Flowers for Algernon


Daniel Keyes - 1959
    In diary entries, Charlie tells how a brain operation increases his IQ and changes his life. As the experimental procedure takes effect, Charlie's intelligence expands until it surpasses that of the doctors who engineered his metamorphosis. The experiment seems to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount importance until Algernon begins his sudden, unexpected deterioration. Will the same happen to Charlie?

The Plagiarist


Hugh Howey - 2011
    By day, he teaches literature. At night, he steals it. Adam is a plagiarist, an expert reader with an eye for great works. He prowls simulated worlds perusing virtual texts, looking for the next big thing. And when he finds it, he memorizes it page by page, line by line, word for word. And then he brings it back to his world. But what happens when these virtual worlds begin to seem more real than his own? What happens when the people within them mean more to him than flesh and blood? What happens when a living thing falls in love with someone who does not actually exist?

Armageddon 2419 A.D.


Philip Francis Nowlan - 1928
    Now it occurs to me that my memoirs of the 25th Century may have an equal interest 500 years from now—particularly in view of that unique perspective from which I have seen the 25th Century, entering it as I did, in one leap across a gap of 492 years. This statement requires elucidation. There are still many in the world who are not familiar with my unique experience. Five centuries from now there may be many more, especially if civilization is fated to endure any worse convulsions than those which have occurred between 1975 A.D. and the present time. I should state therefore, that I, Anthony Rogers, am, so far as I know, the only man alive whose normal span of eighty-one years of life has been spread over a period of 573 years. To be precise, I lived the first twenty-nine years of my life between 1898 and 1927; the other fifty-two since 2419. The gap between these two, a period of nearly five hundred years, I spent in a state of suspended animation, free from the ravages of katabolic processes, and without any apparent effect on my physical or mental faculties.

The Stars My Destination


Alfred Bester - 1956
    The Stars My Destination is a classic of technological prophecy and timeless narrative enchantment by an acknowledged master of science fiction.

Hyperion


Dan Simmons - 1989
    There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all. On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope—and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands.

Cloud Atlas


David Mitchell - 2004
    Dick. The result is brilliantly original fiction as profund as it is playful. Now in his new novel, David Mitchell explores with daring artistry fundamental questions of reality and identity.Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Along the way, Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite. . . .Abruptly, the action jumps to Belgium in 1931, where Robert Frobisher, a disinherited bisexual composer, contrives his way into the household of an infirm maestro who has a beguiling wife and a nubile daughter. . . . From there we jump to the West Coast in the 1970s and a troubled reporter named Luisa Rey, who stumbles upon a web of corporate greed and murder that threatens to claim her life. . . . And onward, with dazzling virtuosity, to an inglorious present-day England; to a Korean superstate of the near future where neocapitalism has run amok; and, finally, to a postapocalyptic Iron Age Hawaii in the last days of history.But the story doesn’t end even there. The narrative then boomerangs back through centuries and space, returning by the same route, in reverse, to its starting point. Along the way, Mitchell reveals how his disparate characters connect, how their fates intertwine, and how their souls drift across time like clouds across the sky.As wild as a videogame, as mysterious as a Zen koan, Cloud Atlas is an unforgettable tour de force that, like its incomparable author, has transcended its cult classic status to become a worldwide phenomenon.

The Prestige


Christopher Priest - 1995
    From this moment on, their lives become webs of deceit and revelation as they vie to outwit and expose one another.Their rivalry will take them to the peaks of their careers, but with terrible consequences. In the course of pursuing each other's ruin, they will deploy all the deception their magicians' craft can command--the highest misdirection and the darkest science.Blood will be spilled, but it will not be enough. In the end, their legacy will pass on for generations...to descendants who must, for their sanity's sake, untangle the puzzle left to them.

Plague of Pythons


Frederik Pohl - 1965
    No man knew at what moment he might be Possessed!On Christmas the world's freedom died. Every man, woman and child lay in the grip of fear, for no one knew at what moment his nearest friend or a casual stranger might suddenly be possessed by some brutal mind ... and begin to murder and destroy. For Chandler it was worse than for most. He was both victim and executioner. He had suffered himself, and he had committed a violent crime while under the strange domination. Accusing of hoaxing he was driven from his home. He wandered the world and found it smashed like a spoiled child's plaything―now Chandler was in the very presence of the destroyers! But what could one person do against such power?—the power of gods!

