If, before sitting down to write 1984, George Orwell had decided to candy-flip (ingest LSD and ecstasy simultaneously), he might have ended up with something like Memoirs Found in a Bathtub.
All posts by Dan
21 Best Alien Science Fiction Books
Aliens have always been a great way for authors to explore new ideas or hold a mirror to humanity, reflecting both our brightest hopes and darkest fears.
(Note that there’s already a list of 29 Best Alien Invasion Books, so I tried to steer away from invasion stories in this list.)
Review: Panda Ray by Michael Kandel
Panda Ray is a rare beast: a fun and weird adventure for kids where there is no Chosen One. Thank God. I’m a little tired of the Hero’s Journey.
19 Best Nanotechnology Science Fiction Books
© The Laboratory of Nanotechnology and Nanomedicine
Like all great advancements in technology, nanotechnology will eventually kill us all.
We’ll have vessel-repairing robots in our bloodstream, and drug-delivering bots in our synapses. Before long, we’ll be little more than fleshy carriers of nano-ecosystems. Actually, we’re already that for the bacteria in our gut, so maybe it won’t be so bad after all. Unless the nanobots and the bacteria have a war or something. That would suck.
Review: The City & The City by China Miéville
The City & The City is a noirish crime novel with some wonderfully inventive world-building, but its flat, wooden characters kept me from ever connecting with the story.
17 Best Weird Science Fiction Books
Art by Jarosław Jasnikowski
No matter how weird science fiction gets (and it can get pretty weird), it still always feels like a pale reflection of the incessant nuttiness of the real world.
Maybe I’m looking for a mushroom-and-fusion-fueled Burning Man spaceship that crashes into itself, tossing out stars like confetti.
Barring piloting that actual machine, the books below are a good way to push your brain in new directions. Some you’ll like, and some you’ll just detest.
Review: The Drowned World by J. G. Ballard
In The Drowned World, the sun’s become too hot (130°F on a good day), and the cities of the world are submerged. Humanity is now collected down in Antartica or above the Arctic circle.
(This was written in 1962, so way before the current climate change troubles.)
Ascent of Mechanical Man T-shirt
It’s just a matter of time, really.
Show your acceptance of our inevitable robot overlords before it’s cool.
Review: Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds
Revelation Space is a sprawling, hard-SF tale with enough original ideas for three thick novels. Seriously, it’s overflowing with the stuff. And it’s written by a guy with a PhD in astronomy, so all the science feels solid.
It’s got aliens, artificial intelligence, megastructures, colonized planets, ancient mysteries, cyborgs, big-ass spaceships, intrigue, betrayal, and murder. Reads don’t get much more satisfying than this.
Recommendation: Buy it or get it at the library. Then read the other four Revelation Space books and buy the box set when it comes out (this is my current plan).
Review: The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks
I learned about author Iain M. Banks when I was in San Francisco, swing dancing with a woman, who recommended him to me during a twirl. I paid her back by executing a successful “death drop” dance move on her. Amazingly, she did not end up with a cracked skull.
The Algebraist is not one of Banks’ popular Culture stories, taking place only a couple thousand years in the future instead of ten thousand, but it’s still fun.