Here are 98 books that The First Cat in Space Ate Pizza fans have personally recommended if you like
The First Cat in Space Ate Pizza.
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I’m fascinated by robots. As a former computer programmer, systems analyst, and consultant, I’ve had an interest in technology since my first programming class in high school. I’ve been to robotics labs in Boston, Massachusetts, and Lausanne, Switzerland. My husband is a mechanical/software engineer, so STEM is a big part of our lives. In addition to Robo-Motion, I’m the author of a number of Minecraft books with STEM and coding sidebars. I’ve also published many magazine articles, one of which was the inspiration for this book. I wrote about the CRAM cockroach robot for the March 2017 issue of MUSE.
I was immediately drawn to this title because my last name starts with a “Z,” which means I’m always last. Z is an adorable young robot, who wears pajamas and a sailor’s hat. I love all the subtle, but meaningful touches in the illustrations: the partial glimpse of what Z has packed, letters on the robots, the cat that makes itself at home, and the hats that change heads. This is the kind of book I would have loved reading to my kids. With its peachy cover, this sweet story is as warm as a hug.
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What is this book about?
From the creator of Not Quite Narwhal comes the story of a young robot trying to find the meaning of "love."
When a small robot named Z discovers a message in a bottle signed "Love, Beatrice," they decide to find out what "love" means. Unable to get an answer from the other robots, they leave to embark on an adventure that will lead them to Beatrice-and back home again, where love was hiding all along.
Three friends become caught up in a monkey-worshipping cult when a stone circle suddenly appears overnight next to their home.
The cult is headed by famous racing driver Gordon Smash who disappeared in the Amazon rainforest in the 90s after a stunt went badly wrong. Alongside space tech billionaire Micky…
My kid side loves robots and the possibilities they bring! My author side enjoys exploring what makes a reader “care” for a character that’s human, animal, and machine alike. And my parent side is ever interested in childhood with technology – the bad AND the good. Childhood today is very different from the childhood I experienced, but that doesn’t mean my experience was better, more correct, or even healthier. It’s just different! Kids today will remember their childhoods just as fondly as I remember mine. I aim to celebrate kids today and not to demonize the reality of their tech-infused world. I believe this list does just that!
I love this rhyming bedtime picture book for all its kid-friendly robotic vocabulary and the beautiful art that is full of clever bits to discover over multiple reads. This book is one of my favorite picture books to gift at baby showers and young kids’ birthday parties. This book has it all – all the way to the sweet twist ending!
A playful robot bedtime story, illustrated by Caldecott Honoree John Rocco!
Quiet at last. Not a peep. Three little robots are... BEEP! BEEP!
When his three rambunctious robots give every possible excuse not to go to sleep, what's a little boy to do? With a fun refrain that will have readers of all ages chanting along, here's a book that kids will be begging to read every night before bed.
I fell in love with the ancient Greeks a half-century ago. Ever since I have tried to learn from the past, by recognizing the ways in which the ancients were at once very like us and shockingly different. I only recently grasped that the Greeks were like us in their self-consciousness about human motivation: They recognized that many (perhaps most) people are driven by self-interest. But only a few of us are skilled at strategic choice-making. They knew that cooperation was necessary for human flourishing, but terribly hard to achieve. Today working together on common projects remains the greatest challenge for business, politics – and your everyday life.
Full disclosure: Adrienne Mayor is my wife. But that is not why I chose this book: It is a mind-blowing account of ancient dreams of technology and ancient scientific wonders. Mayor is a master storyteller. She recreates the ancient myths to reveal the timeless fascination with “artificial life” – with beings that are like us in some ways, except that they are “made, not born.” Long before humans could create real mechanical men and thinking machines, the Greeks dared to imagine what that would mean for humans and our relations with one another. And they imagined the inner lives and torments of the semi-machines themselves. Read this book and shiver to learn that our modernity was dreamed of 2500 years ago.
The fascinating untold story of how the ancients imagined robots and other forms of artificial life-and even invented real automated machines
The first robot to walk the earth was a bronze giant called Talos. This wondrous machine was created not by MIT Robotics Lab, but by Hephaestus, the Greek god of invention. More than 2,500 years ago, long before medieval automata, and centuries before technology made self-moving devices possible, Greek mythology was exploring ideas about creating artificial life-and grappling with still-unresolved ethical concerns about biotechne, "life through craft." In this compelling, richly illustrated book, Adrienne Mayor tells the fascinating story…
In a time of alternative facts and the loss of a shared sense of reality, A Foot is Not a Fish playfully illustrates the difference between what is true and what is not through absurd fun comparisons that every child—and parent—will instantly understand.
