Book picks similar to
Pyrotechnicon by Adam Browne
fiction
canon
don-t-have-but-want
classics
Hail! Hail!
Harry Turtledove - 2018
Fresh from Duck Soup (1933), Julius, Leonard, Arthur and Herbert Marx - or as the world knows them, Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Zeppo - are transported by a freak electrical storm to Nacogdoches, Texas in the year 1826. Landing in the midst of the Fredonian Rebellion (the first attempt by settlers in Texas to secede from Mexico) and into the company of the only other Jewish person in town, they are in deep dreck. Falling in with Stephen F. Austin and inadvertently filling his head with knowledge of what is to come, our heroes risk tampering with the future of Texas, and perhaps the entire U.S.A., in their quest to return to their own time. Will they find their way back? Or will they be doomed to live out their lives without indoor plumbing?
City of the Falling Sky
Joseph Evans - 2011
But the worms aren’t the only thing that he finds. Staring at him through the darkness, with wide, innocent eyes, is something that makes Seckry’s heart almost stop.A girl.She’s shaking, petrified, and has no recollection of who she is or what she’s doing there.Floodlights bleach the area and Seckry has no choice but to grab a hold of the girl and escape with her.Suddenly the question of what Endrin were doing with a few worms becomes the last thing on Seckry’s mind. What were Endrin doing with a human?
The Cipher
Kathe Koja - 1991
She had to see the dark hole in the storage room down the hall. She had to make love to Nicholas beside it, and stare into its secretive, promising depths. Then Nakota began her experiments: First, she put an insect into the hole. Then a mouse...Now from down the hall, the black hole calls out to Nicholas every day and every night. And he will go to it. Because it has already seared his flesh, infected his soul, and started him on a journey of obsession - through its soothing, blank darkness into the blinding core of terror...
Stephen King 3: Different Seasons, The Stand, Skeleton Crew
Stephen King - 1978
The Gandalara Cycle I
Randall Garrett - 1986
The next, he found himself in a young, strong body in the exotic desert world of Gandalara.He was now a master swordsman telepathically linked to a giant warcat called Keeshah. And he was a man on the run, accused of murder and the theft of a precious gem with awesome, perhaps magical, powers.With the aid of Tarani, a beautiful illusionist, he sets out on a perilous quest to recover the sacred gem he had supposedly stolen and to clear his newfound name.
The Warren
Brian Evenson - 2016
He thought he had one—or many—but that might be the result of the failing memories of the personalities imprinted within him. Or maybe he really is called X.He’s also not as human as he believes himself to be.But when he discovers the existence of another—above ground, outside the protection of the Warren—X must learn what it means to be human, or face the destruction of their two species.
The Darwin Effect
Mark Lukens - 2016
They are all suffering from short-term memory loss and they can't remember why or how they got on this ship. The onboard computer (MAC) tells them that it was programmed to wake them up early. They believe MAC woke them up by mistake. They can't re-enter suspended animation, there's only enough food for a few months, and they are too far away to return to Earth ... but even if they could return, MAC tells them that the Earth has been destroyed by nuclear war. They realize that they are all going to die on this ship.Cromartie, the unelected leader of their group, tries his best to keep the others calm, but soon they are at each other's throats. After one of them is found murdered, Cromartie and Sanders form an alliance. Cromartie tells Sanders that pieces of his memories are beginning to come back to him in his dreams; he believes he's seeing clues to their survival.But after the next murder, Cromartie and Sanders must work fast to find the mind-blowing key to their survival and figure out which one of them is the killer before it's too late.
Dustborn
Erin Bowman - 2021
Delta of Dead River has always been told to hide her back, where a map is branded on her skin to a rumored paradise called the Verdant. In a wasteland plagued by dust squalls, geomagnetic storms, and solar flares, many would kill for it—even if no one can read it. So when raiders sent by a man known as the General attack her village, Delta suspects he is searching for her. Delta sets out to rescue her family but quickly learns that in the Wastes no one can be trusted—perhaps not even her childhood friend, Asher, who has been missing for nearly a decade. If Delta can trust Asher, she just might decode the map and trade evidence of the Verdant to the General for her family. What Delta doesn’t count on is what waits at the Verdant: a long-forgotten secret that will shake the foundation of her entire world.
