Literary theme analysis, by a book like {foo}
Books about Alternate Realities
The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.
by Neal Stephenson
A science-fiction adventure, exploring the implications of time travel.
U.S. Army Major Tristan Lyons hires Dr. Melisande Stokes, a Harvard linguistics lecturer, to translate a variety of historic texts. The work is classified, to the point that Lyons cannot even reveal ... (Wikipedia)
The Man in the High Castle
by Philip K. Dick
Set in an alternate 1962, a man must confront a dark and oppressive new world order.
It's America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco, the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some twenty ... (Goodreads)
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
by Robert A. Heinlein
A thrilling adventure of an unlikely hero, exploring the boundaries of science and reality.
A writer seated at the best restaurant of the space habitat "Golden Rule" is approached by a man who urges him that "Tolliver must die" and is himself shot before the writer's eyes. The ... (Wikipedia)
The Dispatcher
by John Scalzi
A man discovers an ability to revive the recently dead, leading to a chaotic and dangerous situation.
Listening Length: 2 hours and 18 minutes One day, not long from now, it becomes almost impossible to murder anyone - 999 times out of a thousand, anyone who is intentionally killed comes back. How? ... (Goodreads)
4 3 2 1
by Paul Auster
An exploration of alternate realities, tracing the lives of four identical boys who go their own ways.
Nearly two weeks early, on March 3, 1947, in the maternity ward of Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, Archibald Isaac Ferguson, the one and only child of Rose and Stanley Ferguson, is born. ... (Goodreads)
Dark Matter
by Blake Crouch
A man is taken on a journey through alternate universes, as he struggles to get back to his family.
Jason Dessen is walking home through the chilly Chicago streets one night, looking forward to a quiet evening in front of the fireplace with his wife, Daniela, and their son, Charlie—when his reality ... (Goodreads)
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
by Douglas Adams
An eccentric detective's surreal journey through time and space to solve a mysterious case.
Richard MacDuff attends the Coleridge dinner at his old college St Cedd's , where he witnesses his former tutor, Professor Urban "Reg" Chronotis , perform an inexplicable magic trick in which he ... (Wikipedia)
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)
Moving Pictures
by Terry Pratchett
A comedic fantasy novel exploring the magical world of Discworld.
The alchemists of the Discworld have invented moving pictures. Many hopefuls are drawn by the siren call of Holy Wood, home of the fledgling " clicks " industry – among them Victor Tugelbend, a ... (Wikipedia)
Nine Princes in Amber
by Roger Zelazny
A man discovers he is a member of a royal family from another world and embarks on a quest to reclaim his rightful place.
Carl Corey wakes in a medical clinic, with little to no knowledge of who he is or how he got there. He suspects he is being over-medicated, so he overpowers the nurse and doctor and escapes his room. ... (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)
InterWorld
by Neil Gaiman
Adventure through alternate realities, joining forces with magical enemies to save the multiverse.
Joey Harker is an average high school student living in Greenville. He had trouble finding his way around his own house, let alone the town. On a field trip set by his Social Studies teacher, Mr. ... (Wikipedia)
A Million Worlds with You
by Claudia Gray
The final book in the Firebird trilogy, Marguerite must travel through multiple dimensions to save the ones she loves and prevent the collapse of the multiverse.
A million universes. A million dangers. One destiny. The fate of the multiverse rests in Marguerite Caine’s hands. Marguerite has been at the center of a cross-dimensional feud since she first ... (Goodreads)
Third Shift: Pact
by Hugh Howey
In a post-apocalyptic world, a group of survivors struggle to survive in an underground silo, but secrets threaten to tear them apart.
The third and final chapter of the Shift saga. This is part 8 of the Silo Series, which began with Wool. ... (Goodreads)
The Fold
by Peter Clines
A scientist must unravel the secrets of a mysterious invention that could unlock the power of teleportation.
STEP INTO THE FOLD. IT’S PERFECTLY SAFE. , The folks in Mike Erikson's small New England town would say he's just your average, everyday guy. And that's exactly how Mike likes it. Sure, the life he's ... (Goodreads)
My Real Children
by Jo Walton
An elderly woman with dementia remembers two different lives she could have lived, each with its own joys and sorrows.
In 2015, Patricia is 89 years old and living in a nursing home, with two mutually-exclusive sets of memories: one of a world where John F. Kennedy was killed by a bomb in 1963, and one of a world ... (Wikipedia)
All Our Wrong Todays
by Elan Mastai
A man is accidentally sent back in time to an alternate reality, where he must confront his choices and find a way back home.
