Here are 13 books that Ra fans have personally recommended if you like
Ra.
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Growing up at a time when both Monty Python and ‘alternative comedians’ like Ben Elton were on the telly, I couldn’t help but absorb British humor, and coupling that with a love of science fiction and fantasy (Asimov, Heinlein, Moorcock, etc.), I was ripe for an introduction to Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett… And the rest is history. The world is too serious a place, and I find comedy of all kinds, but especially SFF, a welcome escape. My own writing has been inspired by all the books on this list, and while I work in a range of genres, almost everything includes at least some snarky humor.
I first encountered Douglas Adams when I caught The Hitchhiker’s Guide on late-night radio, and I was hooked. The novel is slightly different, with Adams giving a bit more consideration to plot and logic, but it has the same wonderful, rapid-fire dialogue style, which has seldom been replicated.
I absolutely love Arthur Dent’s ludicrous accidental odyssey, meeting characters like Zaphod Beeblebrox and the wonderfully named Slartibartfast. The Guide sits in the background, popping up to provide superbly funny explanations of the history of the universe, humanity’s obsession with money, and a lot more.
For me, the thing that sets this apart from a lot of SFF humor is its ‘Britishness’—there’s a distinct feel of the surreal comic legacy of, for example, Monty Python and The Goon Show.
This box set contains all five parts of the' trilogy of five' so you can listen to the complete tales of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Bebblebrox and Marvin the Paranoid Android! Travel through space, time and parallel universes with the only guide you'll ever need, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Read by Stephen Fry, actor, director, author and popular audiobook reader, and Martin Freeman, who played Arthur Dent in film version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He is well known as Tim in The Office.
The set also includes a bonus DVD Life, the Universe and…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I think this is a good wakeup call in a similar way to Abundance, but focuses in more closely on fewer topics and does a more convincing job going into the details.
The universal basic income section was more compelling than the 15-hour work week for me -- and in some places they almost seemed to step on each others' toes. There was a big point made that UBI wouldn't decrease working hours, which then kind of got in the way of the logic behind the 15-hour work week. Maybe the loose differentiation between "profitable work" and "important but not profitable work" is muddling it a little.
I was surprised at how convincing the section on open borders was. It addressed all the common sources of pushback, while making a pretty good argument for the moral and economic importance of addressing the problem. It felt pretty realistic too, pointing out…
Universal basic income. A 15-hour workweek. Open borders. Does it sound too good to be true? One of Europe's leading young thinkers shows how we can build an ideal world today.
"A more politically radical Malcolm Gladwell." -- New York Times
After working all day at jobs we often dislike, we buy things we don't need. Rutger Bregman, a Dutch historian, reminds us it needn't be this way -- and in some places it isn't. Rutger Bregman's TED Talk about universal basic income seemed impossibly radical when he delivered it in 2014. A quarter of a million views later, the…
I wear many hats: veteran, PTSD-survivor, gardener, national security and law enforcement worker, certified beer judge, gardener, husband, and father. These last two are the most important by far. So, for my list, I wanted to pick my top five reads that your dad absolutely won’t be able to put down if you were to gift him one of these for Father’s Day! There are all kinds of reading dads out there, from History Dads to Thriller Dads to Fantasy Dads. This list has wonderful, unput-downable, slightly under-the-radar books for all the reading dads you know!
I love books with lots of twists and turns, I love realistic, near-future science fiction, and I love books with a beating, emotional heart at the center of even the wildest and action-packed storyline.
This book is a twisty-turny, mind-bending look at time travel where the science actually makes sense but doesn’t take a back seat to the propulsive narrative. Blake Crouch is a master of the modern thriller with a tech-heavy edge, while keeping a truly beating heart at the center of each story.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author of Dark Matter and the Wayward Pines trilogy comes a relentless thriller about time, identity, and memory—his most mind-boggling, irresistible work to date, and the inspiration for Shondaland’s upcoming Netflix film.
“Gloriously twisting . . . a heady campfire tale of a novel.”—The New York Times Book Review
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time • NPR • BookRiot
Reality is broken.
At first, it looks like a disease. An epidemic that spreads through no known means, driving its victims mad with memories of a life they…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
This book ended up being way better than I hoped. I've been disappointed a few times in my search for a certain brand of horror sci-fi, but this nailed it. It ended up being more technical/sci-fi than I thought it would be, given the crime/thriller FBI angle.
But wow, lots to dig into here. By the end, I wasn't following 100%, but that's basically a positive in this genre. It's somehow firmly grounded while also having a couple mindblowing twists. It's gory and dark but with a depth (that I miss from some Blake Crouch scifi thrillers)
It has such an iconic and distinct, somehow very visual, branding that it has the potential to be a great movie or mini series. Lets blow some crime-thriller-lovers' minds
The Silence of the Lambs meets Interstellar. The terrifying, thrilling and ingenious science-fiction thriller from Tom Sweterlitsch. Film rights bought by Twentieth Century Fox with Neil Blomkamp (District 9, Elysium) to direct.
'Thrilling . . . [a] dark, page-turning thriller' The Guardian
A murdered family. A missing girl. Time is running out...
