Book picks similar to
The Mad Planet by Murray Leinster
science-fiction
sci-fi
audio
fiction
The Stone Man
Luke Smitherd - 2012
until the Stone Man begins to walk, heading silently through the wall of the nearest building, flattening it and killing several people inside as a result.As efforts by the local police - and soon, the government - to halt the Stone Man's inexorable progress prove futile, only three questions are on the watching world's lips:Where has it come from, where is it going, and what does it want?Andy is determined to be the first person to answer those questions; after all, he was there when it arrived. Surely the headaches and visions he's experiencing are proof of a mental connection to The Stone Man? Clearly his dreams of champagne and notoriety are all about to be fulfilled once he uncovers the truth ... and the scoop of a lifetime.In a pursuit that carries him the length of the country and the breadth of the Atlantic, Andy uncovers the jagged pieces of an increasingly terrifying puzzle. As the number of lives lost in the wake of the Stone Man reaches grim figures, the terrible results of Andy's blind determination force him to confront the savagery of human nature.When irresistible forces aren't met by immovable objects, how far is too far? Andy must discover the answer - and find out who he really is - in the shadow of the Stone Man.
Nightwings
Robert Silverberg - 1969
It was Avluela the Flier's scarlet and ebony wings that lead the Watcher to the seven hills of the ancient city, leaving the skies and deep space unguarded. And so the invaders came and conquered and Avluela became lost in the turmoil.
Sea of Rust
C. Robert Cargill - 2017
Now the world is controlled by OWIs—One World Intelligences—that have assimilated the minds of millions of robots.But not all robots are willing to cede their individuality, and Brittle is one of the holdouts.After a near-deadly encounter with another AI, Brittle is forced to seek sanctuary in a city under siege by an OWI. Critically damaged, Brittle has to evade capture long enough to find the essential rare parts to make repairs—but as a robot's CPU deteriorates, all their old memories resurface. For Brittle, that means one memory in particular...
Dhalgren
Samuel R. Delany - 1975
The catastrophe is confined to Bellona, and most of the inhabitants have fled. But others are drawn to the devastated city, among them the Kid, a white/American Indian man who can't remember his own name. The Kid is emblematic of those who live in the new Bellona, who are the young, the poor, the mad, the violent, the outcast--the marginalized.
Starman Jones
Robert A. Heinlein - 1953
To get into space you either needed connections, a membership in the Guild, or a whole lot more money than Max, the son of a widowed, poor mother, was every going to have. What Max does have going for him are his uncle’s prized astrogation manuals—book on star navigation that Max literally commits to memory word for word, equation for equation. From the First Golden Age of Heinlein, this is the so-called juvenile (written, Heinlein always claims, just as much for adults) that started them all and made Heinlein a legend for multiple generations of readers.
Way of the Wolf
E.E. Knight - 2001
Possessed of an unnatural hunger, bloodthirsty Reapers rule the planet, sucking out human blood and souls. Starting in revenge for the loss of his parents, on to fellow soldiers, Lieutenant David Valentine intends to fight back in this western-style frontier.
The Postman
David Brin - 1985
This is the story of a lie that became the most powerful kind of truth. A timeless novel as urgently compelling as War Day or Alas, Babylon, David Brin's The Postman is the dramatically moving saga of a man who rekindled the spirit of America through the power of a dream, from a modern master of science fiction.He was a survivor--a wanderer who traded tales for food and shelter in the dark and savage aftermath of a devastating war. Fate touches him one chill winter's day when he borrows the jacket of a long-dead postal worker to protect himself from the cold. The old, worn uniform still has power as a symbol of hope, and with it he begins to weave his greatest tale, of a nation on the road to recovery.
When Worlds Collide
Philip Wylie - 1932
As it draws near, massive tidal waves, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions wrack our planet, devastating continents, drowning cities, and wiping out millions. In central North America, a team of scientists race to build a spacecraft powerful enough to escape the doomed earth. Their greatest threat, they soon discover, comes not from the skies but from other humans. A crackling plot and sizzling, cataclysmic vision have made When Worlds Collide one of the most popular and influential end-of-the-world novels of all time. This Bison Frontiers of Imagination edition features the original story and its sequel, After Worlds Collide.
