Best thriller & suspense books according to redditors
We found 4,344 Reddit comments discussing the best thriller & suspense books. We ranked the 829 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 4,344 Reddit comments discussing the best thriller & suspense books. We ranked the 829 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
I enjoyed "Time Enough for Love"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_Long
Also:
"Elantris" and "Warbreaker" by Brandon Sanderson
Oh! Also check out "The Mummy or Ramses the Damned" by Anne Rice!
It was brutal. I wasn't that good. But there were many people who were superb. It was such a pleasure watching them perform.
Here are some sci-fi recommendations (you may have read them already, but I thought I'd offer anyway):
Serious Scifi:
Anathem the "multiverse" (multiple realities) and how all that works
Seveneves feminism meets eugenics—watch out!
The Culture series by Iain Banks, esp Book 2, the Player of Games Banks is dead, but wrote some of the best intellectual scifi ever
Brilliant, Visionary:
Accelerando brilliant and hilarious; and it's not a long book
Snowcrash classic
Neuromancer another classic
Tawdry yet Lyrical (in a good way):
Dhalgren beautiful, poetic, urban, stream of consciousness, and more sex than you can believe
Underrated Classics:
Voyage to Arcturus ignore the reviews and the bad cover of this edition (or buy a diff edition); this is the ONE book that every true scifi and fantasy fan should read before they die
Stress Pattern, by Neal Barrett, Jr. I can't find this on Amazon, but it is a book you should track down. It is possibly the WORST science fiction book ever written, and that is why you must read it. It's a half-assed attempt at a ripoff of Dune without any of the elegance or vision that Herbert had, about a giant worm that eats people on some distant planet. A random sample: "A few days later when I went to the edge of the grove to ride the Bhano I found him dead. I asked Rhamik what could have happened and he told me that life begins, Andrew, and life ends. Well, so it does."
The only two I haven't seen listed already are:
> i will have to check out Neuromancer as it seems interesting.
the movie, Johnny Mnemonic, is also based off Neuromancer, but it's not super great at presenting the themes the book develops.
Snow Crash has a lot of Gibson/Neuromancer elements, but also includes some interesting concepts about language and religion.
here's Amazon links for both of them. $20 well spent IMO.
https://www.amazon.com/Neuromancer-William-Gibson/dp/0441569595
https://www.amazon.com/Snow-Crash-Neal-Stephenson/dp/0553380958
Iain M Banks' has a book titled The Algebraist, there are aliens in it called Dwellers; each individual dweller lives for millions of years and the species has been around for 10 billion. Dwellers are...not what you'd expect from beings that old.
Daemon and its sequel Freedom, by Daniel Suarez
Suarez is one of us.
General
Neuromancer By William Gibson
Neuromancer spawned the Cyberpunk genre and is responsible for much of cyber culture today, despite being written before the internet entered the public consciousness. Interesting characters, poetic descriptions, and a drug-addled noir atmosphere.
>Goodreads blurb: The Matrix is a world within the world, a global consensus- hallucination, the representation of every byte of data in cyberspace . . .
>Case had been the sharpest data-thief in the business, until vengeful former employers crippled his nervous system. But now a new and very mysterious employer recruits him for a last-chance run. The target: an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence orbiting Earth in service of the sinister Tessier-Ashpool business clan. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case embarks on an adventure that ups the ante on an entire genre of fiction.
>Hotwired to the leading edges of art and technology, Neuromancer ranks with 1984 and Brave New World as one of the century's most potent visions of the future. (less)
If you liked Hunger Games, try Divergent and Insurgent by Veronica Roth. It's a trilogy, the third one isn't out yet. This series has similar themes and a very similar tone to Hunger Games.
Sure!
Cryptonomicon
Snow Crash
The Electric Church
Neuromancer
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
That should get you started. :)
I'm assuming that you're looking for stories set in a recognisable, modern or near-future setting, in that case:
I first saw it in neuromancer. If you haven't read neuromancer yet... You really should. Also count zero and mona Lisa overdrive; these 3 books form the Sprawl trilogy and were hugely influential in the formation of the cyberpunk genre.
oh man this is bringing back memories...
I forgot he also wrote (illustrated?) those books on castles and underground too
You might even get a kick out of The Hunger Games or Divergent... And of course 1984 :)
Sounds like you might enjoy Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. I think Snow Crash is meant to be in the same universe - it's hilarious but not as dense. You might also like his Cryptonomicon, though it's not technically Sci Fi.
Tad Willams' Otherland Series is Epic Sci Fi with a huge amount of detail. Might be right up your alley.
Dune, Neuromancer and The Enderverse if you haven't already read those.
I doubt this is it, but I'll plug Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein.
http://www.amazon.com/Time-Enough-Love-Robert-Heinlein/dp/0441810764/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371002335&sr=8-1&keywords=time+enough+for+love
Hopefully it might help you or someone else get pointed in the right direction.
I wouldn't call it paranoia. The media is totally sensationalizing what he says. But nothing he has said has been wrong. Nukes are insanely dangerous, but a nuke doesn't think.
I think the first nuclear tests were even extremely risky, if I recall correctly, during a documentary I was watching it was said that they weren't exactly sure what would happen... they had a good idea but it was simply an idea. (idea == theory)
Elon Musk wants to dump money into making sure our first AI is developed to be benevolent rather than self serving, I say why not? There's actually a good sci-fi book that touches on this subject: Post-Human (Amazon).
[Post-Human Spoiler](/s "Essentially, China rushes an AI to win the world war but in the process of rushing the AI essentially takes over and begins to attempt to wipe out the planet. The government is finally able to send a suicide team with a tactical nuke to take it out, at which point strong AI is banned. Meanwhile a team secretly works on a strong AI but with the intent of having it be a protector of humanity from both other strong AIs but also from itself and their environment. Long story short, it ends up doing all of that.")
Additional notes...
Basic Background
Recommended Viewing Order
Start with the first film. It's the foundation for everything else.
Next, I'd watch the two Stand Alone Complex series
You can watch the second movie or the four Arise episodes in any order.
Primer Information About the Wider GitS world (Mild Spoilers)
The below is written in a block so as to make provide optical camouflage against accidentally catching spoilers if you don't want to read them.
The goal of this section is to help ease you into understanding the politics and organization of the GitS world.
The GitS world is set in Japan, but there are also international players. Japan has gone to war against other (made up) nations (sorta like Kazakstan), and we meet some of the ex-soldiers. Cybernetic technology is now well integrated into society, but was most extensively developed, weaponized and used by the military. At the most basic level, almost everyone now has brain implants. These implants are the foundation of most of the philosophical discussion in the GitS world. They're also the foundation for most of the crime, communication and investigation. Some people only have those basic neural implants, while others are entirely or almost entirely cybernetic. Much of the philosophical discussion, then, is about the line between the physical body and the soul (ghost), about what makes us individual and unique.
Americans are not the good guys (in many respects, the series extrapolates on how WWII influenced and continues to influence Japan's development and national identity). The Japanese government is divided into self-contained groups: ministries and sections. We follow Section 9. On the surface these groups all work together, but there's really a lot of backstabbing and secret warfare between the groups.
