Book picks similar to
Forbidden Planet by W.J. Stuart


science-fiction
sci-fi
fantascienza
fiction

Software


Rudy Rucker - 1982
    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.

Rite of Passage


Alexei Panshin - 1968
    Mia Havero's Ship is a small closed society. It tests its children by casting them out to live or die in a month of Trial in the hostile wilds of a colony world. Mia Havero's Trial is fast approaching and in the meantime she must learn not only the skills that will keep her alive but the deeper courage to face herself and her world. Published originally in 1968, Alexei Panshin's Nebula Award-winning classic has lost none of its relevance, with its keen exploration of societal stagnation and the resilience of youth.

Psychoshop


Alfred Bester - 1998
    It will probably be there on the last day of the cosmos. This is the Psychoshop, where you can dump any unwanted aspect of your spirit as long as you exchange it for something else -- arcane knowledge, a change of luck, or a sixth sense. Just remember: All sales are final.Half finished upon Bester's death, and completed by Zelazny, Psychoshop envisions a commercial establishment that attracts customers from Edgar Allan Poe to a sorcerer intent on fabricating the Beast of Revelations. Brimming with wit and imagination, scandalously sexy and fabulously strange, Psychoshop is science fiction as you've never read it before.

Confessions of a Crap Artist


Philip K. Dick - 1975
    Dick's weirdest and most accomplished novels. Jack Isidore is a crap artist -- a collector of crackpot ideas (among other things, he believes that the earth is hollow and that sunlight has weight) and worthless objects, a man so grossly unequipped for real life that his sister and brother-in-law feel compelled to rescue him from it. But seen through Jack's murderously innocent gaze, Charlie and Juddy Hume prove to be just as sealed off from reality, in thrall to obsessions that are slightly more acceptable than Jack's, but a great deal uglier.

Alien


Alan Dean Foster - 1979
    The crew of the spaceship Nostromo wake from cryogenic sleep to distress signals from an unknown planet. One is attacked when they investigate a derelict alien craft. Safely on their way back to Sol, none foresee the real horror about to begin.

The Land That Time Forgot


Edgar Rice Burroughs - 1918
    Wedged tightly inside is a sheaf of papers covered with minute handwriting. As he begins to read, a fantastic tale begins to unwind. The writer, on his way to a WWI battlefield was shipwrecked and his entire regiment except for a woman and his faithful dog are killed. The three are rescued by a passing British tug, but fall prey to the schemes of a German spy aboard. They are then captured by the crew of a German U-boat. After many near mishaps, they sail towards Greenland. Stranded, with fuel in short supply, they spot an island that seems washed by a warm-water current. As they sail closer, they spot a decomposing human body. Nevertheless, they decide to disembark. An amazing world greets them – filled with lush tropical vegetation, giant reptiles, exotic species and most frightening of all, a race of sub-human Neanderthals.... First published as a three-part serial in The Blue Book magazine in 1918, The Land that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs is the first in his Caspak Trilogy. These stories are located in the fictitious island of Caprona, which is called Caspak in the native language of its inhabitants.

Infernal Devices


K.W. Jeter - 1986
    But idle sometime-musician George has little talent for clockwork. And when a shadowy figure tries to steal an old device from the premises, George finds himself embroiled in a mystery of time travel, music and sexual intrigue. A genuine lost classic, a steampunk original whose time has come.

The Whole Man


John Brunner - 1964
    His body was deformed at birth, leaving him with a face so ugly people didn't want to look at him, and crippled legs that would never let him be as other men. But his mind was one in a billion - gifted with the ability to send and receive thoughts more powerfully than any other person on the face of the globe.At first Howson thought his peculiar ability was odd, and then he thought he might be able to get a little extra money by snooping on people. But when his ability finally was discovered by others, he became so powerful that he could use his gift to heal the minds of those who suffered from terrible emotional or psychological trauma...or he could withdraw into a phatasmagoric wonderland of psychic imagining, never to emerge into the real world of human experience again. Whichever decision he made, his life and the lives of countless others would never be the same again.The Whole Man is one of the most brilliantly original and colorfully told adventures of inner space ever written. Hugo Award winner John Brunner makes utterly real a fantastic concept that most writers can't even write about.

