica</a>
(2004–2009) [8.8]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>action</code> <code>adventure</code>
<code>drama</code></p>
<p>This show. Watch this show. It’s military science fiction done right.
The interpersonal relationships are the best part, and the constant
questioning of what it means to be human. At times it is a bit heavy
handed. At other times it paints humanity as a desperate and stupid
species, but at least it does so faithfully and self-referentially. The
show is written tremendously well. Gaius Baltar, in particular, is a
character worth watching out for. Be warned: once you start, you can’t
really stop. Portlandia even made a skit about needing <a
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYjLrJRuMnY">one more episode</a>.
- <a href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>When an old enemy, the Cylons, resurfaces and obliterate the 12
colonies, the crew of the aged Galactica protects a small civilian fleet
- the last of humanity - as they journey toward the fabled 13th colony
of Earth.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="black-mirror-2011-8.8"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2085059/">Black Mirror</a> (2011– )
[8.8]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>drama</code> <code>thriller</code></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A television anthology series that shows the dark side of life and
technology.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="blakes-7-19781981-8.0"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076987/">Blakes 7</a> (1978–1981)
[8.0]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>adventure</code> <code>drama</code></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A group of convicts and outcasts fight a guerrilla war against the
totalitarian Terran Federation from a highly advanced alien
spaceship.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="children-of-dune-2003-7.7"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0287839/">Children of Dune</a> (2003)
[7.7]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>adventure</code> <code>drama</code>
<code>fantasy</code></p>
<p>James McAvoy’s acting as Leto II is absolutely incredible in this
short series, as is Susan Sarandon’s as Princess Corrinno. This
miniseries is short and sweet, and manages to make the most out of what
really is one of the lesser of the Dune book series. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The twins of Paul “Muad’dib” Atreides become embroiled in the
political landscape of Arrakis (“Dune”) and the rest of the
universe.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="continuum-20122015-7.8"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1954347/">Continuum</a> (2012–2015)
[7.8]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>action</code> <code>thriller</code></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A detective from the year 2077 finds herself trapped in present day
Vancouver and searching for ruthless criminals from the future.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="doctor-who-1964-1989-2005-8.9"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0436992/">Doctor Who</a> (1964-1989,
2005– ) [8.9]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>adventure</code> <code>drama</code>
<code>family</code></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The further adventures of the time traveling alien adventurer and his
companions.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="dune-2000-7.1"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0142032/">Dune</a> (2000) [7.1]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>adventure</code> <code>drama</code>
<code>fantasy</code></p>
<p>Out of all–big or small screen–Dune adaptations, I felt this one has
come closest to Herbert’s vision. They didn’t go too crazy on the CGI
either, in that it didn’t distract from the story. The acting was a bit
meh, but that’s usually a question of budget (wasn’t HBO… :wink:). Given
the dearth of good SF on TV, I would consider it awesome by comparison.
- <a href="https://github.com/mihailim"><span class="citation"
data-cites="mihailim">@mihailim</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A three-part miniseries on politics, betrayal, lust, greed and the
coming of a Messiah. Based on Frank Herbert’s classic science fiction
novel.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="eureka-2006-2012-7.9"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0796264/">Eureka</a> (2006-2012)
[7.9]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>adventure</code> <code>drama</code>
<code>family</code></p>
<p>It is all about a fictional town called Eureka. Inhabitants are
geniuses and scientists. This is where the most major technology
inventions in the last five decades did happen. Very enjoyable and
entertaining show. Most of the episodes were keeping me guessing ‘what
will happen next?’ and ‘how this all will end?’. - <a
href="https://github.com/vovinacci"><span class="citation"
data-cites="vovinacci">@vovinacci</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A U.S. Marshall becomes the sheriff of a remote cozy little
Northwestern town of Eureka where the best minds in the US have secretly
been tucked away to build futuristic inventions for the government which
often go disastrously wrong.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="farscape-19992003-8.4"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0187636/">Farscape</a> (1999–2003)
[8.4]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>adventure</code> <code>drama</code></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Thrown into a distant part of the universe, an Earth astronaut finds
himself part of a fugitive alien starship crew.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="firefly-20022003-9.2"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303461/">Firefly</a> (2002–2003)
[9.2]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>adventure</code> <code>drama</code>
<code>western</code></p>
<figure>
<img
src="https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/170270/11022860/c94c77c2-869c-11e5-9830-ec232159f00e.gif"