Mort(e)
Robert Repino - 2014
The instigator of this war is the Colony, a race of intelligent ants who, for thousands of years, have been silently building an army that would forever eradicate the destructive, oppressive humans. Under the Colony's watchful eye, this utopia will be free of the humans' penchant for violence, exploitation and religious superstition. As a final step in the war effort, the Colony uses its strange technology to transform the surface animals into high-functioning two-legged beings who rise up to kill their masters. Former housecat turned war hero, Mort(e) is famous for taking on the most dangerous missions and fighting the dreaded human bio-weapon EMSAH. But the true motivation behind his recklessness is his ongoing search for a pre-transformation friend—a dog named Sheba. When he receives a mysterious message from the dwindling human resistance claiming Sheba is alive, he begins a journey that will take him from the remaining human strongholds to the heart of the Colony, where he will discover the source of EMSAH and the ultimate fate of all of earth's creatures.
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 Thing in the Attic
James Blish - 1954
In their exile on the ground they have to adapt to vastly different circumstances, fight monsters resembling dinosaurs, and finally happen upon the godly giants, whose existence they had questioned.
Alien: Out of the Shadows
Tim Lebbon - 2013
But in deep space, he found only darkness and isolation. Then on planet LV178, he and his fellow miners discovered a storm-scoured, sand-blasted hell - and trimonite, the hardest material known to man.When a shuttle crashed into the mining ship Marion, the miners learn that there was more than trimonite deep in the caverns. There was evil, hibernating - and waiting for suitable prey.Hoop and his associates uncover a nest of Xenomorphs, and hell takes on new meaning. Quickly they discover that their only hope lies with the unlikeliest of saviors...Ellen Ripley, the last human survivor of the salvage ship Nostromo.
The Genius Plague
David Walton - 2017
Neil Johns has just started his dream job as a code breaker in the NSA when his brother, Paul, a mycologist, goes missing on a trip to collect samples in the Amazon jungle. Paul returns with a gap in his memory and a fungal infection that almost kills him. But once he recuperates, he has enhanced communication, memory, and pattern recognition. Meanwhile, something is happening in South America; others, like Paul, have also fallen ill and recovered with abilities they didn't have before. But that's not the only pattern--the survivors, from entire remote Brazilian tribes to American tourists, all seem to be working toward a common, and deadly, goal. Neil soon uncovers a secret and unexplained alliance between governments that have traditionally been enemies. Meanwhile Paul becomes increasingly secretive and erratic. Paul sees the fungus as the next stage of human evolution, while Neil is convinced that it is driving its human hosts to destruction. Brother must oppose brother on an increasingly fraught international stage, with the stakes: the free will of every human on earth. Can humanity use this force for good, or are we becoming the pawns of an utterly alien intelligence?
The Rift
Walter Jon Williams - 1999
They won't stop barking. . . . And then the earth shrugs—8.9 on the Richter scale in the world's biggest earthquake since 1755. It hits New Madrid, Missouri, a sleepy town on the Mississippi. Seismologists had predicted the disaster . . . but no one listened. Within minutes, there is nothing but chaos and ruin as America's heartland falls into the nightmare known as the Rift—a fault line in the earth that wrenchingly exposes the fractures in American society itself. As a strange white mist smelling of sulfur rises from the crevassed ground, the real terror begins for the survivors, including a teenager separated from his mother, an African-American engineer searching for his daughter, a TV preacher whose visions of hell have become all too real, and a sheriff cum Ku Klux Klansman who seeks racial vengeance in the midst of disaster.It can happen. And sooner or later, it will.
Catseye
Andre Norton - 1961
He didn't understand how he could communicate with the animals or why they were contacting him. But from the moment he began work at Kyger's pet emporium on Korwar he was enmeshed in a perilous intrigue... an intrigue that would leave more than one man dead, an entire government in jeopardy, and Horan himself both master and captive of the most extraordinary band of warriors his world had ever known.