I am a compulsive reader and writer of speculative fiction, in love with the genre’s capacity to extrapolate our present social, economic and technological into horrifying/astonishing futures. That being said, I need strong writing and compelling characters to pull me into a world and make it feel lived in and real. It’s this kind of emotional realism that I seek out as a reader and try to create as an author.
Curveball is less compelled by plot than by setting and character. Sorese’s future is gorgeously imagined in melting black, white, and gray with electric orange highlights. Every element–from the clothing to the tech to the furniture–is thoughtfully designed and elegantly rendered. Moreover, Curveball has some of the best acting I have ever seen in *any* graphic novel. A triumph!
Curveball is a science fiction graphic novel telling the story of a waiter named Avery coping with the ending of a difficult relationship. Having spent years attempting to build something substantial with an indecisive sailor named Christophe, Avery stubbornly holds on despite the mounting evidence against him. The idea of the relationship has eclipsed its reality and in Avery's already troubled life, the allure of something dependable is a powerful force.
Curveball focuses on the duality of hope and delusion. How ignorance is integral to surviving our day to day lives but can be incredibly destructive if allowed to blossom…
As a child, I was inspired by the feats of the first astronauts and cosmonauts, culminating with the Apollo expeditions to the Moon. As I grew up, I found that I was more of a historian than an engineer or a physicist. So, I began writing the stories of some of the people who were involved in the 1960s space race. I have since written about topics ranging from the strategic missiles that kicked off the space race to the Hubble Space Telescope, and today, I am the editor of Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly.
While many people expect that the future of space exploration will look like Star Trek, the reality is that robots will be blazing the trail around the solar system and beyond for some time.
This is an important and well-argued book that explains the realities of distance and danger that dictate the use of robots rather than humans for space exploration. It also explores the reasons why human-led space exploration is so popular in spite of its great expense.
Given the near incomprehensible enormity of the universe, it appears almost inevitable that humankind will one day find a planet that appears to be much like the Earth. This discovery will no doubt reignite the lure of interplanetary travel. Will we be up to the task? And, given our limited resources, biological constraints, and the general hostility of space, what shape should we expect such expeditions to take? In Robots in Space, Roger Launius and Howard McCurdy tackle these seemingly fanciful questions with rigorous scholarship and disciplined imagination, jumping comfortably among the worlds of rocketry, engineering, public policy, and science…
When I was little I used to seek out stories that featured strong female characters—especially in genre fiction. This proved to be quite difficult, even as I enlisted my entire family to help in the search. Because of this, ensuring that each of my own works feature this is a must. I am an author, artist, and podcast host who focuses on understanding the importance of story elements. I am an active martial artist, have a degree in creative writing from Kwantlen Polytechnic University, and often get mesmerized by the process of creating comics and music. I hope you enjoy these recommendations as much as I did.
Like an earlier entry on this list, this story utilizes a unique format. In Sleeping Giants the reader is exposed to a first contact-like plot. Rose is a scientist and the woman spearheading a project to make sense of the discovery of giant robot parts hidden beneath the Earth’s surface. She, along with one of the project pilots, Kara, provide both depth and distance to events thanks to the help of a mysterious interviewer who does well to keep the reader engaged. We discover things as the characters do, and their revelations linger just enough for the reader to crave a sequel. I appreciate the complexity of the sci-fi in the story—there are aliens, robots, and perhaps a few international conspiracy theories.
A page-turning debut in the tradition of Michael Crichton, World War Z, and The Martian, Sleeping Giants is a thriller fueled by an earthshaking mystery—and a fight to control a gargantuan power.
A girl named Rose is riding her new bike near her home in Deadwood, South Dakota, when she falls through the earth. She wakes up at the bottom of a square hole, its walls glowing with intricate carvings. But the firemen who come to save her peer down upon something even stranger: a little girl in the palm of a giant metal hand.
For those who enjoy fantasy adventure, the Faerie Tales from the White Forest series offers a new twist on the traditional faerie tales so loved by young readers.
From devastating curses to death-defying quests, Brigitta and her growing collective of misfit friends face greater and greater challenges when destiny calls…
My kid side loves robots and the possibilities they bring! My author side enjoys exploring what makes a reader “care” for a character that’s human, animal, and machine alike. And my parent side is ever interested in childhood with technology – the bad AND the good. Childhood today is very different from the childhood I experienced, but that doesn’t mean my experience was better, more correct, or even healthier. It’s just different! Kids today will remember their childhoods just as fondly as I remember mine. I aim to celebrate kids today and not to demonize the reality of their tech-infused world. I believe this list does just that!