alt="Rise again" />
<figcaption aria-hidden="true">Rise again</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Asking someone if they wish Firefly would be rebooted tells me
everything I need to know about a person.</p>
<p>It’s in my opinion the best scifi TV-show ever made. - <a
href="https://github.com/sindresorhus"><span class="citation"
data-cites="sindresorhus">@sindresorhus</span></a></p>
<p>What he said. - <a href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span
class="citation" data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Five hundred years in the future, a renegade crew aboard a small
spacecraft tries to survive as they travel the unknown parts of the
galaxy and evade warring factions as well as authority agents out to get
them.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="fringe-20082013-8.5"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1119644/">Fringe</a> (2008–2013)
[8.5]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>drama</code> <code>mystery</code></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A television drama centered around a female FBI agent who is forced
to work with an institutionalized scientist in order to rationalize a
brewing storm of unexplained phenomena.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy-1981-8.0"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081874/">Hitchhiker’s Guide to the
Galaxy</a> (1981) [8.0]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>comedy</code> <code>adventure</code></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>An Earth man and his alien friend escape Earth’s destruction and go
on a truly strange adventure as space hitchhikers.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="mr.-robot-2015--8.6"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4158110/">Mr. Robot</a> (2015- )
[8.6]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>crime</code> <code>drama</code>
<code>thriller</code></p>
<p>Mr. Robot is a sci fi series which actually is close enogh to
reality, it uses technical terms properly and is fun to watch. - <a
href="https://github.com/iamzubin"><span class="citation"
data-cites="iamzubin">@iamzubin</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Elliot, a brilliant but highly unstable young cyber-security engineer
and vigilante hacker, becomes a key figure in a complex game of global
dominance when he and his shadowy allies try to take down the corrupt
corporation he works for.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="neon-genesis-evangelion-19951996-8.6"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112159/">Neon Genesis Evangelion</a>
(1995–1996) [8.6]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>animation</code> <code>action</code>
<code>drama</code></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>15 years after the enormous catastrophe that killed half of the world
population, another crisis has come—the unidentified invaders called
“Angels” begin to attack human-kind. Mankind’s only hope lies with giant
organic mecha and their teenage pilots.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="person-of-interest-2011-2016-8.5"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1839578/">Person of Interest</a>
(2011-2016) [8.5]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>action</code> <code>crime</code> <code>drama</code>
<code>artificial intelligence</code></p>
<p>Starting with crime prevention, the show progresses to gradually
touching on AI and man’s misuse of technology such as mass surveillance,
which is the key focus. Add to that the complicated pasts of the two
protagonists’ government work and you have a genre defining TV Show
standing apart from it’s peers by tackling relevant issues in the modern
digital era. “You are being watched.” - <a
href="https://github.com/AB1908"><span class="citation"
data-cites="AB1908">@AB1908</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>An ex-assassin and a wealthy programmer save lives via a surveillance
AI that sends them the identities of civilians involved in impending
crimes. However, the details of the crimes–including the civilians’
roles–are left a mystery.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="red-dwarf-19881999-2009-8.5"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094535/">Red Dwarf</a> (1988–1999,
2009– ) [8.5]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>comedy</code></p>
<p>This stretched my ideas of how stupid and silly space travel could
be. It’s smegging awesome. - <a
href="https://github.com/RichardLitt"><span class="citation"
data-cites="RichardLitt">@RichardLitt</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>The adventures of the last human alive and his friends, stranded
three million years into deep space on the mining ship Red Dwarf.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="rick-and-morty-2013--9.3"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2861424/">Rick and Morty</a> (2013-)
[9.3]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>animation</code> <code>adventure</code>
<code>comedy</code></p>
<p>Rick and Morty is one of the best animated shows to have come out in
the last decade. The commentary that the show delivers on the society as
a whole, while describing the adventures of an old man and his grandon
is hilarious. This is a must-watch for anyone who is into veiled
sarcasm, animation and sci-fi. - <a
href="https://github.com/AsliRoy"><span class="citation"
data-cites="ArindumRoy">@ArindumRoy</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>An animated series that follows the exploits of a super scientist and
his not-so-bright grandson.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="star-trek-deep-space-nine-19931999-7.9"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106145/">Star Trek: Deep Space
Nine</a> (1993–1999) [7.9]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>action</code> <code>adventure</code>
<code>drama</code></p>
<p>In contrast to the setting of the other Star Trek TV shows, DS9 takes
place on a space station instead of a starship. This made continuing
story arcs and appearance of recurring characters much more feasible.
