Venus Plus X
10 best books like Venus Plus X (Theodore Sturgeon): A Mirror for Observers, Night Walk, Dark Universe, The Paradox Men, On Wings of Song, Ring Around the Sun, The Year of the Quiet Sun, The Embedding, Shadrach in the Furnace, The Pirates of Ersatz
In their attitude towards the Planet Earth, the Martians had long been divided into two camps: the Observers, benevolent meddlers in human affairs; & the rebellious Abdicators, who sought the Earth's collapse. But it wasn't until the extraordinary matter of the Earth-Boy, Angelo Pontevecchio,...
| Author | Bob Shaw |
| ISBN | 0575039876 |
For 'refusing to co-operate' the Emm Luther Special Police took out Earth agent Sam Tallon's eyes and imprisoned him on a dark and eerie swamp from which nobody ever escaped.
But then Tallon invented a way of seeing - ludicrous, agonizing, yet still a way to make escape possible. He 'saw' through...
| Author | Daniel F. Galouye |
| ISBN | 0575071370 |
The above rating graphic provides a pretty good assessment of my opinion of the story...which stands to reason in a "DUH, thank you Col. Obvious" sorta way since I created it. Well, at the risk of raining down obvious all over you, let me add that this is certainly a book on which I would recommend...
| Author | Charles L. Harness |
| ISBN | 0450029964 |
The Paradox Men is a science-fiction classic of its kind - a full-blooded adventure story of derring-do and distressed damsels, set after the Third Great War when North and South America are united into one country: Imperial America. A slave state run by a small noble elite who flaunt their wealth by...
| Author | Thomas M. Disch |
| ISBN | 0881844438 |
The human society is in the terrible decline and On Wings of Song is a kind of cultural dystopia… Thomas M. Disch writes with so many realistic details that it starts appearing that the dystopia is now…
“They say we’re very conformist, don’t they?”
“Yes, that’s certainly one...
| Author | Clifford D. Simak |
| ISBN | 0881848522 |
A classic tale from one of science fiction's most creative forces. Suddenly, strange things begin to happen. World industries collaspe. People--sometimes whole towns--disappear without a trace. And writer Jay Vickers knows he's being watched. Now, to save his own life--and all of humanity--he...
| Author | Wilson Tucker |
| ISBN | 0020298951 |
‘Chaney fitted two keys into the twin locks and shoved. A bell rang somewhere behind him. The operations door rolled easily on rolamite tracks. He stepped outside into the chill of the future…’
The first real test of the Time Displacement Vehicle – and Chaney still uncertain why he...
Not really science-fiction, more linguistics-fiction - if you're a linguist who is the least bit interested in SF, this is a must, whether or not it happens to make sense. Super-intelligent aliens arrive on Earth in a giant spaceship. Their mission is find visitors from another dimension ("The Change...
| Author | Robert Silverberg |
| ISBN | 0743458478 |
The year is 2012. The world lies ravaged by biological warfare, its population decimated by a ferocious genetically-transmitted disease known as the organ rot. And presiding over the ruins is a ninety-three-year-old tyrant, preserved in a state of youth by a series of organ transplants: the self-styled...
Bron is the offspring of infamous space pirates but instead of following in the family footsteps he decides to become an electronic engineer. Unfortunately, every time he tries to get out, something pulls him back in. This is a tongue-in-cheek space adventure along the lines of the Stainless Steel...
DAMMIT FELLOW SF FANS...how does Algis Budrys fly so silently under your radar?
The more sublimely penetrating stories I read by this quiet magician, the greater my bowel irritation that he isn't given his propers as a maestro of thoughtful, intelligent SF like this:
This...
| Author | Arthur C. Clarke |
| ISBN | 1884214371 |
A spaceship crew from an advanced alien civilization notices that Earth faces imminent destruction as its sun begins to explode. With time rapidly ticking down, the crew desperately searches a now-desolate planet for any possible human survivors.
This is a dramatisation of the very first...
| Author | John Sladek |
| ISBN | 0575071168 |
Wompler's Walking Babies once put Millford, Utah, on the map. But they aren't selling like they used to. In fact, they aren't selling at all and the only alternative to winding the company up is to tap the government for a research grant. And so Wompler Research Laboratories and Project 32 come into being....
| Author | Donald Kingsbury |
| ISBN | 0671460897 |
A vast alien landscape, a human culture based on our own, yet evolved in strange ways by the forces of an inimical nature provide a panoramic backdrop for the romantic adventures of a large cast of memorable & attractive characters.
Courtship Rite is a sf novel by American writer Donald Kingsbury,...
| Author | Robert Sheckley |
| ISBN | 0812519310 |
First published in 1959 as a startling, revolutionary novel of the future, then pushed to new cinematic limits as the feature film adaptation FREEJACK in 1992, Robert Sheckley's unsettling vision of Tomorrow now arrives in ebook format for the 21st century.
Thomas Blaine awoke in a white...
| Author | John Brunner |
| ISBN | 0020302754 |
Gerald Howson didn't look powerful. His body was deformed at birth, leaving him with a face so ugly people didn't want to look at him, and crippled legs that would never let him be as other men. But his mind was one in a billion - gifted with the ability to send and receive thoughts more powerfully than any...
| Author | Cordwainer Smith |
| ISBN | 0515039691 |
Storyline: 2/5
Characters: 2/5
Writing Style: 2/5
World: 3/5
Every now and then a little golden age science fiction found its way back into a genre that was on its way to abandoning it. Not that science fiction ever completely outgrew its pulp adolescence, but by 1964 it was becoming...
Escaping the religious tyranny of a 31st-century Earth by a fluke assignment to the planet Ozagen, linguist Hal Yarrow found that the worst of Earth had followed him - Pornsen, his personal Guardian Angel, vigilant for any evidence of sin or wrong thinking.
Conditioned by a lifetime of submission,...
| Author | R.A. Lafferty |
| ISBN | 0441653030 |
The golden planet of Astrobe, made in the image of Utopia, now faced a crisis which could destroy it forever; & yet, no one could understand it:
In a world where wealth & comfort were free to everyone, why did so many desert the golden cities for the slums of Cathead & the Barrio? Why did...
| Author | Poul Anderson |
| ISBN | 0671653393 |
The time is the 23rd century, and ships are crawling outward from Earth into the interstellar depths. It will take them centuries to reach even the nearest stars - but once they do, future travel will be instantaneous, because the ships carry matter transmitters that are not subject to the limitations...