Before the Broken Star
Emily R. King - 2019
The lone survivor of her family’s unexplained assassination, she was saved by an ingeniously crafted clockwork heart. But the time she was given won’t last forever. Now, every tick-tock reminds her how fragile her existence is and hastens her quest to expose Killian Markham, the navy admiral who shattered her world and left her for dead. But Everley’s hunt for justice will be a long and hard-won voyage.Her journey takes her to a penal colony on a cursed isle, where she will be married off and charged to build the new world. It is here, and beyond, that hidden realms hide, treasures are unearthed, her family secrets are buried, and young love will test the strength of her makeshift heart. When Everley discovers Markham may not be who he seems, her pursuit for truth is bound to his redemption, her tragic history, and her astonishing destiny.
Horror in Honduras
Benjamin Wallace - 2012
Blessed with the physique of a demigod and one of the world’s foremost minds, he travels the globe on a quest to confront evil and punch it in the face. At his disposal is a vast fortune, an endless array of gadgets and loyal friends. Now, one of those friends has gone missing in a Central American jungle and the only clue is the grotesque image of a demonic tribal mask. Dam and his trusted valet Bertrand rush headlong into danger and go face-to-face with evil incarnate to save their missing friend and attempt to destroy the Horror in Honduras.
Lovecraft's Monsters
Ellen DatlowElizabeth Bear - 2014
P. Lovecraft, published his first story, the monstrosities that crawled out of his brain have become legend: the massive, tentacled Cthulhu, who lurks beneath the sea waiting for his moment to rise; the demon Sultan Azathoth, who lies babbling at the center of the universe, mad beyond imagining; the Deep Ones, who come to shore to breed with mortal men; and the unspeakably-evil Hastur, whose very name brings death. These creatures have been the nightmarish fuel for generations of horror writers, and the inspiration for some of their greatest works.This impressive anthology celebrates Lovecraft's most famous beasts in all their grotesque glory, with each story a gripping new take on a classic mythos creature and affectionately accompanied by an illuminating illustration. Within these accursed pages something unnatural slouches from the sea into an all-night diner to meet the foolish young woman waiting for him, while the Hounds of Tindalos struggle to survive trapped in human bodies, haunting pool halls for men they can lure into the dark. Strange, haunting, and undeniably monstrous, this is Lovecraft as you have never seen him before.Contents"Only the End of the World Again" by Neil Gaiman"The Bleeding Shadow" by Joe R. Lansdale"Love is Forbidden, We Croak & Howl" by Caitlín R. Kiernan"Bulldozer" by Laird Barron"A Quarter to Three" by Kim Newman"Inelastic Collisions" by Elizabeth Bear"That of Which We Speak When We Speak of the Unspeakable" by Nick Mamatas"Red Goat Black Goat" by Nadia Bulkin"Jar of Salts" and "Haruspicy" by Gemma Files"Black is the Pit From Pole to Pole" by Howard Waldrop and Steven Utley"I've Come to Speak with You Again" by Karl Edward Wagner"The Sect of the Idiot" by Thomas Ligotti"The Dappled Things" by William Browning Spencer"The Same Deep Waters as You" by Brian Hodge"Remnants" by Fred Chappell"Waiting at the Cross Roads" by Steve Rasnic Tem"Children of the Fang" by John Langan
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Saddleback Educational Publishing - 2010
This series features classic tales retold with color illustrations to introduce literature to struggling readers. Each 64-page hardcover book retains key phrases and quotations from the original classics. Take a journey into the future of science and imagination, as seen through the eyes of Jules Verne. The adventures of Henry, Hans, and Professor Von Hardwigg take the reader from the surface of a planet they know to a world alien to them located deep inside the earth. Verne shows man's ability to survive even in the most adverse conditions and proves that survival is man's most basic instinct. He brings out the adventurer in all of us.
WhiteSpace: Season Two
Sean Platt - 2013
But the shooter wasn’t acting alone.Roger Heller was part of something bigger…A conspiracy of scientific experiments, missing citizens, and ancient secrets threatening the island and its people.Behind it all: the enigmatic Blake Conway.Can Jon Conway piece the mystery together before he loses someone else that he loves?Can Roger Heller’s surviving family move on from his heinous actions?Will Cassidy’s addictions destroy her new family with Emma and Jon?Can Milo trust the mysterious Don Bellows?What will happen when Brock Houser launches his own investigation?WhiteSpace is a character-driven, mysterious, sci-fi thriller that would be right at home with superbly scripted TV shows like LOST, The Killing, and Fringe.
Alive
Andreas Christensen - 2013
When Ed Walker learns that others have been preparing for the disaster for years, he realize finding them may be his only shot at survival. But time is running out...In a dying world one man makes a choice to keep going, hoping against hope there might be a future after all.Alive is a 10.000 word story loosely based on events in Exodus by Andreas Christensen, but can also just as easily be read as a stand alone.Notice: this novella is also available for FREE on the author's website.