Books like 'Greybeard'
Readers who enjoyed Greybeard by Brian W. Aldiss also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
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Hyperion by Dan Simmons
45 ratingsOn the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all... -
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
40 ratingsForced to flee an America where anarchy and violence have completely taken over, empath Lauren Olamina--who can feel the pain of others and is crippled by it--becomes a prophet carrying the hope of a new world and a new faith christened "Earthseed". A stirring portrait of 21st-century America by the author of "Wild Seed"...Categorized as:
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2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
46 ratingsOn the Moon, an enigma is uncovered.So great are the implications of this discovery that for the first time men are sent out deep into our solar system.But long before their destination is reached, things begin to go horribly, inexplicably wrong...One of the greatest-selling science fiction novels of our time, this classic book will grip you to the very end... -
Blindness by José Saramago
43 ratingsFrom Nobel Prize–winning author José Saramago, a magnificent, mesmerizing parable of lossA city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" that spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and assaulting women...Categorized as:
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Imago by Octavia E. Butler
24 ratingsThe stunning conclusion to a postapocalyptic trilogy about an alien species merging with humans—from “one of science fiction’s finest writers” (TheNew York Times). Human and Oankali have been mating since the aliens first came to Earth to rescue the few survivors of an annihilating nuclear war...Categorized as:
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The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
45 ratingsFrom "Rocket Summer" to "The Million-Year Picnic," Ray Bradbury's stories of the colonization of Mars form an eerie mesh of past and future. Written in the 1940s, the chronicles drip with nostalgic atmosphere--shady porches with tinkling pitchers of lemonade, grandfather clocks, chintz-covered sofas...Categorized as:
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The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons
32 ratingsThe time of reckoning has arrived. As a final genocidal Crusade threatens to enslave humanity forever, a new messiah has come of age. She is Aenea and she has undergone a strange apprenticeship to those known as the Others. Now her protector, Raul Endymion, one-time shepherd and convicted murderer, must help her deliver her startling message to her growing army of disciples... -
Adulthood Rites by Octavia E. Butler
24 ratingsIn this sequel to Dawn, Lilith Iyapo has given birth to what looks like a normal human boy named Akin. But Akin actually has five parents: a male and female human, a male and female Oankali, and a sexless Ooloi...Categorized as:
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Replay by Ken Grimwood
28 ratingsAt forty-three Jeff Winston is tired of his low-paid, unrewarding job, tired of the long silences at the breakfast table with his wife, saddened by the thought of no children to comfort his old age. But he hopes for better things, for happiness, maybe tomorrow ...But a sudden, fatal heart attack puts paid to that...Categorized as:
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The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury
38 ratingsHere are stories of other worlds: of the rain-gutted forests of Venus and the deep canals of Mars; of the empty blackness of space and of planets that have no name. Here are stories, too, of Earth - new and unfamiliar in the glow of a wondrous future. And here- above all - is the story of The Illustrated man - tattooed by a witch with the most fantastic images ever seen on Earth..Categorized as:
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Ubik by Philip K. Dick
41 ratingsGlen Runciter runs a lucrative business—deploying his teams of anti-psychics to corporate clients who want privacy and security from psychic spies. But when he and his top team are ambushed by a rival, he is gravely injured and placed in “half-life,” a dreamlike state of suspended animation... -
The Golden Apple by Robert Shea, Robert Anton Wilson
14 ratingsNausea, then microamnesia, then the laughing jag, then sex. Be patient. The clear light comes next. Then we can discuss Truth. As if we haven't been discussing it all along. -Hagbard Celine, The Golden Apple Illuminatus! Part II, from the original and genuine trilogy of conspiracies, is performed in all its unabridged brilliance by a full ensemble cast... -
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
44 ratingsWinner of the Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award for best vampire novel of the century: the genre-defining classic of horror sci-fi that inspired three films. The population of the entire world has been obliterated by a pandemic of vampire bacteria. Yet somehow, Robert Neville survived...Categorized as:
