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Recommendations based on Bad Monkeysby Matt Ruff
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
Snow Crash
by Neal Stephenson
A hacker's quest in a futuristic America dealing with a mysterious computer virus.
Hiro Protagonist is a hacker and pizza delivery driver for the Mafia. He meets Y.T. (short for Yours Truly), a young skateboard Kourier ( courier ) who refers to herself in the third person , during ... (Wikipedia)
Life, the Universe and Everything
by Douglas Adams
An intergalactic quest to find the answer to the ultimate question of life.
After being stranded on pre-historic Earth after the events in, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, , Arthur Dent is met by his old friend Ford Prefect , who drags him into a space-time eddy , ... (Wikipedia)
The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
by Neal Stephenson
A young girl's journey of learning and self-discovery, aided by advanced technology.
The protagonist in the story is Nell, a thete (or person without a tribe; equivalent to the lowest working class) living in the Leased Territories, a lowland slum built on the artificial, diamondoid ... (Wikipedia)
JPod
by Douglas Coupland
A darkly humorous look at the lives of the twenty-somethings working in the video game industry.
JPod , Douglas Coupland's most acclaimed novel to date, is a lethal joyride into today's new breed of tech worker. Ethan Jarlewski and five co-workers whose surnames begin with "J" are ... (Goodreads)
City of Golden Shadow
by Tad Williams
A thrilling adventure of discovering a forgotten, mystical world and its secrets.
The first character introduced is a man called Paul Jonas, apparently an infantryman on the Western Front of the First World War . In what he at first believes to be a dream or hallucination, he ... (Wikipedia)
The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear
by Walter Moers
An epic fantasy adventure of a bear-like creature exploring a mysterious world of magic and monsters.
Captain Bluebear tells the story of his first 13-1/2 lives spent on the mysterious continent of Zamonia, where intelligence is an infectious disease, water flows uphill, and dangers lie in wait for ... (Goodreads)
Under the Skin
by Michel Faber
A mysterious woman's journey of self-exploration and recognition of her own humanity.
The novel begins with Isserley picking up hitchhikers. Gradually, it is revealed she is an alien, originally somewhat canine in form, who has been surgically altered to look like a human woman, thus ... (Wikipedia)
A Head Full of Ghosts
by Paul Tremblay
A family's descent into darkness when their teenage daughter is suspected to be possessed.
The lives of the Barretts, a normal suburban New England family, are torn apart when fourteen-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia. To her parents' despair, the doctors ... (Goodreads)
Heart-Shaped Box
by Joe Hill
A retired rock star's haunted purchase leads to a terrifying confrontation with death.
Aging, self-absorbed rock star Judas Coyne has a thing for the macabre – his collection includes sketches from infamous serial killer John Wayne Gacy, a trepanned skull from the 16th century, a used ... (Goodreads)
Bird Box
by Josh Malerman
A family's fight for survival in a post-apocalyptic world, where creatures lurk in the shadows.
Something is out there, something terrifying that must not be seen. One glimpse of it, and a person is driven to deadly violence. No one knows what it is or where it came from. Five years after it ... (Goodreads)
Push
by Sapphire
A harrowing tale of a young girl's journey through poverty, abuse, and illiteracy in Harlem.
Claireece Precious Jones is an obese, illiterate 16-year-old girl who lives in Harlem with her abusive mother Mary. Precious is a few months pregnant with her second child, the product of her father ... (Wikipedia)
Invisible Monsters
by Chuck Palahniuk
A woman's journey to re-establish her identity and find her place in the world.
The narrator of the story is an unnamed disfigured woman who goes by multiple pseudonyms, notably Daisy St. Patience and Bubba Joan—identities given to her by Brandy Alexander, with whom she spends ... (Wikipedia)
Old Man's War
by John Scalzi
Elderly citizens enlist in an interstellar war to save humanity, discovering new strength and purpose.
Old Man's War is about a soldier named John Perry and his exploits in the Colonial Defense Forces (CDF). The first-person narrative follows Perry's military career from CDF recruit to the rank of ... (Wikipedia)
A Wizard of Earthsea
by Ursula K. Le Guin
A young wizard embarks on a quest to master his own magical powers and battle a mysterious force of evil.
Ged, the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea, was called Sparrowhawk in his reckless youth. Hungry for power and knowledge, Sparrowhawk tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon ... (Goodreads)
First Among Sequels
by Jasper Fforde
A madcap, comedic detective story featuring a time-traveling protagonist.