The show is noted for well-developed characters, originality, complex
plots, religious themes and for starring the only black captain of all
the Star Trek series to be featured as the show’s protagonist. The
series often showcased darker themes, less physical exploration of
space, and (in later seasons) an emphasis on many aspects of war. -
<span class="citation"
data-cites="augustopedro">@augustopedro</span></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Orbiting the liberated planet of Bajor, a Federation space station
guards the opening of a stable wormhole to the far side of the
galaxy.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="star-trek-discovery-2017--7.3"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5171438/">Star Trek: Discovery</a>
(2017-) [7.3]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>action</code> <code>adventure</code>
<code>drama</code></p>
<p>While Discovery is fundamentally quite different from much of the
Trek that’s come before, its engagement with the franchise, and
willingness to both celebrate and examine its core values, keep it true
to that spirit. As the medium of television evolves, it’s comforting to
know that Star Trek is there to evolve right along with it. - <span
class="citation" data-cites="augustopedro">@augustopedro</span></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Ten years before Kirk, Spock and the Enterprise, the USS Discovery
discovers new worlds and lifeforms as one Starfleet officer learns to
understand all things alien.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="star-trek-enterprise-20012005-7.5"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0244365/">Star Trek: Enterprise</a>
(2001–2005) [7.5]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>action</code> <code>adventure</code>
<code>mystery</code></p>
<p>A worthy successor to The Next Generation, well developed characters,
great Xindi/Time War story arc. - <a
href="https://github.com/uraimo"><span class="citation"
data-cites="uraimo">@uraimo</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A century before Captain Kirk’s five-year mission, Jonathan Archer
captains Earth ship Enterprise NX-01 during the early years of Starfleet
leading up to the formation of the Federation and the Earth-Romulan
War.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="star-trek-the-next-generation-19871994-8.7"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092455/">Star Trek: The Next
Generation</a> (1987–1994) [8.7]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>action</code> <code>adventure</code>
<code>mystery</code></p>
<p>Similar in ethic and setting to the Star Trek: The Original Series,
but with new enemies and technologies; continues to deal with issues of
morality, culture, and politics. The stories and the acting are
excellent, and it has pretty amazing special effects for that time.
There’s also 4 movies which take place after the series. - <span
class="citation" data-cites="augustopedro">@augustopedro</span></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Set decades after Captain James T. Kirk’s 5-year mission, a new
generation of Starfleet officers in a new Enterprise set off on their
own mission to go where no one has gone before.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="star-trek-the-original-series-19661969-8.4"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060028/">Star Trek: The Original
Series</a> (1966–1969) [8.4]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>action</code> <code>adventure</code>
<code>mystery</code></p>
<p>A science-fiction masterpiece, Star Trek has been a really important
vision not only of what future technology could look like, but also a
reflection of what the hopes were, especially in the 60’s, for what
human society could look like.</p>
<p>The Original Series, in many ways, is Star Trek at its purest. It’s
true that it could be campy and slow, but don’t mistake that for it
being unsophisticated. It was very smartly written, and while it can
vary wildly in quality (like many shows from the 60’s) it has a solid
philosophical core, and often had some interesting things to say.</p>
<p>Plus, I’m not sure the franchise has ever quite topped the amazing
chemistry between Shatner, Nimoy, and Kelly. It’s worth watching for
them alone. - <span class="citation"
data-cites="augustopedro">@augustopedro</span></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the Starship Enterprise explore
the Galaxy and defend the United Federation of Planets.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="stargate-atlantis-20042009-8.1"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374455/">Stargate Atlantis</a>
(2004–2009) [8.1]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>action</code> <code>drama</code></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>An international team of scientists and military personnel discover a
Stargate network in the Pegasus Galaxy and come face-to-face with a new,
powerful enemy, The Wraith.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="stargate-sg1-19972007-8.5"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118480/">Stargate SG1</a>
(1997–2007) [8.5]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>action</code> <code>adventure</code>
<code>drama</code></p>
<p>Well worth the 9000+ minutes you’ll need to watch all the series.
