Recommendations based on A Maze of Deathby Philip K. Dick

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  1. The Man in the High Castle

    by Philip K. Dick
    Set in an alternate 1962, a man must confront a dark and oppressive new world order.

    It's America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco, the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some twenty ... (Goodreads)

  2. A Scanner Darkly

    by Philip K. Dick
    A dystopian tale of surveillance and paranoia in a world of drug addiction.

    The protagonist is Bob Arctor, member of a household of drug users, who is also living a double life as an undercover police agent assigned to spy on Arctor's household. Arctor shields his identity ... (Wikipedia)

  3. 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)

  4. The Trial

    by Franz Kafka
    A man is arrested and put on trial for a crime that remains unclear throughout the novel.

    On the morning of his thirtieth birthday, Josef K., the chief cashier of a bank, is unexpectedly arrested by two unidentified agents from an unspecified agency for an unspecified crime. Josef is not ... (Wikipedia)

  5. Rendezvous with Rama

    by Arthur C. Clarke
    A mysterious alien spacecraft discovered in the Solar System, explored by a human team.

    After an asteroid falls in Northeast Italy in 2077, creating a major disaster, the government of Earth sets up the Spaceguard system as an early warning of arrivals from deep space. The "Rama" of the ... (Wikipedia)

  6. Neuromancer

    by William Gibson
    A hacker's journey through a dystopian cyberpunk world, searching for a way to survive.

    Henry Dorsett Case is a low-level hustler in the dystopian underworld of Chiba City , Japan. Once a talented computer hacker , Case was caught stealing from his employer. As punishment for his theft, ... (Wikipedia)

  7. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

    by Haruki Murakami
    A surreal exploration of two separate yet interwoven realities.

    The story is split between parallel narratives. The odd-numbered chapters take place in the 'Hard-Boiled Wonderland', although the phrase is not used anywhere in the text, only in page headers. The ... (Wikipedia)

  8. The Crying of Lot 49

    by Thomas Pynchon
    A surreal journey of uncovering the truth of a mysterious organization.

    In the mid-1960s, Oedipa Maas lives a fairly comfortable life in the (fictional) northern Californian village of Kinneret, despite her lackluster marriage with Mucho Maas, a rudderless radio jockey , ... (Wikipedia)

  9. High-Rise

    by J.G. Ballard
    In a high-rise building, social boundaries begin to break down as the inhabitants descend into chaos and violence.

    Following his divorce, doctor and medical-school lecturer Robert Laing moves into his new apartment on the 25th floor of a recently completed high-rise building on the outskirts of London. This tower ... (Wikipedia)

  10. Red Mars

    by Kim Stanley Robinson
    Colonists brave the harsh landscapes of Mars, striving to make the planet their new home.

    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)

  11. Ulysses

    by James Joyce
    Epic narrative following a day in the life of an Irishman living in Dublin.

    It is 8 a.m. Buck Mulligan , a boisterous medical student, calls Stephen Dedalus (a young writer encountered as the principal subject of, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, ) up to the roof of ... (Wikipedia)

  12. Infinite Jest

    by David Foster Wallace
    A journey through the absurdist world of entertainment, drugs, addiction & death.

    There are four major interwoven narratives: , These narratives are connected via a film, Infinite Jest , also referred to in the novel as "the Entertainment" or "the samizdat ". The film is so ... (Wikipedia)

  13. Bluebeard

    by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
    A woman's exploration of her husband's dark past, uncovering secrets and shocking truths.

    At the opening of the book, the narrator, Rabo Karabekian , apologizes to the arriving guests: "I promised you an autobiography, but something went wrong in the kitchen..." He describes himself as a ... (Wikipedia)

  14. No Country for Old Men

    by Cormac McCarthy
    A gripping tale of violence and pursuit in Texas' desolate landscape.

