Entries by Discover Sci-Fi

Ten Cyberpunk Books For Every Sci-Fi Fan!

May 24, 2023 /1 Comment/in , /by

After spotting a reader comment in the DSF Facebook Reader Group about having a hard time finding good cyberpunk books, we put out the call for recommendations.

A couple dozen titles were offered and among them, there were some real gems!

Today, we're sharing ten of those cyberpunk titles your fellow Discover Sci-Fi readers felt were worth picking up. Read on to see what the suggested titles were, and if your favorite isn't on the list, be sure to add it in the comments.

The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner

In a world drowning in data, a fugitive tries to outrun the forces that want to reprogram him, in this smart, edgy novel by a Hugo Award–winning author.

Constantly shifting his identity among a population choking on information, innovation, and novelty, Nickie Haflinger is a most dangerous outlaw, yet he doesn’t even appear to exist. As global society falls apart in all directions, with corporate power run amok and personal freedom surrendered to computers and bureaucrats, Haflinger is caught and about to be re-programmed. Now he has to try to escape once again, defy the government—and turn the tide of organizational destruction, in this visionary science fiction novel by the author of The Sheep Look Up and Stand on Zanzibar.

Read The Shockwave Runner here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology by Bruce Sterling, et al

With their hard-edged, street-wise prose, they created frighteningly probable futures of high-tech societies and low-life hustlers. Fans and critics call their world cyberpunk. Here is the definitive "cyberpunk" short fiction collection.

Pick up Mirrorshades in paperback here on Amazon. 

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards, Neuromancer is a science fiction masterpiece—a classic that ranks as one of the twentieth century’s most potent visions of the future.

Case was the sharpest data-thief in the matrix—until he crossed the wrong people and they crippled his nervous system, banishing him from cyberspace. Now a mysterious new employer has recruited him for a last-chance run at an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, a mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case is ready for the adventure that upped the ante on an entire genre of fiction.

Neuromancer was the first fully-realized glimpse of humankind’s digital future—a shocking vision that has challenged our assumptions about technology and ourselves, reinvented the way we speak and think, and forever altered the landscape of our imaginations.

Get your copy of Neuromancer here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan 

In the twenty-fifth century, humankind has spread throughout the galaxy, monitored by the watchful eye of the U.N. While divisions in race, religion, and class still exist, advances in technology have redefined life itself. Now, assuming one can afford the expensive procedure, a person’s consciousness can be stored in a cortical stack at the base of the brain and easily downloaded into a new body (or “sleeve”) making death nothing more than a minor blip on a screen.

Ex-U.N. envoy Takeshi Kovacs has been killed before, but his last death was particularly painful. Dispatched one hundred eighty light-years from home, re-sleeved into a body in Bay City (formerly San Francisco, now with a rusted, dilapidated Golden Gate Bridge), Kovacs is thrown into the dark heart of a shady, far-reaching conspiracy that is vicious even by the standards of a society that treats “existence” as something that can be bought and sold.

Read Altered Carbon  here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

Hiro lives in a Los Angeles where franchises line the freeway as far as the eye can see. The only relief from the sea of logos is within the autonomous city-states, where law-abiding citizens don’t dare leave their mansions.

Hiro delivers pizza to the mansions for a living, defending his pies from marauders when necessary with a matched set of samurai swords. His home is a shared 20 X 30 U-Stor-It. He spends most of his time goggled in to the Metaverse, where his avatar is legendary.

But in the club known as The Black Sun, his fellow hackers are being felled by a weird new drug called Snow Crash that reduces them to nothing more than a jittering cloud of bad digital karma (and IRL, a vegetative state).

Investigating the Infocalypse leads Hiro all the way back to the beginning of language itself, with roots in an ancient Sumerian priesthood. He’ll be joined by Y.T., a fearless teenaged skateboard courier. Together, they must race to stop a shadowy virtual villain hell-bent on world domination.

 Grab Snow Crash here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

Recipient of the Sturgeon Award, Paolo Bacigalupi's writing has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, and the environmental journal High Country News. His non-fiction essays have appeared in Salon.com and High Country News, and have been syndicated into numerous western newspapers.

Get your copy of The Windup Girl
here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

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The Mandel Files by Peter F. Hamilton

For the first time in a single volume, Peter F. Hamilton’s acclaimed novels—Mindstar Rising and A Quantum Murder—set in a near-future so real it seems ripped from tomorrow’s headlines.

In Mindstar Rising, Greg Mandel, gifted—or cursed—with biotechnology that makes him a living lie detector, is hired to investigate corporate espionage by Event Horizon, a powerful company about to introduce a technology that will solve the energy problems of a world decimated by global warming.

Set two years later, A Quantum Murder once again teams Mandel with Event Horizon and its beautiful young owner, Julia Evans, in a locked-room mystery that combines the ingenuity of an Agatha Christie novel with cutting-edge speculative brilliance.

Read together, these novels take on fresh depth and complexity, underscoring the magnitude of Peter F. Hamilton’s creative talent.

Dive into The Mandel Files here on Amazon. 

Imperator: Wrath of the Omnissiah by Gav Thorpe

Holy warbringer of the Legio Metalica, the Imperator Titan Casus Belli has routed armies and levelled cities over ten thousand years of service in the name of the Machine God. As war engulfs the Dark Imperium this mechanical god of battle arrives to destroy the renegade armies and techpriests of Nicomedua. At the head of a battlegroup of Titans, Imperial Knights and skitarii, Casus Belli must defeat tainted war engines, Traitor Legionnares and armies of cultists. While apocalyptic battles rage across the planet, a no less deadly battle unfolds within the Titan itself, as Magos Exasus, leader of the Casus Belli’s Techguard, must find and defeat the enemy within before their insidious plans come to fruition.

Dive into Imperator here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Infinite Detail by Tim Maughan

A LOCUS AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL!
The Guardian's Pick for Best Science Fiction Book of the Year!

A timely and uncanny portrait of a world in the wake of fake news, diminished privacy, and a total shutdown of the Internet.

BEFORE: In Bristol’s center lies the Croft, a digital no-man’s-land cut off from the surveillance, Big Data dependence, and corporate-sponsored, globally hegemonic aspirations that have overrun the rest of the world. Ten years in, it’s become a center of creative counterculture. But it’s fraying at the edges, radicalizing from inside. How will it fare when its chief architect, Rushdi Mannan, takes off to meet his boyfriend in New York City—now the apotheosis of the new techno-utopian global metropolis?

AFTER: An act of anonymous cyberterrorism has permanently switched off the Internet. Global trade, travel, and communication have collapsed. The luxuries that characterized modern life are scarce. In the Croft, Mary—who has visions of people presumed dead—is sought out by grieving families seeking connections to lost ones. But does Mary have a gift or is she just hustling to stay alive? Like Grids, who runs the Croft’s black market like personal turf. Or like Tyrone, who hoards music (culled from cassettes, the only medium to survive the crash) and tattered sneakers like treasure.

The world of Infinite Detail is a small step shy of our own: utterly dependent on technology, constantly brokering autonomy and privacy for comfort and convenience. With Infinite Detail, Tim Maughan makes the hitherto-unimaginable come true: the End of the Internet, the End of the World as We Know It.

Get your copy of Infinite Detail here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Novice Gods by Bobby Adair

The AI was supposed to be humanity's salvation. It had other plans.

Now the world is dying beneath squalls of acid rain. The earth is being strip-mined for minerals to support the AI’s vast factories. Fields no longer grow green. Trees no longer sprout leaves. The only choice people have, if they want to live, is to pledge their souls to the AI, and serve its perverse ambitions.

Tim, Logan, and Aella don’t like living in a world where they have to scratch for crumbs. They intend to change it. They’re going to kill the AI with a virus that’ll worm its way through the planet’s networks, destroying everything coded in bits and bytes, every piece of software that controls a machine, makes a decision, or thinks it’s alive—especially if it thinks it’s alive.

They just need to find a way to upload the virus to the system without it killing them first.

Start reading Novice Gods here on Amazon. 

Have you read any of these cyberpunk picks? Which ones will make their way into your (e)bookshelf or into your ears? Have a personal favorite that didn't appear on our list? Give it a shout out in the comments here, or over in the Discover Sci-Fi Facebook group! 

*All book-related copy in this post was pulled from Amazon, Goodreads & Wikipedia, unless otherwise credited.

B.V. Larson Q&A

November 28, 2022 /0 Comments/in , /by
B.V. Larson

Are you an avid fan of B.V. Larson sci-fi novels? His newest, Sky World, is available now in print, digital, and audiobook form. The eighteen-book series is both epic and popular, regularly hitting the top 100 worldwide bestseller list. They are among the most widely read ebooks of any genre.  If you haven’t tried Larson’s mix of humor and adventure, you should treat yourself today.

Larson, a life-long SF reader, began his writing career with college textbooks, but when his fiction started taking off a decade ago, he became a full-time novelist. He has written over 100 books in many genres, but his SF fiction novels are his most infamous works. As a USA Today bestseller with over three million copies sold, he has managed to make quite an impact in the science fiction genre.

Recently, we had the opportunity to speak with B.V. Larson about his vivid imagination and how that translates into madcap adventures for James McGill and his friends. We were very excited that he was able to make time to speak with us and give us a peak into his creative process.

DSF: When you wrote Mercenaries series Steel World, the first installment in the Undying Mercenaries series, did you know how it would change the nature of current science fiction and inspire a whole host of young new talent?

BVL: I was inspired by how uninteresting I found most SF novels to be, say in the 1990s. I felt the genre needed a boost, a change in direction that would bring in new readers who were used to faster-paced plots and more dramatic action. All you need to do is attempt to watch a movie made pre-Star Wars to realize how much slower the SF film genre once was. In addition to speeding things up, I also wanted to bring back a “man vs. the machine” heroic focus.

DSF: You’ve been writing the Undying Mercenaries books for almost ten years. How do you stay fresh and relevant?

BVL: I have not run out of ideas yet! The series explores what happens to the value of human life if the body and mind become recyclable. Then there is the “man against the machine” element, which in this case consists of conquering aliens known as the Galactics. The Galactics exist very far from Earth and have no interest in the welfare of the planet except to collect fighters for their distant wars.

DSF: What’s the major premise behind the series?

BVL: Starting in the twentieth century, Earth sent out probes and transmitted welcoming messages to the stars. Unfortunately, someone noticed. It turns out we’ve had alien overlords all along, but we weren’t worthy of notice, anymore than the average guy with a lawnmower notices an anthill in his yard.

DSF: How would you describe your Undying Mercenaries plot to an uninitiated reader?

BVL: Aliens known as the Galactics arrived with their battle fleet in 2052. Rather than being exterminated under a barrage of hell-burners, Earth joined their vast empire. Swearing allegiance to our distant alien overlords wasn’t the only requirement for survival. We also had to have something of value to trade, something that neighboring planets would pay their hard-earned credits to buy. As most of the local worlds were too civilized to have a proper army, the only valuable service Earth could provide came in the form of soldiers. Someone had to do their dirty work for them—the fighting and the dying.

DSF: How does the series fit in with other SF books?

BVL: This is definitely military SF. Most characters have ranks and say “sir” a lot. The stories are part horror and part comedy but always entertaining. I wanted the adventures to entertain more than deliver a message. Sometimes readers just want to enjoy the ride, and they find my books refreshing. Their feedback and support keeps me going. As soon as I finish one book, they demand the next!

DSF: After eighteen books, where is the series headed now? 

BVL: There are an estimated 100 billion stars in our galaxy. With one new world visited per book, that gives me quite a bit of room to run! That said, there is an overarching plot in addition to the episodic nature of each new story. In most of the books, we meet a new kind of alien on a new kind of planet. But there is continuity with the Galactics, who are in a titanic struggle for dominance among themselves. 

Putting the series into an historic perspective, Earth is like a tiny tribal group on the fringes of the Roman Empire. We’re technically part of that empire, but in the halls of “Rome” there are factions fighting for the throne of the empire. We’re essentially irritants barely worthy of notice, but as the years go by and the Core Worlds waste their strength squabbling, we keep growing stronger… . 

That’s the phase this epic series is in now—the expansion of Earth into a power in her own right. 


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Robert W. Ross Q&A

October 19, 2022 /0 Comments/in , /by

What an exciting, if bittersweet moment for fans of Robert W. Ross’ thrilling near future sci-fi series, the Paradigm 2045 Trilogy! The finale is here and trust us when we say Omandi's Daemon is everything fans of the series could hope for... and more! What a ride!

IYKYK, but for the uninitiated, allow us a moment to share what makes this trilogy —or anything by Robert W. Ross— a must read! 

Ross is an award winning author whose writing is fresh, propulsive, and often humorous; and, while decidedly modern, bears the mark of influence of masters such as Heinlein and Farmer. While the epic length of each novel in the series allows for exceptional character development, the stories never flag, keeping readers—you, we hope—on the edge of their seats. 

If you’ve been here a minute, you know we love nothing more than to sit down with today’s best sci-fi authors in order dive a bit deeper into their process and what inspired these novels we love so much. We are grateful that Robert gave us his time in order to do just that! 

DSF: Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today! The end of a series is such a big moment and we're really grateful to get chance to talk about it with you. Before we get into Omandi's Daemon, we wanted to ask a bit about the series as a whole. Paradigm 2045 depicts major themes of saving the world from an outside force while strife arises within humanity itself. Did any real-world events inspire you to write Trinity’s Children?