Finally a series where the human race, starting from a position of
abysmal inferiority, defeats superior enemies against all odds with a
mix of cleverness and intelligent exploitation of alien technology. - <a
href="https://github.com/uraimo"><span class="citation"
data-cites="uraimo">@uraimo</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>A secret military team, SG-1, is formed to explore the recently
discovered Stargates.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="stargate-universe-20092011-7.7"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1286039/">Stargate Universe</a>
(2009–2011) [7.7]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>drama</code></p>
<p>The show feels completely different than Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis,
it is certainly the most cinematic looking of the three series. It is
darker, the plot seems slower, but also more realistic and intense,
which provides a higher dose of suspense to the show. - <a
href="https://github.com/HQarroum"><span class="citation"
data-cites="HQarroum">@HQarroum</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Trapped on an Ancient spaceship billions of light years from home, a
group of soldiers and civilians struggle to survive and find their way
back to Earth.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-100-2014-7.7"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2661044/">The 100</a> (2014–)
[7.7]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>drama</code> <code>mystery</code></p>
<p>I never really understood the need or reason for binge watching until
I encountered The 100. The first and second season were absolutely
mesmerizing and compelling. The character development, the story, the
plot twists; all amazing! Literally, pulled a few all-nighters because I
had to know what happened next in the series. The premise of the show is
after evacuating Earth do to global nuclear bombings and radiation, the
International Space Station decide to send ‘100’ of the stations
adolescent deliquents down to earth so see if it is habitable again.
Middle to end of season 3 start to get a little weird and supposedly it
was supposed to end after season 3 so they attempt to wrap up the
series. I have tried to continue watching but am no where as entranced
as I was with seasons 1 and 2. - <a
href="https://github.com/kyebrowning"><span class="citation"
data-cites="kyebrowning">@kyebrowning</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Set ninety-seven years after a nuclear war has destroyed
civilization, when a spaceship housing humanity’s lone survivors sends
one hundred juvenile delinquents back to Earth, in hopes of possibly
re-populating the planet.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-orville-2017-7.9"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5691552/">The Orville</a> (2017–)
[7.9]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>adventure</code> <code>comedy</code>
<code>drama</code></p>
<p>The Orville does an awesome job recreating the feeling of past Star
Trek series. The look and feel is very TNG-era. Many episodes tackle
modern day social issues like LGBTQ rights, social media and religion.