1997. Shannon Moss of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service is assigned to solve the murder of a Navy SEAL's family - and to locate the soldier's missing teenage daughter. When Moss discovers that the SEAL was an astronaut aboard the spaceship U.S.S. Libra - a ship assumed lost…
For twenty years, I have worked with the data dungeons of large corporations. A synergy of people, systems, and IT. An organism that no one designed but grew haphazardly over the years. A cybernetic system. I have been a database admin, analyst, and data visualizer, and most recently, I was employed as a data scientist for a large Fortune 500 corporation. There, I am currently researching how to use large language models and which business questions can tolerate the fuzzy answers and hallucinations they bring. Despite loving these mindbenders, most of my writing features strong themes of Exploration, Technology, and Optimism (ETO).
This book is my favorite indie sci-fi novel. It starts with a broken and jumpy storyline that coalesces inwardly as the characters fight a cataclysmic horror. The premise is there are ideas, like those randomly generated passwords, that are simply very hard for a person to remember.
I read this during the COVID craziness. It was precisely why I write, as an escape from the media trying to drag you down with infinite worry. Rest, relax, and enjoy a fun story of someone else’s trials.
This is indie sci-fi at its best. It was a major inspiration and may have gotten a nod in my novel (I can’t remember.) What is great is that the second read-through differed from the first but was still just as enjoyable.
As this is a classic from the 70s, the characters and dialogue can be a little flat, but the originality of the story and the emotional angles that were explored were quite extraordinary.
When Kris Kelvin arrives at the planet Solaris to study the ocean that covers its surface he is forced to confront a painful, hitherto unconscious memory embodied in the physical likeness of a long-dead lover. Others suffer from the same affliction and speculation rises among scientists that the Solaris ocean may be a massive brain that creates incarnate memories, but its purpose in doing so remains a mystery . . .
Solaris raises a question that has been at the heart of human experience and literature for centuries: can we truly understand the universe around us without first understanding what…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I hated reading 1984 and I loved hating it! What a chilling and coherent vision of an impossibly totalitarian society that seems all too possible and all too prescient more and more each day now. Orwell explores the foundations of truth as the government of Big Brother uses their control of language and information to manipulate the thoughts of their populace and thus the fundamental realities experienced by all. The novel was published over 75 years ago, and sadly is more relevant today than ever.
1984 is the year in which it happens. The world is divided into three superstates. In Oceania, the Party's power is absolute. Every action, word, gesture and thought is monitored under the watchful eye of Big Brother and the Thought Police. In the Ministry of Truth, the Party's department for propaganda, Winston Smith's job is to edit the past. Over time, the impulse to escape the machine and live independently takes hold of him and he embarks on a secret and forbidden love affair. As he writes the words 'DOWN WITH BIG…
This book was absolutely insane in the best possible way. It almost felt like you were reading an action movie. It was extremely fast-paced. At the same time, the narrative perspective was really distant, so you have almost no idea about the characters' feelings and motivations. Only the most surface thoughts are shared with the reader. It was a very unique novel, and I felt like I learned a lot about the craft from this book, while enjoying a funny, gruesome, and wildly unique novel.
“Wholly original . . . the work of the newest major talent in fantasy.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Freakishly compelling . . . through heart-thumping acts of violence and laugh-out-loud moments, this book practically dares you to keep reading.”—Atlanta Magazine
A missing God. A library with the secrets to the universe. A woman too busy to notice her heart slipping away.
Carolyn's not so different from the other people around her. She likes guacamole and cigarettes and steak. She knows how to use a phone. Clothes are a bit tricky, but everyone says nice things about her outfit with the Christmas…
The magical beauty of this fantastical place feels like walking into one of your best dreams. Vividly written, one can almost smell the sweet treats it contains.
Rediscover the million-copy bestselling fantasy read with a different kind of magic, now in a stunning anniversary edition to mark 10 years since it's paperback debut.
The circus arrives without warning. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Against the grey sky the towering tents are striped black and white. A sign hanging upon an iron gates reads:
Opens at Nightfall Closes at Dawn
Full of breath-taking amazements and open only at night, Le Cirque des Reves seems to cast a spell over all who wander its circular paths. But behind the glittering acrobats, fortune-tellers…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I have always been interested in the metaphysical and in psychology, so I have always gravitated to how the mind creates our perception of reality and how that can be stretched. Coming to this country as a refugee with my family and watching the struggles of my family has given me a keen interest in the human mind, resilience, and mental health. My artwork and writing lends itself towards magical realism and the blurring between reality and the supernatural. I truly believe that things are often not what they seem and I aim to prove it.
This story completely threw me for a loop and I read a lot of mysteries and thrillers, so I am not easily mislead.
When you think you know where it’s going, it takes a completely different turn. And it’s not only that you are being fooled, it’s the main character who is fooling himself.
Perception shapes reality 100%, and so do mind-altering drugs. I loved this one so much. It pops up in my mind often.
A brilliant sci-fi novel from one of the last century's most influential pop culture figures
Substance D - otherwise known as Death - is the most dangerous drug ever to find its way on to the black market. It destroys the links between the brain's two hemispheres, leading first to disorentation and then to complete and irreversible brain damage. Bob Arctor, undercover narcotics agent, is trying to find a lead to the source of supply, but to pass as an addict he must become a user, and soon, without knowing what is happening to him, he is as dependent as…