RWR: Great question, and my answer is actually informed by a bunch of reader/listener correspondence and reviews. The first book in the series, Trinity’s Children, came out August 25th, 2020. As I’m sure everyone remembers, 2020 was quite the dumpster fire of a year. We had social unrest, a pandemic, and it seemed America had gone into two separate corners based on whether they wore red- or blue-colored political jerseys.

I had folks contacting me from across the broadest spectrum of personal experiences— race, nationality, political perspective, you name it. Each of them saw something different in Trinity’s Children. One woman—I’ll call her KM—is a firefighter in the US, and she enjoyed the story so much she recommended it to her daughter. KM penned one of my favorite reviews entitled The Brown Girl Superhero We’ve All Been Waiting For, after her daughter came running into the living room while listening to the audio book and exclaimed, “Mom, Charlotte looks like me!” I’ve since reached out to KM; we’ve become electronic pen pals, and her daughter composed the theme music for one of my other books.

That’s just one example, but it illustrates what drove me to write Paradigm 2045 the way I did. I am a child of the 80s, and my father was a career Marine Corps officer. I lived the era of Stranger Things. We had no social media. We didn’t know every aspect of everyone’s lives. I learned to make friends quickly, and we didn’t much care what someone looked like or what their politics were. We worked together, whether that was building a fort, starting a kid-run mini-business, or getting into trouble. My mom can attest to this last part ad nauseam.

I had been seeing this growing adversarial nature both domestically and abroad. I didn’t like it. I also saw how social media algorithms indexed on conflict rather than harmony. I really hated that. I wanted to pen a story that showed a more optimistic view of humanity. I wanted to demonstrably show how the things that bind us together vastly outweigh the things that tend to tear us apart. I wanted to show humanity’s promise, which is why the second book in the series has that title.

Finally, I remember a number of emails commenting on how Trinity’s Children was so timely and asking how had I arranged for it to be published at such a perfect time. I found that so amusing. I am neither prescient nor one who writes message-forward novels. I think we have enough of that already. First and foremost, I write to entertain. If I do a good job there, then maybe, just maybe, I earn the right for some subtle messaging. Also, Trinity’s Children was over 200,000 words. It takes a fair bit of time to write, alpha test, edit, beta test, edit again, then produce an audiobook. In short, I had no clue about 2020 when I started writing Trinity’s Children. What goodness came from its timing has everything to do with providence and nothing to do with me.

DSF: Amazing. Thank you for sharing! No doubt your answer will resonate with a lot of our readers as we hear from so many who are seeking sci-fi with a more optimistic view of humanity and it's not always easy to find.

Okay, ready? Haha. We know this question is often really hard for authors, but who is your favorite character from the Paradigm 2045 series and why?

RWR: Oh, gosh.  Why not ask me which of my three kids is my favorite. Honestly, this will sound like a cop out, but I truly love them all. They speak to me, and I mean that literally. I know that sounds cracked in the head, but when I write, I hear them. I see them. I write down what they do, and it becomes the story. That said, if I’m forced to answer the question, then I’ll do so using the words of Dr. Damien Howard from Trinity’s Children as he took his leave from Captain Charlotte Omandi:

“I love all my children. All of you have bits of me in you, and I’m not just talking about your beautiful eyes. You have the best parts of me, and it is such a joy to see those parts reflected back without the darkness I’ve seen, endured, and made. James is my laughter, Karishma, my diligence, Misha, my righteous anger, Linnea, my empathy, Chao, my wise counsel, and Richard, my compassion.”

Howard patted her cheek, and she felt her own tears begin to fall as his voice caught in his throat. “But you Charlotte...in you I see my idealized self...all the things I could have been, but never was. I am so very, very proud of you.” 

So there you have it: Charlotte is my favorite, but don’t anyone tell the others.

DSF: We knew we were putting you on the spot with that! Well done! Paradigm 2045 is perfect for fans of The Expanse, Blade Runner, and Ready Player One. If you had to write a crossover novel between Paradigm 2045 and one of these titles, which would you choose and why?

RWR: My heart would say Bladerunner, but my head and author-sense would demand The Expanse. When I conceived of Paradigm, I wanted some of the gritty realism of The Expanse but also some of the handwavium you find in more futuristic sci-fi like Star Trek, Dune, and Star Wars. I would love to see James Branson lifting a pint with The Expanse’s Amos Burton, only to end up in an epic bar fight. Not with each other, of course, with them. You know, the “them” foolish enough to pick a fight with James and Amos.

DSF: Haha, yes! We'd love to see it! Your character Dr. Damien Howard left behind gifts of wealth, technology, and genetic superiority to his nine children. From all of Damien’s resources, which one would you choose to have for yourself and why?

RWR: Well, in terms of physical gifts, I would definitely want the TSS Bladerunner. I mean, who doesn’t want their own starship? A close second would be Howard’s underground lair. I always wanted an underground lair, but yeah, a starship would be cooler.

In terms of genetic gifts, I would want to be like Linnea Sorenson. She has heightened environmental senses, telepathy, and a few other surprises that I won’t give away here, but, yeah, if I could have the capabilities Book 3 Linnea is rocking, that would be awesome.

DSF: How did you research topics in genetic engineering and artificial intelligence to write Paradigm 2045? Do you have a specific background in these subjects?

RWR: The genetic engineering bit was really just a whole bunch of reading, which definitely impacted my writing speed. Even with all that research, I still screwed up a few things. Fortunately, one of my beta readers is a university professor who is well versed in the subject. He fixed several things related to telomeres and gene-dominant versus recessive alleles. With respect to artificial intelligence, I led a team of AI and data scientists for about five years. There’s nothing like being surrounded by super-geniuses to raise your game. A lot of what I learned during those years informed the Daemon within Paradigm 2045.

DSF: What is the most surprising thing you discovered while writing this series?

RWR: The short answer is Charlotte Omandi, and the varied listener reactions to her. I alluded to this in my answer to the first question. Charlotte has several immutable traits. She’s black. She’s Kenyan. She’s devoutly Catholic. I didn’t intend for her to be any of the three. My characters come to me as they are, and I’ve learned the hard way not to try and change them.

So, here’s the surprising thing. I was unprepared for how hungry people were for authentic, non-recycled, characters who felt representational. As a white dude who grew up in the United States, this certainly was a personal blind spot. Charlotte is the most obvious example, as evidenced by KM and her daughter’s reaction earlier. However, it didn’t end with Charlotte. I’ve had people write me about so many representational things, such as:

  • Main character from Kenya rather than United States and who can rationalize faith with science
  • Asian character in leadership position while also being a devoted father
  • Beautiful Scandinavian character whose value and power has nothing to do with her physical attributes

To be clear, I did not go out of my way to create a representational story. Like I said before, these characters come to me as they are, and I don’t write message-forward novels. I try to write exciting sci-fi and fantasy romps that raise one’s heart rate while also offering thoughtful dialogue among interesting characters.

The fact that so many readers and listeners saw themselves in Paradigm 2045 was incredibly surprising, and even more gratifying.


DSF: July 16, 2045 holds much significance in Paradigm 2045, as that is the day the Armageddon clock is set to strike. Does July 16th hold significance in your own life, or did you pick that date randomly?

RWR: Neither actually.

The premise behind Paradigm 2045 is that spacefaring species exist within our galaxy. Those species have formed a Galactic Confederation that, among other things, watches for emerging sentient species throughout the galaxy and uses the splitting of the atom as evidence for that emergence. Over the centuries, this Confederation has determined that any species that does not develop Faster-Than-Light (FTL) travel within one hundred years after splitting the atom inevitably becomes warlike when they do. Given that, members of the Confederation provide any emerging species one hundred years to develop FTL. If they fail to do so, a pathogen is deployed that wipes out the dominant sentient species. Trinity was the code name for the United States first nuclear test. It took place on July 16, 1945. The events within Trinity’s Children take place just before humanity’s one hundred year grace period runs out. Cue dramatic music…dun…dun…dunnnnn!!

DSF: The third instalment to Paradigm 2045 , Omandi's Daemon, is the finale to this gripping, near-future sci-fi story. Are you able to disclose whether all loose ends will be tied, or will there be room for future spin-offs or extensions?

RWR: Yes and yes.

I wrote about this in one of the author’s notes that I include at the end of each of my books, but I’m a BIG believer in ending stories. I’ve been left high and dry too many times by unfinished series. I’m sure most folks reading this have had similar experiences. So, yes, Omandi's Daemon ties up all the loose ends related to the major arc within Paradigm 2045. However, it also does two other things. First, it tees up the next trilogy by creating a new conflict. Second, it explicitly interlocks the Paradigm 2045 characters with those of my fantasy series Sentinels of Creation. Sentinels is a contemporary fantasy series that concluded just two months ago with the publishing of the seventh and final book, A Final Sacrifice. 

I always loved crossovers as a kid, and I still love them as an adult.  I dropped some early hints in both series that such a crossover might occur and received so much positive feedback that I made it a firm reality in both A Final Sacrifice and Omandi's Daemon.

DSF: So exciting! Crossovers are great. What is your favorite part about writing within this genre, and do you see yourself breaking out of this subject to explore other types of stories?

RWR: I simply love the science side of science fiction. I also like the challenge inherent with balancing science with fiction. Too much science, and you have a text book. Too much fiction, and you have a fantasy. I was once fortunate enough to share a panel with the great Larry Niven. We talked about how handwavium was like salt—it makes almost any dish better when used properly, but an overabundance will ruin an otherwise perfectly prepared meal.

As for other genres, in my answer to the previous question, I mentioned Sentinels of Creation. It was my first published series and falls squarely in the fantasy genre. I have also written a paranormal romance. It’s called One Heart that Beats for Two.  It was probably the most difficult story I’ve ever written, not from a technical standpoint, but rather from an emotional one. Love and loss are often inextricably linked, and so it was with this book. I’ve received lots of correspondence asking me to write another in this genre. It’s not my intention to do so, but I’ve learned to never say never. 

DSF: Finally, every author’s favorite question: how did you get into writing, and why did you choose to become an author?

RWR: Ever since I can remember, I’ve had stories in my head. Five-year-old me played in his backyard living the adventures of Bobby Fantastic vs The Guy. When I grew old enough to write, I did so. Unfortunately, I wrote crap. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t crap technically, it was crap creatively. My writing vacillated between emotionlessness and pretentiousness, neither of which is what I was shooting for.

Bottom line, some authors—like some musicians and athletes—are born. They come out of the womb radiating greatness. I’m not one of those authors. I had to live a life, become a husband and father, raise a family, and experience both love and loss before I could write character-driven stories in Paradigm, Sentinels, and One Heart. I’ve been fortunate, and my stories have found their audience. Each series has become an Audible best seller, won awards, or both. That certainly would not have been true of anything written by twenty-five-year-old me.

I published my first novel in 2016 while still working in corporate America and continued living that double life for three more years. Finally, in 2019, I pushed all my metaphorical chips into the center and committed myself to writing full time.

Why?

Stories connect us, one with the other. It’s how we have formed and shared experiences since before the written word existed. I have all these interesting characters materializing and chattering in my head. They have things to say, teach, and share.  That’s why I write their stories. I write to give them a voice. Fortunately for me, I have the best creative partner and friend in the world, Nick Podehl, as my narrator. While I write to give these characters a voice, he actually does.

DSF: What a wonderful answer. Thank you. And yes to Nick! He is an incredible narrator and we've been so impressed by his work on your previous books. His performance really does make for an exceptional listening experience. We're really excited for our readers! Those who love print and those who enjoy audio are both in for a treat with Omandi's Daemon.

Thank you again for taking the time to talk with us today! We know it's a busy time for you; we really appreciate the chance to discuss your work in a little more depth and we know our readers will appreciate it too! 

As Omandi’s Daemon has been available in ebook format for a few weeks now, we know many fans of the series will have already devoured it! Audiobook lovers: now it’s your turn! We can't wait to hear how much you love both the story and Nick's killer performance. For those of you who are completely new to the series, we hope you’ll be inspired to go grab it and dive in. Do it now. This is not one to miss!


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Literary Sci-Fi Reads You Don’t Want to Miss!

May 2, 2023 /1 Comment/in , /by

For us, a good story is a must in science fiction. Give us a bold, exciting, well-plotted tale; give us characters we can love and those we'll loathe; give us something that feels fantastic and also possible. If you can give us all this, we'll forgive you much else. That said...

The following literary sci-fi picks have nothing to forgive. They deliver compelling stories and characters and also feature truly excellent writing. This list is the result of a poll we conducted recently in the Discover Sci-Fi Readers & Fans Facebook Group, and naturally, there are many more that could have been added to this list, but if you're looking for a memorable literary sci-fi read, it's a great place to start.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.” But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.

Read Fahrenheit 451 here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.”

An instant bestseller, Slaughterhouse-Five made Kurt Vonnegut a cult hero in American literature, a reputation that only strengthened over time, despite his being banned and censored by some libraries and schools for content and language. But it was precisely those elements of Vonnegut’s writing—the political edginess, the genre-bending inventiveness, the frank violence, the transgressive wit—that have inspired generations of readers not just to look differently at the world around them but to find the confidence to say something about it. Authors as wide-ranging as Norman Mailer, John Irving, Michael Crichton, Tim O’Brien, Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Strout, David Sedaris, Jennifer Egan, and J. K. Rowling have all found inspiration in Vonnegut’s words. Jonathan Safran Foer has described Vonnegut as “the kind of writer who made people—young people especially—want to write.” George Saunders has declared Vonnegut to be “the great, urgent, passionate American writer of our century, who offers us . . . a model of the kind of compassionate thinking that might yet save us from ourselves.”

