Aurora Rising (2019)

Sand

Hugh Howey

2014 · 368 pages · 1 review

Others: Positive

In post-apocalyptic Colorado, a state now covered in sand, one family struggles to survive and stay united after the father leaves. Wife and mother, Rose, has only a whore house and as her income dwindles, she finds she must work in the establishment she runs. Her children, Palmer, Victoria, Rob and Conner, all take on the dangerous job of being sand divers, hoping to help their mother with expenses.

Version Control

Dexter Palmer

2016 · 495 pages · 1 review

Others: Positive

The compelling story of a couple living in the wake of a personal tragedy. She is a star employee of an online dating company, while he is a physicist, performing experiments that, if ever successful, may have unintended consequences, altering the nature of their lives and perhaps of reality itself. Rebecca Wright has gotten her life back, finding her way out of grief and depression following a personal tragedy years ago. She spends her days working in customer support for the Internet dating site where she first met her husband. However, she has a persistent, strange sense that everything around her is somewhat off-kilter: she constantly feels as if she has walked into a room and forgotten what she intended to do there; on TV, the President seems to be the wrong person in the wrong place; and each night she has disquieting dreams that may or may not be related to her husband Philip's pet project. Philip's decade-long dedication to the causality violation device (which he would greatly prefer you do not call a time machine ) has effectively stalled his career and made him a laughingstock in the physics community. But he may be closer to success than either of them knows or imagines . . . A woman deals with a strange and persistent sense of everything being slightly off, which may or may not be related to her scientist husband's pet project, a "causality violation device" that might actually be working. Rebecca still works at the Internet dating site where she met her scientist husband, Philip. She's dealing with grief and depression following a personal tragedy, was well as a strange and persistent sense of everything being slightly off-kilter. The president seems to be the wrong person; her dreams are full of disquiet. Is this in any way related to Philip's pet project, a causality violation device (he prefers you not call it a "time machine") that might actually be working?

Wool

Hugh Howey

2011 · 532 pages · 4 reviews

Others: Overwhelmingly positive

They live beneath the earth in a prison of their own making. There is a view of the outside world, a spoiled and rotten world, their forefathers left behind. But this view fades over time, ruined by the toxic airs that kill any who brave them. So they leave it to the criminals, those who break the rules, and who are sent to cleaning. Why do they do it, these people condemned to death? Sheriff Holston has always wondered. Now he is about to find out.

17 X infinity

Groff Conklin

1963 · 272 pages · 2 reviews

Others: Mixed

1984 (adaptation)

Michael Dean

2003 · 37 pages · 7 reviews

Others: Mostly positive

Winston Smith lives in a society where the government controls people every second of the day. He fights this world with love. But it's dangerous: love for another person can be punished by death - and Big Brother is always watching. Orwell's classic story shows that there is no freedom unless ideas and beliefs can be questioned. This is as true today as when it was written, more than fifty years ago. --back cover

2001: A Space Odyssey

Arthur C. Clarke

1968 · 228 pages · 5 reviews

Others: Overwhelmingly positive

A novel that proposes an idea about how the human race might have begun and where it might be headed...given a little help from out there. A colaboration of ideas with director Stanley Kubrick in the late 1960's it begins at "the dawn of man" and then leaps to the year 2001 where a mission to Saturn (Jupiter in the film) is mounted to try and answer questions raised by the discovery of an ancient artifact dug up on the moon. Though not particularly fast paced, the science is good, and there are a few hair raising events. There are also interesting speculations about the future, such as the space shuttle, and a device eerily similar to an iPad. Leaving plenty of room for contemplation and the appreciation for the inevitable trials of space travel, this is one of the truly landmark pieces of hard science fiction.