I think that's enough to get you started.
tl;dr: Definitely watch - one of my favorite creations of everything of all time. Enjoy!
I'm almost always juggling reading material. At the moment I am reading Neuromancer by William Gibson, and Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Just finished reading Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet by John G Turner, which I highly recommend.
I'm currently reading Year Zero by Rob Reid.
It deals with the fact that, due to how twisted our copyright laws are, and how ridiculous the damages are supposed be when copyright infringement occurs, that the alien civilizations who've been listening in and loving our music are now faced with being copyright pirates to the tune of all possible wealth in the universe.
That seemed pertinent to the subject at hand. Also, the book is pretty funny, in a Douglas Adams kind of way.
Oldie but goodie!
https://www.amazon.com/Underground-David-Macaulay/dp/0395340659
Neuromancer https://www.amazon.com/dp/0441569595/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i_ixV8AbZ5SWX6N
> What if my children or a younger friend will be immortal? In a thousand years they will have forgotten the 40 years they spent with me.
If that's really what you believe, may I suggest reading Robert A. Heinlein's Time Enough for Love. ( Amazon )
Interesting, I'm reading Cory Doctorow's latest novel, which comes from a (very) roughly similar moral perspective as well. It's pretty weird. Although in the fictional universe (medium-term future) cheap 3D printing supposedly makes possible the post-scarcity conditions necessarily for "decommodifying labor and offering every human the resources to flourish". But so far the book reads a lot like a communist Atlas Shrugged, up to and including the long-winded philosophical monologues. Maybe it will get better though; the story itself has some interesting sci-fi elements, so I haven't given up yet.
Rex Electi is a book she wrote based on a prompt here on reddit. There's also Prompt Me which is a collection of short stories from writing prompts. Here's her author page on Amazon.
Never been to a reading, date or otherwise. Are they any good? I tend to like just reading my books, you know.
I have no OKC dating-related reading stories. I saw a girl on tram reading 'Infinite Jest' once and I wanted to ask her out so bad. But rude, so I didn't.
Some girl came to me at the bookshop and started talking to me once. I think she was flirting, but honestly, I was too engrossed in my book so I blew her off. Reading is serious business.
Right now I'm reading 'The Blockade Breakers: The Berlin Airlift' by Helena P. Schrader and re-reading Charles Stross's 'Halting State'.
David Brin wrote a great novel that explores this somewhat called Kiln People. It's a fun and pretty easy read, and directly deals with those questions! It's a murder mystery involving temporary human avatars made from a kind of recyclable slurry that people upload consciousness to.
You remind me of the villain in The Algebraist...his name escapes me.
Literary Fathers of VR
1950: Ray Bradbury's 'The Veldt'.
1981: Vernor Vinge's 'True Names'.
1984: William Gibson's 'Neuromancer'.
http://www.amazon.com/Freedom-TM-Daemon-Book-2-ebook/dp/B002VUFKDY
as well as the original Daemon (http://www.amazon.com/Daemon-Daniel-Suarez-ebook/dp/B003QP4NPE/) Both are great reads.
Found it.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005X0K520/
The book has already been written: Avogadro Corp: The Singularity is Closer Than It Appears
It's actually a series. It's an interesting approach to how the singularity could occur, and they actually aren't "trying" to create an AI, it happens by a fortunate accident. And the second book in the series is called "The AI Apocalypse", where a battle begins between two completely different AI architectures.
My highest priority item is Insurgent because I got Divergent for Christmas and just read it last week and now I am dying to read the next book in the series!
I spent the flight from London to the US reading Macauly's Underground.
Who knew sewers could be so fascinating?
I'd recommend Halting State and Rule 34 by Charles Stross. In form they are near-future poilce procedurals, in a world where virtual reality increasing impinges on the real world. "Halting State" involves a robbery in an MMORG that has real-world consequences. "Rule 34" involves a series of murders in Edinburgh, Scotland, that lead to a deep conspiracy rooted in a former Russian republic. The stories use the implications of virtual reaiity and online communications jumped up well beyond what we have now, and their representation of how virtual reality will affect everyday lives and police work will have you thinking.
If you want to a book by Stross that's just pure, balls-to-the-wall ideas, try "Accelerando" available for free, here. It's not representative of his later work, but if you want something to get you mind working ... it'll do.
What are your top five must-own books?
Mine, in no real order are:
(I'll put in links when I get home)
edit: with amazon links
I have several good recommendations for this one. First I will give you two fiction books you MUST read if this subject is a real interest of yours.
Islands In The Net by: Bruce Sterling
https://www.amazon.com/Islands-Net-Bruce-Sterling-ebook/dp/B00PDDKVXK/
Neuromancer by William Gibson
https://www.amazon.com/Neuromancer-William-Gibson/dp/0441569595
For non-fiction the one book that really did it for me was again by Mr. Sterling it's called The Hacker Crackdown and it is so amazing!!
https://www.amazon.com/Hacker-Crackdown-Disorder-Electronic-Frontier/dp/055356370X
Good luck. PM for more recommendations if you need them. This is a genre I am very interested in myself and have read extensively.
For sheer 'play in the virtual world' stuff, you MUST read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. You'll blaze through that, so follow it up with Stephenson's The Diamond Age
Good YA dystopic future stuff:
The Windup Girl
Station Eleven
Finally, get into Neuromancer, by William Gibson. It's a fantastic--some would say genre-defining--cyberpunk novel.
Then go devour everything Stephenson and Gibson put out there. That should get you through at least the first half of the summer. Happy reading!
Good fiction excites the mind and teaches new concepts. Most future minded scientists are science fiction fans for that reason.
Snow Crash is just a fun ride. Pulp fiction, not more complex or involved than that. Enders Game is the same.
Try the fanfiction I recommended, or Understand (pdf) by Ted Chiang, or The Last Question by Asimov, or Baby Eating Aliens by Yudkowsky. All of these are free, by the way, and relatively short.
Each have important lessons embedded in good stories, philosphical quandries that we are rapidly approaching, like what will it mean to be human when we are no longer entirely biological?
Also, if you want just a reeeeeaallly good scifi book, I don't think you can go past Neuromancer by Gibson. Less thought provoking but seriously well written.
Believe it or not there are quite a few good sci-fi books exploring these ideas already. Here is an incomplete list you may want to check out:
Do you read cyberpunk? Looking at art is great but I find reading to be the biggest inspiration because how I imagine the world is unique and original to me. Likewise, how you imagin the world will be unique and original too and completely different from how I see it. Check out books like Neuromancer, the book that started cyberpunk.
[edit] One of my favorite quotes from the book
> His eyes were eggs of unstable crystal, vibrating with a frequency whose name was rain and the sound of trains, suddenly sprouting a humming forest of hair-fine glass spines.
Paints a different kind of picture than you can get from images.
Neuromancer by William Gibson.
Other works of fiction that contain the concept of a metaverse;
Books
Anime and Manga
Film
----
I know I haven't even begun to scratch the surface of the genre, because if there's one thing humans are good at, it's writing fucktons on what we like.
So feel free to comment additions to this list, or opinions on what I've currently included. I have by no means read/watched all of these, so having someone with actual experience with each of these weigh in would be nice.