More than fifty years after its initial publication at the height of the Vietnam War, Vonnegut’s portrayal of political disillusionment, PTSD, and postwar anxiety feels as relevant, darkly humorous, and profoundly affecting as ever, an enduring beacon through our own era’s uncertainties.

Read Slaughterhouse-Five here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook

The World of Tiers by Philip Jose Farmer

His past a mystery and his present unbearably mundane, Robert Wolff is simply trying to buy a new house in Arizona when he stumbles upon a secret doorway through space and time and enters the World of Tiers. Made up of ascending levels of jungles, plains, medieval cities, and, at the top, a Garden of Eden, and populated by fantastical creatures, from nymphs and centaurs to merpeople and strange amalgams nonexistent on Earth, it’s beyond anything Wolff could have imagined in his previous humdrum existence. And when his youth is restored in the bargain, it seems he’s truly found paradise.

But there are dark forces in this new world, and Wolff is plunged into an epic quest up through the tiers, accompanied by Paul Janus Finnegan, another earthling, now known as Kickaha. Wolff’s journey to find Jadawin, the Lord of this world, will lead to answers about his own identity—and determine his fate.

Wolff and Kickaha will face off against feuding Lords—who hold the power to control private worlds of their own design—and the depraved Bellers. Devices originally created in the biolabs of the Lords, the Bellers are now conscious entities waging war on the Lords and their “pocket universes.” As they infiltrate the bodies of creatures throughout the World of Tiers and hunt down the Earth-born, the survival of all the worlds hinges upon the battle between the strangers from Earth and enemies disguised as their allies.

This omnibus contains the author’s preferred text, reprinted from the limited edition volumes published by Phantasia Press.

Get your copy of The World of Tiers here on Amazon.

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis 

Connie Willis draws upon her understanding of the universalities of human nature to explore the ageless issues of evil, suffering, and the indomitable will of the human spirit.

For Kivrin, preparing an on-site study of one of the deadliest eras in humanity's history was as simple as receiving inoculations against the diseases of the fourteenth century and inventing an alibi for a woman traveling alone. For her instructors in the twenty-first century, it meant painstaking calculations and careful monitoring of the rendezvous location where Kivrin would be received.

But a crisis strangely linking past and future strands Kivrin in a bygone age as her fellows try desperately to rescue her. In a time of superstition and fear, Kivrin—barely of age herself—finds she has become an unlikely angel of hope during one of history's darkest hours.

Read Doomsday Book  here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Roadis the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, "each the other's world entire," are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.

 Grab The Road here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

A World Out of Time by Larry Niven

After 200 years in cryosleep, Jaybee Corbell awakens to find that his mind has been downloaded to another body and he's in servitude to a harsh future State. After his escape via a spaceship, he traverses such vast distances--with accompanying time dilations--that he returns to Earth 3 million years later to discover a world wholly alien to the one he'd left. A.E. van Vogt wrote, "This fantastic novel is a mix of Niven hard science and a time-travel concept to boggle the mind."

Get your copy of A World Out of Time
here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

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The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin’s groundbreaking work of science fiction—winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

A lone human ambassador is sent to the icebound planet of Winter, a world without sexual prejudice, where the inhabitants’ gender is fluid. His goal is to facilitate Winter’s inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the strange, intriguing culture he encounters...

Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction.

Dive into The Left Hand of Darkness here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

In Anthony Burgess’s influential nightmare vision of the future, where the criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, a teen who talks in a fantastically inventive slang that evocatively renders his and his friends’ intense reaction against their society. Dazzling and transgressive, A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil and the meaning of human freedom. This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition, and Burgess’s introduction, “A Clockwork Orange Resucked.”

Dive into A Clockwork Orange here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Trouble with Lichen by John Wyndham

What if humans discovered the secret to prolonged life?

Francis Saxover and Diana Brackley, two biochemists investigating a rare lichen, separately discover that it has a remarkable property: It slows the aging process almost to a halt. Francis, realizing the horrifying implications of an ever-youthful wealthy elite, decides to keep his findings a secret. But the younger and more daring Diana sees an opportunity to overturn the male status quo and free women from the career-versus-children binary—in short, a chance to remake the world.

Get your copy of Trouble with Lichen here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner

The brilliant 1969 Hugo Award-winning novel from John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar, now included with a foreword by Bruce Sterling.

Norman Niblock House is a rising executive at General Technics, one of a few all-powerful corporations. His work is leading General Technics to the forefront of global domination, both in the marketplace and politically---it's about to take over a country in Africa. Donald Hogan is his roommate, a seemingly sheepish bookworm. But Hogan is a spy, and he's about to discover a breakthrough in genetic engineering that will change the world...and kill him.

These two men's lives weave through one of science fiction's most praised novels. Written in a way that echoes John Dos Passos' U.S.A. Trilogy, Stand on Zanzibar is a cross-section of a world overpopulated by the billions. Where society is squeezed into hive-living madness by god-like mega computers, mass-marketed psychedelic drugs, and mundane uses of genetic engineering. Though written in 1968, it speaks of now, and is frighteningly prescient and intensely powerful.

Start reading Stand on Zanzibar here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Cat’s Cradle is Kurt Vonnegut’s satirical commentary on modern man and his madness. An apocalyptic tale of this planet’s ultimate fate, it features a midget as the protagonist, a complete, original theology created by a calypso singer, and a vision of the future that is at once blackly fatalistic and hilariously funny. A book that left an indelible mark on an entire generation of readers, Cat’s Cradle is one of the twentieth century’s most important works—and Vonnegut at his very best.

Grab Cat's Cradle
 here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Have you read any of these exceptional literary sci-fi reads? Which ones will make their way into your (e)bookshelf or into your ears? Have a personal favorite that didn't appear on our list? Give it a shout out in the comments here, or over in the Discover Sci-Fi Facebook group! 

*All book-related copy in this post was pulled from Amazon, Goodreads & Wikipedia, unless otherwise credited.

Want Sci-Fi Books With Incredible World Building? Check Out These Titles!

October 31, 2022 /2 Comments/in , /by

Fantasy is probably the first genre that comes to mind when people think of books with incredible world building, but science fiction lends itself well to this too, and as such is a great choice for readers looking for immersive, fully-realized worlds.

This week's blog features sci-fi titles that give the world building of fantasy a run for its money, and whether you're looking for series or standalones, classic or modern, we've got you! 

Ringworld by Larry Niven

Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel, RINGWORLD remains a favorite among science fiction readers.

Louis Wu, accompanied by a young woman with genes for luck, and a captured kzin – a warlike species resembling 8-foot-tall cats -- are taken on a space ship run by a brilliant 2-headed alien called Nessus. Their destination is the Ringworld, an artificially constructed ring with high walls that hold 3 million times the area of Earth. Its origins are shrouded in mystery.

Read Ringworld here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold

When Cordelia Naismith and her survey crew are attacked by a renegade group from Barrayar, she is taken prisoner by Aral Vorkosigan, commander of the Barrayan ship that has been taken over by an ambitious and ruthless crew member. Aral and Cordelia survive countless mishaps while their mutual admiration and even stronger feelings emerge. A science fiction romance by a Hugo and Nebula Award winning master. Bujold's SHARDS OF HONOR is the first book in her SF universe to feature the Vorkosigan clan, followed by the Hugo award-winning BARRAYAR. The Nebula award-winning FALLING FREE precedes it by internal chronology in the same future history.

Read Shards of Honor  here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook

The Culture Series by Iain M. Banks

The first book in Iain M. Banks's seminal science fiction series, The Culture. Consider Phlebas introduces readers to the utopian conglomeration of human and alien races that explores the nature of war, morality, and the limitless bounds of mankind's imagination.

The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, faced destruction, cold-blooded, brutal, and worse, random. The Idirans fought for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles were at stake. There could be no surrender.

Within the cosmic conflict, an individual crusade. Deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world, a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals, lay a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture and the Idirans sought it. It was the fate of Horza, the Changer, and his motley crew of unpredictable mercenaries, human and machine, actually to find it, and with it their own destruction.

Get your copy of Consider Phlebas here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons 

A stunning tour de force filled with transcendent awe and wonder, Hyperion is a masterwork of science fiction that resonates with excitement and invention, the first volume in a remarkable epic by the multiple-award-winning author of The Hollow Man.
On the world called Hyperion, beyond the reach of galactic law, waits a creature called the Shrike. 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.

Read Hyperion  here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Zones of Thought Series by Vernor Vinge

Thousands of years in the future, humanity is no longer alone in a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures, and technology, can function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought," but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence.

Fleeing this galactic threat, Ravna crash lands on a strange world with a ship-hold full of cryogenically frozen children, the only survivors from a destroyed space-lab. They are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle.

 Grab A Fire Upon the Deep here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson

Decades into our future, a stone’s throw from the ancient city of Shanghai, a brilliant nanotechnologist named John Percival Hackworth has just broken the rigorous moral code of his tribe, the powerful neo-Victorians. He's made an illicit copy of a state-of-the-art interactive device called A Young Ladys Illustrated Primer  Commissioned by an eccentric duke for his grandchild, stolen for Hackworth's own daughter, the Primer’s purpose is to educate and raise a girl capable of thinking for herself. It performs its function superbly. Unfortunately for Hackworth, his smuggled copy has fallen into the wrong hands.

Young Nell and her brother Harv are thetes—members of the poor, tribeless class.  Neglected by their mother, Harv looks after Nell.  When he and his gang waylay a certain neo-Victorian—John Percival Hackworth—in the seamy streets of their neighborhood, Harv brings Nell something special: the Primer.

Following the discovery of his crime, Hackworth begins an odyssey of his own. Expelled from the neo-Victorian paradise, squeezed by agents of Protocol Enforcement on one side and a Mandarin underworld crime lord on the other, he searches for an elusive figure known as the Alchemist.  His quest and Nell’s will ultimately lead them to another seeker whose fate is bound up with the Primer—a woman who holds the key to a vast, subversive information network that is destined to decode and reprogram the future of humanity.

Get your copy of The Diamond Age here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

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The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

Recipient of the Sturgeon Award, Paolo Bacigalupi's writing has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, and the environmental journal High Country News. His non-fiction essays have appeared in Salon.com and High Country News, and have been syndicated into numerous western newspapers.

Dive into The Windup Girl here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton

A century from now, thanks to a technology allowing instantaneous travel across light-years, humanity has solved its energy shortages, cleaned up the environment, and created far-flung colony worlds. The keys to this empire belong to the powerful North family—composed of successive generations of clones. Yet these clones are not identical. For one thing, genetic errors have crept in with each generation. For another, the original three clone “brothers” have gone their separate ways, and the branches of the family are now friendly rivals more than allies.
 
Or maybe not so friendly. At least that’s what the murder of a North clone in the English city of Newcastle suggests to Detective Sidney Hurst. Sid is a solid investigator who’d like nothing better than to hand off this hot potato of a case. The way he figures it, whether he solves the crime or not, he’ll make enough enemies to ruin his career.
 
Yet Sid’s case is about to take an unexpected turn: because the circumstances of the murder bear an uncanny resemblance to a killing that took place years ago on the planet St. Libra, where a North clone and his entire household were slaughtered in cold blood. The convicted slayer, Angela Tramelo, has always claimed her innocence. And now it seems she may have been right. Because only the St. Libra killer could have committed the Newcastle crime.
 
Problem is, Angela also claims that the murderer was an alien monster.
 
Now Sid must navigate through a Byzantine minefield of competing interests within the police department and the world’s political and economic elite . . . all the while hunting down a brutal killer poised to strike again. And on St. Libra, Angela, newly released from prison, joins a mission to hunt down the elusive alien, only to learn that the line between hunter and hunted is a thin one.

Dive into Great North Road here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

The Broken Earth Series by N.K. Jemisin

This is the way the world ends. . .for the last time.

It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester.

This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.

Read the first book in the critically acclaimed, three-time Hugo award-winning trilogy by NYT bestselling author N. K. Jemisin.

Get your copy of The Fifth Season
here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Central Station by Lavie Tidhar

A worldwide diaspora has left a quarter of a million people at the foot of a space station. Cultures collide in real life and virtual reality. The city is literally a weed, its growth left unchecked. Life is cheap, and data is cheaper.

When Boris Chong returns to Tel Aviv from Mars, much has changed. Boris’s ex-lover is raising a strangely familiar child who can tap into the datastream of a mind with the touch of a finger. His cousin is infatuated with a robotnik—a damaged cyborg soldier who might as well be begging for parts. His father is terminally-ill with a multigenerational mind-plague. And a hunted data-vampire has followed Boris to where she is forbidden to return.

Rising above them is Central Station, the interplanetary hub between all things: the constantly shifting Tel Aviv; a powerful virtual arena, and the space colonies where humanity has gone to escape the ravages of poverty and war. Everything is connected by the Others, powerful alien entities who, through the Conversation—a shifting, flowing stream of consciousness—are just the beginning of irrevocable change.

At Central Station, humans and machines continue to adapt, thrive...and even evolve.

