Here are 9 books that Dayworld fans have personally recommended once you finish the Dayworld series.
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There were 3.7 billion people on Earth when I was born. By November 2022, there will be 8 billion. I am fascinated and terrified by this growth. I love stories that address this issue head-on, be it colonisation of other planets, compulsory euthanasia, or uploading consciousness into machines. When I started writing, I didn’t realise how I was bringing these themes together—I was writing a book I’d love to read. Now I can see those influences, and I am grateful for the authors who have shaped my thinking and my work.
I have given copies of the Galactic Milieu Trilogy as gifts more than any other book. This is the bravest near-future sci-fi series I have ever read. Intervention, published in 1987, follows events from 1945 through to 2013 when the five races of the Galactic Milieu embrace humanity. I love the merger of historical events with future possibilities in a story centred around a dynasty of ‘operant’ human beings.
As a teenager, I was fascinated by stories of telepathy, etc., but I found most books that dealt with ‘higher mind powers’ were in the fantasy or horror market. But this series is perfect sci-fi, technically plausible while politically powerful—and again, with a large, diverse cast.
For 60,000 years, the worlds of the Galactic Milieu have observed Earth, waiting for humanity to evolve sufficiently to join them. Now, humanity is almost ready for Intervention. Across the world, children with unusual mental powers are being born, known as operants. One such is Rogi Remillard, humble book dealer. Helped by an entity he labels the family ghost, Rogi will inadvertently steer his family - and so all mankind - into the future.
Rogi's journey starts with his nephew Denis, as he guides his strong metapsychic abilities. The young man's irresponsible father certainly isn't interested, focusing instead on his…
As a graduate in computer science and electronics, I have had a successful career in the tech sector. I am interested in writing about the pattern of evolution that manifests in both humanity and machines. My books are based on science and contemplate the long history of human spirituality and how the two must someday converge.
Set in Earth's future, humanity has been reduced to an ideal population. Living in domed cities humans live and die by the hand of the city's central computer. In this world, humanity has staved off the perils of overpopulation by surrendering human existence to the central computer's machine mind.
With an enforced life span of only 21 years and every possible need and desire supplied and maintained by a central artificial intelligence, humanity has stagnated. Are we, today, in the real world, exploring the same path Nolan and Johnson presented in this book? We seem incapable of the political and social will to curb population or to limit our decadence. If we remain unable and unwilling to decide what a stable human world culture would look like, I foresee a time when we will delegate our future to machines. And, like Logan's world, we will stagnate.
The bestselling dystopian novel that inspired the 1970s science-fiction classic starring Michael York, Jenny Agutter, and Richard Jordan.
In 2116, it is against the law to live beyond the age of twenty-one years. When the crystal flower in the palm of your hand turns from red to black, you have reached your Lastday and you must report to a Sleepshop for processing. But the human will to survive is strong—stronger than any mere law.
Logan 3 is a Sandman, an enforcer who hunts down those Runners who refuse to accept Deep Sleep. The day before Logan’s palmflower shifts to black,…
There were 3.7 billion people on Earth when I was born. By November 2022, there will be 8 billion. I am fascinated and terrified by this growth. I love stories that address this issue head-on, be it colonisation of other planets, compulsory euthanasia, or uploading consciousness into machines. When I started writing, I didn’t realise how I was bringing these themes together—I was writing a book I’d love to read. Now I can see those influences, and I am grateful for the authors who have shaped my thinking and my work.
Coyote is a habitable moon orbiting Bear, a gas giant forty light years away. Earth’s first interstellar ship is hijacked by a group of engineers and scientists, usurping the post-US government loyalists who intend to make Coyote their home.
This book speaks to the aspirational me, the part that wants to evolve beyond Earth and build a new future, a better future, but inevitably the hubris of modern man threatens to destroy paradise. It’s a conceptually magnificent colonisation book built on plausible science, yet its success lies in the characters’ need to work together to conquer a seemingly benign world. I frequently revisit Coyote because it’s a great story, brilliantly told, and it makes me gaze at the stars.