My nomination might be quite a difficult read but it is short in comparison and may leave us invigorated.
Neuromancer by William Gibson [SCIFI,NS]
> * The Matrix is a world within the world, a global consensus- hallucination, the representation of every byte of data in cyberspace . . .
Case had been the sharpest data-thief in the business, until vengeful former employees crippled his nervous system. But now a new and very mysterious employer recruits him for a last-chance run. The target: an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence orbiting Earth in service of the sinister Tessier-Ashpool business clan. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case embarks on an adventure that ups the ante on an entire genre of fiction.
Hope you like it.
Heinlein's Time Enough for Love is like this. Lazarus Long starts out in full depression and even has a [Spoiler:](#s "button he is told will kill him but really just erases his memories for the past few hours") and uses it, several times. He abducted, OD's on drugs, gets shot, gets sent to the wrong [Spoiler:](#s "time by several years and his child self is an asshole to him"). He has to deal with several deaths including the deaths of people he loves.
It is Scifi and it is heinlein so it can be weird, he also did A Stranger in Strange Land and Starship Troopers. The main character is functionally immortal and has lost the will to live, and there is a bunch of non-conventional sex. If you can get past or enjoy ;) that then you will likely enjoy Time Enough for Love.
So, it was a fun book, but I found more than a few aspects of it to be a bit unbelievable and aggravating.
-----
[Spoiler](/s "The nominal concept of the setting is that everybody alive has a high capacity digital storage device embedded in the base of their skull/neck that keeps track of everything they do/say/learn/experience. As such humans are basically software... you can put any consciousness in any body. Bodies can be grown, or confiscated, or traded. Any event that kills a person but doesn't destroy the storage device doesn't kill the person permanently... he/she just downloads into a new body... possibly one that was a clone of the old body, or possibly an upgrade or downgrade depending upon finances. In fact, there is no need to even go back into a body as one can run one's consciousness entirely inside a virtual environment... and at a much faster rate than a human brain would support. This is not a concept in the background... the story revolves around this idea. ")
[Spoiler](/s "If you find that to be a believable idea, then you'll love the book. I don't. I think that too much of how we think is intrinsic to the mechanism of how our brains work. You couldn't put a genius mind into the body of mentally disabled person... you'd end up with a mentally disabled person with vague memories of being a genius. Personally, I don't think it could work even in less extreme cases than that: I strongly suspect that information and meaning as it is experienced in a human is encoded symbolically into neurons in a way that is utterly different and incompatible with the way similar or even identical information is encoded into the neurons of any other human... that is the way any individual thinks is essentially encrypted relative to the way any other individual thinks... and that this is a property that is physically encoded in the shape and genetics of individual neurons in the brain such that it could never be separated from the brain. (This is consistent with what we know about how brains work from fMRI studies... when you look at a picture, or do a task such as multiplication, the same general regions of the brain light up for you as anyone else, but the pattern of activation isn't exactly the same... ever). ")
[Spoiler](/s "But lets say we choose to ignore the fact that the premise is more than a little incompatible with what we know of neurobiology. The premise is also self contradictory in ways that are annoyingly implausible but convenient for the plot. Without getting into spoilers, Altered Carbon takes place in a society that has the ability to copy and digitize the consciousness of a human, create functional independent AIs, run simulations of humans so realistic that the simulations don't know that they are simulations or that the environment that they are in is simulated, move such software-human-identities between bodies, and yet still treats human consciousness as a black box! You want to extract a particular fact from a stored mind? You have to actually boot that mind up into a body or software simulated environment, and ASK IT with language! I mean, if the author wants to explore the consequences of human identity as software that's great, but GO ALL THE WAY! Extracting information from a stored consciousness, given all the other things this civilization can do, should be child's play... as simple as typing in search terms in a search engine... the fact that the consciousness is not running should only make it easier. ")
[Spoiler](/s "All in all, a fun light reading, but not as intriguing as it could have been. In many ways, Kiln People by Brin explored much the same subject matter, and did so in a more intellectually rigorous manner. Oddly, the fact that the mind-copying technology is much less believable in Brin's book (and analogue rather than digital in nature) makes the over all story much more believable because it lets the story focus more upon the metaphysical, social, and moral implications.")
Fiction Books
Cryptonomicon - Very few books make up a cypher system based on playing cards, have a story that spans WW2 through the present day and in large part revolve around creating an alternate digital currency, a data haven and startup life.
Neuromancer - this is the book that created cyberpunk and that inspired all those bad movie ideas about hacking in 3D systems. That being said, it marked a real turning point in SciFi. Without this book "cyber" security specialists would probably be called something else.
Snow Crash - This is much more breezy than the other two but still has very recognizable hacking/security elements to it and is just fun.
Non Fiction
Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman - This isn't a book about technology so much as deduction and figuring things out (while being hilariously entertaining).
I included all these here in large part because they are what inspired me to get into development and sysadmin work and I bet that I'm about 20 years older than you if you're just getting into the field - so there's a decent chance that your coworkers are into them too.
Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway.
Neuromancer by William Gibson.
Stars in My Pockets Like Grains of Sand by Samuel Delany.
So then we can have what's in the book Freedom: http://www.amazon.com/Freedom-TM-Daniel-Suarez-ebook/dp/B002VUFKDY/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1417827999&sr=8-3&keywords=freedom
BV Larson's Star Force series is pretty decent.
The Starforce Series
Love this series highly recommend it up until the third book but the fourth book... His other series on silver wings fits the bill as well though.
A few other great reads though that are fairly similar listed in the order of my preference.
Also sorry about high jacking this started writing this as a response then ended up recommending a bunch of other books .
Related sci-fi novel Avogadro Corp.
The premise is "What if Google invents the world's first AI, and it's a paperclip maximizer of language?"
Greetings! Acquiring editor and freelance editor here. Thought I'd give you some info on what I know to be the TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING ROUTE.
Agents are the way to go for traditional publishing. Get a good query letter, a nice synopsis, and a polished manuscript. If you have a good hook and a clean manuscript, then you're in the green.
Check out your favorite authors (the ones that have similar work to your own) and find their agents. See about their agencies as possible places to send queries.
If you're looking for editors (which you should only do once you've done a good deal of revising yourself), a great place to try is your favorite authors again! Check out their publishers and find out if they use in-house or freelance editors. See if you can get in contact with them. Of course, this is going to cost some cash money as this level of editor runs $30-60/hour, if not more.
On the opposite end, college students can make for adequate proofreaders for much less money. However, they won't be the best help when it comes to actual revisions.
When it comes down to it, you need a professional for professional work. There are some editors here on the writing subreddits with varying degrees of skill and expertise. I've done work for fellow redditors at relatively low prices (relatively is the key phrase, as even a 50% discount is putting you at $15/hour) with some good success. If you want more info, send me a PM and I can give you the lowdown on hiring a freelance editor (preferably a local editor so you can go shake their hand).
Even self publications need good editors, though. I spoke briefly with the author of Avagadro Corp. who spoke to the difference in the sales of his first two self-published novels. His first went through low quality editors and he got a lot of flak for it. The second time through, he paid a pro and got great results! William Hertling: He's even got a book on how to maximize the chance of your self publication to hit critical mass.
