Book picks similar to
Cheap Complex Devices by John Compton Sundman
experimental
ebook
science-fiction
fiction
The Man Who Folded Himself
David Gerrold - 1973
When Daniel Eakins inherits a time machine, he soon realizes that he has enormous power to shape the course of history. He can foil terrorists, prevent assassinations, or just make some fast money at the racetrack. And if he doesn't like the results of the change, he can simply go back in time and talk himself out of making it! But Dan soon finds that there are limits to his powers and forces beyond his control.
The First Men in the Moon
H.G. Wells - 1901
Cavor soon succeeds in his experiments, only to tell a stunned Bedford the invention makes possible one of the oldest dreams of humanity: a journey to the moon. With Bedford motivated by money, and Cavor by the desire for knowledge, the two embark on the expedition. But neither are prepared for what they find - a world of freezing nights, boiling days and sinister alien life, on which they may be trapped forever.
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.
Logan's Run
William F. Nolan - 1967
your life is over! Logan-6 has been trained to kill; born and bred from conception to be the best of the best. But his time is short and before his life ends he's got one final mission: Find and destroy Sanctuary, a fabled haven for those that chose to defy the system. But when Logan meets and falls in love with Jessica, he begins to question the very system he swore to protect and soon they're both running for their lives. When Last Day comes, will you lie down and die... or run!
Hairspray and Lighter
J. Jupes - 2018
He didn't expect Darlene Johnson to walk into his office with her chocolate box. And certainly didn't expect what followed. . Book One of the Detectives That Don't Fit Series.
Player Piano
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. - 1952
Paul’s rebellion is vintage Vonnegut—wildly funny, deadly serious, and terrifyingly close to reality.Alternate cover edition here
The Four Fingers of Death
Rick Moody - 2010
Luckily, he swindles himself a job churning out a novelization of the 2025 remake of a 1963 horror classic, "The Crawling Hand." Crandall tells therein of the United States, in a bid to regain global eminence, launching at last its doomed manned mission to the desolation of Mars. Three space pods with nine Americans on board travel three months, expecting to spend three years as the planet's first colonists. When a secret mission to retrieve a flesh-eating bacterium for use in bio-warfare is uncovered, mayhem ensues.Only a lonely human arm (missing its middle finger) returns to earth, crash-landing in the vast Sonoran Desert of Arizona. The arm may hold the secret to reanimation or it may simply be an infectious killing machine. In the ensuing days, it crawls through the heartbroken wasteland of a civilization at its breaking point, economically and culturally--a dystopia of lowlife, emigration from America, and laughable lifestyle alternatives. The Four Fingers of Death is a stunningly inventive, sometimes hilarious, monumental novel. It will delight admirers of comic masterpieces like Slaughterhouse-Five, The Crying of Lot 49, and Catch-22.
Pavane
Keith Roberts - 1968
That single tragedy set off a whole series of events, resulting in the Spanish Armada's defeat of England and subsequent demise of Protestantism. Now it's the 20th century, and the Church of Rome reigns supreme. People live a pastoral existence of guilds and farming, with technology held back to the level of the steam locomotive and primitive radio. Still, science cannot be held back forever...a revolution is building.
Supervirus
Andrew W. Mitchell - 2010
A group of elite operatives is dispatched to locate him and it stumbles across his monumental creation. Through a few bizarre twists of fate, an unlikely hero emerges in a struggle that could mark the beginning of a new era. "An important moment in history is like a beam of light. Some people see it and rush to it like moths. Other people just happen to discover that the beam of light is shining upon them."
Expendable
James Alan Gardner - 1997
The ugly, the flawed, the misfit, the deformed, they are the unwanted, flung to the farthest corners of the galaxy to investigate hostile planets and strange, vicious creatures. Out there, there are a thousand different -- and terrible -- ways to die. Festina Ramos belongs to the well-trained, always-dwindling ranks of ECMs (Expendable Crew Members). Now she and her partner, Yarrun Derigha, have been ordered to escort the unstable Admiral Chee to Melaquin -- the feared "Planet of No Return"-- which has swallowed up countless Explorers before them without a trace.Obviously, this is meant to be the last mission for Ramos and Derigha. But it won't be, if Festina can help it.
The Forever War
Joe Haldeman - 1974
A reluctant conscript drafted into an elite Military unit, Private William Mandella has been propelled through space and time to fight in the distant thousand-year conflict; to perform his duties without rancor and even rise up through military ranks. Pvt. Mandella is willing to do whatever it takes to survive the ordeal and return home. But "home" may be even more terrifying than battle, because, thanks to the time dilation caused by space travel, Mandella is aging months while the Earth he left behind is aging centuries.
More Than Human
Theodore Sturgeon - 1953
There's Janie, who moves things without touching them, and there are the teleporting twins, who can travel ten feet or ten miles. There's Baby, who invented an antigravity engine while still in the cradle, and Gerry, who has everything it takes to run the world except for a conscience. Separately, they are talented freaks. Together, they compose a single organism that may represent the next step in evolution, and the final chapter in the history of the human race.In this genre-bending novel - among the first to have launched scifi into the arena of literature - one of the great imaginers of the twentieth century tells a story as mind-blowing as any controlled substance and as affecting as a glimpse into a stranger's soul. For as the protagonists of More Than Human struggle to find who they are and whether they are meant to help humanity or destroy it. Theodore Sturgeon explores questions of power and morality, individuality and belonging, with suspense, pathos, and a lyricism rarely seen in science fiction.
The First Book of Swords
Fred Saberhagen - 1983
Play begins in grand and gloriously violent fashion as Swords are gathered and used to control chance, enhance fortune, and change destiny. The holder of a Sword wields power undreamed... power to change the world and the holder.To add to the enjoyment, foolish mortals are invited to join, risking their puny lives. Demons and elementals need no invitation. But something had gone wrong in the forging, and the Game...
Echoes of the Great Song
David Gemmell - 1997
Their immortality is guaranteed by magic crystals whose influence is now waning, overwhelmed by the sheer power of a great flood and a sudden ice age. But when two moons appear in the sky, and the ruthless armies of the Crystal Queen swarm across the land bringing devastation and terror, the Avatars unite with their subjects to protect their universe.As the cities face imminent destruction, three heroes emerge. Talaban, a warrior haunted by tragedy; Touchstone, the mystic tribesman seeking his lost love; and Anu, the Holy One, the Builder of Time. And when all seems lost, two others enter the fray: Sofarita, the peasant girl who will inspire a legend, and the madman, Viruk, who will become a god. . . .
Colossus
D.F. Jones - 1966
Colossus is a supercomputer capable of in-taking and analyzing data rapidly, allowing it to make real time decisions about the nation's defense. But Colossus soon exceeds even Forbin's calculated expectations, learning to think independently of the Colossus Programming Office, processing data over one hundred times faster than Forbin and his team had originally anticipated. The President hands off full control of the nation's missiles and other defense protocols to Colossus and makes the announcement to the world that he has ensured peace. However, the USSR quickly announces that it too has a supercomputer, Guardian, with capabilities similar to that of Colossus. Forbin is concerned when Colossus asks-asks-to communicate with Guardian. The computer he built shouldn't be able to ask at all . . .