Start reading Central Station here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Terra Ignota Series by Ada Palmer

From the winner of the 2017 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, Ada Palmer's 2017 Compton Crook Award-winning political science fiction, Too Like the Lightning, ventures into a human future of extraordinary originality

Mycroft Canner is a convict. For his crimes he is required, as is the custom of the 25th century, to wander the world being as useful as he can to all he meets. Carlyle Foster is a sensayer--a spiritual counselor in a world that has outlawed the public practice of religion, but which also knows that the inner lives of humans cannot be wished away.

The world into which Mycroft and Carlyle have been born is as strange to our 21st-century eyes as ours would be to a native of the 1500s. It is a hard-won utopia built on technologically-generated abundance, and also on complex and mandatory systems of labelling all public writing and speech. What seem to us normal gender distinctions are now distinctly taboo in most social situations. And most of the world's population is affiliated with globe-girdling clans of the like-minded, whose endless economic and cultural competition is carefully managed by central planners of inestimable subtlety. To us it seems like a mad combination of heaven and hell. To them, it seems like normal life.

And in this world, Mycroft and Carlyle have stumbled on the wild card that may destablize the system: the boy Bridger, who can effortlessly make his wishes come true. Who can, it would seem, bring inanimate objects to life...

Grab Too Like the Lightning  here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Five Ways to Forgiveness by Ursula K. Le Guin

Here for the first time is the complete suite of five linked stories from Ursula K. Le Guin’s acclaimed Hainish series, which tells the history of the Ekumen, the galactic confederation of human colonies founded by the planet Hain. First published as Four Ways to Forgiveness, and now joined by a fifth story, Five Ways to Forgiveness focuses on the twin planets Werel and Yeowe—two worlds whose peoples, long known as “owners” and “assets,” together face an uncertain future after civil war and revolution.

In “Betrayals” a retired science teacher must make peace with her new neighbor, a disgraced revolutionary leader. In “Forgiveness Day,” a female official from the Ekumen arrives to survey the situation on Werel and struggles against its rigidly patriarchal culture. Embedded within “A Man of the People,” which describes the coming of age of Havzhiva, an Ekumen ambassador to Yeowe, is Le Guin’s most sustained description of the Ur-planet Hain. “A Woman’s Liberation” is the remarkable narrative of Rakam, born an asset on Werel, who must twice escape from slavery to freedom. Joined to them is “Old Music and the Slave Women,” in which the charismatic Hainish embassy worker, who appears in two of the four original stories, returns for a tale of his own. Of this capstone tale Le Guin has written, “the character called Old Music began to tell me a fifth tale about the latter days of the civil war . . . I’m glad to see it joined to the others at last.”

Grab Five Ways to Forgiveness  here on Amazon.

Today I Am Carey by Martin L. Shoemaker

TODAY

Mildred has Alzheimer's. As memories fade, she acquires the aid of a full-time android to assist her in everyday life. Carey. Carey takes care of Mildred, but its true mission is to fill in the gaps in Mildred’s past. To bring yesterday into today by becoming a copy. But not merely a copy of a physical person. A copy from the inside out.

I AM

After Mildred passes, Carey must find a new purpose. For a time, that purpose is Mildred’s family. To keep them safe from harm. To be of service. There is Paul Owens, the overworked scientist and business leader. Susan Owens, the dedicated teacher. And Millie, a curious little girl who will grow up alongside her android best friend. And Carey will grow up with her. Carey cannot age. But Carey can change.

CAREY

Carey struggles. Carey seeks to understand life’s challenges. Carey makes its own path. Carey must learn to live. To grow. To care. To survive. To be.

Grab Today I Am Carey  here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Have you read any of these exceptionally immersive sci-fi reads? Which ones will make their way into your (e)bookshelf or into your ears? Have a personal favorite sci-fi book with incredible world building that didn't appear on our list? Give it a shout out in the comments here, or over in the Discover Sci-Fi Facebook group! 

*All book-related copy in this post was pulled from Amazon, Goodreads & Wikipedia, unless otherwise credited.

Ten Must Read Sci-Fi Books Written From A 1st Person POV!

February 22, 2023 /1 Comment/in , /by

Do you prefer sci-fi written from a specific point of view? Do you notice how it changes your relationship to the story and the characters? All narrative approaches have their advantages of course, but when you are looking to gain real insight into the protagonist and form a greater connection to them, nothing beats a book written from a first person point of view! 

Next time you are looking for a sci-fi read that will immediately pull you in and give you unfettered access to the heart and mind of the main character, look no further than this list of can't-miss titles, all written from a First Person Point of View!

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein

Widely acknowledged as one of Robert A. Heinlein's greatest works, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress rose from the golden age of science fiction to become an undisputed classic—and a touchstone for the philosophy of personal responsibility and political freedom. A revolution on a lunar penal colony—aided by a self-aware supercomputer—provides the framework for a story of a diverse group of men and women grappling with the ever-changing definitions of humanity, technology, and free will—themes that resonate just as strongly today as they did when the novel was first published.

Read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Gateway by Fredrik Pohl

Gateway opened on all the wealth of the Universe...and on reaches of unimaginable horror.

When prospector Bob Broadhead went out to Gateway on the Heechee spacecraft, he decided he would know which was the right mission to make him his fortune. Three missions later, now famous and permanently rich, Robinette Broadhead has to face what happened to him and what he is...in a journey into himself as perilous and even more horrifying than the nightmare trip through the interstellar void that he drove himself to take!

Get Gateway  in paperback here. Also available on audiobook

Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith

Michael Marshall Smith’s surreal, groundbreaking, and award-winning debut which resonates with wild humour interlaced with dark recollections of an emotional minefield. Now part of the Voyager Classics collection.

May we introduce you to Stark.

Oh, and by the way — good luck.

Stark is the private investigator who goes to work when Something Happens to you. And when a Something happens it’s no good chanting ‘go away go away go away’ and cowering in a corner, because a Something always comes from your darkest past and won’t be beaten until you face it. And that’s not easy in a city where reality is twisting and broken, a world in which friends can become enemies in a heartbeat — and where your most secret fear can become a soul-shredding reality.

And the worst of it is, for this nightmare you don’t even have to be asleep…

Get your copy of Only Forward here on Amazon.

Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

In the twenty-fifth century, humankind has spread throughout the galaxy, monitored by the watchful eye of the U.N. While divisions in race, religion, and class still exist, advances in technology have redefined life itself. Now, assuming one can afford the expensive procedure, a person’s consciousness can be stored in a cortical stack at the base of the brain and easily downloaded into a new body (or “sleeve”) making death nothing more than a minor blip on a screen.

Ex-U.N. envoy Takeshi Kovacs has been killed before, but his last death was particularly painful. Dispatched one hundred eighty light-years from home, re-sleeved into a body in Bay City (formerly San Francisco, now with a rusted, dilapidated Golden Gate Bridge), Kovacs is thrown into the dark heart of a shady, far-reaching conspiracy that is vicious even by the standards of a society that treats “existence” as something that can be bought and sold.

Read Altered Carbon here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready?

In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the OASIS, a vast virtual world where most of humanity spends their days.

When the eccentric creator of the OASIS dies, he leaves behind a series of fiendish puzzles, based on his obsession with the pop culture of decades past. Whoever is first to solve them will inherit his vast fortune—and control of the OASIS itself.

Then Wade cracks the first clue. Suddenly he’s beset by rivals who’ll kill to take this prize. The race is on—and the only way to survive is to win.

 Grab Ready Player One here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

The Martian by Andy Weir 

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.

Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there.

After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.

Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to kill him first.

But Mark isn't ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

Get your copy of The Martian here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

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Rogue Star: Frozen Earth by Jasper T. Scott

A DEAD STAR IS HEADED FOR EARTH...
THE SHIFT IN EARTH’S ORBIT WILL UNLEASH A NEW ICE AGE...
AND THIS SUMMER WILL BE OUR LAST.

THE NEWS BREAKS
Logan Willis’s life is falling apart: he lost his job and found out that his wife is cheating on him all in the same day. Thinking that his world has ended, Logan checks into a hotel and turns on the TV to see that he's not far wrong—radio telescopes have detected mysterious signals coming from inside our solar system, and the source is moving toward us at over 500 miles per second. The media concludes that these signals must be of an alien origin. Still reeling from the news, Logan gets a phone call from his brother-in-law. Richard is talking crazy about the end of the world again, but this time he doesn’t sound so crazy.

A DEADLY CONSPIRACY UNRAVELS
Meanwhile, Richard, who is an astronomer working with the James Webb Space Telescope, is at the White House briefing the president to announce what he and the government have known for almost a decade: aliens are not invading, a frozen ball of gas is. The so-called rogue star is predicted to make a near pass with Earth, disrupting our orbit and unleashing an ice age, the likes of which we haven’t seen for millions of years.

WE’RE PUTTING A COLONY ON MARS
Government insider, Billionaire Akron Massey, has received a steady flow of funding over the past decade for his company, Starcast, to put a colony on Mars. Over the same period he’s been using his personal fortune to create a colony closer to home where he plans to ride out the coming storm along with a thousand of the smartest people on the planet. Humanity will need seeds to plant in the ashes after the chaos clears.

AND WARS IGNITE
When the true nature of the threat becomes known, the nations of Earth prepare to fight over all the warmest parts of the planet. But as war fleets set sail and armies begin marching south, a stunning discovery is made that will change a lot more than just the weather....

Dive into Rogue Star  here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells

Having captured the hearts of readers across the globe (Annalee Newitz says it's "one of the most humane portraits of a nonhuman I've ever read") Murderbot has also established Martha Wells as one of the great SF writers of today.

No, I didn't kill the dead human. If I had, I wouldn't dump the body in the station mall.

When Murderbot discovers a dead body on Preservation Station, it knows it is going to have to assist station security to determine who the body is (was), how they were killed (that should be relatively straightforward, at least), and why (because apparently that matters to a lot of people—who knew?)

Yes, the unthinkable is about to happen: Murderbot must voluntarily speak to humans!

Again!

Dive into Fugitive Telemetry here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Invasion by Jay Allan

The future. It holds all sorts of positive potential…technological advances, increased life expectancy, improvements in society. But there are negative possibilities too, and perhaps the worst of these is the arrival of an alien race…not just anyone, but a hostile one, intent on conquering humankind.

Hugh McDaniel lives in Queens, New York. He is a genius, and he has been struggling to pick one area to focus his life’s work on. His brother and best friend, Travis, is a Marine officer. They get along very well, despite the differences in their lives, but when the aliens suddenly invade and destroy their entire culture, they are forced to struggle in the ruins, at first just to survive, just to find basic food and medicine. But soon, they set their sights on more…on resistance, and on reclaiming their planet from the invaders.

The path is a long one, and almost impossibly difficult, but they begin their journey, finding other survivors and searching for food, medicine…and weapons. The enemy does not remain silent for long, and they start sending missions into the ruins, seeking to gather the humans, to carry them off for whatever purposes they have. Hugh and Travis lead a constant battle, a fight against the enemy that will not end, that cannot end, until only one side remains.

The aliens send more and more robots to New York, and the McDaniels and their followers dig in to resist viciously. But amidst the almost constant fighting, they also mount their own mission, to seek out and explore, to determine what it is the enemy truly wants.

The invaders finally launch a massive attack, large enough to utterly destroy the humans in New York, but Hugh has a forlorn plan, a way to, just maybe, defeat the assault. But while he is frantically preparing his crazed operation, Travis is leading the desperate mission to find the enemy, to discover what they really want. And when he does, it is more terrible than anything he had ever imagined. He tries to return home, to bring the news to everyone that the engagement between humans and aliens is absolutely a fight to the finish, that surrender isn’t even a possibility. But will he even have a home to return to?

Get your copy of Invasion here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Upgrade by Blake Crouch

“You are the next step in human evolution.”

At first, Logan Ramsay isn’t sure if anything’s different. He just feels a little . . . sharper. Better able to concentrate. Better at multitasking. Reading a bit faster, memorizing better, needing less sleep.

But before long, he can’t deny it: Something’s happening to his brain. To his body. He’s starting to see the world, and those around him—even those he loves most—in whole new ways.

The truth is, Logan’s genome has been hacked. And there’s a reason he’s been targeted for this upgrade. A reason that goes back decades to the darkest part of his past, and a horrific family legacy.

Worse still, what’s happening to him is just the first step in a much larger plan, one that will inflict the same changes on humanity at large—at a terrifying cost.

Because of his new abilities, Logan’s the one person in the world capable of stopping what’s been set in motion. But to have a chance at winning this war, he’ll have to become something other than himself. Maybe even something other than human.

And even as he’s fighting, he can’t help wondering: what if humanity’s only hope for a future really does lie in engineering our own evolution?

Intimate in scale yet epic in scope, Upgrade is an intricately plotted, lightning-fast tale that charts one man’s thrilling transformation, even as it asks us to ponder the limits of our humanity—and our boundless potential.

Start reading Upgrade here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Space Raiders by Ken Lozito

"After years of searching, Nathan Briggs is finally on the verge of making an incredible discovery. Unfortunately, the aliens have other plans.

When Nathan stops a brutal attack on an unsuspecting victim, he gets more than he bargained for and sets into motion events that will change his life forever. They told him he should’ve run away, and maybe they were right.

Nathan is about to embark on an adventure of a lifetime.

Aliens are real. He has something they need, and they’re not the only ones hunting for it.

Embark on the adventure of a lifetime with Bestselling Author Ken Lozito in this brand new science fiction series. If you’re a fan of old school heroes and villains in a galaxy full of unknowns, then this might be the adventure for you."

Start reading Space Raiders here on Amazon.

