Recommendations based on To Sail Beyond the Sunsetby Robert A. Heinlein

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  1. Time Enough for Love

    by Robert A. Heinlein
    A journey through time and space, exploring the boundaries of love, death and existence.

    The book covers several periods from the life of Lazarus Long (born Woodrow Wilson Smith), an early beneficiary of a breeding experiment designed to increase mankind's natural lifespan. The ... (Wikipedia)

  2. I Will Fear No Evil

    by Robert A. Heinlein
    An elderly billionaire's journey of self-discovery, exploring the nature of life, death and existence.

    The story takes place in the early 21st century against a background of an overpopulated Earth with a violent, dysfunctional society. Elderly billionaire Johann Sebastian Bach Smith is being kept ... (Wikipedia)

  3. Stranger in a Strange Land

    by Robert A. Heinlein
    A human raised by Martians must find his place in a hostile Earth society.

    The story focuses on a human raised on Mars and his adaptation to and understanding of humans and their culture. It is set in a post- Third World War United States, where organized religions are ... (Wikipedia)

  4. Neutron Star

    by Larry Niven
    An interstellar adventure of a human astronaut and an alien AI, discovering a mysterious neutron star.

    Beowulf Shaeffer , a native of the planet We Made It and unemployed for the last eight months due to a stock market crash, is contracted by a Pierson's Puppeteer, the Regional President of General ... (Wikipedia)

  5. Second Foundation

    by Isaac Asimov
    A quest to find the mysterious force controlling the fate of the galaxy.

    Part I is about The Mule 's search for the elusive Second Foundation, with the intent of destroying it. The executive council of the Second Foundation is aware of The Mule's intent and, in the words ... (Wikipedia)

  6. 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)

  7. Lucifer's Hammer

    by Larry Niven
    A cataclysmic comet strikes Earth, leading to a fight for survival.

    When wealthy soap company heir and amateur astronomer Tim Hamner co-discovers a new comet , dubbed Hamner-Brown, the documentary producer Harvey Randall persuades Hamner to have his family's company ... (Wikipedia)

  8. 2001: A Space Odyssey

    by Arthur C. Clarke
    An interstellar journey of exploration, confronting humanity's place in the universe.

    A mysterious alien civilization uses a tool with the appearance of a large crystalline monolith to investigate worlds across the galaxy and, if possible, to encourage the development of intelligent ... (Wikipedia)

  9. Foundation and Earth

    by Isaac Asimov
    A journey through the galaxy to find the lost planet of humanity's origin. Along the way, they uncover secrets of the universe.

    Councilman Golan Trevize , historian Janov Pelorat , and Blissenobiarella of the planet Gaia (introduced in Foundation's Edge ) set out on a journey to find humanity's ancestral planet— Earth . The ... (Wikipedia)

  10. Nemesis

    by Isaac Asimov
    A thrilling sci-fi adventure with a gripping mystery, set in a distant future.

    The novel is set in an era in which interstellar travel is in the process of being discovered and perfected. In Chapter 2, the novel states that the year 2220 was 16 years ago. Accordingly, the bulk ... (Wikipedia)

  11. The Forever War

    by Joe Haldeman
    A soldier's story of the horror of war and its consequences in the far future.

    The monumental Hugo and Nebula award winning SF classic— Featuring a new introduction by John Scalzi,The Earth's leaders have drawn a line in the interstellar sand—despite the fact that the fierce ... (Barnes & Noble)

  12. Mirror Dance

    by Lois McMaster Bujold
    A genetically-engineered clone confronts his identity and struggles to overcome destiny.

    Mark, Miles Vorkosigan 's clone , masquerades as him and dupes his mercenary force, the Dendarii, into undertaking a mission to free clones held "prisoner" on Jackson's Whole, an anything-goes ... (Wikipedia)

  13. 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)

  14. To Your Scattered Bodies Go

    by Philip José Farmer
    A journey of exploration through a mysterious afterlife, revealing the secrets of life and death.

    British adventurer Richard Francis Burton dies on Earth and is revived in mid-air in a vast dark room filled with human bodies, some only half-formed. There, he is confronted by men in a flying ... (Wikipedia)

  15. Childhood's End

    by Arthur C. Clarke
    Human race is transformed by an alien presence, leading to the dawn of a new age.