The characters are interesting and relatable, since they talk and behave
like real, imperfect people. Though the series has a comedic element, it
doesn’t interfere with the other messages, and we get a very good
balance of sci-fi, humor, drama and moral. Highly recommended for (but
not only) Trekkies. - <a href="https://github.com/gabiaxel"><span
class="citation" data-cites="GabiAxel">@GabiAxel</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Follows the crew of the not-so-functional exploratory ship in the
Earth’s interstellar fleet, 400 years in the future.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-prisoner-19671968-8.8"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061287/">The Prisoner</a>
(1967–1968) [8.8]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>drama</code> <code>mystery</code></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>After resigning, a secret agent is abducted and taken to what looks
like an idyllic village, but is really a bizarre prison. His warders
demand information. He gives them nothing, but only tries to escape.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-x-files-1993-2002-2016--8.8"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106179/">The X-Files</a> (1993-2002,
2016- ) [8.8]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>drama</code> <code>mystery</code></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Two FBI agents, Fox Mulder the believer and Dana Scully the skeptic,
investigate the strange and unexplained while hidden forces work to
impede their efforts.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="twilight-zone-19591964-9.0"><a
href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052520/">Twilight Zone</a>
(1959–1964) [9.0]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>drama</code> <code>fantasy</code>
<code>horror</code></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Rod Serling’s seminal anthology series focused on ordinary folks who
suddenly found themselves in extraordinary, usually supernatural,
situations. The stories would typically end with an ironic twist that
would see the guilty punished.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h2 id="comic-books">Comic Books</h2>
<h4 id="alex-ada-2013-2015-by-jonathan-luna-sarah-vaughn-4.11"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30896668-alex-ada">Alex +
Ada</a> (2013-2015) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_Brothers">Jonathan Luna</a>, <a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7372180.Sarah_Vaughn">Sarah
Vaughn</a></em> [4.11]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>ai</code> <code>drama</code>
<code>sci-fi</code></p>
<p>Alex + Ada is a thought provoking and moving exploration of what it
means to be alive, and what rights can and should be afforded to
non-human sentient beings. It’s a short and effective near-future look
at the obligations we have to both each other and to the intelligent
life we create. - <a href="https://github.com/thejessleigh"><span
class="citation" data-cites="thejessleigh">@thejessleigh</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>From JONATHAN LUNA (THE SWORD, GIRLS, Spider-Woman: Origin) and SARAH
VAUGHN (Sparkshooter, Ruined) comes ALEX + ADA, a sci-fi/drama set in
the near future. The last thing in the world Alex wanted was an X5, the
latest in realistic androids. But after Ada is dropped into his life, he
discovers she is more than just a robot. Alex takes a huge risk to
unlock Ada so she can think for herself and explore life as a sentient
android.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="arzach-1975-by-moebius-4.06"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8748185-arzach">Arzach</a>
(1975) <em>by Moebius</em> [4.06]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>hard-science-fiction</code> <code>sci-fi</code>
<code>cyberpunk</code></p>
<p>One of the most influential french sci-fi comics. It inspired a lot
of what became Heavy Metal Magazine. Moebius in this onirical tale uses
no words to this graphical prose. - <a
href="https://github.com/matheusteixeira"><span class="citation"
data-cites="matheusteixeira">@matheusteixeira</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Arzach fut une révolution pour la bande dessinée de l’époque. Elle
est constituée d’une série de cinq histoires autonomes, sortes de «
nouvelles graphiques » de quelques planches chacune. Sa particularité
réside tout d’abord en son absence totale de dialogues : on y croise un
voire deux personnages récurrents (Arzach et son Ptéroïde, sorte de
ptérodactyle) mais apparemment muets, en tout cas l’auteur ne leur
autorise pas la parole pour s’exprimer.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="black-science-2014-by-rick-remender-3.93"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20881139-black-science-vol-1">Black
Science</a> (2014) <em>by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Remender">Rick
Remender</a></em> [3.93]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>space-opera</code> <code>sci-fi</code></p>
<p>Black Science is one of those stories where you explain it to people
at a really high level and gradually get more excited as you do so. It’s
essentially what happens if Rick &amp; Morty had a less skilled and
lucky Rick. Grant McKay goes through some really dark experiences, and
the multiverse around him feels nothing for his plight. It’s a story to
read and revisit. - <a href="https://github.com/EricPonvelle"><span