Avogadro corp series: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006ACIMQQ
AI isn't omnipotent, but close, and a very good description on how the AI comes to be.
An episode set in the backdrop of a NYC Blackout would be really cool. Like a parody of the real NYC blackout of 1977. Maybe it's the dark army's real motive for working with Elliot on "Stage 2". Elliot even says something in beginning of s2e9 like "we never questioned the dark army's motives"). It is totally plausible, even likely, that the Dark Army is sponsored by the State (China), maybe they want to have the first strike in a true Cyber War with the US. First they break down society by aiding the crash of the financial system and encouraging dissent. Next cut the power, civilization starts to unfold, next bring the telecom systems down, invade, WWIII! Ok I'll put my tin foil hat back on.
edit - this is also a part of the plot of a book I read recently called Cyber Storm
Player of Games is a good book, and it's early enough in the Culture series that Banks hadn't yet realized he made the Minds too powerful and doesn't need the human characters to actually do anything. But it is not military science fiction and I don't think it's similar to The Forever War.
If you're looking for more military sci-fi I can recommend Forging Zero, All You Need is Kill, David Weber's Honor Harrington series, Orphanage...and many more I'm sure. Armor is great and I'm sure you've heard of Starship Troopers.
A note on David Weber, I find his overuse of italics a constant irritation when reading his books. It really helps to get digital copies and run them through calibre to eliminate all the italics first.
Try out The Legend of Zero Series. I'm reading it now and it gives off some Red Rising vibes. Here's the Amazon book summary:
First Contact didn't go as expected. Now they own us.
Earth has been conquered by a massive galactic empire, and its war machine needs soldiers. In a cruel twist of fate, fourteen-year-old Joe Dobbs accidentally ends up on a ship carrying Earth's children to an alien training planet. To make it out alive, he must survive an apathetic bureaucracy that sees humans as little more than spare rations. Meat with guns. Or, if they're really unlucky, servants.
The oldest of the children drafted from humanity’s devastated planet, Joe unwittingly becomes the centerpiece in a millennia-long alien struggle for independence. Once his training begins, one of the elusive and prophetic Trith gives Joe a spine chilling prophecy that the universe has been anticipating for millions of years: Joe will be the one to finally shatter the vast alien government known as Congress. And the Trith cannot lie.…
But first Joe has to make it through boot camp.
For lovers of sci-fi thrillers, alien invasion stories, space opera, and sprawling first contact science fiction, this is an unforgettable post-apocalyptic epic about perseverance and survival in a harsh new world where humanity is just another item on the menu...
Now i just realized i read 18 books this month... what the hell.
amazon.ca link for any other cannucks http://www.amazon.ca/Post-Human-Books-1-4-David-Simpson-ebook/dp/B00H0D5NTI/
The post-human series is one of my all time favorite tanshuman series. It's got some good character development, A.I., most may consider it leaning towards fantasy in some aspects. I always just remember the quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00H0D5NTI/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1488172906&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=post+human+omnibus&dpPl=1&dpID=51nKxcjtmcL&ref=plSrch
Just to inform you and all german redditors:
Amazon DE has your physical copy IN STOCK: https://www.amazon.de/dp/1540338371/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1479481605&sr=8-2&keywords=rex+electi
Kindle Edition: https://www.amazon.de/Rex-Electi-English-W-P-Kimball-ebook/dp/B01N03B1AJ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1479481605&sr=8-1&keywords=rex+electi
Your book will be on my wishlist for xmas ;)
4.Hey Bean! My mom makes an awesome gumbo! I wish you could try it.
Okay - then to start, I will recommend Oryx and Crake and Year of the Flood, both by Margaret Atwood. They're part of a trilogy, the third book is due out this fall. Atwood defines them as speculative fiction; they're set in the not-to-distant future, and follow the downfall of civilization. I like Year of the Flood better, but both are pretty awesome.
For fantasy, I really like The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay. It's a blend of celtic mythology, fantasy, and arthurian legend. Some people don't like that it's basically an homage to LOTR, but it's one of my absolutely alll-time favourites.
For YA dystopian fiction, I'd suggest Divergent and Insurgent - also a trilogy, not sure when the third one is due out, off-hand.
One of my favourite sci-fi series is Phule's Company and the following books, by Robert Asprin. I also love Time Scout by him and Linda Evans. His writing is ridiculously clever and witty, and he's one of last century's greatest writers, in my opinion.
And finally, I love anything by Terry Pratchett - his Discworld series is amazing. So very very British and hilarious.
Here's the link
Reminded me of the book Underground by David Macaulay. It has some really neat drawings of what city infrastructure would look like if we had X-ray vision.
If you like this kinds of stuff, check out this book:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0395340659/ref=wms_ohs_product
There are a lot of dystopian future books that really aren't that similar to The Hunger Games or Divergent. Did you want books about people competing in cruel games in a dystopian future, or is it just the dystopian aspect you want to explore?
Either way, there's a huge field to choose from. Neuromancer. The Electric Church. The Running Man. Just to name a few.
After loads of reading on the bus to work every day, here follows my reading list for military aviation:
Modern
Vietnam
WWII
Overall/Other
Bonus non-military aviation
I highly second the recommendations of Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, and Diamond Age. I would also recommend:
Careful, if they become sentient they could start subtley creating their own sleeper agents. The Book
I'm going to chip in Stephenson's Snow Crash should be on the list, as well as Gibson's Neuromancer.
I've recently read two books that I absolutely fell in love with:
1.) Stories of Your Life and Others: http://www.amazon.com/Stories-Your-Life-Others-Chiang/dp/1931520720/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413578672&sr=8-1&keywords=stories+of+your+life+and+others
2.) Neuromancer (A classic that I've just gotten into): http://www.amazon.com/Neuromancer-William-Gibson/dp/0441569595/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413578739&sr=8-1&keywords=neuromancer
Neuromancer https://www.amazon.com/dp/0441569595/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_bQNQBbPVB7VPK
That’s the copy I have.
The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0553380958?pc_redir=1404734999&robot_redir=1
Snow crash
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0441569595/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1404785560&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40
Neuromancer
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0307887448/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1404785598&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40
Ready Player One
I'm reading Time Enough For Love by Robert Heinlein right now. It takes place in the year 4272 in an interplanetary human civilization with "the Senior", who's been alive since the 1940's (and who's genes aided research into 'rejuvenation clinics' for the wealthy and connected), giving his life stories and wisdom to the leader of a planet who wants to leave and colonize a new world. It's a fascinating read, and gets into some decent scientific detail too. Heinlein also wrote Stranger in a Strange Land and Starship Troopers.
Time Enough For Love!
OK I tried to do a spoiler alert with formatting but I am not with it enough to do so at this hour.
So - try out Kiln People for size.
www.amazon.com/Kiln-People-Books-David-Brin/dp/0765342618/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=kiln+people&qid=1572919327&s=books&sr=1-1
Qotd: What kind of clone? Like in Kiln People? if it was like that, I'd say, do my photo editing that I'm behind on, another to do all the flyer hanging I need to get done (and travel for), and a 3rd to tackle my to-do lists. My original self will stay here and pet cats.
