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Recommendations based on This Census-Takerby China Miéville
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Embassytown
by China Miéville
Exploring a distant alien city and unraveling its mysteries.
Embassytown takes place mostly in the city of the title, on the planet Arieka. Embassytown exists on the very edge of the "Manchmal" (from the German for "sometimes"), which is suspected to be the ... (Wikipedia)
Iron Council
by China Miéville
A band of runaway railworkers battle oppressive forces in a thrilling fantasy world.
Iron Council follows three major narrative threads that join to form the novel's climax. Although Miéville weaves back and forth between narrative, time and space, this summary will follow each ... (Wikipedia)
Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances
by Neil Gaiman
Collection of short stories, exploring the boundaries of the imaginative.
Multiple award winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman returns to dazzle, captivate, haunt, and entertain with this third collection of short fiction following Smoke and Mirrors and ... (Goodreads)
The Scar
by China Miéville
A fantastical journey of survival in a dangerous, watery underworld.
The Scar opens with the journey of a small ship which has set out from the city New Crobuzon (the setting of Perdido Street Station ). It is heading to the city's new colony, Nova Esperium, which ... (Wikipedia)
His Bloody Project: Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae
by Graeme Macrae Burnet
Historical fiction on a haunting trial of a young man accused of a triple murder.
Man Booker Prize Finalist., LA Times, Book Prize Finalist., New York Times, Editor’s Choice. American Booksellers Association National Indie Bestseller! Named on “Best Book” lists by, Newsweek,, ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Buried Giant
by Kazuo Ishiguro
An elderly couple's journey through a mythical land, confronting the forgotten secrets of the past.
Following the death of King Arthur , Saxons and Britons live in harmony. Along with everyone else in their community, Axl and Beatrice, an elderly Briton couple, suffer from severe selective amnesia ... (Wikipedia)
Revenger
by Alastair Reynolds
Two sisters become space pirates to seek revenge and fortune in a dangerous universe filled with ancient technology and deadly enemies.
The galaxy has seen great empires rise and fall. Planets have shattered and been remade. Amongst the ruins of alien civilizations, building our own from the rubble, humanity still thrives. And there ... (Goodreads)
The Lathe of Heaven
by Ursula K. Le Guin
An exploration of the power of dreams, with the potential to reshape reality.
The book is set in Portland, Oregon , in the year 2002. Portland has three million inhabitants and continuous rain. It is deprived enough for the poorer inhabitants to have kwashiorkor , a protein ... (Wikipedia)
The Bone Clocks
by David Mitchell
A time-spanning saga of a war between two powerful supernatural forces.
Following a scalding row with her mother, fifteen-year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her old life. But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: a sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew ... (Goodreads)
City of Miracles
by Robert Jackson Bennett
A former soldier embarks on a quest for justice, unearthing secrets of a mystical city.
Revenge. It's something Sigrud je Harkvaldsson is very, very good at. Maybe the only thing. So when he learns that his oldest friend and ally, former Prime Minister Shara Komayd, has been ... (Goodreads)
Ninefox Gambit
by Yoon Ha Lee
A disgraced captain is given a chance to redeem herself by recapturing a fortress using unconventional tactics in a far-future society.
The first installment of the trilogy, Ninefox Gambit , centers on disgraced captain Kel Cheris, who must recapture the formidable Fortress of Scattered Needles in order to redeem herself in front of ... (Goodreads)
The Ice Dragon
by George R.R. Martin
A young girl's quest to tame a magical creature and save her home from destruction.
The ice dragon was a creature of legend and fear, for no man had ever tamed one. When it flew overhead, it left in its wake desolate cold and frozen land. But Adara was not afraid. For Adara was a ... (Goodreads)
Foucault's Pendulum
by Umberto Eco
A humorous and wild historical conspiracy thriller set across Europe.
A man named Casaubon , is hiding in the Musée des Arts et Métiers after closing. He believes that a secret society has kidnapped his friend Jacopo Belbo and are now after him, and will meet in the ... (Wikipedia)
VALIS
by Philip K. Dick
A man's quest to uncover the meaning behind a series of mystical visions.
VALIS is the first book in Philip K. Dick's incomparable final trio of novels (the others being The Divine Invasion and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer ). This disorienting and bleakly funny ... (Goodreads)
The Anubis Gates
by Tim Powers
A professor travels through time to ancient Egypt and confronts supernatural forces.
In 1801 the British have risen to power in Egypt and suppress the worship of the old Egyptian gods . A cabal of magicians plan to drive the British out of Egypt by bringing the gods forward in time ... (Wikipedia)
Neuromancer
by William Gibson
A hacker's journey through a dystopian cyberpunk world, searching for a way to survive.
