Book picks similar to
Not This August by C.M. Kornbluth
science-fiction
sf
fiction
sci-fi
Who?
Algis Budrys - 1958
But the K-88 exploded in his face, and he was dragged across the Soviet border. There he stayed for months. When they finally gave him back, the Soviets had given him a metal arm...and an expressionless metal skull. So how could Allied Security be sure he actually was Martino ?
The Wanderer
Fritz Leiber - 1964
Only a few scientists even suspected its presence, and then, suddenly and silently, it arrived, dwarfing and threatening the Moon and wreaking havoc on Earth's tides and weather. Though the Wanderer is stopping in the solar system only to refuel, its mere presence is catastrophic. A tense, thrilling, and towering achievement. Winner of the Hugo Award for Best SF Novel of the Year!
The Pirates of Ersatz
Murray Leinster - 1959
Unfortunately, every time he tries to get out, something pulls him back in. This is a tongue-in-cheek space adventure along the lines of the Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison. It was originally published in the FEB-APR issues of Astounding Science Fiction in 1959. (Read by Elliott Miller)Approx. 6.25 hours
The World Jones Made
Philip K. Dick - 1956
For although Jones has the power to see the future — a power that makes his life a torment — his real gift lies elsewhere: in his ability to make people dream again in a world where dreaming has been made illegal, even when the dream is indistinguishable from a nightmare.In Philip K. Dick's unsettling chronicle of the rise and fall of a postnuclear messiah, readers will find a novel that is as minutely realistic as it is prophetic. For along with its engineered mutants, hermaphroditic sex performers, and protoplasmic drifters from the stars, The World Jones Made gives us nothing less than a deadly accurate reading of our own hunger for belief.
The Planet Buyer
Cordwainer Smith - 1964
There, Underpeople are slave humanoids genetically designed from animals. On Earth, Rod joins C'Mell and Underpeople to bring back freedom. Second half of "Norstrilia".
The Drought
J.G. Ballard - 1964
Violence erupts and insanity reigns as the human race struggles for survival in a worldwide desert of despair.
Blind Voices
Tom Reamy - 1978
Campbell, Jr., Award for best young science fiction writer. One summer day in the 1920s, Haverstock's Traveling Curiosus and Wondershow rides into a small Midwestern town. Haverstock's show is a presentation of mysterious wonders: feats of magic, strange creatures, and frightening powers. Three teenage girls attend the opening performance that evening which, for each, promises love and threatens death. The three girls are drawn to the show and its performers-a lusty centaur, Angel the magical albino boy, the rowdy stage hands-but frightened by the enigmatic owner, Haverstock. The girls at first try to dismiss these marvels as trickery, but it becomes all too real, too vivid to be other than nightmare reality. Each feels the force of the show and its power to alter everyday lives: Francine is drawn embarrassingly to the centaur, Rose makes an assignation with one of the hands and gets in trouble, and Evelyn is fascinated by the pathetic, mysterious Angel, The Boy Who Can Fly, and together they plan escape. No stranger or more disturbing vision of the dark side of carnival life has been handled with such grace or conviction since Bradbury's vintage period. With a poet's mastery of language Reamy brings his circus of characters to a startling, fantastic conclusion. ABOUT THE AUTHOR TOM REAMY, at the time of his sudden death, was one of the most popular young writers in the Science Fiction field in recent years. His style is in the fantastic tradition of Richard Matheson and Ray Bradbury, and BLIND VOICES, his only novel, demands comparison to such masterpieces as Bradbury's Dandelion Wine or Something Wicked This Way Comes.
Macroscope
Piers Anthony - 1969
But although they may have longed for it, not even the most brilliant minds could conceive of a device as infinitely powerful or as immeasurably precise as the macroscope, until the twenty-first century. By analyzing information carried on macrons, this unbelievable tool brought the whole universe of wonders to man's doorstep. The macroscope was seen by many as the salvation of the human race. But in the hands of the wrong man, the macroscope could be immensely destructive-infinitely more dangerous than the nuclear bomb. By searching to know too much, man could destroy the very essence of his mind. This is the powerful story of man's struggle with technology, and also the story of his human struggle with himself. This novel takes us across the breathtaking ranges of space as well as through the most touching places in the human heart. It is a story of coming of age, of sacrifice, and of love. It is the story of man's desperate search for a compromise between his mind and his heart, between knowledge and humanity.