You know the future that people in the 1950s imagined we'd have? Well, it happened. In Tom Barren's 2016, humanity thrives in a techno-utopian paradise of flying cars, moving sidewalks, and moon ... (Goodreads)
Planetary, Volume 4: Spacetime Archaeology
by Warren Ellis
A team of archaeologists travels to different planets to uncover the secrets of the universe and its past civilizations.
This is it-the final, spectacular collection of Warren Ellis and John Cassaday's PLANETARY. Collecting issues #19-27 of this unique series, Volume 4 features the final battles waged by Elijah Snow, ... (Barnes & Noble)
Wayward
by Blake Crouch
A man's desperate mission to rescue his family from a parallel dimension.
Welcome to Wayward Pines, population 461. Nestled amidst picture-perfect mountains, the idyllic town is a modern-day Eden...except for the electrified fence and razor wire, snipers scoping everything ... (Goodreads)
The End of Mr. Y
by Scarlett Thomas
An adventure through alternate universes to unlock the mysteries of a mysterious book.
A cursed book. A missing professor. Some nefarious men in gray suits. And a dreamworld called the Troposphere? Ariel Manto has a fascination with nineteenth-century scientists–especially Thomas Lumas ... (Goodreads)
A Symphony of Echoes
by Jodi Taylor
A thrilling time-travel adventure to save the future from destruction.
Book Two in the madcap time-travel series based at the St Mary's Institute of Historical Research that seems to be everyone's cup of tea. In the second book in the Chronicles of St Mary's series, Max ... (Goodreads)
The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick 2: We Can Remember it for You Wholesale
by Philip K. Dick
A collection of science fiction short stories exploring the nature of reality, memory, and identity.
Many thousands of readers consider Philip K. Dick the greatest science fiction mind on any planet. Since his untimely death in 1982, interest in Dick's works has continued to mount and his reputation ... (Goodreads)
All Clear
by Connie Willis
Time-traveling historians attempt to rescue their colleagues stuck in the past.
It is the year 2060, and the historians (time-traveling research staff) at Oxford University are a hair's breadth away from revolting. Mr. Dunworthy keeps changing their assignments at the last ... (Wikipedia)
The Invisible Library
by Genevieve Cogman
A librarian embarks on a mission to retrieve a rare book from alternate realities.
Irene must be at the top of her game or she'll be off the case - permanently... Irene is a professional spy for the mysterious Library, which harvests fiction from different realities. And along with ... (Goodreads)
Wolf by Wolf
by Ryan Graudin
A daring mission to alter the course of history by infiltrating a deadly Nazi race.
From the author of, The Walled City, comes a fast-paced and innovative novel that will leave you breathless. Her story begins on a train. The year is 1956, and the Axis powers of the Third Reich and ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Dark Design
by Philip José Farmer
The third book in the Riverworld series, where the characters continue their journey to uncover the secrets of the afterlife.
The plot, set 30 years after humanity's resurrection, consists of three distinct plot lines, which come together towards the conclusion. In the first plot line, Richard Burton and his friends ... (Wikipedia)
Behold the Man
by Michael Moorcock
A time traveler goes back to meet Jesus, but ends up becoming him. A thought-provoking exploration of faith and identity.
The story begins with Karl's violent arrival in the Holy Land of AD 28, where his time machine, a womb-like, fluid-filled sphere, cracks open and becomes useless. By interpolating numerous memories ... (Wikipedia)
Flashforward
by Robert J. Sawyer
Humanity faces a dilemma when the entire population experiences a glimpse of the future.
Lloyd Simcoe, a 45-year-old Canadian particle physicist, oversees a run of the Large Hadron Collider . He works with his fiancée Michiko Kamura, who has a daughter, Tamiko. The experiment ... (Wikipedia)
Bitter Seeds
by Ian Tregillis
In an alternate history, British warlocks use demonic forces to fight Nazi superhumans in World War II. But at what cost?
It's 1939. The Nazis have supermen, the British have demons, and one perfectly normal man gets caught in between,Raybould Marsh is a British secret agent in the early days of the Second World War, ... (Goodreads)
The Long Cosmos
by Terry Pratchett
The final installment of the Long Earth series, where humanity faces the ultimate question of existence and the fate of the Long Earth.
2070-71. Nearly six decades after Step Day and in the Long Earth, the new Next post-human society continues to evolve. For Joshua Valienté, now in his late sixties, it is time to take one last solo ... (Goodreads)
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