class="citation" data-cites="EricPonvelle">@EricPonvelle</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Grant McKay, former member of The Anarchistic Order of Scientists,
has finally done the impossible: He has deciphered Black Science and
punched through the barriers of reality. But what lies beyond the veil
is not epiphany, but chaos. Now Grant and his team are lost, living
ghosts shipwrecked on an infinite ocean of alien worlds, barreling
through the long-forgotten, ancient, and unimaginable dark realms. The
only way is forward. The only question is how far are they willing to
go, and how much can they endure, to get home again? Join writer RICK
REMENDER and the superstar art team of MATTEO SCALERA &amp; DEAN WHITE
for this face-melting science fiction epic spanning the lifetimes of a
cast of dimensional castaways lead by the man who caused it all.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="global-frequency-2002-2004-by-warren-ellis-4.05"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15819022-global-frequency">Global
Frequency</a> (2002-2004) <em>by Warren Ellis</em> [4.05]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>hard-science-fiction</code> <code>sci-fi</code></p>
<p>Global Frequency is a very livid, strong, and fast-paced
adventure/action-packed sci-fi. Each of the twelve issues is kinda
independent and all of them are bursting with life. - <a
href="https://github.com/matheusteixeira"><span class="citation"
data-cites="matheusteixeira">@matheusteixeira</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Created by Entertainment Weekly “It” writer, Global Frequency is a
worldwide rescue organization that offers the last shred of hope when
all other options have failed. Manned by 1001 operatives, the Frequency
is made up of experts in fields as diverse as bio-weapon engineering and
Le Parkour Running. Each agent-equipped with a special mobile
vid-phone-is speciffically chosen by Miranda Zero, enigmatic leader of
the Global Frequency, based on proximity, expertise, and, in some cases,
sheer desperation!</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="saga-2014--by-brian-k.-vaughan-4.56"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17131869-saga-vol-2">Saga</a>
(2014-) <em>by Brian K. Vaughan</em> [4.56]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>fantasy</code> <code>sci-fi</code>
<code>space-opera</code></p>
<p>Saga is a comic that is an elevator pitch proof. It’s impossible to
describe it in a sentence. All I can say is that it’s a beautifully
written and drawn story about love and family, in a very interesting
space opera-like world. It’s kinda like Star Wars, but not at all. While
in Star Wars the heroes are in a huge journey to end the war, in Saga
they just want to be left alone to live with their family. - <a
href="https://github.com/matheusteixeira"><span class="citation"
data-cites="matheusteixeira">@matheusteixeira</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Saga is an epic space opera/fantasy comic book series created by
writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Fiona Staples, published monthly by
Image Comics. The series is heavily influenced by Star Wars, and based
on ideas Vaughan conceived both as a child and as a parent. It depicts
two lovers from long-warring extraterrestrial races, Alana and Marko,
fleeing authorities from both sides of a galactic war as they struggle
to care for their newborn daughter, Hazel, who occasionally narrates the
series.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-incal-1981-by-alejandro-jodorowsky-and-mœbius-4.2"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10842223-the-incal">The
Incal</a> (1981) <em>by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Mœbius</em> [4.2]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>sci-fi</code> <code>dystopian</code>
<code>surrealist</code> <code>space-opera</code></p>
<p>Highly imaginative, hilarious, sprawling epic graphic novel — a
collaboration between two giants of weird storytelling. Jodorowsky is an
auteur of avant-garde film, and Mœbius is a legendary cartoonist;
together their work has been a huge influence on such classic films as
Alien, Tron, and Star Wars. The story is all kinds of preposterous, a
dazzling display of surrealist science fiction, and the illustrations
render it way-larger-than-life on the page. This single-volume
collection of the complete series is well-worth the read. - <a
href="https://github.com/bschlagel"><span class="citation"
data-cites="bschlagel">@bschlagel</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>John Difool, a low-class detective in a degenerate dystopian world,
finds his life turned upside down when he discovers an ancient, mystical
artifact called “The Incal.” Difool’s adventures will bring him into
conflict with the galaxy’s greatest warrior, the Metabaron, and will pit
him against the awesome powers of the Technopope. These encounters and
many more make up a tale of comic and cosmic proportions that has Difool
fighting for not only his very survival, but also the survival of the
entire universe.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="the-manhattan-projects-2015--by-jonathan-hickman-3.9"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15736709-the-manhattan-projects-volume-1">The
Manhattan Projects</a> (2015-) <em>by Jonathan Hickman</em> [3.9]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>hard-science-fiction</code> <code>sci-fi</code></p>