Damnation Alley


Roger Zelazny - 1968
    He's also expendable - at least in the eyes of the Secretary of Traffic for the Nation of California. Tanner doesn't care much for those eyes. You'd also never mistake Hell Tanner for a humanitarian. Facing life in prison for his various crimes, he's given a choice; rot away his remaining years in a tiny jail cell, or drive cross-country and deliver a case of antiserum to the plague-ridden people of Boston, Massachusetts...if anyone is still alive there to receive it, that is. The chance of a full pardon does wonders for getting his attention. And don't mistake this mission of mercy for any kind of normal road trip - not when there are radioactive storms, hordes of carniverous beasts, and giant, mutated scorpions to be found along every deadly mile between Los Angeles and the East Coast. But then, this is no normal part of America, you see. This is DAMNATION ALLEY...

Brain Wave


Poul Anderson - 1954
    It is also a novel about equality and what happens when the hierarchical structures by which we arrange our daily lives disappear.

Good Morning, Midnight


Lily Brooks-Dalton - 2016
    For years he has lived in remote outposts, studying the sky for evidence of how the universe began. At his latest posting, in a research center in the Arctic, rumors of war arrive. The scientists are forced to evacuate, but Augustine stubbornly refuses to abandon his work. Shortly after the others have gone, Augustine discovers a mysterious child, Iris, and realizes the airwaves have gone silent. They are alone. At the same time, Mission Specialist Sullivan is aboard the Aether on its return flight from Jupiter. The astronauts are the first human beings to delve this deep into space, and Sully has made peace with the sacrifices required of her: a daughter left behind, a marriage ended. So far the journey has been a success, but when Mission Control falls inexplicably silent, Sully and her crew mates are forced to wonder if they will ever get home. As Augustine and Sully each face an uncertain future against forbidding yet beautiful landscapes, their stories gradually intertwine in a profound and unexpected conclusion. In crystalline prose, Good Morning, Midnight poses the most important questions: What endures at the end of the world? How do we make sense of our lives?

The Purple Cloud


M.P. Shiel - 1901
    . . What then, my God, shall I do?" The Purple Cloud is widely hailed as a masterpiece of science fiction and one of the best "last man" novels ever written. A deadly purple vapor passes over the world and annihilates all living creatures except one man, Adam Jeffson. He embarks on an epic journey across a silent and devastated planet, an apocalyptic Robinson Crusoe putting together the semblance of a normal life from the flotsam and jetsam of his former existence. As he descends into madness over the years, he becomes increasingly aware that his survival was no accident and that his destiny—and the fate of the human race—are part of a profound, cosmological plan.

The Star Rover


Jack London - 1914
    It tells the story of San Quentin death-row inmate Darrell Standing, who escapes the horror of prison life —and long stretches in a straitjacket— by withdrawing into vivid dreams of past lives, including incarnations as a French nobleman and an Englishman in medieval Korea. Based on the life and imprisonment of Jack London’s friend Ed Morrell, this is one of the author’s most complex and original works.

The Voyage of the Space Beagle


A.E. van Vogt - 1950
    The saga of the Space Beagle, mankind's first effort to reach another galaxy. And what strange life-forms are encountered!

Berserker


Fred Saberhagen - 1967
    The sole legacy of that war was the weapon that ended it: the death machines, the BERSERKERS. Guided by self-aware computers more intelligent than any human, these world-sized battlecraft carved a swath of death through the galaxy--until they arrived at the outskirts of the fledgling Empire of Man.These are the stories of the frail creatures who must meet this monstrous and implacable enemy--and who, by fighting it to a standstill, become the saviors of all living things.