Here are 100 books that Run Program fans have personally recommended if you like
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I think there are two great mysteries in our lives: the mystery of the world and the mystery of how we live in it. The branches of literature that explore these conundrums magnificently are science fiction for the world and murder mysteries for how we live. So, it is no wonder that the subgenre that most excites me has to be the science fiction murder mystery, in which, as a reader, I get to explore a strange new world and find out how people live (and die!) in it. This is why I read and, it turns out, what I write.
What I love about a murder mystery is joining the dots, connecting all the different elements together.
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is all about connections. Whether it is the aliens who’ve been secretly living on Earth for millions of years; or the ghost of the murder victim trying to leave a message on his sister’s phone; or Richard, the book’s hero, attempting, with the "help" of the ever-unreliable Dirk, to figure out what is going on here and why.
I was simply lost in the convolutions of a plot that also involves time travel and the highly vexing question of how a sofa came to be impossibly stuck on a landing. It’s ALL connected, and the solution makes sense of (nearly) everything.
From Douglas Adams, the legendary author of one of the most beloved science fiction novels of all time, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, comes a wildly inventive novel of ghosts, time travel, and one detective’s mission to save humanity from extinction.
DIRK GENTLY’S HOLISTIC DETECTIVE AGENCY We solve the whole crime We find the whole person Phone today for the whole solution to your problem (Missing cats and messy divorces a specialty)
Douglas Adams, the “master of wacky words and even wackier tales” (Entertainment Weekly) once again boggles the mind with a completely unbelievable story of ghosts, time travel,…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
In my teenage years, it was sci-fi (and later fantasy) comedies that made me fall in love with reading. There was just something about exploring worlds where anything could happen mixed with the joy of laughter that kept drawing me back in. Naturally, in the many...many...years that followed, I've read countless novels from a wide variety of genres, but sci-fi comedy will always hold a special place in my heart.
Tired of spaceships and A.I.? Then how about a humorous take on sci-fi horror? If Twin Peaks were a comedy…and also a book…it would’ve been Anomaly Flats. Weird, disturbing events abound in this quaint Midwestern town where an ancient evil lurks behind the canned goods at the local Walmart, and–since they weren’t trying to kill me personally–many of them were hilarious. Or at least the way the characters reacted to them were hilarious. And in the end, isn’t that close enough?
Sci-fi gets wickedly fun in Anomaly Flats, the deliciously dark comedy from the author of Apocalypticon!
What readers are saying:
"Clayton Smith's work is imaginative, unique, and ridiculously entertaining. I didn't think anything could top Apocalypticon, but I was SO wrong."
"Its ongoing charm is hypnotic."
"Shove over, Christopher Moore…Weird Fun has a new author king!"
Somewhere just off the interstate, in the heart of the American Midwest, there’s a quaint, quirky town where the stars in the sky circle a hypnotic void….where magnetic fields play havoc with time and perception…where metallic rain and plasma rivers and tentacles in the…
In my teenage years, it was sci-fi (and later fantasy) comedies that made me fall in love with reading. There was just something about exploring worlds where anything could happen mixed with the joy of laughter that kept drawing me back in. Naturally, in the many...many...years that followed, I've read countless novels from a wide variety of genres, but sci-fi comedy will always hold a special place in my heart.
If all my picks so far have been a bit highbrow for you, let’s go in a new direction.Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suitsis the work of Jason Pargin (a.k.a. David Wong), former executive editor of Cracked.com, and that should tell you most of what you need to know about his writing. Sometimes clever and insightful, sometimes crass, dumb, and offensive, this book will please anyone who enjoyed Cracked during its heyday, but prefers science fiction to listicles.
New York Times bestselling author Jason Pargin takes readers to a whole new level with his darkly comic sci-fi thriller, Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits.
An Alex Award Winner
Nightmarish villains with superhuman enhancements.
An all-seeing social network that tracks your every move.
Mysterious, smooth-talking power players who lurk behind the scenes.
A young woman from the trailer park.
And her very smelly cat.
Together, they will decide the future of mankind.
Get ready for a world in which anyone can have the powers of a god or the fame of a pop star, in which human achievement soars to…
This book is an elegiac meditation on the will to survive. Tor, a beluga whaler, and his wife, Astrid, a botanist specializing in Arctic flora, are stranded during the dark season of 1937-38 at his remote whaling station in the Svalbard archipelago when they misjudge ice conditions and fail to…
When I was a child, the thing that plagued me most about my favorite genre, sci-fi, was that none of the protagonists were women! As a daughter to doctors and research scientists, it felt strange that the only female characters in sci-fi were these buxom, mystical healers or seamstresses who meekly repaired their crewmates’ uniforms. While that problem has been remedied over the last two decades of excellence in mainstream sci-fi with some truly unforgettable female heroines, they’re not as plentiful in the niche market of humorous sci-fi. I am thrilled to share this list of my favorite lighthearted, humorous sci-fi reads with female protagonists.