Coyote marks a dramatic new turn in the career of Allen Steele, Hugo Award-winning author of Chronospace. Epic in scope, passionate in its conviction, and set against a backdrop of plausible events, it tells the brilliant story of Earth’s first interstellar colonists—and the mysterious planet that becomes their home…
I have been an enthusiast of aviation, space, and science fiction since I was a child. I graduated in aerospace engineering while the Apollo missions reached the Moon, but then in the post-Apollo days, I worked mostly in the mechanical engineering field. In the 1990s, as a professor of machine design, I could return to aerospace. Later, as a member of the International Academy of Astronautics, I led a study group on human Mars exploration and wrote some research books in this field and a few science fiction novels. I have always been fascinated by the idea that humans can become a multi-planetary species, returning to the Moon and going beyond.
I liked this book (and also the others of the trilogy) for the realistic and well-thought-out description of the terraforming of Mars.
The ethical and political aspects of this endeavor are so well described that the reader immediately gets involved in the political struggle (I personally joined the ‘green’ party advocating for immediate terraforming).
But politics on Mars is as harsh as on Earth and even more deadly since the place is a very dangerous one. The United Nations plays the part of the felon, trying to prevent Martians from becoming independent, and the war they wage causes the reader to lose several friends.
The first novel in Kim Stanley Robinson's massively successful and lavishly praised Mars trilogy. 'The ultimate in future history' Daily Mail
Mars - the barren, forbidding planet that epitomises mankind's dreams of space conquest.
From the first pioneers who looked back at Earth and saw a small blue star, to the first colonists - hand-picked scientists with the skills necessary to create life from cold desert - Red Mars is the story of a new genesis.
It is also the story of how Man must struggle against his own self-destructive mechanisms to achieve his dreams: before he even sets foot…
Two themes run through my book recommendations. First is the lone protagonist against impossible odds. Don’t we all feel this way from time to time in our lives? I’m no exception and still have the scars to prove it, which is why my first novel was intended to promote awareness and prevention of child abuse and domestic violence. Secondly, I’ve had an affinity for speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, and paranormal) since I was a child so it only stands to reason that I would be inspired by the likes of Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, Philip José Farmer, Philip K. Dick, and other masters of these genres.
Harlan Ellison’s Shatterday holds two of the most memorable short stories I’ve ever read.
In “Jeffty is Five,” a young boy never ages and is somehow able to listen to new episodes of cancelled radio shows and conjure up new issues of pulp magazines long out of print. He is oblivious to the changing world around him until he is brutally exposed to the harsh realities of modern life.
In “Shatterday,” a callous, insensitive young man finds himself confronted by a doppelganger who not only takes over his life, but improves it until the original simply fades away.
In the introduction to his collection, Ellison indicates that his stories reflect the underlying theme of human frailty and ugliness. His goal is to shock his readers into seeing how this common fear unifies all people. This is one of the reasons why Harlan Ellison is one of my favorite writers of…
Ellison's sixteen previously uncollected stories and new novella further his reputation as an intrepid explorer of odd psychological corners and a master of pure horror and black comedy
Two themes run through my book recommendations. First is the lone protagonist against impossible odds. Don’t we all feel this way from time to time in our lives? I’m no exception and still have the scars to prove it, which is why my first novel was intended to promote awareness and prevention of child abuse and domestic violence. Secondly, I’ve had an affinity for speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, and paranormal) since I was a child so it only stands to reason that I would be inspired by the likes of Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, Philip José Farmer, Philip K. Dick, and other masters of these genres.
The Book of Philip Jose Farmer is a collection of 16 brilliant short stories ranging from SF and horror to fantasy and satire.
The most memorable and frightening tale of all—and one that I often use an example of a perfect paranormal tale—is “Father in the Basement.” An eleven-year-old girl employs her supernatural ability to help her father work around the clock for days to complete the first draft of his novel. He wanted it to be his final act, after all.
One of the most chilling endings of any horror story out there.