Hominids
Robert J. Sawyer - 2002
A Neanderthal physicist, Ponter Boddit, accidentally passes from his universe into a Canadian underground research facility. Fortunately, a team of human scientists, including expert paleo-anthropologist Mary Vaughan, promptly identifies and warmly receives Ponter. Solving the language problem and much else is a mini-computer, called a Companion, implanted in the brain of every Neanderthal. A computerized guardian spirit, however, doesn't eliminate cross-cultural confusion; permanent male-female sexuality, rape, and overpopulation are all alien to Ponter. Nor can it help his housemate and fellow scientist back in his world, Adikor Huld, when the authorities charge Adikor with his murder.
The Inverted World
Christopher Priest - 1974
Rails must be freshly laid ahead of the city & carefully removed in its wake. Rivers & mountains present nearly insurmountable challenges to the ingenuity of the city's engineers. But if the city does not move, it will fall farther & farther behind the optimum & into the crushing gravitational field that has transformed life on Earth. The only alternative to progress is death. The secret directorate that governs the city makes sure that its inhabitants know nothing of this. Raised in common in creches, nurtured on synthetic food, prevented above all from venturing outside the closed circuit of the city, they're carefully sheltered from the dire necessities that have come to define human existence. Yet the city is in crisis. People are growing restive. The population is dwindling. The rulers know that, for all their efforts, slowly but surely the city is slipping ever farther behind the optimum. Helward Mann is a member of the city's elite. Better than anyone, he knows how tenuous is the city's continued existence. But the world he's about to discover is infinitely stranger than the strange world he believes he knows so well.
Jack of Eagles
James Blish - 1952
Only recently, Danny was an average New York copywriter, until he suddenly found he had ESP. His knowledge of the future is astonishing, and the rest of Danny's powers are just beginning. But someone has plans for Danny: a mysterious group of sinister men bent on world domination. They'll stop at nothing until they capture Danny . . . or destroy him. For only Danny Caiden has the power to sabotage their diabolical tyranny. Through no fault of his own, he has found himself at the centre of a shattering psychic struggle for the future of humanity. In the final battle, Danny must master all of his powers, or sacrifice himself - and all mankind - to satanic slavery forever.
Shadrach in the Furnace
Robert Silverberg - 1976
The world lies ravaged by biological warfare, its population decimated by a ferocious genetically-transmitted disease known as the organ rot. And presiding over the ruins is a ninety-three-year-old tyrant, preserved in a state of youth by a series of organ transplants: the self-styled Genghis Mao. Shadrach Mordecai, Genghis Mao's trusted personal physician, was a vital cog in the great machine devoted to keeping the ruler alive: linked to him by a network of electronic implants, Shadrach was able to detect and diagnose the first signs of malfunction in his lord and master. But close as he was to the aging dictator, Shadrach could not have known that events would soon plunge him into a desperate struggle - a struggle in which a paragon of idealism faced the very incarnation of evil.
Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America
Robert Charles Wilson - 2009
Over a century after the Efflorescence of Oil, after the Fall of the Cities, after the Plague of Infertility, after the False Tribulation, after the days of the Pious Presidents, the sixty stars and thirteen stripes wave from the plains of Athabaska to the national capital in New York City. In Colorado Springs, the Dominion sees to the nation’s spiritual needs. In Labrador, the Army wages war on the Dutch. America, unified, is rising once again.Then out of Labrador come tales of a new Ajax—Captain Commongold, the Youthful Hero of the Saguenay. The ordinary people follow his adventures in the popular press. The Army adores him. The President is…troubled. Especially when the dashing Captain turns out to be his nephew Julian, son of the falsely accused and executed Bryce.Treachery and intrigue dog Julian’s footsteps. Hairsbreadth escapes and daring rescues fill his days. Stern resolve and tender sentiment dice for Julian’s soul, while his admiration for the works of the Secular Ancients, and his adherence to the evolutionary doctrines of the heretical Darwin, set him at fatal odds with the hierarchy of the Dominion. Plague and fire swirl around the Presidential palace when at last he arrives with the acclamation of the mob.As told by Julian’s best friend and faithful companion, a rustic yet observant lad from the west, this tale of the 22nd Century asks— and answers—the age-old question: “Do you want to tell the truth, or do you want to tell a story?”
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.