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Recommendations based on Look to Windwardby Iain M. Banks
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Consider Phlebas
by Iain M. Banks
A thrilling space opera about a galactic war between two powerful civilizations.
The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, faced destruction, cold-blooded, brutal, and worse, random. The Idirans ... (Goodreads)
The Player of Games
by Iain M. Banks
A game-player embarks on a journey to win a tournament in a distant world, uncovering secrets along the way.
The Culture - a humanoid/machine symbiotic society - has thrown up many great Game Players. One of the best is Jernau Morat Gurgeh, Player of Games, master of every board, computer and strategy. ... (Goodreads)
Excession
by Iain M. Banks
An interstellar culture encounters an enigmatic, ancient entity and must grapple with its implications.
The Excession of the title is a perfect black-body sphere that appears mysteriously on the edge of Culture space, appearing to be older than the Universe itself and that resists the attempts of the ... (Wikipedia)
The Forever War
by Joe Haldeman
A soldier's story of the horror of war and its consequences in the far future.
The monumental Hugo and Nebula award winning SF classic— Featuring a new introduction by John Scalzi,The Earth's leaders have drawn a line in the interstellar sand—despite the fact that the fierce ... (Barnes & Noble)
Absolution Gap
by Alastair Reynolds
A sci-fi adventure featuring a crew of misfits on a mission to save their home world from destruction.
The plot of the novel takes place in four separate time periods. The bulk of the novel is contained in the 2675 and 2727 sections. Queen Jasmina of the lighthugger Gnostic Ascension wakes Quaiche, a ... (Wikipedia)
The Reality Dysfunction
by Peter F. Hamilton
Epic sci-fi adventure through space and time, tackling questions of identity and reality.
The Reality Dysfunction opens in the year 2581 with a war raging between two worlds, Omuta and Garissa, over three hundred and eighty seven mineral-rich asteroids known as the Dorados. The war ... (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)
Revelation Space
by Alastair Reynolds
A space opera that explores the dark side of humanity and the consequences of advanced technology.
Nine hundred thousand years ago, something annihilated the Amarantin civilization just as it was on the verge of discovering space flight. Now one scientist, Dan Sylveste, will stop at nothing to ... (Goodreads)
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)
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 Wasp Factory
by Iain Banks
A disturbed teenage boy discovers startling truths about his family and himself.
The story is told from the perspective of 16-year-old Frank Cauldhame. Frank lives with his father on a small island in rural Scotland , and he has not seen his mother in many years. There is no ... (Wikipedia)
Nemesis Games
by James S.A. Corey
A group of spacefaring adventurers embark on a journey of discovery and peril.
The fifth novel in Corey's New York Times bestselling Expanse series–now being produced for television by the SyFy Channel! A thousand worlds have opened, and the greatest land rush in human history ... (Goodreads)
Thief of Time
by Terry Pratchett
A humorous fantasy adventure to save time from being stolen.
The Auditors hire young clockmaker Jeremy Clockson to build a perfect glass clock, without telling him that this will stop time and thereby eliminate human unpredictability from the universe. Death ... (Wikipedia)
The Caves of Steel
by Isaac Asimov
Detective story set in a distant future, where humans and robots coexist.
A faction of Spacers have come to the realization that Spacer culture is effete, stagnating due to negative population growth and longevity. Their solution is to encourage further space exploration ... (Wikipedia)
The Wee Free Men
by Terry Pratchett
A young girl's fantastical journey to save her brother, with the help of a mischievous gang of tiny blue-clad warriors.
Tiffany Aching is a 9-year-old girl who literally sees things differently from others. While playing by the river near her home, she sees two tiny blue, kilted men who warn her of a "green heid" in ... (Wikipedia)
Old Man's War
by John Scalzi
Elderly citizens enlist in an interstellar war to save humanity, discovering new strength and purpose.
Old Man's War is about a soldier named John Perry and his exploits in the Colonial Defense Forces (CDF). The first-person narrative follows Perry's military career from CDF recruit to the rank of ... (Wikipedia)
Judas Unchained
by Peter F. Hamilton
The thrilling conclusion to the Commonwealth Saga. Humanity faces its greatest threat as ancient alien technology is unleashed.
