Book picks similar to
Shakespeare's Planet by Clifford D. Simak
science-fiction
sci-fi
fiction
scifi
Now Wait for Last Year
Philip K. Dick - 1966
Eric Sweetscent has problems. His planet is enmeshed in an unwinnable war. His wife is lethally addicted to a drug that whips its users helplessly back and forth across time -- and is hell-bent on making Eric suffer along with her. And Sweetscent's newest patient is not only the most important man on the embattled planet Earth but quite possibly the sickest. For Secretary Gino Molinari has turned his mortal illness into an instrument of political policy -- and Eric cannot tell if his job is to make the man better or to keep him poised just this side of death.Now Wait for Last Year bursts through the envelope between the impossible and the inevitable. Even as it ushers us into a future that looks uncannily like the present, it makes the normal seem terrifyingly provisional -- and compels anyone who reads it to wonder if he really knows what time it is.
Nemesis
Isaac Asimov - 1989
In the twenty-third century pioneers have escaped the crowded earth for life in self-sustaining orbital colonies. One of the colonies, Rotor, has broken away from the solar system to create its own renegade utopia around an unknown red star two light-years from Earth: a star named Nemesis. Now a fifteen-year-old Rotorian girl has learned of the dire threat that nemesis poses to Earth's people--but she is prevented from warning them. Soon she will realize that Nemesis endangers Rotor as well. And so it will be up to her alone to save both Earth and Rotor as--drawn inexorably by Nemesis, the death star--they hurtle toward certain disaster.
The Door Into Summer
Robert A. Heinlein - 1956
Then, with wild success just within reach, Dan's greedy partner and even greedier fiancée steal his work and leave him penniless, and trick him into taking the long sleep—suspended animation for thirty years.
Berserker
Fred Saberhagen - 1967
The sole legacy of that war was the weapon that ended it: the death machines, the BERSERKERS. Guided by self-aware computers more intelligent than any human, these world-sized battlecraft carved a swath of death through the galaxy--until they arrived at the outskirts of the fledgling Empire of Man.These are the stories of the frail creatures who must meet this monstrous and implacable enemy--and who, by fighting it to a standstill, become the saviors of all living things.
Protector
Larry Niven - 1973
His mission: save, develop, and protect the group of Pak breeders sent out into space some two and a half million years before...Brennan was a Belter, the product of a fiercely independent, somewhat anarchic society living in, on, and around an outer asteroid belt. The Belters were rebels, one and all, and Brennan was a smuggler. The Belt worlds had been tracking the Pak ship for days -- Brennan figured to meet that ship first...He was never seen again -- at least not by those alive at the time.
The Toynbee Convector
Ray Bradbury - 1988
A stunning collection of the kind of fiction that has only one source--the unparalleled Ray Bradbury.
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.
David Starr, Space Ranger
Paul French - 1952
The vital foodstuffs supplied by its Martian colony are being poisoned. Working in secret, the ruling Council of Science sends David Starr, its youngest member, to the Martian farmlands to discover the truth behind the murders...
The Tar-Aiym Krang
Alan Dean Foster - 1972
The planet attracted unwary travelers, hardened space-sailors, and merchant buccaneers -- a teeming, constantly shifting horde that provided a comfortable income for certain quick-witted fellows like Flinx and his pet flying snake Pip. With his odd talents, the pickings were easy enough so that Flinx did not have to be dishonest ... most of the time.In fact, it hardly seemed dishonest at all to steal a starmap from a dead body that didn't really need it anymore. But Flinx wasn't quite smart enough. He should have wondered why the body was dead in the first place...
Non-Stop
Brian W. Aldiss - 1958
Its members lived out their lives in cramped Quarters, hacking away at the encroaching ponics. As to where they were - that was forgotten. Roy Complain decides to find out. With the renegade priest Marapper, he moves into unmapped territory, where they make a series of discoveries which turn their universe upside-down... Non-Stop is the classic SF novel of discovery and exploration; a brilliant evocation of a familiar setting seen through the eyes of a primitive.
The Songs of Distant Earth
Arthur C. Clarke - 1986
And suddenly uncertainty and change had come to the placid paradise that was Thalassa.
Bill, The Galactic Hero
Harry Harrison - 1965
But Bill, a Technical Fertilizer Operator from a planet of farmers, wasn't interested in honor-he was only interested in two things: his chosen career, and the shapely curves of Inga-Maria Calyphigia. Then a recruiting robot shanghaied him with knockout drops, and he came to in deep space, aboard the Empire warship Christine Keeler. And from there, things got even worse.
Tuf Voyaging
George R.R. Martin - 1986
So how is it that, in competition with the worst villains the universe has to offer, he's become the proud owner of the last seedship of Earth's legendary Ecological Engineering Corps? Never mind, just be thankful that the most powerful weapon in human space is in good hands-hands which now control cellular material for thousands of outlandish creatures. With his unique equipment, Tuf is set to tackle the problems human settlers have created in colonizing far-flung worlds: hosts of hostile monsters, a population hooked on procreation, a dictator who unleashes plagues to get his own way...and in every case the only thing that stands between the colonists and disaster is Tuf's ingenuity - and his reputation as an honest dealer in a universe of rogues...Tuf Voyaging features interior illustrations by Janet Aulisio. Included in it will be her original eight illustrations, along with 28 newly commissioned ones.
My Name is Legion
Roger Zelazny - 1976
There was no credit card, birth record, or passport for him in the International Data Bank. His names were many...any he chose. His occupation was taking megarisks in the service of a vast global detective agency. His interworld assignments were highly lucrative, incalculably vital, and terrifyingly deadly. And more often then not, his life was a living hell!Contents:1 · The Eve of RUMOKO · na Three for Tomorrow, ed. Robert Silverberg, Meredith, 1969 65 · ’Kjwalll’kje’k’koothaïlll’kje’k · na An Exaltation of Stars, ed. Terry Carr, Simon & Schuster, 1973 141 · Home Is the Hangman · na Analog Nov ’75 (Nebula Award for Best Novella, 1975)
Hellstrom's Hive
Frank Herbert - 1973
Hellstrom's Project 40 was a cover for a secret laboratory, a special team of agents was immediately dispatched to discover its true purpose and its weaknesses—it could not be allowed to continue. What they discovered was a nightmare more horrific and hideous than even their paranoid government minds could devise.First published in Galaxy magazine in 1973 as "Project 40," Frank Herbert's vivid imagination and brilliant view of nature and ecology have never been more evident than in this classic of science fiction.