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The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
36 ratingsIn 2019, humanity finds proof of extraterrestrial life when a listening post picks up exquisite singing from the planet Rakhat. While the U.N. debates possible contact missions, the Society of Jesus quietly organizes an 8-person expedition of its own. What the Jesuits find is a world so beyond comprehension that it will lead them to question what it means to be human... -
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Roadside Picnic by Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky
37 ratingsRed Schuhart is a stalker, one of those young rebels who are compelled, in spite of extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artifacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the place and the thriving black market in the alien products...Categorized as:
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Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
52 ratingsAn astonishing technique for recovering and cloning dinosaur DNA has been discovered. Now humankind’s most thrilling fantasies have come true. Creatures extinct for eons roam Jurassic Park with their awesome presence and profound mystery, and all the world can visit them—for a price. Until something goes wrong. . . -
Leviathan by Robert Shea, Robert Anton Wilson
12 ratingsThe ultimate weapon isn't this plague out in Vegas, or any new super H-bomb. The ultimate weapon has always existed. Every man, every woman, and every child owns it. It's the ability to say No and take the consequences. - Hagbard Celine, LeviathanIlluminatus! Part III cheerfully ushers in the apocalyptic high-camp conclusion of the Illuminatus! Trilogy... -
Satantango by László Krasznahorkai
18 ratingsAlready famous as the inspiration for the filmmaker Béla Tarr’s six-hour masterpiece, Satantango is proof that “the devil has all the good times.” The story of Satantango, spread over a couple of days of endless rain, focuses on the dozen remaining inhabitants of an unnamed isolated hamlet: failures stuck in the middle of nowhere...Categorized as:
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The Wall by Marlen Haushofer
20 ratingsFirst published to acclaim in Germany, The Wall chronicles the life of the last surviving human on earth, an ordinary middle-aged woman who awakens one morning to find that everyone else has vanished. Assuming her isolation to be the result of a military experiment gone awry, she begins the terrifying work of survival and self-renewal...Categorized as:
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Nightfall by Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg
29 ratingsIn 1941, Astounding Science Fiction magazine published a short story by a little-known writer named Isaac Asimov. The story was called "Nightfall", and many years later it has long been recognized as a classic, its author a legend...Categorized as:
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The Long Walk by Richard Bachman, Stephen King
43 ratingsOn the first day of May, 100 teenage boys meet for an event known throughout the country as The Long Walk. If you break the rules, you get three warnings. If you exceed your limit, what happens is absolutely terrifying. Reissue...Categorized as:
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Solaris by Stanisław Lem
40 ratingsA classic work of science fiction by renowned Polish novelist and satirist Stanislaw Lem.When Kris Kelvin arrives at the planet Solaris to study the ocean that covers its surface, he finds a painful, hitherto unconscious memory embodied in the living physical likeness of a long-dead lover... -
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
42 ratingsIn 1951 John Wyndham published his novel The Day of the Triffids to moderate acclaim. Fifty-two years later, this horrifying story is a science fiction classic, touted by The Times (London) as having “all the reality of a vividly realized nightmare.”Bill Masen, bandages over his wounded eyes, misses the most spectacular meteorite shower England has ever seen...Categorized as:
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Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
18 ratingsIn the far distant future, the country laid waste by nuclear holocaust, twelve-year-old Riddley Walker tells his story in a language as fractured as the world in which he lives. As Riddley steps outside the confines of his small world, he finds himself caught up in intrigue and a frantic quest for power, desperately trying to make sense of things...Categorized as:
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Second Variety: Short Story by Philip K. Dick
16 ratingsIn the aftermath of a devastating nuclear war between the United Nations and the Soviet Union, sophisticated robots nicknamed “claws” are created to destroy what remains of human life. Left to their own devices, however, the claws develop robots of their own. II-V, the second variety, remains unknown to the few humans left on Earth. Or does it?Philip K...Categorized as:
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Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden
35 ratingsWhen Ellie and her friends return from a camping trip in the Australian bush, they find things hideously wrong — their families are gone. Gradually they begin to comprehend that their country has been invaded and everyone in their town has been taken prisoner...Categorized as:
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A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr., Mary Doria Russell
43 ratingsIn a nightmarish ruined world slowly awakening to the light after sleeping in darkness, the infant rediscoveries of science are secretly nourished by cloistered monks dedicated to the study and preservation of the relics and writings of the blessed Saint Isaac Leibowitz... -
Omon Ra by Victor Pelevin
18 ratingsVictor Pelevin's novel Omon Ra has been widely praised for its poetry and its wickedness, a novel in line with the great works of Gogol and Bulgakov. Omon is chosen to be trained in the Soviet space program the fulfillment of his lifelong dream... -
The Chrysalids by John Wyndham
32 ratingsThe Chyrsalids is set in the future after a devastating global nuclear war. David, the young hero of the novel, lives in a tight-knit community of religious and genetic fundamentalists, always on the alert for any deviation from the norm of God’s creation. Abnormal plants are publicly burned, with much singing of hymns...Categorized as:
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The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
43 ratingsThe United States government is given a warning by the pre-eminent biophysicists in the country: current sterilization procedures applied to returning space probes may be inadequate to guarantee uncontaminated re-entry to the atmosphere. Two years later, seventeen satellites are sent into the outer fringes of space to collect organisms and dust for study...Categorized as:
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The Death of Grass by John Christopher
20 ratingsThe Chung-Li virus has devastated Asia, wiping out the rice crop and leaving riots and mass starvation in its wake. The rest of the world looks on with concern, though safe in the expectation that a counter-virus will be developed any day. Then Chung-Li mutates and spreads. Wheat, barley, oats, rye: no grass crop is safe, and global famine threatens...Categorized as:
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One Past Midnight: The Langoliers by Stephen King, Willem Dafoe
29 ratingsThe first of a four-part audio series from Stephen King's best-selling book, Four Past Midnight. On a redeye flight from Los Angeles to Boston, only 11 passengers survive—but landing in a dead world makes them wish they hadn't...Categorized as:
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War in 2020: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals by Ralph Peters
8 ratingsDescribed as “the military counterpart of Orwell’s 1984, The War on 2020 is the breathtaking novel by the New York Times bestselling author of Red Army, Ralph Peters. Soviet Central Asia, 2020. A decaying Soviet Union is on the brink of disaster. Their only hope is American’s seventh cavalry. They’re plunging into the horrors of war in the new millennium...Categorized as:
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Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell Jr.
18 ratings"Who Goes There?" The novella that formed the basis of "The Thing" is the John W. Campbell classic about an antarctic research camp that discovers and thaws the ancient, frozen body of a crash-landed alien. The creature revives with terrifying results, shape-shifting to assume the exact form of animal and man, alike... -
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We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
41 ratingsThe exhilarating dystopian novel that inspired George Orwell's 1984 and foreshadowed the worst excesses of Soviet RussiaYevgeny Zamyatin's We is a powerfully inventive vision that has influenced writers from George Orwell to Ayn Rand...Categorized as:
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The Invasion by K.A. Applegate, Katherine Applegate
24 ratingsSometimes weird things happen to people. Ask Jake. He may tell you about the night he and his friends saw the strange light in the sky. He may even tell you about what happened when they realized the "light" was only a plane -- from another planet. Here's where Jake's story gets a little weird. It's where they're told that the human race is under attack -- and given the chance to fight back... -
Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks
43 ratings"Dazzlingly original." -- Daily Mail"Gripping, touching and funny." -- TLSThe war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, faced destruction, cold-blooded, brutal, and worse, random. The Idirans fought for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles were at stake. There could be no surrender... -
Cities of the Red Night by William S. Burroughs