It's been fourteen years since Thursday pegged out at the 1988 SuperHoop, and Friday is now a difficult sixteen year old. However, Thursday's got bigger problems. Sherlock Holmes is killed at the ... (Goodreads)
River of Blue Fire
by Tad Williams
An epic fantasy adventure, combing the realms of the physical and spiritual.
Otherland. In many ways it is humankind's most stunning achievement: a private, multidimensional universe built over two generations by the greatest minds of the twenty-first century. But this most ... (Goodreads)
Zodiac
by Neal Stephenson
A thriller novel about a computer programmer and a journalist who uncover a conspiracy involving the Zodiac Killer.
In the novel, Taylor is a chemist working for GEE, a fictional environmental activism group which stages both protests and direct actions plugging toxic waste pipes. Taylor becomes involved with ... (Wikipedia)
Under the Dome
by Stephen King
Small town experiences a sudden and mysterious isolation, leading to chaos and terror.
At 11:44 a.m. on October 21, 2017, the small Maine town of Chester's Mill is abruptly and gruesomely separated from the outside world by an invisible, semipermeable barrier of unknown origin. The ... (Wikipedia)
Women in Love
by D.H. Lawrence
Two sisters explore their innermost desires as they search for true love and self-fulfillment.
Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen are sisters living in The Midlands in England in the 1910s. Ursula is a schoolteacher, Gudrun a painter. They meet two men who live nearby, school inspector Rupert Birkin ... (Wikipedia)
All Families are Psychotic
by Douglas Coupland
A dysfunctional family's story of love, loss and redemption.
The novel is the tale of the Drummond family from Vancouver gathering together to watch Sarah Drummond's space shuttle blast off at the Kennedy Space Center . The Drummonds are a group of misfits ... (Wikipedia)
Off Season
by Jack Ketchum
A young girl's survival in a lawless, post-apocalyptic world.
A group of friends from New York City travel to Dead River, Maine for a weeklong vacation by the coastline. Unbeknownst to them a clan of cannibalistic, inbred savages have taken up residency in a ... (Wikipedia)
The Raw Shark Texts
by Steven Hall
A man's surreal journey of self-discovery as he confronts a mysterious entity.
Eric Sanderson wakes up with no memory of who he is or any past experiences. He is told by a psychologist that he has a dissociative condition known as fugue but a trail of written clues purporting ... (Wikipedia)
The Mist
by Stephen King
A group of survivors confront terror and terrorizing creatures in a thick mist.
The morning after a severe thunderstorm , an unnaturally thick mist gradually envelopes the small town of Bridgton, Maine. Artist David Drayton, along with his son Billy and neighbor Brent Norton ... (Wikipedia)
Stories of Your Life and Others
by Ted Chiang
A collection of short stories exploring themes of science, technology, and humanity.
Ted Chiang's first published story, ",Tower of Babylon," won the Nebula Award in 1990. Subsequent stories have won the Asimov's SF Magazine reader poll, a second Nebula Award, the Theodore Sturgeon ... (Goodreads)
Annihilation
by Jeff VanderMeer
A team of four women venture into a mysterious, surreal landscape in search of answers.
A team of four women cross the border into an uninhabited area known as "Area X", an unspecified coastal location that has been closed to the public for three decades. The group consists of a ... (Wikipedia)
The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
by Douglas Adams
An eccentric space adventure filled with comedic misadventures and cosmic revelations.
At last in paperback in one complete volume, here are the five novels from Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker series. "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" Seconds before the Earth is demolished for a ... (Goodreads)
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
by Max Brooks
A collection of interviews recounting tales of the zombie apocalypse.
It has been nearly twenty years since the start of the apocalyptic worldwide pandemic known as the Zombie War, and about ten years since the war has ended in humanity's victory. The framing device ... (Wikipedia)
A Separate Peace
by John Knowles
A coming-of-age story about two boys and their complex friendship set during World War II.
Gene Forrester returns to his old prep school, Devon (a thinly veiled portrayal of Knowles's alma mater, Phillips Exeter Academy ), , 15 years after he graduated, to visit two places he regards as ... (Wikipedia)
VALIS
by Philip K. Dick
A man's quest to uncover the meaning behind a series of mystical visions.
VALIS is the first book in Philip K. Dick's incomparable final trio of novels (the others being The Divine Invasion and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer ). This disorienting and bleakly funny ... (Goodreads)
