Books like The Innocent

I read the entire series growing up, starting with this one, and to this day, I consider it the best book ever written. The story was so realistic yet exciting and had a wholesome family dynamic. It sparked an enthusiasm towards sailboats among me and my siblings.

The kids, leaving their parents behind to camp on an island, sailing across the lake, fighting mock wars—it was thrilling, and everything worked and made sense. The characters are distinctive and memorable, and all important to the story. Ransome is a genius, and every now and then, I return to this book and revel in my imagination once again.

This was a truly unputdownable story. The science fiction concept was interesting in itself, especially watching the characters try to figure it out, but the suspense was strong. The plot had a lot going on, but it was well done and worked pretty well.

I really got to know the characters and particularly enjoyed the well-done romance between Sam and Astrid. It’s a very character-driven story, including the conflict between tyranny and freedom.

This book was an amazing, mysterious read that sucked me back, not for suspense, but to know why—information withheld until the very end of the story, and even though the end of the book is not the end of the story, and even though I still have questions, the ending is immensely satisfying.

I’ve always been fascinated by time travel and time loops, which I find inherently broken. They would never work. But this author managed to intricately create something that actually made sense, something in which I could find no holes. One of my favorite parts was how Felix rebuilt the Internet using wood blocks and strings.

There’s also a profundity to it as well. The story seems to ponder the ideas of fate, destiny, and predestination and ultimately concludes—what does it matter? Just do what you should do. Utterly brilliant story.

This was a fabulous story, super interesting, that read kind of like a history text/novel, something in between, an effect I really loved. The story was well-developed, with scientific and technical detail and specific stories used appropriately to develop the greater tale, along with broader overviews, capturing the activities of the whole world. The characters were all interesting. The plots, schemes, and machinations are really good. The battles ranged from thrilling to very depressing.

Overall, I thought the book was very realistic and made a lot of sense. The author thought through what would happen in an adultless present-day world. I like how he captured that while kids are often seen as innocent and virtuous, take the adults away and they have not yet learned to appreciate the value of life, etc. It really gives you a lot of food for thought about human nature and especially children.

Zubrin’s book proposes a tantalizing what-if. Steve Squyres’ Roving Mars presents readers with an exciting and suspenseful blow-by-blow account of an awesome thing that actually happened: the successful landing on Mars of the rovers Spirit and Opportunity, and the jaw-dropping success of those lovable little robotic beetles. It was hoped that the rovers might function for as long as 90 days. Opportunity performed for 15 years. (Spirit, that slacker, phoned it in for only 6 years.) Squyres, an astronomer, was the principal investigator for the mission, and he proves to be an enormously appealing guide: enthusiastic, excitable, grateful, humble. One of the many likable things about this book is that Squyres lets us see how scientists in charge of a years-long multimillion-dollar one-shot mission with a high chance of failure are every bit as superstitious as village peasants: Squyres makes sure to wear his tattered good-luck jeans to every… show more.

"The One Who Waits," one of my favorite stories in this collection, would be regarded more commonly as science fiction, as it takes place during an Earth expedition to Mars. But Ray Bradbury’s story also pioneers the classic horror trope of a small group of people falling one by one to a mysterious creature they cannot see—and with a means of disguise highly imaginative, beautifully written, and fundamentally terrifying. Bradbury is a phenomenal writer and it’s difficult to recommend any one story without feeling certain you’ve dropped the ball in not recommending another--you really can't go wrong with this entire collection--but the quick, clever, nuanced "The One Who Waits" is one of the best sci-fi/horror hybrids ever written.

I am a huge fan of dreampunk books and this book helped create the genre. Reading it took me into a dreamworld that lead into another dreamworld and then yet another.

As with all Philip K. Dick books I was left wondering if I ever did return to the reality I believe I live in. I also found the character of Palmer Eldritch himself to be one of my all-time favorites.

If this book were episodes of Friends, it would include The One Where They Landed On Mars Before the Internet Was Invented, The One Where They Mixed Up English and Metric Units, The One Where A Lander Became A Crasher, and The One Where Everyone Fell In Love with Cute Robots.

Conway is the official JPL historian, so he has unprecedented access to the archives and the people behind NASA’s ongoing quest for Mars, and he lays each mission out with its political stakes and highs and lows in painstaking and rich detail. Reading this book reminds me that exploration is just as much about the people as it is about the machines.

I love this book for its poetic, dreamlike quality. Bradbury’s writing pulled me in and didn’t let go, painting a picture of Mars that was both beautiful and tragic. As a pre-teen and a teen, in my imagination, I had red dust stuck to my feet, and I was there with the characters. What captivated me was the way the stories felt timeless—each one was like a snapshot of a moment layered with meaning.

I felt like I wasn’t just reading a book about colonizing Mars; I was exploring humanity’s deepest fears, hopes, and regrets. We have companies only today working on getting to Mars, I feel so upset that I know I will likely never set foot on those dusty red shores, but I am thrilled to know it may still happen for others.

Bradbury’s work made me think about the consequences of exploration—how, in our quest to conquer… show more.

Be transported to Mars in this simply told yet factual history of the Red Planet.

You’ll discover the weather, the atmosphere, what it’s like to walk amidst the dusty clay ground and what it would be like to traverse it via a rover. But from that point, the author conjectures how Mars came to be in its place in our solar system.

Highly readable for all ages. A necessity if you think you’d want to move there someday.