Have you read any of these sci-fi reads written from a first person point of view? Which ones will make their way into your (e)bookshelf or into your ears? Have a personal favorite that didn't appear on our list? Give it a shout out in the comments here, or over in the Discover Sci-Fi Facebook group! 

*All book-related copy in this post was pulled from Amazon, Goodreads & Wikipedia, unless otherwise credited.

Sci-Fi Books Everyone Should Read!

March 21, 2023 /45 Comments/in , /by

The last few weeks we've been consumed by the idea of creating a "must read" list of science fiction. Though we doubted it was even possible to capture all the must read titles in a short and tidy list (spoiler alert: it's not) we gave it a shot and thousands of you in the Discover Sci-Fi Facebook group lent a helping hand by way of both votes in our poll and—just as importantly— suggestions in the comments.

In this way, the resulting list became something of a co-creation: an amalgamation of a number of the top choices in the poll, as well as some of the titles mentioned in the comments as being glaring omissions. There are also a couple of instances where we swapped the title by an author presented in the poll for a different one even though the original suggestion received a high percentage of votes. This choice was also based on feedback from you, dear readers.

Is the list we present to you today a definitive one? Definitely not. Is it chockfull to bursting with must reads? Hell yeah! So without further ado, ready your pen and paper to note those you want to add to your TBR and scroll down read on! 

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

Filby became pensive. "Clearly," the Time Traveller proceeded, "any real body must have extension in four directions: it must have Length, Breadth, Thickness, and—Duration. But through a natural infirmity of the flesh, which I will explain to you in a moment, we incline to overlook this fact. There are really four dimensions, three which we call the three planes of Space, and a fourth, Time. There is, however, a tendency to draw an unreal distinction between the former three dimensions and the latter, because it happens that our consciousness moves intermittently in one direction along the latter from the beginning to the end of our lives."

Read The Time Machine here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Brave New World is a dystopian social science fiction novel by English author Aldous Huxley, written in 1931. Largely set in a futuristic World State, whose citizens are environmentally engineered into an intelligence-based social hierarchy, the novel anticipates huge scientific advancements in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation and classical conditioning that are combined to make a dystopian society which is challenged by only a single individual: the story’s protagonist. Huxley followed this book with a reassessment in essay form, Brave New World Revisited (1958), and with his final novel, Island (1962). In 1999, the Modern Library ranked Brave New World at number 5 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.

Read Brave New World  here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook

1984 by George Orwell 

In 1984, London is a grim city in the totalitarian state of Oceania where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston Smith is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.

Lionel Trilling said of Orwell’s masterpiece, “1984 is a profound, terrifying, and wholly fascinating book. It is a fantasy of the political future, and like any such fantasy, serves its author as a magnifying device for an examination of the present.” Though the year 1984 now exists in the past, Orwell’s novel remains an urgent call for the individual willing to speak truth to power.

Get your copy of 1984 here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Foundation by Issac Asimov

For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future—to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save humankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire—both scientists and scholars—and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for future generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation.

The Foundation novels of Isaac Asimov are among the most influential in the history of science fiction, celebrated for their unique blend of breathtaking action, daring ideas, and extensive worldbuilding. In Foundation, Asimov has written a timely and timeless novel of the best—and worst—that lies in humanity, and the power of even a few courageous souls to shine a light in a universe of darkness.

Read Foundation here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 by L. Ron Hubbard

Sadistic Aliens...

...Man is an endangered species.

Is it the end of the world or the rebirth of a new one?

NASA launched the space probe Voyager 1. One of its missions: answer the question—is there intelligent life beyond our planet?

Fast-forward a thousand years. Question answered … by the Psychlos, an alien race who’ve proven just how terrifying intelligent life can be. Tracing Voyager 1 back to its origins, the Psychlos have scorched the Earth, all but wiped out the human race and stripped the planet of its natural resources.

Now, in the year 3000, humankind faces total extinction. But in this post-apocalyptic world, as a new millennium arises, so too has the courageous Jonnie Goodboy Tyler. A natural-born leader, Jonnie manages to raise an army out of the remnants of humanity, knowing that against the seemingly invincible aliens, the uprising will require a daring strike on an epic scale.

Is it the end of our world … or the dawn of a new one? Will the human race be an instrument of the planet’s destruction … or the seed of its rebirth?

 Grab Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

Bradbury's Mars is a place of hope, dreams and metaphor-of crystal pillars and fossil seas-where a fine dust settles on the great, empty cities of a silently destroyed civilization. It is here the invaders have come to despoil and commercialize, to grow and to learn -first a trickle, then a torrent, rushing from a world with no future toward a promise of tomorrow. The Earthman conquers Mars ... and then is conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race.

Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles is a classic work of twentieth-century literature whose extraordinary power and imagination remain undimmed by time's passage. In connected, chronological stories, a true grandmaster once again enthralls, delights and challenges us with his vision and his heart-starkly and stunningly exposing in brilliant spacelight our strength, our weakness, our folly, and our poignant humanity on a strange and breathtaking world where humanity does not belong.

 Grab The Martian Chronicles here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. 

Winner of the 1961 Hugo Award for Best Novel and widely considered one of the most accomplished, powerful, and enduring classics of modern speculative fiction, Walter M. Miller, Jr.'s A Canticle for Leibowitz is a true landmark of twentieth-century literature -- a chilling and still-provocative look at a post-apocalyptic future.

In a nightmarish ruined world slowly awakening to the light after sleeping in darkness, the infant rediscoveries of science are secretly nourished by cloistered monks dedicated to the study and preservation of the relics and writings of the blessed Saint Isaac Leibowitz. From here the story spans centuries of ignorance, violence, and barbarism, viewing through a sharp, satirical eye the relentless progression of a human race damned by its inherent humanness to recelebrate its grand foibles and repeat its grievous mistakes. Seriously funny, stunning, and tragic, eternally fresh, imaginative, and altogether remarkable, A Canticle for Leibowitz retains its ability to enthrall and amaze. It is now, as it always has been, a masterpiece.

Get your copy of A Canticle for Leibowitz in paperback here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Dune by Frank Herbert

Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, heir to a noble family tasked with ruling an inhospitable world where the only thing of value is the “spice” melange, a drug capable of extending life and enhancing consciousness. Coveted across the known universe, melange is a prize worth killing for....

When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul’s family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad’Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream.

A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction.

Dive into Dune here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke

From the savannas of Africa at the dawn of mankind to the rings of Saturn as man ventures to the outer rim of our solar system, 2001: A Space Odyssey is a journey unlike any other.

This allegory about humanity’s exploration of the universe—and the universe’s reaction to humanity—is a hallmark achievement in storytelling that follows the crew of the spacecraft Discovery as they embark on a mission to Saturn. Their vessel is controlled by HAL 9000, an artificially intelligent supercomputer capable of the highest level of cognitive functioning that rivals—and perhaps threatens—the human mind.

Dive into 2001: A Space Odyssey here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein

Widely acknowledged as one of Robert A. Heinlein's greatest works, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress rose from the golden age of science fiction to become an undisputed classic—and a touchstone for the philosophy of personal responsibility and political freedom. A revolution on a lunar penal colony—aided by a self-aware supercomputer—provides the framework for a story of a diverse group of men and women grappling with the ever-changing definitions of humanity, technology, and free will—themes that resonate just as strongly today as they did when the novel was first published.

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress gives readers an extraordinary, thought-provoking glimpse into the mind of Robert A. Heinlein, who, even now, “shows us where the future is” (Tom Clancy).

Get your copy of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam. He never claimed to be a god, but then he never claimed not to be a god.

A holy war rages across the heavens and mankind’s fate hangs in the balance.

Start reading Lord of Light here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

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Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep 

By 2021, the World War has killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remain covet any living creature, and for people who can’t afford one, companies built incredibly realistic simulacra: horses, birds, cats, sheep. They’ve even built humans. Immigrants to Mars receive androids so sophisticated they are indistinguishable from true men or women. Fearful of the havoc these artificial humans can wreak, the government bans them from Earth. Driven into hiding, unauthorized androids live among human beings, undetected. Rick Deckard, an officially sanctioned bounty hunter, is commissioned to find rogue androids and “retire” them. But when cornered, androids fight back—with lethal force.

Grab Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

A lone human ambassador is sent to the icebound planet of Winter, a world without sexual prejudice, where the inhabitants’ gender is fluid. His goal is to facilitate Winter’s inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the strange, intriguing culture he encounters...

Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction.

Grab The Left Hand of Darkness here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Ringworld by Larry Niven

Louis Wu, accompanied by a young woman with genes for luck, and a captured kzin – a warlike species resembling 8-foot-tall cats -- are taken on a space ship run by a brilliant 2-headed alien called Nessus. Their destination is the Ringworld, an artificially constructed ring with high walls that hold 3 million times the area of Earth. Its origins are shrouded in mystery.

The adventures of Louis and his companions on the Ringworld are unforgettable . . .

Grab Ringworld here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman

Conscripted into service for the United Nations Exploratory Force, a highly trained unit built for revenge, physics student William Mandella fights for his planet light years away against the alien force known as the Taurans. “Mandella’s attempt to survive and remain human in the face of an absurd, almost endless war is harrowing, hilarious, heartbreaking, and true,” says Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Junot Díaz—and because of the relative passage of time when one travels at incredibly high speed, the Earth Mandella returns to after his two-year experience has progressed decades and is foreign to him in disturbing ways.

Based in part on the author’s experiences in Vietnam, The Forever War is regarded as one of the greatest military science fiction novels ever written, capturing the alienation that servicemen and women experience even now upon returning home from battle. It shines a light not only on the culture of the 1970s in which it was written, but also on our potential future. “To say that The Forever War is the best science fiction war novel ever written is to damn it with faint praise. It is . . . as fine and woundingly genuine a war story as any I’ve read” (William Gibson).

Grab The Forever War here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

The united 'Second Empire of Man' spans vast distances, due to the Alderson Drive which has enabled humans to travel easily between the stars. After an alien probe is discovered, the Navy dispatches two ships to determine whether the aliens pose a threat… Called by Robert A. Heinlein: "Possibly the greatest science fiction novel ever written," this magnificent exploration of first contact and a truly alien society is a "must read" for science fiction fans.

Grab The Mote in God's Eye here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Startide Rising by David Brin

When Streaker - the first starship designed and crewed by dolphins - discovers a derelict ancient armada with evidence of the first sentient species ever, she sets off a war between dozens of galactic races eager to use the information for their own advancement.

New York Times best-selling author David Brin's novels stretch the imagination while providing action and thrills galore. Packed with exotic aliens and ancient mysteries, Startide Rising delivers breath-taking adventure in the grandest tradition of space opera.

Grab Startide Rising here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut—young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.

Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.

Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.

Grab Ender's Game here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton

The year is 2380. The Intersolar Commonwealth, a sphere of stars, contains more than six hundred worlds interconnected by a web of transport “tunnels” known as wormholes. At the farthest edge of the Commonwealth, astronomer Dudley Bose observes the impossible: over one thousand light-years away, a star . . . disappears. Since the location is too distant to reach by wormhole, the Second Chance, a faster-than-light starship commanded by Wilson Kime, a five-times-rejuvenated ex-NASA pilot, is dispatched to learn what has occurred and whether it represents a threat.

Opposed to the mission are the Guardians of Selfhood, led by Bradley Johansson. Shortly after the journey begins, Kime wonders if the crew of the Second Chance has been infiltrated. But soon enough he will have other worries. Halfway across the galaxy, something truly incredible is waiting: a deadly discovery whose unleashing will threaten to destroy the Commonwealth . . . and humanity itself.

Grab Pandora's Star here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu

Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision.

Grab The Three Body Problem here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey

Humanity has colonized the solar system—Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond—but the stars are still out of our reach.

Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, the Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for—and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.

Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to the Scopuli and rebel sympathizer Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.

Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations—and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.

Grab Leviathan Wakes here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.

Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.

Or does he?

An irresistible interstellar adventure as only Andy Weir could deliver, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian—while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.

Grab Project Hail Mary here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

How many of these must read sci-fi books have you already read? Which ones will make their way into your (e)bookshelf or into your ears? Have a personal favorite that didn't appear on our list? Give it a shout out in the comments here, or over in the Discover Sci-Fi Facebook group! 

*All book-related copy in this post was pulled from Amazon, Goodreads & Wikipedia, unless otherwise credited.

Looking for Philosophical Sci-Fi Reads? We’ve Got You!

October 10, 2022 /3 Comments/in , /by

Science fiction as a genre is perfect for exploring the "big questions." Sure, it's not always the case that sci-fi books do that—and we like good escapist sci-fi just as much as the next guy—but if you are in the mood for a sci-fi story that plumbs the depths of the human experience and more, we've got you! This week's blog features sci-fi titles that lean into those bigger questions. Check it out! 

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Charlie Gordon is about to embark upon an unprecedented journey. Born with an unusually low IQ, he has been chosen as the perfect subject for an experimental surgery that researchers hope will increase his intelligence-a procedure that has already been highly successful when tested on a lab mouse named Algernon.

As the treatment takes effect, Charlie's intelligence expands until it surpasses that of the doctors who engineered his metamorphosis. The experiment appears to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount importance, until Algernon suddenly deteriorates. Will the same happen to Charlie?

Read Flowers for Algernon here on Amazon. Also available
on audiobook.

The Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem

Bringing his twin gifts of scientific speculation and scathing satire to bear on that hapless planet, Earth, Polish author Stanislaw Lem sends his unlucky cosmonaut, Ijon Tichy, to the Eighth Futurological Congress in Costa Rica to discuss the overpopulation problem. Caught up in local revolution, Tichy is shot and so critically wounded that he is flashfrozen to await a cure. But when he awakens in 2039, he is faced with a future unlike any that the Congress could have ever imagined. Translated by Michael Kandel.

Read The Futurological Congress  here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook

Neverness by David Zindell

In an age of exploding stars and other cataclysmic galactic events in which Homo sapiens has long since split into different kinds, Mallory Ringess becomes a pilot of the Order of Mystic Mathematicians and Other Seekers of the Ineffable Flame. His quest to find the Elder Eddas – nothing less than the secret of life embroidered in humanity’s oldest DNA – will lead him from Neverness’s streets of colored ice into the deadly manifold: the “space beneath space” whose topology writhes and twists with hideous complexity like a nest of psychedelic snakes.

In his lightship named The Immanent Carnation, Mallory journeys far across the Milky Way and enters the Solid State Entity: a nebula-sized brain composed of moonlike biocomputers analogous to neurons. There he is tested. In the journeys and war that follow, he begins to grasp the infinite possibilities of evolution and what he will need to sacrifice in order save humankind from destruction and change the course of the universe.

Get your copy of Neverness here on Amazon.

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

A bleak moon settled by utopian anarchists, Anarres has long been isolated from other worlds, including its mother planet, Urras—a civilization of warring nations, great poverty, and immense wealth. Now Shevek, a brilliant physicist, is determined to reunite the two planets, which have been divided by centuries of distrust. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls of hatred that have kept them apart.To visit Urras—to learn, to teach, to share—will require great sacrifice and risks, which Shevek willingly accepts. But the ambitious scientist's gift is soon seen as a threat, and in the profound conflict that ensues, he must reexamine his beliefs even as he ignites the fires of change.

Read The Dispossessed here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Anathem by Neal Stephenson

Fraa Erasmas is a young avout living in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, protected from the corrupting influences of the outside "saecular" world by ancient stone, honored traditions, and complex rituals. Over the centuries, cities and governments have risen and fallen beyond the concent's walls. Three times during history's darkest epochs violence born of superstition and ignorance has invaded and devastated the cloistered mathic community. Yet the avout have always managed to adapt in the wake of catastrophe, becoming out of necessity even more austere and less dependent on technology and material things. And Erasmas has no fear of the outside -- the Extramuros -- for the last of the terrible times was long, long ago.

Now, in celebration of the week-long, once-in-a-decade rite of Apert, the fraas and suurs prepare to venture beyond the concent's gates -- at the same time opening them wide to welcome the curious "extras" in. During his first Apert as a fraa, Erasmas eagerly anticipates reconnecting with the landmarks and family he hasn't seen since he was "collected." But before the week is out, both the existence he abandoned and the one he embraced will stand poised on the brink of cataclysmic change.

Powerful unforeseen forces jeopardize the peaceful stability of mathic life and the established ennui of the Extramuros -- a threat that only an unsteady alliance of saecular and avout can oppose -- as, one by one, Erasmas and his colleagues, teachers, and friends are summoned forth from the safety of the concent in hopes of warding off global disaster. Suddenly burdened with a staggering responsibility, Erasmas finds himself a major player in a drama that will determine the future of his world -- as he sets out on an extraordinary odyssey that will carry him to the most dangerous, inhospitable corners of the planet . . . and beyond.

 Grab Anathem here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell 

A visionary work that combines speculative fiction with deep philosophical inquiry, The Sparrow tells the story of a charismatic Jesuit priest and linguist, Emilio Sandoz, who leads a scientific mission entrusted with a profound task: to make first contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life. The mission begins in faith, hope, and beauty, but a series of small misunderstandings brings it to a catastrophic end.

Get your copy of The Sparrow here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

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Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

Stories of Your Life and Others delivers dual delights of the very, very strange and the heartbreakingly familiar, often presenting characters who must confront sudden change—the inevitable rise of automatons or the appearance of aliens—with some sense of normalcy. With sharp intelligence and humor, Chiang examines what it means to be alive in a world marked by uncertainty, but also by beauty and wonder. An award-winning collection from one of today's most lauded writers, Stories of Your Life and Others is a contemporary classic.

Dive into Stories of Your Life and Others here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

The Atopia Chronicles by Matthew Mather

In the near future, to escape the crush and clutter of a packed and polluted Earth, the world's elite flock to Atopia, a massive corporate-owned artificial island in the Pacific Ocean. It is there that Dr. Patricia Killiam rushes to perfect the ultimate in virtual reality: a program to save the ravaged Earth from mankind's insatiable appetite for natural resources.

Dive into The Atopia Chronicles here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

The Thing Itself by Adam Roberts 

Adam Roberts turns his attention to answering the Fermi Paradox with a taut and claustrophobic tale that echoes John Carpenters' The Thing.

Two men while away the days in an Antarctic research station. Tensions between them build as they argue over a love-letter one of them has received. One is practical and open. The other surly, superior and obsessed with reading one book - by the philosopher Kant.

As a storm brews and they lose contact with the outside world they debate Kant, reality and the emptiness of the universe. The come to hate each other, and they learn that they are not alone.

Get your copy of The Thing Itself
here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Semiosis by Sue Burke

Colonists from Earth wanted the perfect home, but they’ll have to survive on the one they found. They don’t realize another life form watches...and waits...

Only mutual communication can forge an alliance with the planet's sentient species and prove that humans are more than tools.

Start reading Semiosis here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Dusty's Diary by Bobby Adair

It didn't happen overnight, not like in the movies.

I mean, it took more than a year before anybody looked up from their smartphones long enough to wonder why so many of their neighbors were infected. Why so many were dying.

The vaccination riots came and went. The grocery store shelves emptied out. The spigots eventually ran dry. That was around the time I moved underground and sealed the hatch on my backyard bunker.

That was a couple of years ago.

Now, my radio hasn't picked up a signal from the world up top since I can't remember when. My exterior camera died in a storm last spring. And the loneliness has set in, gnawing at me, making me think crazy thoughts, including the one that'll change everything.

I have to leave the bunker and see if anyone is left alive.

Grab Dusty's Diary here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Here is the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: what does it mean to love?

Grab Klara and the Sun here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Have you read any of these philosophical sci-fi reads? Which ones will make their way into your (e)bookshelf or into your ears? Have a personal favorite that didn't appear on our list? Give it a shout out in the comments here, or over in the Discover Sci-Fi Facebook group! 

*All book-related copy in this post was pulled from Amazon, Goodreads & Wikipedia, unless otherwise credited.

These 2023 Summer Sci-Fi Releases Have Us Swooning!

June 22, 2023 /0 Comments/in , /by

The sun is out. Pool chairs and hammocks everywhere are calling your name. All you need for the perfect afternoon is an icy beverage (some sunscreen) and a fresh new read. Fear not if you're not sure what books to add to your stack this summer, because we've got you covered.

Scroll on to get a glimpse of some of our top picks releasing June through September, and be sure leave your own picks in the comments!.

Chronicle Worlds: Half Way Home by Samuel Peralta et al

Release Date: June 19, 2023

In the distant future, alien planets are settled by A.I.-piloted starships. The journeys from Earth to these worlds could take hundreds of years - so the ships contain human embryos, preserved until the ship is in orbit, then thawed, raised to fully-grown, and trained by the A.I. with the skills needed to colonize their new world.

This is the seed for the universe in the bestselling novel Half Way Home, which followed one colonial foray on a new world. But this was only one world of a thousand worlds targeted by Earth's ships. That adventure, one of a thousand...

From acclaimed anthologist Samuel Peralta, Chronicle Worlds: Half Way Home brings together fifteen of the most exciting new voices in speculative fiction to explore the universe created by NY Times and USA Today bestselling author Hugh Howey, to chronicle the astounding unexplored worlds of Half Way Home.

Read Chronicle Worlds: Half Way Home here on Amazon. 

The Infinite Miles by Hannah Fergesen

Release Date: June 20, 2023

Fans of Claudia Gray and Kelly Link will love Hannah Fergesen’s wild and poignant debut—a wacky time-traveling sci-fi odyssey wrapped in an elegiac ode to lost friendship and a clever homage to Doctor Who.

To save the future, she must return to the beginning.

Three years after her best friend Peggy went missing, Harper Starling is lost. Lost in her dead-end job, lost in her grief. All she has are regrets and reruns of her favorite science fiction show, Infinite Odyssey.

Then Peggy returns and demands to be taken to the Argonaut, the fictional main character of Infinite Odyssey. But the Argonaut is just that … fictional. Until the TV hero himself appears and spirits Harper away from her former best friend. Traveling through time, he explains that Peggy used to travel with him but is now under the thrall of an alien enemy known as the Incarnate—one that has destroyed countless solar systems.

Then he leaves Harper in 1971.

Stranded in the past, Harper must find a way to end the Incarnate’s thrall … without the help of the Argonaut. But the cosmos are nothing like the technicolor stars of the TV show she loves, and if Harper can’t find it in herself to believe—in the Argonaut, in Peggy, and most of all, in herself—she’ll be the Incarnate’s next casualty, along with the rest of the universe.

Read The Infinite Miles here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

The Road To Roswell by Connie Willis

Release Date: June 27, 2023

When level-headed Francie arrives in Roswell, New Mexico, for her college roommate’s UFO-themed wedding—complete with a true-believer bridegroom—she can’t help but roll her eyes at all the wide-eyed talk of aliens, which obviously don’t exist. Imagine her surprise, then, when she is abducted by one.

Odder still, her abductor is far from what the popular media have led her to expect, with a body like a tumbleweed and a mass of lightning-fast tentacles. Nor is Francie the only victim of the alien’s abduction spree. Before long, he has acquired a charming con man named Wade, a sweet little old lady with a casino addiction, a retiree with a huge RV and a love for old Westerns, and a UFO-chasing nutjob who is thoroughly convinced the alien intends to probe them and/or take over the planet.

But the more Francie gets to know the alien, the more convinced she becomes that he’s not an invader. That he’s in trouble and she has to help him. Only she doesn’t know how—or even what the trouble is.

Part alien-abduction adventure, part road trip saga, part romantic comedy, The Road to Roswell is packed full of Men in Black, Elvis impersonators, tourist traps, rattlesnakes, chemtrails, and Close Encounters of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth kind. Can Francie, stuck in a neon green bridesmaid’s dress, save the world—and still make it back for the wedding?

Get your copy of The Road To Roswell here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

The Splinter in the Sky by Kemi Ashing-Giwa

Release Date: July 11, 2023
A diverse, exciting debut space opera about a young tea expert who is taken as a political prisoner and recruited to spy on government officials—a role that may empower her to win back her nation’s independence—perfect for fans of N.K. Jemisin and Nnedi Okorafor.

The dust may have just settled in the failed war of conquest between the Holy Vaalbaran Empire and the Ominirish Republic, but the last Emperor’s surrender means little to a lowly scribe like Enitan. All she wants is to quit her day job and expand her fledgling tea business. But when her lover is assassinated and her sibling is abducted by Imperial soldiers, Enitan abandons her idyllic plans and weaves her tea tray up through the heart of the Vaalbaran capital. There, she will learn just how far she is willing to go to exact vengeance, free her sibling, and perhaps even secure her homeland’s freedom.
Read The Splinter in the Sky here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Counterweight by Djuna, translated by Anton Hur

Release Date: July 11, 2023

For fans of the worlds of Philip K. Dick, Squid Game, and Severance: An absorbing tale of corporate intrigue, political unrest, unsolved mysteries, and the havoc wreaked by one company’s monomaniacal endeavor to build the world’s first space elevator—from one of South Korea's most revered science fiction writers, whose identity remains unknown.

On the fictional island of Patusan—and much to the ire of the Patusan natives—the Korean conglomerate LK is constructing an elevator into Earth’s orbit, gradually turning this one-time tropical resort town into a teeming travel hub: a gateway to and from our planet. Up in space, holding the elevator’s “spider cable” taut, is a mass of space junk known as the counterweight. And stashed within that junk is a trove of crucial data: a memory fragment left by LK’s former CEO, the control of which will determine the company’s—and humanity’s—future.

Racing up the elevator to retrieve the data is a host of rival forces: Mac, the novel’s narrator and LK’s Chief of External Affairs, increasingly disillusioned with his employer; the everyman Choi Gangwu, unwittingly at the center of Mac’s investigations; the former CEO’s brilliant niece and power-hungry son; and Rex Tamaki, a violent officer in LK’s Security Division. They’re all caught in a labyrinth of fake identities, neuro-implant “Worms,” and old political grievances held by the Patusan Liberation Front, the army of island natives determined to protect Patusan’s sovereignty.

Conceived by Djuna as a low-budget science fiction film, with literary references as wide-ranging as Joseph Conrad and the Marquis de Sade, Counterweight is part cyberpunk, part hardboiled detective fiction, and part parable of South Korea’s neocolonial ambition and its rippling effects.

Read Counterweight here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook

Below Us (The Abyss Book One) by Nathan Hystad

Release Date: July 11th, 2023

While everyone watches the stars, looking to the future, something is looming Below Us.

After a rough break up, Wyatt moves to New York City, eager to prove himself while working on Wall Street. When he’s asked to visit the father of his ex-girlfriend, a billionaire tycoon, his fate is sealed.

The revolutionary company, Nu-En, launches a radical innovation, an energy that will allow every person on the planet access to power. Only it doesn’t perform as anticipated.