​
Iain Banks wrote a nice fat novel where the galaxy's primary religion had the same idea.
Nobody has mentioned Iain M. Banks yet, so how about
The Algebraist
Excession
Against a Dark Background
Another military sci-fi novel with several unique twists would be Vernor Vinge's:
A Fire Upon the Deep
Hard to beat Ender's Game, though. Old Man's War is really good; Armor is good but kinda depressing.
I can think of lots more, reply if you'd like more suggestions :-)
I've seen this before but it's still a fun read if you're familiar with Banks' Culture books. "Use of Weapons" and "Excession" are good places to start in the Culture universe.
Banks has a new book out, not in the Culture universe, that's quite good as well: The Algebraist.
Oh man. I've been waiting for a thread like this to pop up. I loved Neuromancer to no end, along with House of Leaves. Containment was good shit too, very interesting read, but relies on easy plot fixes. It doesn't ruin the story, in my opinion.
You also can't go wrong with anything by Kurt Vonnegut and Phillip K. Dick.
There's this thread on similar books to the count of monte cristo and here are the current suggestions ordered by page length:
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester - 236 pages
Neuromancer - 271 pages
Ender’s Game - 5 books with the first (the linked one) around 250 pages
River God - 676 pages
Shogun & Tai Pan - 1000+ and 700+ pages each
I'm debating the first 2 really. Not sure if you happened to have read them and would have a recommendation.
http://www.amazon.com/Road-Vintage-International-Cormac-McCarthy-ebook/dp/B000OI0G1Q/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=
http://www.amazon.com/1984-George-Orwell-ebook/dp/B003JTHWKU/ref=sr_1_1_ha_twi_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1419607743&sr=1-1&keywords=1984
http://www.amazon.com/Brave-New-World-Aldous-Huxley-ebook/dp/B00JTYQJ3K/ref=sr_1_1_ha_twi_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1419607785&sr=1-1&keywords=brave+new+world
http://www.amazon.com/Altered-Carbon-Takeshi-Kovacs-Novels-ebook/dp/B000FBFMZ2/ref=sr_1_1_twi_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1419607819&sr=1-1&keywords=altered+carbon
http://www.amazon.com/Neuromancer-William-Gibson-ebook/dp/B000O76ON6/ref=sr_1_1_ha_twi_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1419607849&sr=1-1&keywords=neuromancer
http://www.amazon.com/Fahrenheit-451-Novel-Ray-Bradbury-ebook/dp/B0064CPN7I/ref=sr_1_1_ha_twi_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1419607872&sr=1-1&keywords=farenheight+451
http://www.amazon.com/Cats-Cradle-Kurt-Vonnegut-ebook/dp/B003XRELGQ/ref=sr_1_1_twi_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1419607936&sr=1-1&keywords=cat%27s+cradle
http://www.amazon.com/Slaughterhouse-Five-Kurt-Vonnegut-ebook/dp/B003XVYLDU/ref=sr_1_3_twi_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1419607936&sr=1-3&keywords=cat%27s+cradle
Rendezvous with Rama the whole series is pretty good.
2001: A Space Odyssey (Arthur C. Clarke Collection: The Odyssey) that series as well
Neuromancer
Homeland: The Legend of Drizzt, Book I: Bk. 1
the dark elf trilogy is pretty good
for amazingly deep and rich backdrop you can't beat the Dune (40th Anniversary Edition) (Dune Chronicles, Book 1) at least the first three.. others that were wrote by his son and other authors are ok but dont live up to the originals imho
pretty much all of Robert Heinlein's stuff stranger in a strange land, starship troopers (nothing at all like the movie), Glory Road, Have Spacesuit will travel.
Wha?
That's how I read them both...
i liked the idea of the haptic suit in Freedom. I use my phone for everything but having different tones for various events isn't the best way to be alerted. Imagine, your left butt check twitches, there's a thai restaurant near by with a 5 star rating, your right forearm throbs, your cousin has posted another asinine political facebook rant that you can safely ignore, middle of your back itches, there's an open wifi sport nearby...
It made me think of the sustainability of the global food industry, especially here in the USA. I recently re-read the book Freedom™ by Daniel Suarez, and it raised some interesting concepts about so-called thousand mile supply chains. Excellent read.
EDIT: You're right - she does look PISSED. Plus the German stack of food seems to be way more orderly than anyone else's.
Hmmm...could it be Swarm! book 1 of the Starforce series?
I've enjoyed both of those authors, so I guess I'll recommend some books I've liked.
In no particular order (links to the first book in the series, on amazon):
The Lost Fleet by Jack Campbell
Spinward Fringe by Randolph Lalonde
Star Force by B.V. Larson
Honor Harrington series by David Weber
Valor series by Tanya Huff
Some great books already on this list, I'll add in a few that I would also recommend, or that I see come up a lot:
Have fun dude!
Yeah, Im fully into ebooks, but the cost really is BS. I think there is some drama between publishers and amazon that always inflates the prices. Some self published authors have really cheap Ebooks (I loved this book and its sequels and they're only $3-$5 each). So there is a chance the prices may go down at some point if something changes between amazon and publishers.
I actually got into Ebooks while pirating them, so cost wasn't an issue, after awhile i got so used to the convenience of having it on my phone I couldn't go back to print. Then i had a little more spending money and decided buying them was even more convenient.
I felt Billy Burke was billy burke, he's always the same character, be he 'revolutionary' on revolution or serial killer extraordinary on The Closer / Major Crimes. It's always the same.
The girl who was the lead was weak, her brother was worse. The woman from Lost never impressed me. Actually my favorite actor/character on the movie was the guy who went 'rogue' and was the partner of billy burke.
TV shows end on cliff hangers because they expect to be renewed. Unless they know in advance it's the last season expect a cliff hanger or at least 'unpleasant' ending.
See "we learn from our parents" that's a purely human thing - that's not how AI would learn per se - they would learn from data, their evolution would be quick but it would also be very not human.
I got the authors name wrong (my fault) - it's William Hertling - the Singularity Series first book here is a more interesting take on how AI would evolve.
You don't 'understand' human emotion - you have it or you don't - you can fake it - but you can't really have it - at best you have a three laws situation - because if you don't - you're going to get ai with sociopathic like tendencies.
You are born with emotion, you come out crying, you learn emotion through life events that AI would never experience, human beings can barely program a learning process, you then expect them to work emotions and morals into it? It's not likely, not in real life, to program human emotion you have to understand not only what it is but where it comes from and how it evolves, and humanity is nowhere close to that...the speed with which AI is evolving is PURELY learning- nothing else - the only 'emotion' these AIs will have is if they choose to.
Now that I think about it, the hertling series and the sawyer series about AIs are interesting with two similar 'endings' (in the gross outcome of what happens to humanity but for entirely different reasons) but very disparate AIs.
Cyberstorm by Matthew Mather
​
https://www.amazon.com/CyberStorm-Matthew-Mather-ebook/dp/B00BT4QRHG
If you are looking for totally new authors, try Sara King and her Legend of Zero series. Two books out now, more to follow.
