Book picks similar to
Gray Matters by William Hjortsberg
science-fiction
fiction
sci-fi
sf
The Man Who Folded Himself
David Gerrold - 1973
When Daniel Eakins inherits a time machine, he soon realizes that he has enormous power to shape the course of history. He can foil terrorists, prevent assassinations, or just make some fast money at the racetrack. And if he doesn't like the results of the change, he can simply go back in time and talk himself out of making it! But Dan soon finds that there are limits to his powers and forces beyond his control.
Shards of Honour
Lois McMaster Bujold - 1986
Aral and Cordelia survive countless mishaps while their mutual admiration and even stronger feelings emerge.
White Light
Rudy Rucker - 1980
When his dreams finally separate him from his physical body, Felix plunges headfirst into a multidimensional universe beyond the limits of space and time -- the place of White Light.
The Egg
Andy Weir - 2009
A short story about the universe and your place in it.
We Who Are About To...
Joanna Russ - 1976
With no technical skills and scant supplies, the survivors face a bleak end in an alien world. One brave woman holds the daring answer, but it is the most desperate one possible.Elegant and electric, We Who Are About To... brings us face to face with our basic assumptions about our will to live. While most of the stranded tourists decide to defy the odds and insist on colonizing the planet and creating life, the narrator decides to practice the art of dying. When she is threatened with compulsory reproduction, she defends herself with lethal force. Originally published in 1977, this is one of the most subtle, complex, and exciting science fiction novels ever written about the attempt to survive a hostile alien environment. It is characteristic of Russ's genius that such a readable novel is also one of her most intellectually intricate.
Phases of Gravity
Dan Simmons - 1989
passion for space exploration, his forgotten childhood and the loss he experienced during the death-flight of the Challenger. the moon, but the warm interior of his heart. love and loss that transports readers far beyond the confines of space and time.
Sirius: A Fantasy of Love and Discord
Olaf Stapledon - 1944
Raised and educated in Trelone's own family alongside Plaxy, his youngest daughter, Sirius is a truly remarkable and gifted creature. His relationship with the Trelones, particularly with Plaxy, is deep and close, and his inquiring mind ranges across the spectrum of human knowledge and experience. But Sirius isn't human and the conflicts and inner turmoil that torture him cannot be resolved.
The Lights in the Sky Are Stars
Fredric Brown - 1953
I'm one of the guys who fought and bled and worked to get to Mars. I figure what I gave up in those early years bought me the right to pilot the next big jump.I've lied and stolen for that right. I'd have killed, too, but I didn't have to. Instead, I let a woman give her life so I could have my chance, my door to space.You think I'd stop at anything, now?I'll be on that rocket, blasting away on America's biggest adventure, the hop out into the stars themselves....Only Fred Brown could have written this deeply moving science-fiction novel about one man's epic, life-long struggle to open mankind's pathway to the stars...'
Embassytown
China Miéville - 2011
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.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.
Agent of Chaos
Norman Spinrad - 1967
But at the same time he was too organically a radical ever to be confused with a conservative. Result: Agent of Chaos! Boris Johnson thinks he wants democracy. But in the course of his adventures he discovers that democracy to him means freedom. It's a banned concept from the Millennium of Religion. Like God. He finds himself dealing with a byzantine political situation worthy of anything from the banned past. The dictatorship is the Hegemony. Opposition is provided by the aptly named agents of C.H.A.O.S. Meanwhile, the Brotherhood of Assassins plays a game that no one can fathom. Whose side are they on? Whose fool are you? Spinrad explores his philosophical theme in a manner all too rare in contemporary science fiction. The problem is that Order will always try to eliminate any random factors. By its very nature, it encourages opposition and that feeds the forces of chaos. But chaos has built in problems as well. Its victories cannot help but feed the forces of reaction, of order. The heroes in this novel ultimately opt for personal freedom. The villains try to establish a dictatorship over the very nature of reality itself. And then Spinrad throws in the discovery of aliens. A starship sets forth to meet them, the Prometheus. The Hegemony doesn't like that.
Steelheart
William C. Dietz - 1998
A battle against an alien race who hold all technology to be the ultimate evil. Human, alien, and android alike struggle against them. But to win, they must unite. And to unite, they need a leader...
Definitely Maybe
Arkady Strugatsky - 1974
Which may be why Definitely Maybe has never before been available in an uncensored edition, let alone in English. It tells the story of astrophysicist Dmitri Malianov, who has sent his wife and son off to her mother’s house in Odessa so that he can work, free from distractions, on the project he’s sure will win him the Nobel Prize.But he’d have an easier time making progress if he wasn’t being interrupted all the time: First, it’s the unexpected delivery of a crate of vodka and caviar. Then a beautiful young woman in an unnervingly short skirt shows up at his door. Then several of his friends—also scientists—drop by, saying they all felt they were on the verge of a major discovery when they got . . . distracted . . .Is there an ominous force that doesn’t want knowledge to progress? Or could it be something more . . . natural?In this nail-bitingly suspenseful book, the Strugatsky brothers bravely and brilliantly question authority: an authority that starts with crates of vodka, but has lightning bolts in store for humans who refuse to be cowed.
Plague of Pythons
Frederik Pohl - 1965
No man knew at what moment he might be Possessed!On Christmas the world's freedom died. Every man, woman and child lay in the grip of fear, for no one knew at what moment his nearest friend or a casual stranger might suddenly be possessed by some brutal mind ... and begin to murder and destroy. For Chandler it was worse than for most. He was both victim and executioner. He had suffered himself, and he had committed a violent crime while under the strange domination. Accusing of hoaxing he was driven from his home. He wandered the world and found it smashed like a spoiled child's plaything―now Chandler was in the very presence of the destroyers! But what could one person do against such power?—the power of gods!
The Unincorporated Man
Dani Kollin - 2009
This reborn civilization is one in which every individual is incorporated at birth, and spends many years trying to attain control over his or her own life by getting a majority of his or her own shares. Life extension has made life very long indeed.Now the incredible has happened: a billionaire businessman from our time, frozen in secret in the early twenty-first century, is discovered and resurrected, given health and a vigorous younger body. Justin Cord is the only unincorporated man in the world, a true stranger in this strange land. Justin survived because he is tough and smart. He cannot accept only part ownership of himself, even if that places him in conflict with a civilization that extends outside the solar system to the Oort Cloud. People will be arguing about this novel and this world for decades.