It is so easy to slip into this fun romp of a novel.
Scharlette is a bit of a mess, like most modern women. She doesn’t have her life in order–in fact, what she does have is a boring job and love handles. When she bumps into a time agent named Tomothy, she insists on tagging along for what proves to be a fast-paced, crazy adventure.
For me, the tongue-in-cheek humor is the best part. I adore these novels and am always thrilled to recommend them to someone who’s uninitiated.
Ever since Scharlette’s parents gave her a name no one can pronounce, she’s been stuck in a bit of a rut. She hates her job in airport security, making people take their belts off before they fly to exotic locations she can only dream about. She owns a small apartment with large repayments, drinks bargain bin red on a couch that swallows gym memberships, and misses her little sister – lost to an exploding sandwich press, ten years ago.
Scharlette fears she might live her whole life without doing anything or mattering to anyone. Still, it comes as quite a…
I have longed to move to the Shire ever since I first saw the film version of The Fellowship of the Ring. I wasn’t aware at first of Tolkien’s deep Catholic faith, but once it was pointed out to me, I was amazed at how he managed to weave Christian virtue into everything he wrote. As a long-time writer myself, I realized that I wanted to tell stories about the big stuff—love and hope, good and evil, doubt and courage—in a way that was genuine and unflinching. I think that all of the authors on this list have pulled off just that.
Part of what I love the most about The Lord of the Rings is the way that J.R.R. Tolkien made Middle Earth feel like it could be real. I have to remind myself it’s not history, but fiction. Reading Recorder gives me the same feeling. Sure, technically, it’s science fiction. It’s set in space. But there is a depth and honesty to the world that Cathy McCrumb has created that is rare and worth exploring. It is both a prescient warning about the future of humanity and a powerful story about found family and finding hope when up against impossible odds. Also, the romantic subplot of this book will absolutely shatter you.
The Consortium is All. But Recorder Can No Longer Obey.
Recorder has no family, no friends, and no name. Donated to the Consortium before birth, her sole purpose is to maintain and verify the records. A neural implant and drone ensure compliance, punishing for displays of bias.
Suddenly cut off from controlling technology, Recorder tastes what it means to be human. But if the Consortium discovers her feelings, everyone she knows will be in danger.
With no name, no resources, and only an infinitesimal possibility of escape, Recorder's time is running out.
"McCrumb achieves a fascinating coming-of-age story in a…
Having studied literature at university and been a closet nerd, coding at night in a dank basement room, I've always been intrigued by the interface between human and machine. Then, as a senior executive in a large multinational, I was acutely aware of the value of empathy as a leadership skill. In a world that is increasingly divided and divisive, I’ve become an empathy activist. I believe that the business world can be a force for positive change, but as a society we will need to engage in a much more meaningful and rigorous debate about the ethics involved in the opportunities offered by using artificial intelligence and robots in the workplace.
Telving’s book is ahead of its time in exploring the deep questions of what our humanity is, with perspectives on our future life with AI and intelligent robots. I was particularly intrigued by the ways that the author explores how we evaluate our own consciousness, how we tend to anthropomorphize animals and objects, and the tricky ethical questions around how to legislate a life with robots. Telving deals with one subject that had been far off my radar in the form of the difference between the hard and easy problem of consciousness. It’s a very philosophical question, but in today’s world, where our values, beliefs, and interactions are in mutation, this understanding of consciousness is ever more pertinent.
Humanlike robots and digital humans are both fun and useful in many situations. But the more we interact with technology with human traits, the more we believe it to possess real human characteristics like consciousness and personality. As a new breed of artificial beings enter society on a large scale, many of us will start believing they deserve moral consideration and perhaps even rights. In this entertaining and humorously written book, Thomas Telving argues that even though the above scenario is close to inevitable, we should still do all we can to avoid it. Presenting us with thought-provoking future scenarios,…
Tina Edwards loved her childhood and creating fairy houses, a passion shared with her father, a world-renowned architect. But at nine years old, she found him dead at his desk and is haunted by this memory. Tina's mother abruptly moved away, leaving Tina with feelings of abandonment and suspicion.
My passion for generative AI first ignited in 2016 when I spoke about it at a conference, and ever since then, I can’t stop! I've created an online course, a newsletter and even wrote a book to spread knowledge on this groundbreaking technology. As an instructor, I empower others to explore the boundless potential of generative AI applications. Day in day out, I assist clients in crafting their own generative AI solutions, tailoring them to their unique needs.