Quoting Aristotle when writing about yourself probably comes off as pretentious, but looking back at how I became a writer, his idea of how good stories must be “surprising yet inevitable” rings true: from a childhood split in rural Bavaria, where dark German fairytales sparked my love for books to experiments with lucid dreaming that ended in a loss of reality, my ending up as a game writer and novelist focused on the mind and dreams does sound somewhat inevitable—even if it took me some detours and distractions to get there. Now, I couldn’t be happier. 😊
From the strange title to the premise of a futuristic television star who suddenly no one remembers, this book, is the essence of why PKD remains one of my favorite authors: futurism, psychology, and existential angst distilled into a mind-bending cocktail whose characters somehow still feel perfectly grounded and believable.
Jason Taverner has a glittering TV career, millions of fans, great wealth and something close to eternal youth. He is one of a handful of brilliant, beautiful people, the product of top-secret government experiments forty years earlier. But suddenly, all records of him vanish. He becomes a man with no identity, in a police state where everyone us closely monitored. Can he ever be rich and famous again? Or was that life just an illusion?
I've loved horror since I was a kid. However, the horror of the unexpected has frequently popped up in my life. This started most prominently with a day on the beach, near the haunted Hotel del Coronado; while my mind was busy thinking of ghosts, I busily picked up various seashells, only to be shocked to find a crab in one of the shells I had attempted to retrieve. Several paranormal experiences and many late nights of research later, I have become the writer presenting you this list today. I've spent a lot of time watching movies, teaching, and reading about sociology. Happy reading!
This is a sci-fi book from famous sci-fi author Phillip K. Dick. Besides suggesting some big, scary questions, it didn't exactly stick to what I usually go for in a sci-fi book.
For a while, it involved this product, Ubik, which has so many uses that it's everywhere. But the story drew me in with a relatively everyman-type guy on a team of psionic corporate spies—and then things get weird. It's the kind of weird like when I was struggling to remember this amazing horror movie I had seen, only to realize the media in question had actually been this unforgettable book.
A classic science fiction tale of artifical worlds by one of the great American writers of the 20th century
Glen Runciter is dead.
Or is he?
Someone died in the explosion orchestrated by his business rivals, but even as his funeral is scheduled, his mourning employees are receiving bewildering messages from their boss. And the world around them is warping and regressing in ways which suggest that their own time is running out.
If it hasn't already.
Readers minds have been blown by Ubik:
'Sheer craziness, a book defying any straightforward synopsis . . . a unique time travel adventure…
Two themes run through my book recommendations. First is the lone protagonist against impossible odds. Don’t we all feel this way from time to time in our lives? I’m no exception and still have the scars to prove it, which is why my first novel was intended to promote awareness and prevention of child abuse and domestic violence. Secondly, I’ve had an affinity for speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, and paranormal) since I was a child so it only stands to reason that I would be inspired by the likes of Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, Philip José Farmer, Philip K. Dick, and other masters of these genres.
The variety of subjects covered in this collection of 22 short stories demonstrates Bradbury's prowess as a master craftsman and the reason why I count him among my literary heroes.
More than a few of these tales have become legendary, including “A Sound of Thunder.” Bradbury's premise of how the death of a butterfly in prehistoric times could have drastic changes in the future is a variation on the famous “butterfly effect” and a fine example of the relationship between chaos theory and the physics of time travel. For me, the most incredible story in the collection is “The Fog Horn” in which an elusive sea monster attacks a lighthouse after being attracted by its foghorn for years. This story was the inspiration for the 1953 film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.
Ray Bradbury is a modern cultural treasure. His disarming simplicity of style underlies a towering body of work unmatched in metaphorical power by any other American storyteller. And here, presented in a new trade edition, are thirty-two of his most famous tales--prime examples of the poignant and mysterious poetry which Bradbury uniquely uncovers in the depths of the human soul, the otherwordly portraits of outré fascination which spring from the canvas of one of the century's great men of imagination. From a lonely coastal lighthouse to a sixty-million-year-old safary, from the pouring rain of Venus to the ominous silence of…
