Book picks similar to
The Pritcher Mass by Gordon R. Dickson
science-fiction
sf
sci-fi
fiction
Planet Run
Keith Laumer - 1967
But this man - veteran explorer Captain Henry - will have no part of the venture. As conqueror of several planets, and now 135 years old, he longs for retirement and relaxation. Blackmailed, however, by the Senator into rejuvenation treatments, and commitment to the new mission, Henry shrewdly devises his own scheme for revenge...
Deus Irae
Philip K. Dick - 1976
The Servants of Wrath have deified Carlton Lufteufel and re-christened him the Deus Irae. In the small community of Charlottesville, Utah, Tibor McMasters, born without arms or legs, has, through an array of prostheses, established a far-reaching reputation as an inspired painter. When the new church commissions a grand mural depicting the Deus Irae, it falls upon Tibor to make a treacherous journey to find the man, to find the god, and capture his terrible visage for posterity.
Space Skimmer
David Gerrold - 1972
Once the Empire had ruled the galaxy, linking thousands of worlds with a network of commerce, culture and law... Now, with the Empire gone, only isolated planets remained and they were rapidly sinking into oblivion. Then came Mass, a man driven by a dream of rediscovering the Empire... but to achieve that dream he must find and control the space skimmer, one of the miraculous vessels that had first made the Empire possible...
Greybeard
Brian W. Aldiss - 1964
The sombre story of a group of people in their fifties who face the fact that there is no younger generation coming to replace them; instead nature is rushing back to obliterate the disaster they have brought on themselves.
Distant Friends and Others
Timothy Zahn - 1992
In love with fellow telepath Colleen Isaac, Dale Ravenhall realizes that the very thing that enables him and Colleen to read each other's minds would kill them both if they came within twenty miles of each other.Contents:Red Thoughts at Morning (1981)Dark Thoughts at Noon (1982)Black Thoughts at Midnight (1992)The Peaceful Man (1982)The Evidence of Things Not Seen (1986)Guardian Angel (1986)Expanded Charter (1983)Final Solution (1982)Pawn's Gambit (1982)
Farnham's Freehold
Robert A. Heinlein - 1964
What he hadn't expected was that when the apocalypse came, a thermonuclear blast would tear apart the fabric of time and hurl his shelter into a world with no sign of other human beings.
Terminal World
Alastair Reynolds - 2009
Clinging to its skin are the zones, a series of semi-autonomous city-states, each of which enjoys a different—and rigidly enforced—level of technology. Horsetown is pre-industrial; in Neon Heights they have television and electric trains . . .Following an infiltration mission that went tragically wrong, Quillon has been living incognito, working as a pathologist in the district morgue. But when a near-dead angel drops onto his dissecting table, Quillon's world is wrenched apart one more time, for the angel is a winged posthuman from Spearpoint's Celestial Levels—and with the dying body comes bad news.If Quillon is to save his life, he must leave his home and journey into the cold and hostile lands beyond Spearpoint's base, starting an exile that will take him further than he could ever imagine. But there is far more at stake than just Quillon's own survival, for the limiting technologies of the zones are determined not by governments or police, but by the very nature of reality—and reality itself is showing worrying signs of instability . . .Terminal World is a snarling, drooling, crazy-eyed mongrel of a book: equal parts steampunk, western, planetary romance, and far-future SF.
Subspace Explorers
E.E. "Doc" Smith - 1965
Five space travelers trapped in a wrecked liner -- a debutante, a female oil wildcatter, a famous mathematician and two hard-biscuit spacemen -- are attacked by a deadly energy field, and make a discovery that saves the Universe!
Wyrms
Orson Scott Card - 1987
A legend as old as the stars rules this constructed world; When the seventh seventh seventh human Heptarch is crowned, he will be the Kristos and will bring eternal salvation . . . or the destruction of the cosmos.Patience is the only daughter of the rightful Heptarch, but she, like her father before her, serves the usurper who has destroyed her family. For she has learned the true ruler's honor.Duty to one's race is more important than duty to one's self. But the time for prudence has passed, and that which has slept for ages has awakened. And Patience must journey to the heartsoul of this planet to confront her destiny . . . and her world's.
Queen of Angels
Greg Bear - 1990
"One is ultimately awed... it may be the most ambitious novel I've ever read." -- Washington Post Book World
Sassinak
Anne McCaffrey - 1990
That made her just the right age: old enough to be used, young enough to be broken. Or so the slavers thought. But Sassy turned out to be a little different from your typical slave girl. Maybe it was her unusual physical strength. Maybe it was her friendship with the captured Fleet crewman. Maybe it was her spirit. Whatever it was, it wouldn't let her resign herself to the life of a slave. She bided her time, watched for her moment. Finally it came, and she escaped.But that was only the beginning for Sassinak. Now she's a Fleet Captain with a pirate-chasing ship of her own, and only one regret in her life: not enough pirates.
The Spell Sword
Marion Zimmer Bradley - 1974
Most of the planet's wild terrain was unexplored...and many of its peoples seclusive and secretive.But for Andrew Carr there was an attraction he could not evade. Darkover drew him, Darkover haunted him--and when his mapping plane crashed in unknown heights, Darkover prepared to destroy him.Until the planet's magic asserted itself--and his destiny began to unfold along lines predicted only by phantoms and wonder workers of the kind Terran science could never acknowledge.THE SPELL SWORD is a Darkover novel to stand with the great ones of the series.
Feersum Endjinn
Iain M. Banks - 1994
His only clues point to a conspiracy that reaches far beyond his own murder, and survival lies in discovering other fugitives who know the truth about the ultimate weapon of chaos and salvation. Reprint.
All the Traps of Earth and other stories
Clifford D. Simak - 1963
Contents:-
All the Traps of Earth
(1960) novelette -
Good Night, Mr James
(1951) novelette -
Drop Dead
(1956) novelette - No Life of Their Own (1959) novella -
The Sitters
(1958) novelette - Crying Jag (1960) novelette -
Installment Plan
(1959) novelette -
Condition of Employment
(1960) short story -
Project Mastodon
(1955) novelette.
In the Days of the Comet
H.G. Wells - 1906
But mankind is too busy hating, stealing, scheming, and killing to care. As luminous green trails of cosmic dust and vapor stream across the heavens, blood flows beneath: nations wage all-out war, bitter strikes erupt, and jealous lovers plot revenge and murder. The earth slips past the comet by the narrowest of margins, but all succumb to the gases in its tail. When mankind wakes up, everyone is completely and profoundly different. An ill-fated romance between Willie Leadford and Nettie Stuart unfolds in a world buried in misery and bent on its own destruction. After the earth passes through the comet's tail, suffering, pettiness, and injustice melt away. Willie, Nettie, and everyone around them are reborn. They now see themselves and their world in a dramatically new and wonderful way.