Fiction books.

[Deicide]

I'm looking for Sci-fi and detective/thriller/mystery books to read on my journey to and from work. Any recommendations?

[Tenka]

I recently read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Club_Dumas
Immeasurably better than I thought anything under the crime/mystery genres could possibly be, i.e., very good!

Sci-fi recommendations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel))
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kallocain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadside_Picnic

"Thrillers":
Most anything by Ramsey Campbell; some also by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child I would highly recommend (e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relic_(novel)) ).

[Deicide]

I recently read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Club_Dumas
Immeasurably better than I thought anything under the crime/mystery genres could possibly be, i.e., very good!


I've seen Polanski's film adaptation, the 9th gate, and I enjoyed it a lot. This will do for a while, thanks.

[Ele'ill]

I'm looking for Sci-fi and detective/thriller/mystery books to read on my journey to and from work. Any recommendations?

The Dark Tower series by Stephen King

[The Idler]

The Weekly Ansible, 50 Sci-Fi & Fantasy Works Every Socialist ... (http://theweeklyansible.tumblr.com/post/20777236577/50-sci-fi-fantasy-works-every-socialist-should-read)

[Jimmie Higgins]

The Weekly Ansible, 50 Sci-Fi & Fantasy Works Every Socialist ... (http://theweeklyansible.tumblr.com/post/20777236577/50-sci-fi-fantasy-works-every-socialist-should-read)I'd add works by the author of that piece too!

"Perdido Street Station" is a fantasy novel with an urban capitalist (but fantastical) setting and a horror/monster plot. It takes about 100 pages to get into it, but it pays off!

"Iron Council" is set in the same world as the novel above but about a generation later. Though this was written in 2004-5, it's about that city in a depression and waging an imperialist war. The book is overtly political and socialist sci-fi/fantasy and deals with ideas like insurrectionism, robin-hood-style folk heroes, worker's power, and spends about 100 pages describing the creation of basically a Soviet or Paris Commune style rebellion except with monsters and magic and shit... fucking sweet!:lol:

"City and the City" is China Miellville's noir/detective novel. It also has strong fantasy concepts because it's basically about two cities which occupy the exact same space. It's like a cold-war spy thriller set in the Twilight Zone.


Other books I recommend are the Red, Blue and Green Mars books by Kim Robinson. Very interesting as Sci-Fi as well as for some of the political commentary.

I haven't read it yet but I just bought "Accelerando" which is about the concept of technological development surpassing our human abilities to understand the technology. From what I understand it's about A.I. taking over capitalism and instituting Economics 2.0 which operates too fast for humans to understand - capitalism has alienated all of humanity.

For commuting (depending on the length of the commute) I'd actually recommend going for short story collections. The McSweeney's ones are good if you want an interesting anthology but don't have particular authors in mind. But for Sci-Fi, I'd check out collections of short fiction from the mid-20th century. The Martian Chronicles is fun; Damon Knight's fiction from that time is very imaginative and pulpy; I read a collection of Vonnegut's genre writing before he was a novelist and most of that was Sci-Fi and very entertaining.

[x359594]

For mysteries, there are the "big three" in the hard boiled detective genre, Dashiell Hammett (a black listed communist by the way,) Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald. All of their books aregood in various ways. Chester Himes' crime novels featuring Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson are terrific, and his contemporary counterpart Gary Philips has good mysteries that have an anti-capitalist sub-text.