    The novel is divided into three parts, following a third-person omniscient narrative with no main character. , In some editions, the short first chapter is a separate prologue rather than the ... (Wikipedia)

  16. The Jungle Books

    by Rudyard Kipling
    Collection of stories about Mowgli, a boy raised by wolves, and his adventures in the jungle.

    The Jungle Books can be regarded as classic stories told by an adult to children. But they also constitute a complex literary work of art in which the whole of Kipling's philosophy of life is ... (Goodreads)

  17. Grave Surprise

    by Charlaine Harris
    A murder mystery set in a small town in the South, featuring a psychic detective.

    When I was fifteen, I was struck by a bolt of lightning through an open window of the trailer where we lived...I recovered, mostly. I have a strange spiderweb pattern of red on my torso and right ... (Goodreads)

  18. Footfall

    by Larry Niven
    Aliens invade Earth, and humanity must fight back to save their planet from destruction.

    The alien Fithp resemble baby elephants with multiple prehensile trunks. They possess more advanced technology than humans but have developed none of it on their own. In the distant past on their ... (Wikipedia)

  19. Green Mars

    by Kim Stanley Robinson
    Colonization of Mars, as humans seek to terraform and inhabit the red planet.

    Red Mars starts in 2026 with the first colonial voyage to Mars aboard the Ares , the largest interplanetary spacecraft ever built and home to a crew who are to be the first hundred Martian colonists. ... (Wikipedia)

  20. Eon

    by Greg Bear
    A mysterious asteroid appears near Earth, and a team is sent to investigate. They discover a complex alien structure and a dangerous power struggle.

    The 21st century was on the brink of nuclear confrontation when the 300 kilometer-long stone flashed out of nothingness and into Earth's orbit. NASA, NATO, and the UN sent explorers to the asteroid's ... (Goodreads)

  21. Atlas Shrugged

    by Ayn Rand
    A tale of a dystopian future where the strongest minds take control of society.

    This is the story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world and did. Was he a destroyer or the greatest of liberators? Why did he have to fight his battle, not against his enemies, ... (Goodreads)

  22. Cat's Cradle

    by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
    A satirical exploration of human folly, exposing the dangers of unchecked science and technology.

    Told with deadpan humour and bitter irony, Kurt Vonnegut's cult tale of global destruction preys on our deepest fears of witnessing Armageddon and, worse still, surviving it ... Dr Felix Hoenikker, ... (Goodreads)

  23. 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)

  24. Choke

    by Chuck Palahniuk
    A darkly humorous story of a man's journey to self-awareness through disruption and chaos.

    Choke follows Victor Mancini and his friend Denny through a few months of their lives with frequent flashbacks to the days when Victor was a child. , Victor had grown up moving from one foster home ... (Wikipedia)

  25. The Great Book of Amber

    by Roger Zelazny
    A magical and thrilling journey through magical planes of existence.

    Alternate cover edition can be found , here , Roger Zelazny's chronicles of Amber have earned their place as all-time classics of imaginative literature. Now, here are all ten novels, together in one ... (Goodreads)

  26. The One Tree

    by Stephen R. Donaldson
    A heroic quest to save the world from a mysterious evil force, with unlikely allies.

    Following the vision he received from the Clave at Revelstone, Thomas Covenant seeks to fix the corruption of the Land after the Staff of Law's destruction. He is accompanied on his quest by Linden ... (Wikipedia)

  27. The Many-Coloured Land

    by Julian May
    Adventure into an alternate reality, where humans and alien species fight for control.

    When a one-way time tunnel to Earth's distant past, specifically six million B.C., was discovered by folks on the Galactic Milieu, every misfit for light-years around hurried to pass through it. Each ... (Goodreads)

  28. 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)

  29. More Than Human

    by Theodore Sturgeon
    A story of human evolution, examining the potential of human beings to transcend their physical limitations.

    The first part of the novel, The Fabulous Idiot , narrates the birth of the gestalt. In the beginning, we are introduced to the world of Lone, referred to as the "Idiot", a 25-year-old male with a ... (Wikipedia)

  30. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

    by Douglas Adams
    An eccentric detective's surreal journey through time and space to solve a mysterious case.

    Richard MacDuff attends the Coleridge dinner at his old college St Cedd's , where he witnesses his former tutor, Professor Urban "Reg" Chronotis , perform an inexplicable magic trick in which he ... (Wikipedia)