18 books like On the Beach
Behold the Man
Karl Glogauer is a disaffected modern professional casting about for meaning in a series of half-hearted relationships, a dead-end job, and a personal struggle. His questions of faith surrounding his father's run-of-the-mill Christianity and his mother's suppressed Judaism lead him to a bizarre obsession with the idea of the messiah. After the collapse of his latest affair and his introduction to…
Shares: English Science fiction, Roman, Science Fiction
In the wet
Originally published in 1953, In the Wet is Nevil Shute's speculative glance into the future of the British Empire. An elderly clergyman stationed in the Australian bush is called to the bedside of a dying derelict. In his delirium Stevie tells a story of England in 1983 through the medium of a squadron air pilot in the service of Queen Elizabeth II.
Shares: English Science fiction, Science Fiction
The silver metal lover
Jane feels adrift in the upper class of her dystopian society until she meets a robot built for pleasure she suspects is more than the sum of his parts. Can a girl truly love a machine? And can the machine love her back?
Shares: English Science fiction, Science Fiction
Tales of space and time
Tales of Space and Time collects together two novellas and three short stories by the great science fiction writer H. G. Wells. First published in 1899, this absorbing and stimulating read contains:The Crystal Egg (short story)The Star (short story)A Story of the Stone Age (novella)A Story of the Days To Come" (novella)The Man Who Could Work Miracles (short story)
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The Poison Belt
Being an account of another adventure of Prof. George E. Challenger, Lord John Roxton, Prof. Summerlee and Mr E. D. M
alone, the discoverers of "The Lost World".
Shares: English Science fiction, Science Fiction
In Space No One Can Hear You Scream
"Trade Paperback Halloween-themed science fiction anthology. Featuring a mix of classic science fiction reprints where the scary stuff happens in space. THE UNIVERSE MAY NOT BE A NICE NEIGHBORHOOD. "The oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown," the grand master of horror, H.P. Lovecraft, once wrote. And the greatest unknown is the vast universe, shrouded in eternal cosmic night.…
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The year of the quiet sun
Unavoidably, David Cheney becomes part of the future, in which a nuclear war has weakened both East and West, and in which America is torn by a race war. Yet among this desolate world, he discovers reasons for living.
Shares: Nuclear warfare, Science Fiction
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Highly unusual After the Holocaust novel. In the far future, 20th century texts are preserved in a monastery, as "sacred books". The monks preserve for centuries what little science there is, and have saved the science texts and blueprints from destruction many times, also making beautifully illuminated copies. As the story opens to a world run on a basically fuedal lines, science is again…
Shares: Nuclear warfare, Science Fiction
Damascus Countdown
Israel successfully launches a first strike on Iran, taking out all of the nuclear sites and six of their nuclear warheads. American president William Jackson threatens to support a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the Jewish State for unprovoked and unwarranted acts of aggression. Meanwhile, CIA operative David Shirazi has infiltrated the Iranian regime and intercepted top secret…
Shares: Nuclear warfare, Roman
Star Maker
After reading "Last and First Men", I approached Olaf's next masterpiece, "Star Maker" ( first published in 1937), with some disbelief as to how on earth he could possibly better the span, pathos and magnanimity he had already laid out. A quick scan of the appendices yielded the impression that this book would embrace not just the tiny fragment of history that was mankind's stay in the universe,…
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A Modern Utopia
Imagine a life without worries. You live in a perfect environment untouched by pollution. You have a job to do and play an important role in society. The politicians are watching out for your best interest. And, you get along with your neighbors. Wells’ utopia may not only be unattainable, it may be detrimental to humanity’s progress. Decide for yourself as you read this classic quest for social…
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The Light of Other Days
From Arthur C. Clarke, the brilliant mind that brought us 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Stephen Baxter, one of the most cogent SF writers of his generation, comes a novel of a day, not so far in the future, when the barriers of time and distance have suddenly turned to glass.
When a brilliant, driven industrialist harnesses cutting-edge physics to enable people everywhere, at trivial cost, to see…
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Last and First Men
One of the most succinct and accurate renderings of mankind's present state of mind and future progression. It documents the future of man from the start of WW2 and continues until the Sun engulfs the earth, and beyond. Considering this book was first published in 1931, it is remarkable, both in its honesty as regards human nature, and in its phenomenal span. By the time we reach chapter 3 of the…
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The Gods of Mars
After the long exile on Earth, John Carter finally returned to his beloved Mars. But beautiful Dejah Thoris, the woman he loved, had vanished. Now he was trapped in the legendary Eden of Mars--an Eden from which none ever escaped alive.
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Childhood’s End
Childhood's End is a 1953 science fiction novel by British author Arthur C. Clarke. The story follows the peaceful alien invasion of Earth by the mysterious Overlords, whose arrival ends all war, helps form a world government, and turns the planet into a near-utopia. Many questions are asked about the origins and mission of the aliens, but they avoid answering, preferring to remain in their…
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The war in the air
Following the development of massive airships, naive Londoner Bert Smallways becomes accidentally involved in a German plot to invade America by air and reduce New York to rubble. But although bombers devastate the city, they cannot overwhelm the coutnry, and their attack leads not to victory but to the beginning of a new and horrific age for humanity. And so dawns the era of Total War, in which…
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A rising Thunder
After a brutal attack on the Manticoran home system, Honor Harrington has rooted out a plan designed to enslave the entire human species. Behind that plans lies the shadowy organization known as the Mesan Alignment. Task number one for Honor is to shut down and secure the wormhole network that is the source of the Star Kingdom's wealth and power--but also its greatest vulnerability. Yet this is…
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The food of the gods and how it came to earth
The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells that was first published in 1904. Wells called it "a fantasia on the change of scale in human affairs. . . . I had hit upon [the idea] while working out the possibilities of the near future in a book of speculations called Anticipations (1901)".
The novel, which has had various B-movie adaptations, is about a…
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