Others: Leaning positive Dan Simmons's Hyperion was an immediate sensation on its first publication in 1989. This staggering multifaceted tale of the far future heralded the conquest of the science fiction field by a man who had already won the World Fantasy Award for his first novel (Song of Kali) and had also published one of the most well-received horror novels in the field, Carrion Comfort. Hyperion went on to win the Hugo Award as Best Novel, and it and its companion volume, The Fall of Hyperion, took their rightful places in the science fiction pantheon of new classics. Now, six years later, Simmons returns to this richly imagined world of technological achievement, excitement, wonder and fear. Endymion is a story about love and memory, triumph and terror--an instant candidate for the field's highest honors.
Genres: science fiction, horror
Lists: …
Ray Bradbury
1953 · 179 pages · 11 reviews
Others: Mostly positiveFahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by American writer Ray Bradbury. Often regarded as one of his best works, the novel presents a future American society where books are outlawed and "firemen" burn any that are found. The book's tagline explains the title as "'the temperature at which book paper catches fire, and burns": the autoignition temperature of paper. The lead character, Guy Montag, is a fireman who becomes disillusioned with his role of censoring literature and destroying knowledge, eventually quitting his job and committing himself to the preservation of literary and cultural writings. The novel has been the subject of interpretations focusing on the historical role of book burning in suppressing dissenting ideas for change. In a 1956 radio interview, Bradbury said that he wrote Fahrenheit 451 because of his concerns at the time (during the McCarthy era) about the threat of book burning in the United States. In later years, he described the book as a commentary on how mass media reduces interest in reading literature. In 1954, Fahrenheit 451 won the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature and the Commonwealth Club of California Gold Medal. It later won the Prometheus "Hall of Fame" Award in 1984 and a "Retro" Hugo Award, one of a limited number of Best Novel Retro Hugos ever given, in 2004. Bradbury was honored with a Spoken Word Grammy nomination for his 1976 audiobook version.
What made the match, strongest first
Stephen King
1999 · 291 pages · 3 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveOn Writing is both a textbook for writers and a memoir of Stephen's life and will, thus, appeal even to those who are not aspiring writers. If you've always wondered what led Steve to become a writer and how he came to be the success he is today, this will answer those questions.
What made the match, strongest first
Stephen Graham Jones
2013 · 170 pages · 1 review
Others: NegativeThe New York Times–bestselling author “has created the tales here with experimental glee, yielding an astonishing assortment of mutated manuscripts” (Jeremy Robert Johnson, author of The Loop). Take a deep dive into the delightfully twisted mind of bestselling horror author Stephen Graham Jones with the more than twenty short stories in Zombie Sharks with Metal Teeth. Experience a day in the life of superhero Vigilante Man and his alter ego, an ace accountant, in “My Hero.” In “Little Monsters,” it’s one compromise after another when a couple tries to design a nightmare creature to foist upon the world. A man writes to Dear Abby for advice on whether or not to tell his wife of thirty-eight years that she transforms into a wolf at night, signing off as “Old Meat.” “I Was a Teenage Slasher Victim” explores the generational trauma of summer camp serial killer survivors—the sequel you can’t miss!Zombie Sharks with Metal Teeth is the perfect summer beach read—or for any time you want to cool things down with chilling short fiction from one of our finest horror authors.“This collection of short horror fiction feels altogether more shark-like than even straight-up shark books. Except here it’s the teeth of Jones’ unforgiving imagination, and the fear of the sea can be easily equated with the fear of the cosmos in these stories.” —LitReactor“The writing, people. The writing is phenomenal. . . . Jones is like a mad scientist, rolling up his sleeves to play elbow-deep with his creations.” —The Next Best Book Blog
What made the match, strongest first
Dan Simmons
1990 · 517 pages · 9 reviews
Others: Mostly positiveOn the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all. On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope--and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands.
What made the match, strongest first
Paul Tremblay
2026 · 1 review
Others: MixedA near-future tech nightmare that is as bitingly funny as it is horrifically believable from the New York Times bestselling author of The Cabin at the End of the World. Meet Julia Flang, a twenty-something former professional gamer, living with her retired uncle, and working two jobs she doesn't like. Out of the blue, her estranged mother, a CFO for one of the world's largest tech companies, offers her a temp job with a payday Julia can't refuse. One sham interview later, she's offered the job: to chaperone a man in a vegetative state from California to the East Coast. But he's not dead dead: he has an AI mind implanted in his head... Meet a middle-aged man who wakes within a disorienting hellscape filled with monstrous grotesqueries. Worse than the fluid, morphing reality in which he's trapped, he has no memory of who he is. He certainly doesn't remember getting the rabbit tattoo on his arm. He only knows that he must find a certain person. Who? He can't remember. Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep is a heady, terrifying genre-bender from one of the most groundbreaking voices in fiction today, exploring the 'I' in AI.
What made the match, strongest first
H. G. Wells
1896 · 168 pages · 6 reviews
Others: Mostly positiveRanked among the classic novels of the English language and the inspiration for several unforgettable movies, this early work of H. G. Wells was greeted in 1896 by howls of protest from reviewers, who found it horrifying and blasphemous. They wanted to know more about the wondrous possibilities of science shown in his first book, The Time Machine, not its potential for misuse and terror. In The Island of Dr. Moreau, a shipwrecked gentleman named Edward Prendick, stranded on a Pacific island lorded over by the notorious Dr. Moreau, confronts dark secrets, strange creatures, and a reason to run for his life. While this riveting tale was intended to be a commentary on evolution, divine creation, and the tension between human nature and culture, modern readers familiar with genetic engineering will marvel at Wells’s prediction of the ethical issues raised by producing “smarter” human beings or bringing back extinct species. These levels of interpretation add a richness to Prendick’s adventures on Dr. Moreau’s island of lost souls without distracting from what is still a rip-roaring good read.
What made the match, strongest first
Loved itthe SEC are a little bit polarizing because they do depart from that structure so if that's the main thing you enjoyed about Hyperion I can see why the sequels might not work as well for you but for me I was just interested in learning more about this world developing that story in the present timeline and oh boy do I think these books deliver
Loved itdeian is an action adventure tale with a fellowship and a quest and a found family and a Chase brilliant
Not a fanI was not pleased with Ed Mian and rise of Ed Mian which are the other two