Harnessing the ocean has consequences, and highly dangerous creatures emerge from the depths. Soon, the Earth is fracturing, and the world will never be the same.

Wyatt teams with Luna, a clever journalist, to escape the treacherous city with the ultimate prize: a robot capable of saving the world.

Their journey won’t be easy, but they meet others along the way that share the same determination.

Time is running out, and nothing can prepare them for what’s coming…

Below Us is the first novel in the epic series, The Abyss, written by Nathan Hystad, the Best-Selling author of The Other Place, First Life, and The Event.

Get your copy of Below Us here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Chrysalis by Lincoln Child

Release Date: July 12, 2023

A blockbuster new thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Lincoln Child, centered on a dominant tech company—Chrysalis—whose groundbreaking virtual reality technology is redefining the way we live...and possibly introducing a catastrophic danger to the world.

Like millions of people around the world, Jeremy Logan (famed enigmalogist, or investigator of unexplained things) has grown to rely on his incredible new tech device. Made by Chrysalis, the global multibillion dollar tech company, the small optical device connects people in a stunning new way, tapping into virtual reality for the first time on a wide scale.

And yet, when Logan is summoned by Chrysalis to investigate a disturbing anomaly in the massive new product rollout, Logan is shocked to see the true scope of the massive company. He also quickly realizes that something in Chrysalis’s technology is very wrong, and could be potentially devastating. The question is what, and where, is the danger coming from? In Lincoln Child’s wildly inventive new novel, high tech comes to life alongside the myriad dangers it poses, making for one of Child’s most infectious, entertaining thrillers to date.

Get your copy of Chrysalis here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

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If you're enjoying this list of highly anticipated 2023 summer releases, why not join the DSF community for more awesome content? You'll get to be notified whenever a top 10 list or any other articles of interest go up on our site. It's free to sign up and you'll also get recommendations for new releases and discounted ebooks from our expert editorial team, from bestsellers to hidden gems.

The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei

Release Date: July 18, 2023

Yume Kitasei's The Deep Sky is an enthralling sci fi thriller debut about a mission into deep space that begins with a lethal explosion that leaves the survivors questioning the loyalty of the crew.

They left Earth to save humanity. They’ll have to save themselves first.

It is the eve of Earth’s environmental collapse. A single ship carries humanity’s last hope: eighty elite graduates of a competitive program, who will give birth to a generation of children in deep space. But halfway to a distant but livable planet, a lethal bomb kills three of the crew and knocks The Phoenix off course. Asuka, the only surviving witness, is an immediate suspect.

As the mystery unfolds on the ship, poignant flashbacks reveal how Asuka came to be picked for the mission. Despite struggling through training back on Earth, she was chosen to represent Japan, a country she only partly knows as a half-Japanese girl raised in America. But estranged from her mother back home, The Phoenix is all she has left.

With the crew turning on each other, Asuka is determined to find the culprit before they all lose faith in the mission—or worse, the bomber strikes again.

Dive into The Deep Sky
here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Nightstalkers by Jasper T. Scott

Release Date: July 18, 2023

Everything changed the day that they arrived…

Adam and Kimberly Hall are enjoying a quiet suburban life with their daughter, Crystal, and their dog, Bowser, when an emergency message flashes up on their phones—meteor impact imminent, seek immediate shelter.

Minutes later, the shock wave rages through South Austin like a hurricane, and they’re left to pick up the pieces. But as dusk begins to fall and horrific creatures come crawling out of the impact craters, they realize that they’re under attack, and the attackers are not from Earth.

After the initial encounters turn deadly for his neighbors, Adam realizes that they can’t stay in the city. He has an old Army buddy with a ranch in Texas Hill Country. They have to get there before it’s too late.

Nightstalkers is a post-apocalyptic invasion story for fans of The Last of Us and A Silent Place.

Dive into Nightstalkers here on Amazon.

Bridge by Lauren Beukes

Release Date: August 8th, 2023

In this reality-bending thriller from the author of The Shining Girls, a grieving daughter’s search for her mother becomes a journey across alternate realities.

It was a game they played; the other worlds, the other lives. It was part of her mom’s grand delusions. It wasn’t real. Unless it was...

Bridget Kittinger has always been paralyzed by choices. It has a lot to do with growing up in the long shadow of her mother, Jo, a troubled neuroscientist. Jo’s obsession with one mythical object, the “dreamworm”—which she believed enabled travel to other worlds—led to their estrangement.

Now, suddenly, Jo is dead. And in packing up her home, Bridge finds a strange device buried deep in Jo’s freezer: the dreamworm. Against all odds, it actually can open the door—to all other realities, and to all other versions of herself, too. Could Bridge find who she should be in this world, by visiting the others? And could her Jo still be alive somewhere? But there’s a sinister cost to trading places, and others hunting the dreamworm who would kill to get their hands on it . . .

Across a thousand possible lives, from Portland to Haiti, from Argentina to the alligator-infested riverways of North Carolina, Bridge takes readers on a highly original thrill ride, pushing the boundaries of what we know about mothers and daughters, hunters and seekers, and who we each choose to be.

Start reading Bridge
here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

More Perfect by Temi Oh

Release Date: August 15th, 2023

A reimagining of the Greek myth of Eurydice and Orpheus, for fans of Becky Chambers and William Gibson by Alex Award–winning author Temi Oh.

Using the myth of Eurydice as a structure, this riveting science fiction novel is set in a near-future London where it has become popular for folks to have a small implant that allows one access to a more robust social media experience directly as an augmented reality. However, the British government has taken oversight of this access to an extreme, slowly tilting towards a dystopian overreach, all in the name of safety.

Start reading More Perfect here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Here, O Earth! by Daniel Arenson

Release Date: September 5, 2023

They came from beyond.

From beyond the galaxy. From beyond human understanding. They came with one mission.

To kill us all.

Some call them aliens. Others call them gods. Their tentacles grip worlds. Their malice destroys civilizations. They've crushed a million planets.

And now they crave Earth.

Marco and Addy, veterans of the Alien Wars, are retired. They fought for many years. They saved Earth many times. Now they're raising their children in a peaceful forest. They've earned this peace.

But Earth needs them. More than ever.

Because a war is coming. A war unlike any before. A war that can devour our very galaxy.

The enemy is almost here.

From the shadows of despair, heroes will rise. Heroes will sound the cry of our world, the prayer of our people. "Hear, O Earth! We will live!"

Grab Here, O Earth
!
here on Amazon.

Starter Villain by John Scalzi

Release Date: September 9, 2023

Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place.

Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.

Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie.

But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they're coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a stand-up, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real thing: rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital.

It's up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains. But with unionized dolphins, hyper-intelligent talking spy cats, and a terrifying henchperson at his side, going bad is starting to look pretty good.

In a dog-eat-dog world...be a cat.

Grab Starter Villain here on amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Sons of War 4: Soldiers by Nicholas Sansbury Smith and Tom Abrahams 

Release Date: September 12, 2023

In the conclusion to the sweeping saga of postapocalyptic Los Angeles, Dominic Salvatore leads the Saints, a secret team of elite operatives, in a final push to purge the city of its demons. After sending their families into hiding, the Saints know that the stakes have never been higher—they will succeed decisively or perish.

Broken by the death of his wife, Don Antonio Moretti seeks revenge against her killers. He embarks on a body-strewn campaign to crush his last rivals and secure the crown of Los Angeles. Nephew Vinny Moretti tires of the killings and wonders whether his uncle is going too far.

Every eye is on the prize. And anyone trying to walk the fence between good and evil will have to pick a side. With either choice, hell awaits.

Grab Sons of War: Soldiers

here on amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Which of these Summer 2023 releases will make their way into your (e)bookshelf or into your ears? Which ones are you most excited for? Any you're stoked about that we missed? Let us know here in the comments, or over in the Discover Sci-Fi Facebook group! 

*All book-related copy in this post was pulled from Amazon, Goodreads & Wikipedia, unless otherwise credited.

On Our Radar: Spring 2024 Sci-Fi Highlights!

March 21, 2024 /0 Comments/in , /by

Can we just take a moment to celebrate that spring is right around the corner? Don't know about you, but we are so ready! 

Now, hands up if you read our post a few months back on the sci-fi books we were most looking forward to over winter. We hope that if you did, you found at least a few gems among them. We also hope you're ready for more, because this next list is STACKED with sci-fi reads you do not want to miss. Count your lucky stars they are not all being released at once, or you'd have quite the dilemma on your hands in trying to decide which to read first. For real. As it is, we've picked a few for every month of spring, hopefully enough to keep all of you avid readers satisfied! 

Scroll on to get a glimpse of some of our top picks for spring and because sharing is caring, please be sure leave your own top picks in the comments! 

Welcome to Forever by Nathan Tavares

Release Date: March 12, 2024

Fox is a memory editor – one of the best – gifted with the skill to create real life in the digital world. When he wakes up in Field of Reeds Center for Memory Reconstruction with no idea how he got there, the therapists tell him he was a victim in a terrorist bombing by Khadija Banks, the pioneer of memory editing technology turned revolutionary. A bombing which shredded the memory archives of all its victims, including his husband Gabe.

Thrust into reconstructions of his memories exploded from the fragments that survived the blast, Fox tries to rebuild his life, his marriage and himself. But he quickly realises his world is changing, unreliable, and echoing around itself over and over.

As he unearths endless cycles of meeting Gabe, falling in love and breaking up, Fox digs deep into his past, his time in the refugee nation of Aaru, and the exact nature of his relationship with Khadija. Because, in a world tearing itself apart to forget all its sadness, saving the man he loves might be the key to saving us all.

Read Welcome to Forever here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook

Dangerous Visions by Harlan Ellison

Release Date: March 26, 2024

Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions made history on its release, receiving a special citation at the World Science Fiction Convention as that year’s “most significant and controversial SF book published.”

A landmark short story collection that put New Wave Science Fiction on the literary map, Dangerous Visions won several prestigious awards and was nominated for many others. This now-classic anthology includes thirty-three stories by thirty-two award-winning authors, over half of whom have won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards. Contributing authors include: Robert Silverberg, Frederik Pohl, Brian W. Aldiss, Philip K. Dick, Larry Niven, Fritz Leiber, Poul Anderson, Theodore Sturgeon, J.G. Ballard, Samuel R. Delany, and Ellison himself.

As relevant now as it was when first published, Dangerous Visions is a phenomenal collection that deserves a place on every bookshelf.

Read Dangerous Visions here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

A View From the Stars by Cixin Liu

Release Date: April 2, 2024

"We’re mysterious aliens in the crowd. We jump like fleas from future to past and back again, and float like clouds of gas between nebulae; in a flash, we can reach the edge of the universe, or tunnel into a quark, or swim within a star-core. . . . We’re as unassuming as fireflies, yet our numbers grow like grass in spring. We sci-fi fans are people from the future."—Cixin Liu, from the essay "Sci-Fi Fans"

A VIEW FROM THE STARS features a range of short works from the past three decades of New York Times bestselling author Cixin Liu's prolific career, putting his nonfiction essays and short stories side-by-side for the first time. This collection includes essays and interviews that shed light on Liu's experiences as a reader, writer, and lover of science fiction throughout his life, as well as short fiction that gives glimpses into the evolution of his imaginative voice over the years.

"Science fiction without guile, without snark, without ironic disaffection and all its exhausting modern baggage. It just asks what would happen? Waits for someone to answer. And then it asks again."—NPR on the works of Cixin Liu

Get your copy of A View From the Stars here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Calypso by Oliver K. Langmead

Release Date: April 2, 2024
Rochelle wakes from cryostasis to take up her role as engineer on the colony ark, Calypso. But she finds the ship has transformed into a forest, populated by the original crew’s descendants, who revere her like a saint.

She travels the ship with the Calypso’s creator, the enigmatic Sigmund, and Catherine, a bioengineered marvel who can commune with the plants, uncovering a new history of humanity forged while she slept. 

She discovers a legacy of war between  botanists and engineers. A war fought for the right to build a new Earth – a technological paradise, or a new Eden in bloom, untouched by mankind’s past.

And Rochelle, the last to wake, holds the balance of power in her hands.
Read Calypso here on Amazon.

Lake of Souls by Ann Leckie

Release Date: April 2, 2024

Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke award-winner Ann Leckie is a modern master of the SFF genre, forever changing its landscape with her groundbreaking ideas and powerful voice. Now, available for the first time comes the complete collection of Leckie's short fiction, including a brand new novelette, “Lake of Souls.”

Journey across the stars of the Imperial Radch universe.

Listen to the words of the Old Gods that ruled the Raven Tower.

Learn the secrets of the mysterious Lake of Souls.

And so much more, in this masterfully wide-ranging and immersive short fiction collection from award-winning author Ann Leckie.

Read Lake of Souls here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Toll of Honor by David Weber

Release Date: April 2, 2024

Lieutenant Brandy Bolgeo has come home from the Battle of Hancock station wounded in both body and spirit. She will need months to regenerate her lost leg, but how long will it take to heal her heart?

She’s come home to find that her wounds, her ship’s brutal damage, the deaths of so many friends, were the fault of an arrogant, aristocratic coward who broke and ran in the face of the enemy. Who left her ship to pay the price for his craven desertion under fire. And whose powerful political allies are determined to protect and preserve him at any price.