The book opens with a short section providing backstory. As part of the first mission to Mars , a team of astronauts exits their spacecraft for the first time, only to see another man standing there, ... (Wikipedia)
A Canticle for Leibowitz
by Walter M. Miller Jr.
A post-apocalyptic tale of a world struggling to rebuild after a devastating nuclear war.
After 20th century civilization was destroyed by a global nuclear war , known as the "Flame Deluge", there was a violent backlash against the culture of advanced knowledge and technology that had led ... (Wikipedia)
Neverwhere
by Neil Gaiman
A mysterious journey through a hidden realm of London, filled with danger and unexpected allies.
Neverwhere is the story of Richard Mayhew and his trials and tribulations in London. At the start of the story, he is a young businessman, recently moved from Scotland and with a normal life ahead. ... (Wikipedia)
Complicity
by Iain Banks
A man's investigation into a murder, exposing a web of government conspiracies.
Colley is a " Gonzo journalist " with an amphetamine habit, living in Edinburgh. He also smokes cigarettes and cannabis , drinks copious amounts of alcohol , plays computer games, and has adventurous ... (Wikipedia)
Hyperion
by Dan Simmons
Epic science-fiction story of a journey to the distant planet Hyperion.
In the 29th century, the Hegemony of Man comprises hundreds of planets connected by farcaster portals. The Hegemony maintains an uneasy alliance with the TechnoCore , a civilisation of AIs . Modified ... (Wikipedia)
Chasm City
by Alastair Reynolds
A journey through a post-apocalyptic city, uncovering its lost secrets.
The once-utopian Chasm City -a doomed human settlement on an otherwise inhospitable planet- has been overrun by a virus known as the Melding Plague, capable of infecting any body, organic or ... (Goodreads)
The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
by Neal Stephenson
A young girl's journey of learning and self-discovery, aided by advanced technology.
The protagonist in the story is Nell, a thete (or person without a tribe; equivalent to the lowest working class) living in the Leased Territories, a lowland slum built on the artificial, diamondoid ... (Wikipedia)
Ringworld
by Larry Niven
A sci-fi adventure to an artificial ring-shaped world, full of unexpected challenges.
On planet Earth in 2850 AD , Louis Gridley Wu is celebrating his 200th birthday. Despite his age, Louis is in perfect physical condition due to the longevity drug boosterspice . He meets Nessus , a ... (Wikipedia)
Ancillary Justice
by Ann Leckie
A sci-fi epic of revenge and redemption, exploring the far reaches of the galaxy.
On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest. Once, she was the Justice of Toren - a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking ... (Goodreads)
Life, the Universe and Everything
by Douglas Adams
An intergalactic quest to find the answer to the ultimate question of life.
After being stranded on pre-historic Earth after the events in, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, , Arthur Dent is met by his old friend Ford Prefect , who drags him into a space-time eddy , ... (Wikipedia)
Red Mars
by Kim Stanley Robinson
Colonists brave the harsh landscapes of Mars, striving to make the planet their new home.
Red Mars starts in 2026 with the first colonial voyage to Mars aboard the Ares , the largest interplanetary spacecraft ever built and home to a crew who are to be the first hundred Martian colonists. ... (Wikipedia)
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
by Douglas Adams
An offbeat detective story set in a surreal, supernatural world.
Dirk Gently, who calls himself a " holistic detective", has happened upon what he thinks is a rather comfortable situation. A wealthy man in the record industry has retained him, spinning a story ... (Wikipedia)
The Rise of Endymion
by Dan Simmons
A perilous adventure in a post-apocalyptic future, with a hero set on fulfilling a mysterious destiny.
The Rise of Endymion is set more than 275 years after the fall of the Hegemony of Man, an interstellar organization connected by farcaster portals. At the time of this novel, the Roman Catholic ... (Wikipedia)
Seveneves
by Neal Stephenson
Humanity's struggle for survival after an apocalyptic event threatens to extinguish life on Earth.
In the near future, an unknown agent causes the Moon to shatter. As the pieces begin to collide with one another, astronomer and science popularizer "Doc" Dubois Harris calculates that Moon fragments ... (Wikipedia)