While it’s not the newest tech, I love that it covers the essential groundwork that sparked the modern AI revolution. I personally think its perfect for engineers and data scientists. It's also a great precursor to my book, giving you the strong foundation you need before diving into the next wave of AI advancements.
Generative modeling is one of the hottest topics in AI. It's now possible to teach a machine to excel at human endeavors such as painting, writing, and composing music. With this practical book, machine-learning engineers and data scientists will discover how to re-create some of the most impressive examples of generative deep learning models, such as variational autoencoders,generative adversarial networks (GANs), encoder-decoder models and world models.
Author David Foster demonstrates the inner workings of each technique, starting with the basics of deep learning before advancing to some of the most cutting-edge algorithms in the field. Through tips and tricks, you'll…
I spent over forty years developing complex, software-intensive systems, and the Association of Computing Machinery honored me with the title of distinguished engineer. AI and robotics have been my main technical focus for the last 5 years. For the last couple of years, I have been binge-watching videos on advances in AI and robotics and binge-reading books on the topic. I am also a multi-award-winning author of science fiction novels and short stories. Most of the short stories in my coming book involve AI and robots.
I really loved this book because of its wide breadth. If you are only going to read a single book on AI and its ramifications, this would be my top recommendation.
It covers everything from the history of artificial intelligence to what the short- and mid-term future will look like. This book provides a solid foundation to help you prepare for a future dominated by AIs and robots.
"Machines of Tomorrow offers a fascinating journey into the future of AI, providing a unique perspective that combines technology, economics, geopolitics, and history." — PASCAL BORNET, Technology Influencer, 2 million followers.
How AI Will Shape Our World.
Written in an easy-to-read style accessible to everyone, "Machines of Tomorrow" grounds the reader in a thorough history and description of Artificial Intelligence, enabling an appreciation of its real trajectory and ultimately a deeper level of engagement with the core concept of the book: what should societies expect from AI in the coming decades?
I’ve spent much of my career working with leaders as technology reshapes how decisions are made, authority is exercised, and organizations evolve. What keeps me engaged with this topic is how quickly uncertainty has become the norm rather than the exception. AI and digital systems are no longer abstract forces; they shape everyday choices, incentives, and outcomes. I read these books because they help me think more clearly about leadership in that reality: how judgment, learning, and responsibility need to adapt when systems move faster than intuition. They’ve influenced how I approach real-world leadership challenges in complex, technology-driven environments.
I value this book because it helped me see how deeply technology reshapes leadership decisions long before leaders realize it.
What struck me most is how clearly it shows that AI doesn’t just optimize processes; it rewires how organizations scale, allocate authority, and compete.
I often think about this book when leaders treat AI as a tool rather than as a force that changes operating logic. It sharpened my understanding of why traditional management instincts (control, linear planning, incremental change) break down in AI-driven systems, and why leadership today requires rethinking structure, speed, and accountability at a much more fundamental level.
AI-centric organizations exhibit a new operating architecture, redefining how they create, capture, share, and deliver value.
Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani show how reinventing the firm around data, analytics, and AI removes traditional constraints on scale, scope, and learning that have restricted business growth for hundreds of years. From Airbnb to Ant Financial, Microsoft to Amazon, research shows how AI-driven processes are vastly more scalable than traditional processes, allow massive scope increase, enabling companies to straddle industry boundaries, and create powerful opportunities for learning--to drive ever more accurate, complex, and…
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…
The art of computer programming is a lot like the art of writing: It's not just about what your program says but about how it says it. One of the reasons I like the C and C++ languages—which I picked up in the late 1990s and haven't put down since—is that, as compiled, non-sandboxed languages, they promise total control over the machine. Show me where you want each byte of data to go in memory; show me the machine instructions you want; and I can make C++ do that for you.
Every "computer person" should read GEB at least once. Preferably in high school, when you still have the free time to dive deep into all the recreational math exercises. If you're already working 40-hour weeks and wonder who has time for Hofstadter's 750-page "metaphorical fugue on minds and machines," all I can say is: Better late than never!
Douglas Hofstadter's book is concerned directly with the nature of maps" or links between formal systems. However, according to Hofstadter, the formal system that underlies all mental activity transcends the system that supports it. If life can grow out of the formal chemical substrate of the cell, if consciousness can emerge out of a formal system of firing neurons, then so too will computers attain human intelligence. Goedel, Escher, Bach is a wonderful exploration of fascinating ideas at the heart of cognitive science: meaning, reduction, recursion, and much more.
