Books like New Rock New Role

LeGuin's light science fiction really could have been an imagined contemporary world, as it contrasts a socialist- anarchistic society with a truly contemporary capitalist and government-authoritarian system. Its central character, committed to the former, visits and experiences the latter, only to realize that individualism can still contribute in a more egalitarian order. The book raises basic questions about behavior within a larger community and its dominant values with a strong central character who leads the life of the mind.

The His Dark Materials TV series was based on Philip Pullman’s trilogy of novels by the same name, and The Secret Commonwealth picks up seamlessly where the trilogy, and series, concluded.

Awaiting the reader is a duplicitous world fraught with danger where each human’s consciousness exists alongside them in animal form. What happens when people behave contrary to what their conscience suggests is experienced by the protagonist Lyra during her quest for independence, truth, and ultimately reunification with her soul.

This novel was entertaining and thought provoking throughout.

This is utterly unique in the way Norton Juster is able to build a fantasy world out of words, logic, and math.

As a young adult, I loved the idea of receiving a magic tollbooth and driving into a magic world. But, immediately, I found the book challenging because Milo ends up in the doldrums (a word I had never heard before). This is not just a fantasy adventure, but a cautionary tale, a character study, and a world full of puns and puzzles.

Returning to the book as an adult, I was amazed at how seamlessly Juster puts it all together.

Don't panic.

Science fiction can be hilarious without becoming merely ridiculous. It can bend the genre’s conventions without losing its way, and unleash its imagination while still taking sharp aim at human arrogance.

I read this book before it was widely recognized as a classic, and immediately loved its mixture of adventure, unforgettable characters, and jokes so brilliant that they became cultural touchstones around the world.

Most of all, I loved never being able to imagine what would happen on the next page. Few books offer the same combination of speed, adventure, unpredictability, and genuine laughter. Ever since I finished it, I have kept a small towel nearby, just in case the world ends.

I have always been impressed by this Gothic masterpiece set in the giant, crumbling castle of Gormenghast, a community of traditions and strict rules enforced by a Master of Ritual.

The birth of Titus shakes the community and reawakens divisions of entitlement and hierarchy and prompts the rise to influence of Steerpike, an ambitious kitchen boy who aspires to become Master of Ritual.

The story, whose weirdness is underlined by character names including Lord Sepulchrave, Fuchsia Groan, Sourdust and Prunesquallor, works through multiple conspiracies to achieve their aims. The book absorbs the reader into its strange, unique world through its strange cast and language.

Robert Sheckley stands out from his contemporaries of the golden age of science fiction by being not just great but also often very funny. 

Sheckley has a wry, insightful wit, which puts him in a class of his own among the giants of the post-WW2 era. Start with his eight stories of the AAA Ace Interplanetary Decontamination Service. Great idea, great characters, great settings (two shysters running a fly-by-night planetary fixer-upper service, on the cheap): they are light, effortless, unpretentious, insightful, and brilliant. 

It’s basically Ghostbusters in space. What more could you want?

Liking Terry Pratchett is a bit like liking pizza: not terribly remarkable.

Pratchett is a master storyteller who commands not only tropes but the idea behind them with such skill that I can read one of his books and never realize I’m getting the most profound lesson of my life. I could have recommended any of his books, and more to the point, any of his City Watch books, but I single out this particular book for a reason. I’m a humanist, like Pratchett, and this book explores his humanism most effectively.

And it’s also an amazing mystery and incredible comedy.