Starts with [Forging Zero] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BTKA42Y/)
Military scifi, yes, but with lots of character focus.
This is the best book I have read about humans being taken by an alien empire. This focuses on one group of people, and mostly one man, but it is an amazing work. Forging Zero - http://amzn.com/B00BTKA42Y
I recommend the Posthuman series.
http://www.amazon.com/Post-Human-Series-Books-David-Simpson-ebook/dp/B00H0D5NTI
Very good AI themes. I do admit it gets pretty deep scifi pretty quickly, I think he takes it a little too far to be honest. That said, read all 4 books, they're short and the 4th one redeems that 3rd one.
[Post Human series] ( http://www.amazon.com/Post-Human-Books-1-4-David-Simpson-ebook/dp/B00H0D5NTI/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1419915451&sr=1-1&keywords=post-human+series)
Best action sci-fi I've ever read. Lots of twists and turns. If anyone knows similar books please tell me so I can read them.
I'm certain this is the Post Human series - https://www.amazon.com/Post-Human-Omnibus-1-4-Book-ebook/dp/B00H0D5NTI
You might like this. It's somewhere in the middle between soft and hard sci-fi in my relative opinion, but I found it a good read.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Post-Human-Omnibus-1-4-David-Simpson-ebook/dp/B00H0D5NTI - books 1-4
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inhuman-Book-Post-Human-David-Simpson-ebook/dp/B00HYLX4R4 - book 5
These are all great books too
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Forever-War-3-Book/dp/B00W6RJ6SC - Joe Haldeman's Forever War
https://www.amazon.co.uk/All-Sins-Remembered-GOLLANCZ-S-F-ebook/dp/B005HRTA4I Joe Haldeman's All My Sins Remembered
Granted not exactly to your spec, as it's 1980's sci-fi and thus based around now, HOWEVER very good story.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00J3EU5RC - Greg Bear's Eon books
There's a series of books that I found on kindle that's literally called Post Human.
Book one is good.
A plot point from book two onward is kind of odd. [Spoiler](/s "Divorce seems to be not a thing? and everyone's medical status is always being broadcast to their spouse so if you see someone attractive who is not your spouse then they instantly know. And since everyone is effectively immortal this comes up a lot, which is why divorce not being an option seems kind of stupid." )
Anyway, it's a minor plot point and just really odd which is why I mentioned it.
As to the tech, it's maybe magic? I'm not sure but it's definitely on the softer side of sci-fi.
Still worth a read if you have kindle unlimited.
Actually this is one of my favs too http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00H0D5NTI?keywords=posthuman&qid=1452216671&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1
There’s a great book called Split Second that deals with this and how sending something back in time for even a fraction of a second results in teleportation
That was the plot of a book I read. Someone discovered how to time travel. Problem is the time being traveled is very short, 45 microseconds, iirc. What's the usefulness of that? The object being sent back in time 45 microseconds, merely appears in our universe. Since the earth is constantly moving, it appears 58 feet from the original location. The original object being sent back in time remains, so it was actually used as a matter duplication device.
EDIT: The book is Split Second by Douglas E Richards.
You should really read "Split Second" by Doug Richards. It deals with this very subject, in a very very interesting way.
Split Second
Technically it's time travel but it's used more as duplication - it's all explained in the book - great read.
Here it is on Amazon.de. I'm not sure what issue you are having.
You were created from stardust that fell to Earth from two planets colliding millions of lightyears away. As your dusty parts drifted through space, you passed many obstacles that made you the being you are now. You passed a mirror, which reflected yourself in a way you wanted to see. You passed emotions; clouds of thick feeling. Through sadness and anger, resentment and love, humility and courage, empathy and passion- those particles infused into you. Your being emerged sporadically, through bends of time and space you envisioned your future life full of love and equality. Somewhere around Jupiter, you felt your journey coming close. As you slid along the rings, contemplating your readiness, you felt a lump. Something wasn't right. Something was missing. The mirror you passed earlier swept by you with a gust of wind and sparkles. You pushed out from the spirals on which you stood and lept for the mirror. As you caught it, you turned it to see yourself. In it, you only saw a unicorn. A majestic creature of fairy tales. You didn't understand at first, but as you stared into it’s eyes, you saw yourself. Just like a unicorn, your beauty and grace swept through you. Like electricity in your body, like lightning rushing from your heart to your fingertips. Just like a unicorn, there is no one else like you. Just like a unicorn, you can bring happiness to those around you. As you looked into the mirror again, the unicorn had disappeared and once again you saw yourself, but still you saw the unicorn beside you. You glanced to your side and pet it's head gently. Anyone could've been chosen for this life. But it was you. You vowed to stand for equality and love. Those emotions that enveloped your soul as you passed them, you felt them now like a tornado surging through your blood. You climbed atop your unicorn, ready for the adventures in store for you. As you galloped along, rainbows lit up a path toward Earth. As you landed you found everything you'd ever dreamed of- but it wouldn't be easy. You had to put the pieces together, like a second-hand puzzle missing a few pieces.
Now, you're working on that puzzle. You’ve got the edge pieces lined up. You've got a lovely SO. 3 cats. A community of online strangers to support you. It's up to you to finish that puzzle. Fill the empty slots with whatever you choose, because it's your puzzle anyway.
TL;DR You're an alien-unicorn made from planets colliding.
Item
To be honest, these are just some dystopia themed books I recommended because of Hunger Games. However, I could give better recommendations if you tell me more of what she wants. Young adult? Fantasy? Romantic aspect?
I'm no expert on sci-fi, but 'Year Zero' was pretty good. It felt like an american angle on a hitchhiker type story. It's more funny than profound, at least when compared to hitchhikers. Most of it takes place on Earth, and the alien world has to be kept from being viewed by humans because it's beauty would overwhelm and possibly kill them. So it's hardly described at all.
The audiobook is read by John Hodgman, and he does a great job with all the voices. I had no idea he did voices.
There's a novel out that reflects this issue, just heard about it on NPR.
Basically in the novel humans suck at everything compared to aliens except for our musical abilities and they love our music so much that they sometimes die of happiness when listening to it. According to our copyright laws, the universe owes us more than three times the amount of money that exists in the entire universe so some aliens are out to destroy earth to get out of the debts.
TL;DR book related to this issue, here
Year Zero by Rob Reid. It's essentially a book about record labels finding out that aliens have been listening to [and illegally downloading] all of earth's music for decades. When they find out about this, the Alien's realize that they owe Earth an unfathomable amount of money and it would be impossible to ever pay it all. So two aliens hire a lawyer, Nick Carter to handle the case. They hope he can strike a licensing agreement, and the fate of Earth rests in his hands.
I actually haven't finished the book, but it is a really easy read and has a lot of funny pop culture references, as well as fairly legally accurate. The plot is just outrageous, which makes it that much better in my opinion. The idea of it all I think would just make for a great adventure, and would have some great CGI. Would be even better if they got the real Nick Carter to play Nick Carter.
This book has a really funny premise.
That is madness! I've not really perused /r/books that much but that is horrendous even if they are bound legally as 3rd party retailers.