I included this book to counterbalance all the machinery and tech in my list. And while I am super intrigued by robots being robots, it’s also okay to go against expectations like the character in this book does! This robot actually unplugs (against his parent’s will) to explore what’s lies beyond his digital world.
**Check out the Doug Unplugs animated series on Apple TV!**
It's easy being a robot, if you play by all the rules—but when Doug gets curious, he decides to unplug and forge his own path. And he discovers a whole world of what's possible.
Doug is a robot. His parents want him to be smart, so each morning they plug him in and start the information download. After a morning spent learning facts about the city, Doug suspects he could learn even more about the city by going outside and exploring it. And so Doug . . . unplugs. What…
My first true religion was being a boy alone in the woods and feeling a deep connection to nature in all its aspects. I felt a connection with all life and knew myself to be an animal—and gloried in it. Since then, I've learned how vigorously humans fight our animal nature, estranging us from ourselves and the planet. Each of these books invites us to get over ourselves and connect with all life on Earth.
I knew the film Blade Runner before I read this, the novel upon which it's based, but I was not prepared for the richer complexities of the novel.
My favorite parts of the novel, a bizarre new religion and the extinction of all but human and animal life, barely make it into the film. Even the androids, built to be slaves, are much more nuanced and complex than in the film. I loved the conclusion of the book, which affirms the beauty of life, both natural and mechanical.
As the eagerly-anticipated new film Blade Runner 2049 finally comes to the screen, rediscover the world of Blade Runner . . .
World War Terminus had left the Earth devastated. Through its ruins, bounty hunter Rick Deckard stalked, in search of the renegade replicants who were his prey. When he wasn't 'retiring' them with his laser weapon, he dreamed of owning a live animal - the ultimate status symbol in a world all but bereft of animal life.
Then Rick got his chance: the assignment to kill six Nexus-6 targets, for a huge reward. But in Deckard's world things were…
I’ve always been passionate about social justice as a writer and as an international human rights lawyer. I had worked on human rights, surveillance, and privacy for decades around the world, but it was when I first read about Cambridge Analytica back in 2017 that it felt personal – privacy is the gateway to our right to freedom of thought and opinion and Big Tech is increasingly acting as the gatekeeper to all our human rights. These books have all helped me to understand what the risks are and how to tackle them.
In Turned On, Kate Devlin takes us on a ride through the history of sex and technology, from the Ancient Greeks to modern sex robots.
This book is written by a technologist with an acute sense of the human. Not strictly a book about human rights, Devlin raises human rights and ethical considerations around sex tech as well as offering optimism and imagination about the ways that we could enhance our intimate lives with technology.
The way we experience sex and intimacy is at the heart of our right to private lives, Turned On offers an erudite, funny, and sensitive exploration of what technology could mean for us.
'Illuminating, witty and written with a wide open mind' Sunday Times
The idea of the seductive sex robot is the stuff of myth, legend and science fiction. From the myth of Laodamia in Ancient Greece to twenty-first century shows such as Westworld, robots in human form have captured our imagination, our hopes and our fears. But beyond the fantasies there are real and fundamental questions about our relationship with technology as it moves into the realm of robotics.
Turned On explores how the emerging and future development of sexual companion robots might affect us and the society in which we…
Kindle Book Award Finalist. Readers' Favorite Book Award Finalist. Gotham Writers' YA Novel Discovery Contest Finalist. B.R.A.G. Medallion Honoree
Brigit Quinn has always felt like an outsider. Growing up in a small town where her mom’s pagan practices are the stuff of local gossip, she’s spent her whole life trying…
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.
I dearly loved Isaac Asimov's vision of the robot. Although the idea of a mechanical man has entertained audiences for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, Asimov dealt with the reality of how humans will coexist with our intelligent creations.
Prior to Asimov's three laws we had always thought of robots delivering evil as surrogates of their evil masters. And always with human intent. Evil emperors trying to rule the world is typical. But Asimov showed us the danger of machines that are their own masters.
Machine learning and reasoning are now a reality different from anything humans can conceive. We are limited in our comprehension of machines by our biology and evolutionary context. But they are not limited in their comprehension of us or themselves. Just ask AlphaGo move 37. I am certain Asimov's three laws will never be enough to ensure our survival in a world where we…
Voyager Classics - timeless masterworks of science fiction and fantasy.
A beautiful clothbound edition of I, Robot, the classic collection of robot stories from the master of the genre.
In these stories Isaac Asimov creates the Three Laws of Robotics and ushers in the Robot Age.
Earth is ruled by master-machines but the Three Laws of Robotics have been designed to ensure humans maintain the upper hand:
1) A robot may not injure a human being or allow a human being to come to harm 2) A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such…