<p>Mind boggling, crazy high concepts based on historical events. - <a
href="https://github.com/matheusteixeira"><span class="citation"
data-cites="matheusteixeira">@matheusteixeira</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>What if the research and development department created to produce
the first atomic bomb was a front for a series of other, more unusual,
programs?</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="transmetropolitan-1998-by-warren-ellis-4.23"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22416.Transmetropolitan_Vol_1">Transmetropolitan</a>
(1998) <em>by Warren Ellis</em> [4.23]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>hard-science-fiction</code> <code>sci-fi</code>
<code>cyberpunk</code></p>
<p>One of the most anarchistic comics I ever read. Transmetropolitan has
no mercy for anyone. Strong polical and social commentary in a world
that is not that far from ours. - <a
href="https://github.com/matheusteixeira"><span class="citation"
data-cites="matheusteixeira">@matheusteixeira</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>After years of self-imposed exile from a civilization rife with
degradation and indecency, cynical journalist Spider Jerusalem is forced
to return to a job that he hates and a city that he loathes. Working as
an investigative reporter for the newspaper The Word, Spider attacks the
injustices of his surreal 23rd Century surroundings. Combining black
humor, life-threatening situations, and moral ambiguity, this book is
the first look into the mind of an outlaw journalist and the world he
seeks to destroy.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="we3-2005-by-grant-morrison-3.95"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22358.We3">We3</a> (2005)
<em>by Grant Morrison</em> [3.95]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>hard-science-fiction</code> <code>sci-fi</code>
<code>society</code></p>
<p>One of the most emotional stories I ever read. We3 is a very visceral
and incredibly well drawn tale of freedom. - <a
href="https://github.com/matheusteixeira"><span class="citation"
data-cites="matheusteixeira">@matheusteixeira</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Writer Grant Morrison and artist Frank Quitely tell the unforgettable
story of three innocent pets-a dog, a cat and a rabbit-who have been
converted into deadly cyborgs by a sinister military weapons
program.With nervous systems amplified to match their terrifying
mechanical exoskeletons, the members of Animal Weapon 3 have the
firepower of a battalion between them. But they are just the program’s
prototypes, and now that their testing is complete, they’re slated to be
permanently “de-commissioned”-until they seize their one chance to make
a desperate run for freedom. Relentlessly pursued by their makers, the
WE3 team must navigate a frightening and confusing world where their
instincts and heightened abilities make them as much a threat as those
hunting them-but a world, nonetheless, in which somewhere there is
something called “home.”</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h4 id="y-the-last-man-2003-2008-by-brian-k.-vaughan-4.33"><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/86528-y-the-last-man">Y: The Last
Man</a> (2003-2008) <em>by Brian K. Vaughan</em> [4.33]</h4>
<p>Categories: <code>dystopian</code> <code>sci-fi</code></p>
<p>Y: The Last Man is graphic novel series unlike any other I have read.
The “last man” struggles with trying to learn why every other man on
earth is dead and how did he survive. Adding to his own internal
struggle, the women on earth are divided between wanting to ensure
humanity lives on, and those who believe they should be the last
generation of humans on earth. - <a
href="https://github.com/derekneuland"><span class="citation"
data-cites="derekneuland">@derekneuland</span></a></p>
<details>
<summary>
Description
</summary>
<blockquote>
<p>Y: The Last Man is a dystopian science fiction comic book series by
Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra published by Vertigo beginning in 2002.
The series is about the only man to survive the apparent simultaneous
death of every male mammal (barring the same man’s pet monkey) on
Earth.</p>
</blockquote>
</details>
<h2 id="links">Links</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9056319">What are your
favourite sci-fi books?</a> - Hacker News</li>
<li><a
href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/k70dh/whats_the_best_scifi_novel_you_have_ever_read/">Whats
the best Sci-Fi novel you have ever read?</a> - Reddit</li>
<li><a
href="https://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/139085843/your-picks-top-100-science-fiction-fantasy-books">Top
100 sci-fi and fantasy books as picked by NPR listeners</a> - NPR</li>
<li><a
href="https://letterboxd.com/potherca/list/the-awesome-sci-fi-list/">List
of all the movies from this list on Letterboxd</a></li>
<li><a
href="https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/148073.The_Awesome_Sci_Fi_List">List
of all the novels, short story collections, and comic books from this
list on Goodreads</a></li>
</ul>
<h2 id="credit">Credit</h2>
<p>Maintained by <a href="https://github.com/RichardLitt">Richard
Littauer</a> and <a
href="https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome-scifi/graphs/contributors">these
marvelous humanoids</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome-scifi">scifi.md
Github</a></p>