A ReadOrbit guide
Explore recommendation-ready books selected for readers interested in character-driven.
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2017
by Alan Dean Foster
"Unlikely duo Pip and Flinx return to right another wrong in this all-new sci-fi adventure from one of the genre's living legends. Fans of fun, fast-paced, imaginative science fiction adventure, rejoice! #1 New York Times bestselling author Alan Dean Foster returns to his much-lo…
2016
by Martha Wells
"An expedition of groundlings from the Empire of Kish have traveled through the Three Worlds to the Indigo Cloud court of the Raksura, shape-shifting creatures of flight that live in large family groups. The groundlings have found a sealed ancient city at the edge of the shallow…
2016
by Chuck Tingle
With his genre-defining work, Space Raptor Butt Invasion, Chuck Tingle proved that even gay dinosaur erotica could be nominated for a Hugo Award, the most prestigious honor in science fiction. Nobody could have expected what would happen when the story continued. Collected here i…
2013
by Gary Westfahl
The leading figure in the development of cyberpunk, William Gibson (born in 1948) crafted works in which isolated humans explored near-future worlds of ubiquitous and intrusive computer technology and cybernetics. This volume is the first comprehensive examination of the award-wi…
2012
by RJ Palmer
Bowen is an orphaned child in feudal England whose first appearance in this novel is having been bound hands and feet and whipped mercilessly by the monks in a monastery in an excess of bloodlust. He’s realistically of an indeterminate age but no more than about seven years old a…
2012
by Lois McMaster Bujold
"Book Fourteen in the best-selling Vorkosigan series. Captain Ivan Vorpatril is happy with his relatively uneventful bachelor's life of a staff officer to a Barrayaran admiral. Ivan, cousin to Imperial troubleshooter Miles Vorkosigan, is not far down the hereditary list for the e…
2010
by RJ Palmer
In 1969 a woman is admitted into the hospital in critical condition after having been the victim of a drunken driving accident. It was only after having undergone extensive testing including several x-rays to determine the nature and scope of her injuries that her pregnancy was d…
2008
by Neal Stephenson
Anathem, the latest invention by the New York Times bestselling author of Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle, is a magnificent creation: a work of great scope, intelligence, and imagination that ushers readers into a recognizable — yet strangely inverted — world.Fraa Erasmas is…
2006
by Dan Simmons
From the author of the Hyperion Cantos -- one of the most acclaimed popular series in contemporary science fiction -- comes a powerful epic of high-tech gods, human heroes, total war, and the extraordinary transcendence of ordinary beings. The first book in a two-part epic. "I am…
2006
by Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy's tenth novel, The Road, is his most harrowing yet deeply personal work. Some unnamed catastrophe has scourged the world to a burnt-out cinder, inhabited by the last remnants of mankind and a very few surviving dogs and fungi. The sky is perpetually shrouded by du…
2006
by Terry Brooks
Terry Brooks is one of a handful of writers whose work defines modern fantasy fiction. His twenty-three international bestsellers have ranged from the beloved Shannara series to stories that tread a much darker path. Armageddon's Children is a new creation--the perfect opportunit…
2005
by Albert Russo
General introduction to Albert Russo’s work by Martin Tucker: “Albert Russo’s art and life are all of a unique piece, and that piece is a plurality of cultures. Born in what was then the Belgian Congo and now is Congo/Zaire, he grew up in Central and Southern Africa and writes in…
2005
by Nora Roberts
Eve Dallas Investigation In Death New York City of 2059 'Murder was always an insult, and had been since the first human hand had smashed a stone into the first human skull. But the murder, bloody and brutal, of an entire family in their own home, in there own beds, was a differe…
2005
by Nora Roberts