The Evaran Chronicles Box Set: Books 1-3


Adair Hart - 2016
    Albert Snowden just wanted to be there for his niece, Emily, after the loss of her father. Being abducted by aliens, and then rescued by a mysterious being known as Evaran, has made that difficult. Despite their situation, they try to make the best of it while traveling through space, time, and beyond with Evaran and V, Evaran's trusty mobile artificial intelligence. With the use of Evaran’s time-traveling ship, the Torvatta, they will try to maintain timeline integrity while dealing with the challenges that brings.This box set contains the first three books in the Evaran Chronicles. If you like science fiction, time travel, technology, and adventure with a space opera bent, then this series is for you.---The Awakening - Book 1 of the Evaran ChroniclesA heavily damaged alien research vessel in the Andromeda galaxy is hurtling toward a planet. The aliens should not be there. They have been traveling through space and time, abducting apex predators and sticking them in virtual simulations for research. The problem is the virtual simulations are powering down, unleashing the specimens on the ship.Dr. Albert Snowden and his niece, Emily, were abducted by the aliens. They are visited by a mysterious being named Evaran in the last minutes of the virtual simulation. He has decided to interfere in this timeline-changing event and rescue them.Stopping the ship from crashing into the planet before getting to Evaran's ship is one issue. Navigating the apex predators on the loose is another. To make matters worse, Jerzan Graduul, infamous leader of the Bloodbore mercenary pack, has boarded the ship in search of salvage opportunities, and has noticed Evaran's ship. The hunt begins.---The Fredorian Destiny - Book 2 of the Evaran ChroniclesThe timeline is wrong. This is discovered when Dr. Albert Snowden and his niece, Emily, travel with Evaran to a galactic cultural exhibition event on Kreagus, the capital home world of the Kreagan Star Empire and galactic superpower near Earth. The Fredorians should be presenting an ancient artifact, known as the Arkaron, to the Kreagan emperor. The problem is they aren’t. Evaran has decided to step in and help the Fredorians achieve their destiny while stabilizing the timeline.They must find the three lost Arkaron crystals in order to assemble the Arkaron. To make matters worse, Seeros, a powerful industrialist, has a bounty on their heads, causing bounty hunters to harass them each step of the way.As if that weren’t enough, an unknown faction is hiring freelance mercenaries to hunt them down as well. Evaran is joined by others, and together, they will have to navigate these perils to assemble the Arkaron and achieve the Fredorian destiny.---The Purification - Book 3 of the Evaran ChroniclesThe past has changed, and the timeline has been updated.Dr. Albert Snowden, and his niece, Emily, experience this while traveling on Evaran’s temporally shielded space-and-time traveling ship. What they discover is that humanity has taken a different path, one that has made Evaran decide to interfere and change human history.Discovering what caused the change is one issue. Dealing with the nonhuman factions in Earth’s past is another.To make things worse, Dr. Snowden has to deal with a personal issue. It does not help that Emily is on a prison planet where she must survive, alone

Six Months, Three Days


Charlie Jane Anders - 2011
    Judy can see every possible future, branching out from each moment like infinite trees. Doug can also see the future, but for him, it's a single, locked-in, inexorable sequence of foreordained events. They can't both be right, but over and over again, they are. Obviously these are the last two people in the world who should date. So, naturally, they doSix Months, Three Days is the winner of the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Novelette. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The Fifth Head of Cerberus


Gene Wolfe - 1972
    It is said a race of shapeshifters once lived here, only to perish when men came. But one man believes they can still be found, somewhere in the back of the beyond.In The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Wolfe skillfully interweaves three bizarre tales to create a mesmerizing pattern: the harrowing account of the son of a mad genius who discovers his hideous heritage; a young man's mythic dreamquest for his darker half; the bizarre chronicle of a scientists' nightmarish imprisonment. Like an intricate, braided knot, the pattern at last unfolds to reveal astonishing truths about this strange and savage alien landscape.

The Boys from Brazil


Ira Levin - 1976
    Josef Mengele gathers a group of former colleagues for a horrifying project—the creation of the Fourth Reich. Barry Kohler, a young investigative journalist, gets wind of the project and informs famed Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman, but before he can relay the evidence, Kohler is killed. Thus Ira Levin opens one of the strangest and most masterful novels of his career. Why has Mengele marked a number of harmless aging men for murder? What is the hidden link that binds them? What interest can they possibly hold for their killers: six former SS men dispatched from South America by the most wanted Nazi still alive, the notorious "Angel of Death"? One man alone must answer these questions and stop the killings—Lieberman, himself aging and thought by some to be losing his grip on reality. At the heart of The Boys from Brazil lies a frightening contemporary nightmare, chilling and all too possible.

Timeline


Michael Crichton - 1999
    Within twenty-four hours he is dead, his body swiftly cremated by his only known associates. Halfway around the world, archaeologists make a shocking discovery at a medieval site. Suddenly they are swept off to the headquarters of a secretive multinational corporation that has developed an astounding technology. Now this group is about to get a chance not to study the past but to enter it. And with history opened up to the present, the dead awakened to the living, these men and women will soon find themselves fighting for their very survival -- six hundred years ago.

Gods of Risk


James S.A. Corey - 2012
    A gifted chemist vying for a place at the university, David leads a secret life as a manufacturer for a ruthless drug dealer. When his friend Leelee goes missing, leaving signs of the dealer's involvement, David takes it upon himself to save her. But first he must shake his aunt Bobbie Draper, an ex-marine who has been set adrift in her own life after a mysterious series of events nobody is talking about. Set in the hard-scrabble solar system of Leviathan Wakes and Caliban's War, "Gods of Risk" deepens James S. A. Corey's acclaimed Expanse series.

The Anubis Gates


Tim Powers - 1983
    But while attending a lecture given by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1810, he becomes marooned in Regency London, where dark and dangerous forces know about the gates in time.Caught up in the intrigue between rival bands of beggars, pursued by Egyptian sorcerers, and befriended by Coleridge, Doyle somehow survives and learns more about the mysterious Ashbless than he could ever have imagined possible...