18 ratingsWhile young men wage war against an evil empire of zealous mutants, the population of this modern inferno is afflicted with the epidemic of a radioactive virus. An opium-infused apocalyptic vision from the legendary author of Naked Lunch; the first of the trilogy with The Place of the Dead Roads and his final novel The Western Lands...Categorized as:
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The Slynx by Tatyana Tolstaya
18 ratingsTwo hundred years after civilization ended in an event known as the Blast, Benedikt isn't one to complain. He's got a job — transcribing old books and presenting them as the words of the great new leader, Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe — and though he doesn't enjoy the privileged status of a Murza, at least he's not a serf or a half-human four-legged Degenerator harnessed to a troika...Categorized as:
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Into the Forest by Jean Hegland
24 ratingsSet in the near-future, Into the Forest is a powerfully imagined novel that focuses on the relationship between two teenage sisters living alone in their Northern California forest home.Over 30 miles from the nearest town, and several miles away from their nearest neighbor, Nell and Eva struggle to survive as society begins to decay and collapse around them...Categorized as:
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The Lost World by Michael Crichton
41 ratingsIt is now six years since the secret disaster at Jurassic Park, six years since the extraordinary dream of science and imagination came to a crashing end – the dinosaurs destroyed, the park dismantled, the island indefinitely closed to the public.There are rumors that something has survived...Categorized as:
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The Running Man by Richard Bachman, Stephen King
43 ratingsThe Running Man is set within a dystopian future in which the poor are seen more by the government as worrisome rodents than actual human beings. The protagonist of The Running Man, Ben Richards, is quick to realize this as he watches his daughter, Cathy, grow more sick by the day and tread closer and closer to death...Categorized as:
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One Word Kill by Mark Lawrence
26 ratingsIn January 1986, fifteen-year-old boy-genius Nick Hayes discovers he’s dying. And it isn’t even the strangest thing to happen to him that week.Nick and his Dungeons & Dragons-playing friends are used to living in their imaginations...Categorized as:
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Ice by Anna Kavan
18 ratingsIn this haunting and surreal novel, the narrator and a man known as the warden search for an elusive girl in a frozen, seemingly post-nuclear, apocalyptic landscape. The country has been invaded and is being governed by a secret organization. There is destruction everywhere; great walls of ice overrun the world...Categorized as:
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Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
60 ratingsRay Bradbury’s internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 is a masterwork of twentieth-century literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out...Categorized as:
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The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa
31 ratingsOn an unnamed island off an unnamed coast, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses—until things become much more serious. Most of the island's inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few imbued with the power to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten... -
Zodiac by Neal Stephenson
25 ratingsSangamon Taylor's a New Age Sam Spade who sports a wet suit instead of a trench coat and prefers Jolt from the can to Scotch on the rocks. He knows about chemical sludge the way he knows about evil -- all too intimately. And the toxic trail he follows leads to some high and foul places... -
Sulphuric Acid by Amélie Nothomb
18 ratingsSome time in the future, audiences have tired of traditional reality television shows. One channel decides to try something new and ‘Concentration’ - the reality television death camp - is born.Participants for the show are rounded up and loaded onto cattle trucks, among them the beautiful young woman Pannonique...Categorized as:
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The Children of Men by P.D. James
30 ratingsTold with P. D. James's trademark suspense, insightful characterization, and riveting storytelling, The Children of Men is a story of a world with no children and no future. The human race has become infertile, and the last generation to be born is now adult. Civilization itself is crumbling as suicide and despair become commonplace...Categorized as:
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The Crystal World by J.G. Ballard
16 ratingsJ. G. Ballard's fourth novel, which established his reputation as a writer of extraordinary talent and imaginative powers, tells the story of a physician specializing in the treatment of leprosy who is invited to a small outpost in the interior of Africa...Categorized as:
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