Henry Dorsett Case is a low-level hustler in the dystopian underworld of Chiba City , Japan. Once a talented computer hacker , Case was caught stealing from his employer. As punishment for his theft, ... (Wikipedia)
Borne
by Jeff VanderMeer
In a post-apocalyptic world, a scavenger finds a mysterious creature named Borne and raises it, but soon discovers its dangerous potential.
In the ruins of a nameless city of the future that is dominated by a giant grizzly bear called Mord, a woman named Rachel lives as a scavenger, collecting genetically engineered organisms and ... (Wikipedia)
The Library at Mount Char
by Scott Hawkins
A group of orphans with supernatural abilities must battle for control of a mysterious library.
An unexplained catastrophe destroys part of a town, but twelve children survive. The survivors are "adopted" and raised by a powerful, god-like figure called Father. Together they live in "the ... (Wikipedia)
The Three-Body Problem
by Liu Cixin
A science fiction novel exploring the consequences of first contact with an alien civilization.
The story takes place in flash-forwards, flashbacks, and the present time. Below is a chronological plotline. During the Cultural Revolution , Ye Wenjie, an astrophysics graduate from Tsinghua ... (Wikipedia)
Way Station
by Clifford D. Simak
A man living in a remote Wisconsin town discovers a secret gateway to other worlds.
Enoch Wallace, an American Civil War veteran, is chosen by an alien to administer a way station for interplanetary travel. His job is to monitor the machinery of the way station and make sure arrival ... (Wikipedia)
The Sandman: Overture
by Neil Gaiman
A cosmic journey of interdimensional exploration, revealing the secrets of the universe.
On an alien world, an aspect of Dream senses that something is very wrong, and dies in flames. In London 1915, while intending to deal with the troublesome nightmare The Corinthian , Morpheus is ... (Wikipedia)
Less Than Zero
by Bret Easton Ellis
A young man returns to his hometown of Los Angeles and becomes disillusioned with the empty and hedonistic lifestyle of his wealthy friends.
The novel follows the life of Clay, a rich, young college student who has returned to his hometown of Los Angeles , California for winter break circa 1984. Through first-person narration , Clay ... (Wikipedia)
Station Eleven
by Emily St. John Mandel
Post-apocalyptic exploration of a world drastically changed after a pandemic.
An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse,, Station Eleven, tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Collapsing Empire
by John Scalzi
A daring adventure to save humanity's future in a universe connected by portals.
The Interdependency is a thousand-year-old human empire of 48 star systems connected by the Flow, a network of "streams" allowing faster-than-light travel . Each stream is one way and has an entry ... (Wikipedia)
Look to Windward
by Iain M. Banks
The story of two civilizations and their intertwined destinies, spanning thousands of years.
The Chelgrians are a race of centaur-like cat aliens with three hind-limbs and a humanoid catlike torso. Major Quilan, a Chelgrian, has lost the will to live after the death of his wife, killed ... (Wikipedia)
Snow Crash
by Neal Stephenson
A hacker's quest in a futuristic America dealing with a mysterious computer virus.
Hiro Protagonist is a hacker and pizza delivery driver for the Mafia. He meets Y.T. (short for Yours Truly), a young skateboard Kourier ( courier ) who refers to herself in the third person , during ... (Wikipedia)
A Wizard of Earthsea
by Ursula K. Le Guin
A young wizard embarks on a quest to master his own magical powers and battle a mysterious force of evil.
Ged, the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea, was called Sparrowhawk in his reckless youth. Hungry for power and knowledge, Sparrowhawk tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon ... (Goodreads)
The Peripheral
by William Gibson
A journey to the future, exploring the possibilities of a post-apocalyptic world.
The novel begins sometime in the near-future in a small town in rural America. Flynne Fisher works at a local 3D printing shop and lives with her mother and her brother Burton, who sustained brain ... (Wikipedia)
Slade House
by David Mitchell
A supernatural thriller involving mysterious doorways that lead to a mysterious house with a sinister secret.
In 1979, Nathan Bishop and his mother are invited to the house of the respected Lady Grayer. Nathan is quickly acquainted with her son Jonah, and the two spend the afternoon in the garden of Slade ... (Wikipedia)
Bluebeard
by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
A woman's exploration of her husband's dark past, uncovering secrets and shocking truths.
At the opening of the book, the narrator, Rabo Karabekian , apologizes to the arriving guests: "I promised you an autobiography, but something went wrong in the kitchen..." He describes himself as a ... (Wikipedia)