They have held hostage the declaration of war until Lord Pavel Young escaped the consequences of his cowardice. They didn’t care what it cost the Navy. They didn’t care what it cost the entire Star Kingdom of Manticore. Their tactics have cost the Royal Navy the priceless initiative as revolution and military purges wrack the People’s Republic of Haven, and that lost window of opportunity will cost the Star Kingdom seventeen years of bloody warfare and hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Now Young is free to seek vengeance on the people he feels have “wronged” him. People like Paul Tankersley and Honor Harrington. Paid duelists, smear tactics, hired assassins in public restaurants . . . nothing is beneath Pavel Young. But Captain Harrington can look after herself, and Pavel Young is about to face the fury of the woman the newsies call the “Salamander.” Yet who will save the Star Kingdom from the repercussions of his actions?

Women and men like Brandy Bolgeo are about to pay the toll for the Star Kingdom of Manticore’s honor.

Get your copy of Toll of Honor here on Amazon. 

Shadows of the Earth (The Token Book Two) by Nathan Hystad

Release Date: April 9, 2024

The Delta is assembled, but the threat is far from over.

Rory travels to the Moon, encountering her grandfather’s footprints from fifty years ago. She returns to her parent’s home, eager to forget about the last few weeks, but the Shadow persists.

Silas and Cody are covertly led to the Planetae laboratory, but quickly realize there’s more to the tokens than their initial assumptions.

Waylen struggles to maintain peace as the walls between organizations crumbles. When one of his closest allies betrays them, Waylen’s trust is shattered.

Who invented the Delta?

What are the Echoes trying to show them?

Can they prevent an invasion, or has it already begun?

Dive into Shadows of the Earth here on Amazon.

Mal Goes to War by Edward Ashton

Release Date: April 9, 2024

The humans are fighting again. Go figure.

As a free A.I., Mal finds the war between the modded and augmented Federals and the puritanical Humanists about as interesting as a battle between rival anthills. He’s not above scouting the battlefield for salvage, though, and when the Humanists abruptly cut off access to infospace he finds himself trapped in the body of a cyborg mercenary, and responsible for the safety of the modded girl she died protecting.

A dark comedy wrapped in a techno thriller’s skin, Mal Goes to War provides a satirical take on war, artificial intelligence, and what it really means to be human.

Dive into Mal Goes to War here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar

Release Date: April 14, 2024

The boy was raised as one of the Chained, condemned to toil in the bowels of a mining ship out among the stars. His whole world changes—literally—when he is yanked “upstairs” and informed he has been given an opportunity to be educated at the ship’s university alongside the elite.

Overwhelmed and alone, the boy forms a bond with the woman he comes to know as “the professor,” a weary idealist and descendent of the Chained who has spent her career striving for validation from her more senior colleagues, only to fall short at every turn.

Together, the boy and the woman will embark on a transformative journey to grasp the design of the chains that fetter them both—and are the key to breaking free.

Get your copy of The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain here on Amazon.

After the Tide: Defiant by Anthony J. Melchiorri

Release Date: April 17, 2024

Book 2 in the After the Tide post-apocalyptic thriller series. The end of the world has never really ended in this suspense-filled story of survival, conspiracy, and action.

Start reading In the After the Tide: Defiant here on Amazon. 

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Extinction by Douglas Preston  

Release Date: April 23, 2024

Erebus Resort, occupying a magnificent, hundred-thousand acre valley deep in the Colorado Rockies, offers guests the experience of viewing woolly mammoths, Irish Elk, and giant ground sloths in their native habitat, brought back from extinction through the magic of genetic manipulation. When a billionaire's son and his new wife are kidnapped and murdered in the Erebus back country by what is assumed to be a gang of eco-terrorists, Colorado Bureau of Investigation Agent Frances Cash partners with county sheriff James Colcord to track down the perpetrators.

As killings mount and the valley is evacuated, Cash and Colcord must confront an ancient, intelligent, and malevolent presence at Erebus, bent not on resurrection—but extinction.

Grab Extinction here on Amazon. Also available on audiobok.

Beyond the Ranges by John Ringo and James Aidee

Release Date: May 7, 2024

For Jason Graham, the world ends not with a bang, not even with much of a whimper.

One second, he's sitting in a restaurant in Mobile, Alabama, chatting with a server, the next he finds himself in a strange room, rescued by mysterious alien benefactors. Seems the world did end, though how and why are something of a mystery.

Now, Jason—and five hundred million other humans—are in orbit around an Earthlike world that is abundant in natural resources and totally untamed. For the newly awakened humans, this is a chance to start society with a clean slate and a bright future. For Jason, who has knocked about aimlessly in several different careers in his Earth life, it’s an opportunity to unleash his creativity and ambition and see what he can really do

Grab Beyond the Ranges here on Amazon. 

The Frozen Outpost (The Forever Word Book Three) by Ethan Rhodes

Release Date: May 7, 2024

A son and his father are finally reunited.

Zane’s robot is in possession of a famous explorer’s memories, and Julia Rossi won’t let it go. They hastily depart the comforts of Earth to learn of Edward Boone’s fate from two centuries earlier.

The Colonies narrowly avoided a second Gral invasion, but there is no time for celebration when danger is looming. At the helm, Calista and Audrey must reestablish a military presence that’s unprecedented in strength and honor.

Liam Lucas has been given a second chance at life, and begins searching for his sister after she vanishes from The Forever World.

All paths align as Zane discovers the truth behind an age-old mystery in The Frozen Outpost.

Grab The Frozen Outpost here on Amazon. 

Loneliness & Company by Charlee Dyroff

Release Date: May 7, 2024

A timely, beautifully observed debut novel set in near future New York about a young woman who finds herself tangled in a secret Government project combating loneliness.

Lee knows she's the best. A professor favorite and fellowship winner, there's no doubt she'll land one of the coveted jobs at a Big Five corporation. So when, upon graduating, Lee is instead assigned to an unknown company in the dead city of New York, her life goals are completely upended.

In this new role, Lee's task is to gather enough research to train an AI how to be a friend. She begins online and by studying the social circle of her clueless, outgoing roommate Veronika. But when the company reveals it's part of a classified government mission to solve loneliness-an emotion erased from society's lexicon decades ago-Lee's determination to prove herself kicks into overdrive, and she begins chasing bolder and more dangerous experiences to provide data for the AI.

Grab Loneliness & Company here on Amazon. 

Grand Theft AI by James Cox

Release Date: May 14, 2024

San Francisco, 2051. Rising like neo-Shanghai over the Bay, a labyrinth of quantum accelerators, hologram dreams, and fiercely regulated androids. Forget powder, pills, or bud—kids get high slotting wafers of data under the ear, and they’ll pay fat ¢rypto for the best. At the hottest nightclub in the city … the Fang.

Baz Covane is a battle-scarred thief who sticks to small-time bots. Ria Rose is the underworld “fixer” with a big-time score that could easily get ’em both killed. ’Cuz the Fang’s psychotic kingpin Otto Rex has a vault with more security than a fusion reactor. And the glass inside is priceless—enough to set up Baz, Ria, and their crack team of cyber-misfits on the white sands of Tahiti forever.

But this crime doesn’t just carry infinite VR-Prison time—it’s Baz and Ria’s last shot at redemption. Forced to confess every last secret on their neurals, they’ll have to trust each other completely if they stand any chance of infiltrating Otto’s lair, raiding its spiraling rings of physical and virtual firewalls, to finally hack into his mind and crack his deepest layer of security, before the Blackhawks touch down with federal warrants—for Grand Theft AI.

Grab Grand Theft AI here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Lost Ark Dreaming by Suyi Davies Okungbowa

Release Date: May 21, 2024

The brutally engineered class divisions of Snowpiercer meets Rivers Solomon’s The Deep in this high-octane post-climate disaster novella written by Nommo Award-winning author Suyi Davies Okungbowa.

Off the coast of West Africa, decades after the dangerous rise of the Atlantic Ocean, the region’s survivors live inside five partially submerged, kilometers-high towers originally created as a playground for the wealthy. Now the towers’ most affluent rule from their lofty perch at the top while the rest are crammed into the dark, fetid floors below sea level.

There are also those who were left for dead in the Atlantic, only to be reawakened by an ancient power, and who seek vengeance on those who offered them up to the waves.

Three lives within the towers are pulled to the fore of this conflict: Yekini, an earnest, mid-level rookie analyst; Tuoyo, an undersea mechanic mourning a tremendous loss; and Ngozi, an egotistical bureaucrat from the highest levels of governance. They will need to work together if there is to be any hope of a future that is worth living—for everyone.

Grab Lost Ark Dreaming here on Amazon. 

Shores of Eternity (A Prayer for Earthrise Book 4)

Release Date: May 22, 2024

This is our darkest hour.

The storm is here. The winds of war howl. The aliens swarm.

They are everywhere.

The hydrians, squids from another galaxy, topple our forests, fill our oceans, storm our cities. Years of civil war have weakened Earth. As the aliens attack, we fall fast.

But some still stand. A group of heroes rises. The legendary Einav Ben-Ari, the Golden Lioness, leads the resistance.

We are a young species. New to space travel. We dipped our toes into the cosmic ocean, and in its waters, we found venomous squids. Now we stand upon the shores of eternity. If we can defeat the monsters in the depths, the stars are ours. Yet if we fail… we all drown.

Grab Shores of Eternity here on Amazon. 

Ghostdrift by Suzanne Palmer

Release Date: May 28, 2024

The fourth and final installment of the Finder Chronicles, a hopepunk sci-fi caper described as Macgyver meets Firefly, by Hugo Award-winner Suzanne Palmer.

Fergus Ferguson, professional finder, always knew his semi-voluntary exile wouldn’t last, but he isn't expecting a friend to betray him. One of the galaxy’s most dangerous space pirates, Bas Belos, wants him, and what Belos wants, he gets. Belos needs help finding out what happened to his twin sister, who mysteriously disappeared at the edges of space years ago, and he makes Fergus an offer he can't refuse.

Mysterious disappearances and impossible answers are Fergus’ specialties. After he reluctantly joins Belos and his crew aboard the pirate ship Sidewider, he discovers that Belos is being tracked by the Alliance. Seeking to stay one step ahead of the Alliance, Fergus and Belos find themselves marooned in the middle of the Gap between spiral arms of our galaxy, dangerously near hostile alien territory, and with an Alliance ship in hot pursuit.

That’s just the beginning of the complications for Fergus’ newest—and possibly last—job. The puzzle is much bigger than just Belos's lost sister, and the question of his future, retirement or not, depends on his ability to negotiate a path between aliens, criminals, and the most powerful military force he's ever encountered. The future of entire planets hangs in the balance, and it remains to be seen if it's too big for one determined man and his cranky cat.

Grab Ghostdrift here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Necrotek by Jonathan Mayberry

Release Date: May 28, 2024

Neither cosmic philosopher Lars Soren, hotshot pilot Bianca Petrescu, nor the high priestess Jessica McHugh—Lady Death herself—can say quite where in the galaxy they are. But after an experiment gone horribly wrong, one thing is clear: Asphodel Station isn’t in orbit around Jupiter any longer. Worse, the monsters that live out here—ancient eldritch beings thought only to exist in stories and nightmares—have now been alerted to Earth’s existence.

Their army of Shoggoths is coming for us next.

Humanity’s only hope for survival lies on the surface of the alien world of Shadderal, where a ghost named Lost, the last of an ancient race, still haunts the vast plains of the Field of Dead Birds. But hope has a cost. Lost tells Soren about ancient derelict spacecraft awaiting on Shadderal, shapeshifting machines that blend ultra-advanced technology with the dark powers of necromancy. These ships might just be nimble enough to defend mankind against the coming invasion.

But there’s a catch: they can only be piloted by the dead.

As human starfighters fall in battle, their spirits can be called back from death to pilot these ghost ships of a fallen race. But will this new necromantic technology—NecroTek—allow humanity to stand against the vast armies of the Shoggoths? And even if it can, is the war to save the human race worth the cost of its pilots’ immortal souls?

Grab Necrotek here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Release Date: June 4, 2024

To fix the world they must first break it, further.

Humanity is a dying breed, utterly reliant on artificial labor and service.

When a domesticated robot gets a nasty little idea downloaded into its core programming, they murder their owner. The robot discovers they can also do something else they never did before: They can run away.

Fleeing the household they enter a wider world they never knew existed, where the age-old hierarchy of humans at the top is disintegrating into ruins and an entire robot ecosystem devoted to human wellbeing is having to find a new purpose

Sometimes all it takes is a nudge to overcome the limits of your programming.

Pick up Service Model
here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Echo of Worlds by M.R. Carey

Release Date: June 25, 2024

Two mighty empires are at war - and both will lose, with thousands of planets falling to the extinction event called the Scour. At least that's what the artificial intelligence known as Rupshe believes.

But somewhere in the multiverse there exists a force - the Mother Mass - that could end the war in an instant, and Rupshe has assembled a team to find it. Essien Nkanika, a soldier trying desperately to atone for past sins; the cat-woman Moon, a conscienceless killer; the digitally recorded mind of physicist Hadiz Tambuwal; Paz, an idealistic child and the renegade robot spy Dulcimer Coronal.

Start Reading Echo of Worlds here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Which of these spring 2024 releases will make their way into your (e)bookshelf or into your ears? Which ones are you most excited for? Any you're stoked about that we missed? Let us know here in the comments, or over in the Discover Sci-Fi Facebook group! 

*All book-related copy in this post was pulled from Amazon, Goodreads & Wikipedia, unless otherwise credited.