The obvious comparison for me as a musician is digital download vs CD. CD cost more to produce/deliver etc and so is more expensive to cover those costs. I actually can't believe such a scam is going on in the 21st century!
EDIT: Regarding your edit it's this from the Reddit sidebar ads.
Sprawl Trilogy, if you've been living under a rock.
Halting state (http://www.amazon.com/Halting-State-Ace-Science-Fiction/dp/0441016073)vis apparantly good.
Sometimes Stross is so accurate it hurts.
http://www.amazon.com/Halting-State-Ace-Science-Fiction/dp/0441016073
Have you ever read the WWW Series? It asks and trys to answer these questions with a cool sci-fi AI twist. Gave me all the chills.
http://www.amazon.com/WWW-Trilogy-Robert-J-Sawyer/dp/044101853X/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1409325998&sr=8-4&keywords=www
Try the Audiobook if you're into that, it's excellent, multiple readers, etc.
The WWW series by Robert J Sawyer. 3 books, I couldn't stop. It's amazing!
https://www.amazon.com/WWW-Trilogy-Robert-J-Sawyer/dp/044101853X
For a negative view of this future, trying reading Avogadro Corp.
For a positive view of this future, try reading WWW: Wake
I have read both, and count them among my favorite books. In the real world today governments already exercise control over us in ways that even Orwell could never have imagined. These novels, however are works of fiction that necessarily predict a dystopian future for dramatic effect.
Since we're recommending books now, I would suggest you read the works of Robert J. Sawyer specifically the Neanderthal Parallax trilogy, and the WWW trilogy to see how 100% surveillance society may not be a bad thing.
I for one welcome our (hopefully) benevolent AI overlords.
There is a series of books I read that deal with the coming of age of an AI. The WWW series. It is interesting, if not a little poorly written.
I choose Neuromancer.
I have never read it but I have been told I need to. Also, Neuromancer is the first novel to win the Sci-Fi triple crown (Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick award). It came out in 1984 and coined the term "cyberspace" for online computer networks. Other terms such as ICE (Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics) were also coined or given significance through this novel. Also the term "Matrix" when referring to a computer network was used here (Suck on that Matrix trilogy).
Great! My address is 126 Albert Street, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, N2L 3T1. The edition I'm sending is http://www.amazon.com/dp/0441569595, and is in like-new condition.
I want that cover. All I have is this one. So lame.
https://www.amazon.com/Neuromancer-William-Gibson/dp/0441569595
 
Check out r/cyberpunk
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_Carbon_(TV_series)
 
Neuromancer is coined as the novel that started it all in terms of what is known as cyberpunk today. Altered Carbon is a new show on netflix coming tomorrow and Blade Runner as far as I am concerned is the best sci fi movie ever made. r/cyberpunk is a good place to start your journey but feel free to message me and talk about cyberpunk stuff anytime you want.
So far as you know.
Slant by Greg Bear
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
Here is the mobile version of your link
That was so much fun!
And by the way. You are looking STUNNING today. Like, I can't look away! So... so... beautiful...
(also, I think I would like this from my wishlist)
No. The Lazarus Long story was great, but consider the downside.
>> Real men jog home from their vasectomies! (I took a bus.)
> I've read this from you about 10 times now and I still giggle.
I do tend to repeat myself. Sorry about that. I'm glad you're still enjoying that one.
> Really? I looked this up and I got spouses. Are you sure?
Mouse -> mice. Spouse -> spice.
I am sure it's a joke. And, it's not original on my part. It's from Heinlein.
> Btw, there is a (suspected) finch family nesting in my mom's clothespin bag. When I saw them I thought of you. Noisy little things. Chirping their fool heads off, hopping around the deck, flying all over the place. They are entertaining. I don't know if there are babies yet, but I've seen the adults bringing bugs into the clothespin bag. No tweeting yet, though.
Cool! I hope you get to see the chicks. With birds that small, they grow up fast. You're most likely to see them when they're about the same size as the adults but more drab and fluttering their wings, chirping, and begging for food. Watch for a bit and you'll see the parents feeding them.
If you get to see them younger and featherless in the nest, that's really lucky. I usually don't.
> If I get a pic I'll send it to you.
Cool. Then maybe I can identify them for you.
P.S. The full quote, though I'd like more context but not enough to dig out the book, is:
> Among such people the plural of spouse is spice.
> --Lazurus Long, Time Enough For Love, pg 339
One of Heinlein's rules of life in his most massive opus, Time Enough For Love, was "Everyone lies about sex. Period."
I love the Culture books by Banks, but I think The Algebraist is the best sf he's written to date. And to my mind, no dull parts anywhere, middle or otherwise. (Okay, to put a very fine point on it, I did think the "villain" was little more than a cartoon but the rest of the book is just about perfect).
Why are links so hard? Neuromancer @ Amazon
Neuromancer? link
Here is the desktop version of your link
https://www.amazon.com/Neuromancer-Science-Fiction-William-Gibson-ebook/dp/B000O76ON6/
The function of money itself is a variable.
What is money? I've heard it as "An agreement within a community to establish a system for the distribution of resources."
Everything about how it works: inflation, interest, scale, who issues it. . . is all arbitrary.
Markets, as they currently function, are set up to drive unsustainable recurring growth. . . and they've shaped global human behavior toward a kind of destructiveness, greed and unchecked ambition that is SINGLE HANDEDLY the source of, I will go so far as to say "most" of the human suffering in the world. But those that benefit from them the most are almost Pavlovianly conditioned to have a hard time seeing this. This is a big problem.
If YOU would like to open your eyes, here's some resources:
Barnard Lietaer was a world class economist (who was one of the architects of the Euro. . .which he warned was going to cause and run into a lot of the same problems as it has, but it had POLITICAL requirements that HAD to be met that had those problems baked in) who focused his work on helping communities reimagine the idea of what currency even is. When you realize it doesn't have to work the way it does, the whole way that markets even work starts to look. . . well downright evil and unnecessary. . . sorry Libertarians.
This book and it's sequel are interesting techno-thriller sci-fi. But the second book imagines a system by which a market economy could be managed by democratized opensource AI to produce MUCH better social outcomes. This kind of a system is MUCH more in reach than people reflexively think. It also takes a look at how one MIGHT use gamification to help people rethink their preconceived notions of how economies MUST work.
And also. . .this is dope!
Have you read Freedom (TM)?
It's a sequel to Daemon, but paints a vision of the world close to yours.
Daemon and it's sequel Freedom by Daniel Suarez would probably be a good recommendation if you like those two books you mentioned in the title.
This sounds very similar to the plot on Daniel Suarez's book Kill Decision: Link
Which I HIGHLY recommend.
Along with his other books Daemon and Freedom.
They are AMAZING on audible...
If you have an e-reader, Amazon has some pretty amazing Indie books available for cheap. A Galaxy Unknown is the first in a series following a young female naval officer as she generally kicks ass. Star Force has a group of very near future humans trapped in a war between two groups of machines. Spirit of Empire isn't quite as believable as the others, but it's one of the most gripping space operas I've ever read. Lastly, Theirs is Not to Reason Why is about what happens when you cross a a Drill Sargent with an Oracle and pack it into a female's body. Then send said body out to destroy anything in the way of saving the universe. If you need any more recommendations, I actually have a list saved on my computer. Private message me and I can email it to you.
