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Desolation Road

Ian McDonald · back to the book

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24 books with the same feel

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Red Mars

Kim Stanley Robinson · 640 pages

Red Mars is the first novel of the Mars trilogy, published in 1992. It follows the beginnings of the colonization of Mars, from the arrival of the First Hundred to the First Martian Revolution.

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House Atreides

Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson · 681 pages

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A Forest of Stars

Kevin J. Anderson · 704 pages

Five years after attacking the human-colonized worlds of the Spiral Arm, the hydrogues maintain absolute control over stardrive fuel...and their embargo is strangling human civilization. On Earth, mankind suffers from renewed attacks by the hydrogues and decides to use a cybernetic army to fight them. Yet the Terran leaders don't realize that these military robots have already exterminated their o

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Hyperion

Dan Simmons · 481 pages

In the 29th century, the Hegemony of Man comprises hundreds of planets connected by farcaster portals. The Hegemony maintains an uneasy alliance with the TechnoCore, a civilisation of AIs. Modified humans known as Ousters live in space stations between stars and are engaged in conflict with the Hegemony. Numerous "Outback" planets have no farcasters and cannot be accessed without incurring sign

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The Mote in God's Eye

Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle · 560 pages

Science fiction classic about the rise, fall and subsequent rise of a civilization where the peak catastrophe is known as the "crazy eddy point". Introduces the concept of frictionless toilets that don't have any water in them but I suspect the authors didn't think it all the way through - I don't recall a negative air pressure that would keep odours in their rightfull place. Nevertheless a fascin

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Forty Thousand in Gehenna

C.J. Cherryh · 316 pages

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The Children of the Sky

Vernor Vinge · 444 pages

"Ten years have passed on Tines World, where Ravna Bergnsdot and a number of human children ended up after a disaster that nearly obliterated humankind throughout the galaxy. Ravna and the pack animals for which the planet is named have survived a war, and Ravna has saved more than one hundred children who were in cold-sleep aboard the vessel that brought them. While there is peace among the Tines

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Nightfall

Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg · 339 pages

These two renowned writers have invented a world not unlike our own--a world on the edge of chaos, torn between the madness of religious fanaticism and the stubborn denial of scientists. Only a handful of people on the planet Lagash are prepared to face the truth--that their six suns are setting all at once for the first time in 2,000 years, signaling the end of civilization!

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Xenocide

Orson Scott Card · 562 pages

On Lusitania, Ender finds a world where humans and pequeninos and the Hive Queen could all live together. However, Lusitania also harbors the descolada, a virus that kills all humans it infects, but which the pequeninos require in order to become adults. The Starways Congress so fears the effects of the descolada, should it escape from Lusitania, that they have ordered the destruction of the entir

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The Crucible of Time

John Brunner · 373 pages

The epic tale of the development, over millennia, of a species from a culture of planet-bound medieval city-states to a sophisticated, technological civilization.

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Brightness Reef

David Brin · 642 pages

David Brin's Uplift novels--Sundiver, Hugo award winner The Uplift War, and Hugo and Nebula winner Startide Rising--are among the most thrilling and extraordinary science fiction tales ever written. Now David Brin returns to this future universe for a new Uplift trilogy, packed with adventure, passion and wit.The planet Jijo is forbidden to settlers, its ecology protected by guardians of the Five

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Dragonquest

Anne McCaffrey · 331 pages

Another Turn, and the deadly silver Threads began falling again. So the bold dragonriders took to the air once more and their magnificent flying dragons swirled and swooped, belching flames that destroyed the shimmering strands before they reach the ground. But F'lar knew he had to find a better way to protect his beloved Pern, and he had to find it before the rebellious Oldtimers could breed a

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The Martian Chronicles

Ray Bradbury · 222 pages

This is a collection of science fiction short stories, cleverly cobbled together to form a coherent and very readable novel about a future colonization of Mars. As the stories progress chronologically the author tells how the first humans colonized Mars, initially sharing the planet with a handful of Martians. When Earth is devastated by nuclear war the colony is left to fend for itself and the co

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The Martian

Andy Weir · 383 pages

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 be

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Foundation's Edge

Isaac Asimov · 426 pages

After the defeat of the Mule by the Second Foundation, Terminus enjoys a period of prosperity and stability which is publicly attributed to the Seldon Plan, but which some feel is the work of the Second Foundation. A search is begun to determine if the Second Foundation still exists. Meanwhile, the Second Foundation finds that there is evidence of an independent force acting against the Mule to

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Caliban's War

James S.A. Corey · 608 pages

The second book in the NYT best-selling Expanse series, Caliban's War shows a solar system on the brink of war, and the only hope of peace rests on James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante's shoulders. Now a Prime Original series. We are not alone. On Ganymede, breadbasket of the outer planets, a Martian marine watches as her platoon is slaughtered by a monstrous supersoldier. On Earth, a

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Helliconia

Brian W. Aldiss

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The Butcher's Masquerade

Matt Dinniman · 720 pages

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Carl and Princess Donut refuse to be prey in the fifth book in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series—now with bonus material exclusive to this print edition! Attention. Attention. The gates are down. The hunters are loose. Run, Run, Run. A lush jungle teeming with danger. Savage dinosaurs seeking blood. A fallen princess intent on vengeance. A mysterious, end-of-floor celebra

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Majipoor Chronicles

Robert Silverberg · 314 pages

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Anathem

Neal Stephenson · 945 pages

Anathem, the latest invention by the New York Times bestselling author of Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle, is a magnificent creation: a work of great scope, intelligence, and imagination that ushers readers into a recognizable — yet strangely inverted — world.Fraa Erasmas is a young avout living in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, protec

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A Maze of Death

Philip K. Dick · 192 pages

A Maze of Death is a 1970 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. Like many of Dick's novels, it portrays what appears to be a drab and harsh off-world human colony and explores the difference between reality and perception. It is, however, one of his few to examine the human death instinct and capacity for murder and is one of his darkest novels.

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Echo of Worlds

M.R. Carey · 496 pages

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The Master and Margarita

Mikhail Bulgakov · 412 pages

The battle of competing translations, a new publishing phenomenon which began with One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, now offers two rival American editions of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. Mirra Ginsburg's (Grove Press) version is pointedly grotesque: she delights in the sharp, spinning, impressionistic phrase. Her Bulgakov reminds one of the virtuoso effects encountered in Za

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Wizard of the Crow

Ngugi wa Thiong'o · 784 pages

>From the exiled Kenyan novelist, playwright, poet, and literary critic--a magisterial comic novel that is certain to take its place as a landmark of postcolonial African literature.In exile now for more than twenty years, Ngugl wa Thiong'o has become one of the most widely read African writers of our time, the power and scope of his work garnering him international attention and praise. His aim i

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