Eve Dallas Investigation In Death New York City of 2059 'Murder was always an insult, and had been since the first human hand had smashed a stone into the first human skull. But the murder, bloody and brutal, of an entire family in their own home, in there own beds, was a differe…
2004
by Neal Stephenson
Volume One of The Baroque Cycle (Not to be confused with [Quicksilver: The Baroque Cycle #1](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL18199543W/Quicksilver)) Quicksilver is a massive, exuberant and wildly ambitious historical novel that's also Neal Stephenson's eagerly awaited prequel to…
2004
by Anne McCaffrey, Todd McCaffrey
Beginning with the classic Dragonriders of Pern, Anne McCaffrey has created a complex, endlessly fascinating world uniting humans and great telepathic dragons. Millions of devoted readers have soared on the glittering wings of Anne's imagination, following book by book the evolut…
2003
by Stephen Baxter
Stephen Baxter possesses one of the most brilliant minds in modern science fiction. His vivid storytelling skills have earned him comparison to the giants of the past: Clarke, Asimov, Stapledon. Like his great predecessors, Baxter thinks on a cosmic scale, spinning cutting-edge s…
2000
by William Shatner
For three full decades, on television and in film, actor William Shatner has portrayed one of the legendary heroes of science fiction: James Tiberius Kirk, captain of the starship Enterprise. Although Kirk was believed to have perished at the conclusion of Star Trek Generations,…
1998
by George R. R. Martin
***A Game of Thrones*** is the inaugural novel in ***A Song of Ice and Fire***, an epic series of fantasy novels crafted by the American author **George R. R. Martin**. Published on August 1, 1996, this novel introduces readers to the richly detailed world of Westeros and Essos,…
1997
by Robert A. Heinlein
Starship Troopers takes place in the midst of an interstellar war between the Terran Federation of Earth and the Arachnids (referred to as "The Bugs") of Klendathu. It is narrated as a series of flashbacks by Juan Rico, and is one of only a few Heinlein novels set out in this fas…
1996
by Paul J. McAuley
A review by Greg L. Johnson: The Invisible Country is McAuley's second short story collection. The stories, mostly hard SF that draw on McAuley's background in biology, are a good introduction to a writer who is both a first-rate story teller and stylist. The title story, a does-…
1993
by Isaac Asimov, Melisa C. Michaels, Randall Garrett, Vicki Ann Heydron, Garry R. Osgood, Jack C. Haldeman, Nancy Kress, John Varley, Linda I. Isaacs, Ted Reynolds, Kevin O'Donnell, Jr, Steve Perry, Barry B. Longyear, Sally A. Sellers, Brian W. Aldiss, Sharon N. Farber, Arthur C. Clarke, Larry Niven, Jo Clayton, Poul Anderson, Jack L. Chalker, E. Amalia Andujar, Sherwood Springer, Conway Conley, Gary D. McClellan, A. Bertram Chandler, Paula Smith, William John Watkins, Drew Mendelson, Alan Dean Foster, Steven Utley, Keith Minnion, Robert Lee Hawkins, Roger Zelazny, Michael A. Banks, George Wagner, Anne Lear, F. M. Busby, John M. Ford, Jesse F. Bone, F. Paul Wilson, James E. Gunn
Editorial: Escape to Reality? - essay by Isaac Asimov In the Country of the Blind, No One Can See - short story by Melisa Michaels Keepersmith - novelette by Randall Garrett and Vicki Ann Heydron Good Taste - novelette by Isaac Asimov To Sin Against Systems - novelette by Garry R…
1991
by Ellen Datlow, Leigh Kennedy, Rick Wilber, Harlan Ellison, Scott Baker, Larry Niven, K. W. Jeter, Philip José Farmer, Lisa Tuttle, Bruce McAllister, Edward Bryant, Pat Cadigan, Geoff Ryman, Connie Willis, Richard Christian Matheson, Lewis Shiner, Roberta Lannes, James Tiptree, Jr., Michaela Roessner, Pat Murphy
From Bernie Goutley's review: 1.) Her Furry Face by Leigh Kennedy A primate handler who is in a waning marriage falls for one of his super-intelligent orangutan students. 2.) War Bride by Rick Wilbur The world is going to end tomorrow unless you’ve been taken as a pet by one of t…
1991
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
From Publishers Weekly This collection of 25 stories from the first three years (12 issues) of Pulphouse contains horror, fantasy, SF and straight fiction. In her introduction Rusch ( The White Mists of Power ) observes that many of these stories have in common their defiance of…