I really enjoyed these books and have read a lot of similar self published works. A series that is very similar is B.V. Larson's Star Force series.
http://www.amazon.com/Swarm-Star-Force-Series-ebook/dp/B004H8FVEQ/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1
I am a glutton for any type of military scifi and will read through a lot of the self published authors, and some of these authors sell a surprising amount of books. Thomas Deprima is one of these authors as eggrock has pointed out, his series is one of the better selling ones. Although its not selling like it did about a year ago. I do disagree with him on his beliefs that he wrote all his good reviews. There are a lot of people who like his style of writing.
Going back to whether I've read any of his other works, I have not. Although I have debated buying Accelerated, Strontium 90, and Invasion Alaska on a few occasions. I've just never worked up the desire to read them. So I guess we're in the same boat. You can always go to his amazon page and read the reviews.
I recommend 2 series by BV Larson:
First Swarm Book 1 of "Star Force"
Second Steel World Book 1 of the "Undying Mercenaries"
Also The Synchronicity War by Dietmar Wehr
Now for a shameless plug for my favorite Sci-fi book: We Are Legion book 1 of "Bobiverse" There is some ship to ship fighting. But its more Sci-fi comedy.
There's a novel called Year Zero with a roughly similar plotline
Excluding the Hitchhiker, I would recommend: "Year Zero: A Novel by Rob Reid"
Year 0 is on sale right now for 0.99 if you are in the US.
year zero
Loving the new job?
Wer die Idee mag: Year Zero, a Novel
Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:
amazon.com
amazon.co.uk
amazon.ca
amazon.com.au
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amazon.es
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amazon.nl
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amazon.fr
Beep bloop. I'm a bot to convert Amazon ebook links to local Amazon sites.
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I really enjoyed Avogadro Corp (first in a series). It's a compelling and plausible story about an emergent AI, and it takes place in the not-too-distant future.
(disclaimer: I know the author, but I met him after reading the book, and I enjoyed the book before I knew him)
They're light reading and not hard scifi, but the WWW trilogy https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002361NDM/ and Avogadro Corp https://www.amazon.com/Avogadro-Corp-Singularity-Closer-Appears-ebook/dp/B006ACIMQQ are both entertaining and in that niche.
After checking this link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY7u0_UxC0w
it seems as if Mr Musk have been reading
http://www.amazon.com/Avogadro-Corp-Singularity-Closer-Appears-ebook/dp/B006ACIMQQ
I read a book a while back called Avogadro Corp, which is about
Googlea fictionalized tech company creating a project that inadvertently becomes self-aware. For what it's worth, I think it's very close to what you're looking for.I have a four book series about the emergence of artificial intelligence that Wired called "chilling and compelling." It starts with Avogadro Corp: http://www.amazon.com/Avogadro-Corp-Singularity-Closer-Appears-ebook/dp/B006ACIMQQ/
The series spans forty years, and is ideal for people interested in the singularity, the progress of technology and its impact on people and civilization, and is especially well liked by software developers and others in tech, since the protagonists of most of the novels are programmers.
I just finished reading the first book in The Singularity series. Not the greatest book ever, but it's something you might not have heard of which is definitely worthy of attention. It has the added benefit of being fairly short and fast paced.
See: Avagadro Corp.
I would use the kindle fire for watching movies and reading pdf for work/school. And the book I'd choose is this one
I suggest you read Cyberstorm. I devoured it during a snowstorm last winter and wallowed in delicious panic with every page.
If you haven't read it yet try out
http://www.amazon.com/CyberStorm-English-Edition-Matthew-Mather-ebook/dp/B00BT4QRHG/
By the same author. I haven't read Darknet yet but CyberStorm was great.
My friend suggested this to me! Looks exciting!
Thanks for the contest!
Ebook
Haha, I actually read a great book that was self published! CyberStorm http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BT4QRHG
Here's a non-referral link for ethics' sake
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BT4QRHG/
For what it's worth, as I was setting up my son's Kindle app I ran across a series of books I read a while ago that is good for his age that I thought I'd share with anyone else interested: The Legend of Zero series. It's about a kid (somewhere 9-12, I believe) is abducted by alien invaders and conscripted into their multi-species army. Not dystopian, obviously, but good sci-fi.
Check out David Simpson's Post-Human Series
Peter Watts - Blindsight - kinda a harder form of sci fi, great detail about some hard sci fi style like post-scarcity methods, genetic and psychological tweaking, and wow the aliens in this one are really alien Book is available online for free because the author is just that cool.
M. J. Locke - Up Against It - Easier, a young adult sort of sci fi. Ice as a valuable commodity, hackable nanobug poop, and a great AI narrative. Also, one of the main characters has a very very Ripley feel about her, I think you'll like that.
David Simpson - The Post-human series - Just get the whole thing, the books are speedreaders for me. Kinda pulpy, but follows the whole of humanity's awakening to the multiverse and trans-human technology. Does and amazing job of ethics in the age of moddable bodies and backup brains. I'm not spoiling anything for you, but this might be the easiest read of this list. Was free for a while on amazon, now it's only $3
P.J. Haarsma - Virus on Orbis 1 - if you like that young adult feel this and the entire Softwire series should hold you over nicely. Clone babies on a interstellar seed ship, and one of them has a rare superpower, though he doesn't know it. Another AI-centric story, but more abstract with the imagery.
Also, my favorite short story - Alfred Bester- The Stars My Destination - humans have always been able to teleport, but what secrets does Gully Foyle, a proven deadbrain burnout, hold that could revolutionize the discovery again? A pretty great retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo. should be public domain by now...
The Post Human Series by David Simpson might fit the bill https://www.amazon.com/Post-Human-Omnibus-1-4-David-Simpson-ebook/dp/B00H0D5NTI
Sounds awesome, can't wait to check it out.
Have you read the book Split Second? It's really refreshing. I find a lot of time travel movies happen at the time of time travel maturity, but this book starts from the time of discovery. What kind of things can you do when you can only go back millionths of a second?
Cory Doctorow wrote a book about that recently, "Walkaway"
'17
800 3.75 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40604388-walkaway
200 3.8 https://www.amazon.com/Walkaway-Novel-Cory-Doctorow-ebook/dp/B01FQQ47OC
> set in early days of a better world. /u/finfinfin /u/Ungreat
A lot of Cory Doctorow’s stuff deals with these themes. Check out Walkaway
just finished the bitterbynde trilogy, lovely high fantasy novel based on the folklore of the british isles.
currently in the middle of cory doctorow's new novel, walkaway, which is shaping up nicely
I've read something similar by a well known submitter on /r/WritingPrompts.
Here's a link! Your idea seems sufficiently different, just thought i'd show you for inspiration if you need it :) good luck
Rex Electi
Don't know why someone downvoted you...
Kiln People is a fantastic book. Great sci-fi with an interesting premise.
Cyber Storm: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BT4QRHG/ref=kinw_myk_ro_title
Reading it now, very scary.
7 bucks.