    The plot follows the interweaving paths of the three central characters (Llewelyn Moss, Anton Chigurh , and Ed Tom Bell) set in motion by events related to a drug deal gone bad near the ... (Wikipedia)

  15. 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)

  16. 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)

  17. 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)

  18. The Lathe of Heaven

    by Ursula K. Le Guin
    An exploration of the power of dreams, with the potential to reshape reality.

    The book is set in Portland, Oregon , in the year 2002. Portland has three million inhabitants and continuous rain. It is deprived enough for the poorer inhabitants to have kwashiorkor , a protein ... (Wikipedia)

  19. The Silmarillion

    by J.R.R. Tolkien
    Epic saga of the history of Middle-Earth, a world filled with mythical creatures.

    The Silmarillion is an account of the Elder Days, of the First Age of Tolkien’s world. It is the ancient drama to which the characters in The Lord of the Rings look back, and in whose events some of ... (Goodreads)

  20. The Day of the Triffids

    by John Wyndham
    A post-apocalyptic world overrun by carnivorous plants, exploring themes of survival and morality.

    In 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 ... (Goodreads)

  21. 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)

  22. Sin City, Vol. 4: That Yellow Bastard

    by Frank Miller
    Dark, gritty crime thriller set in a corrupt city, focused on a cop's pursuit of a brutal murderer.

    In a Sin City short story, "The Babe Wore Red," Frank Miller deviated from his stark black-and-white artwork by adding tiny bits of color throughout the story. The girl's dress was red, her lips were ... (Goodreads)

  23. Solaris

    by Stanisław Lem
    A psychological exploration of a distant planet, uncovering the truth behind its strange and mysterious phenomena.

    Solaris chronicles the ultimate futility of attempted communications with the extraterrestrial life inhabiting a distant alien planet named Solaris. The planet is almost completely covered with an ... (Wikipedia)

  24. The Shadow over Innsmouth

    by H.P. Lovecraft
    Unveiling the hidden secrets of an isolated coastal town, confronting an ancient evil.

    The narrator explains how he instigated a secret investigation of the ruined town of Innsmouth , Massachusetts , — a former seaport isolated from other nearby towns by vast salt marshes — by the U.S. ... (Wikipedia)

  25. Dune Messiah

    by Frank Herbert
    Epic tale of a galactic ruler's struggle to protect his empire from destruction.

    Twelve years after the events described in, Dune, (1965), Paul "Muad'Dib" Atreides rules as Emperor. By accepting the role of messiah to the Fremen , Paul had unleashed a jihad which conquered most ... (Wikipedia)

  26. 'Salem's Lot

    by Stephen King
    A small town is terrorized by a vampire, forcing its citizens to fight for survival.

    Ben Mears, a writer who spent part of his childhood in Jerusalem's Lot , Maine , has returned after 25 years. He quickly becomes friends with high-school teacher Matt Burke and strikes up a ... (Wikipedia)

  27. The Cyberiad

    by Stanisław Lem
    A series of comic science fiction stories, exploring the adventures of two robotic inventors.

    A brilliantly funny collection of stories for the next age, from the celebrated author of Solaris . Ranging from the prophetic to the surreal, these stories demonstrate Stanislaw Lem's vast talent ... (Goodreads)

  28. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems

    by T.S. Eliot
    A collection of poetry exploring themes of melancholy and despair.

    Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless ... (Goodreads)

  29. Starship Troopers

    by Robert A. Heinlein
    A futuristic military drama, exploring the consequences of war and human nature.

    The novel opens with Rico aboard the corvette transport Rodger Young (named after Medal of Honor recipient Rodger Wilton Young ), , serving with the platoon known as "Rasczak's Roughnecks". The ... (Wikipedia)

  30. Time's Arrow

    by Martin Amis
    A story told in reverse as a Holocaust doctor confronts his past and his role in the atrocities.

    The novel recounts the life of a German Holocaust doctor in reverse chronology. The narrator, together with the reader, experiences time passing in reverse. The narrator is not exactly the ... (Wikipedia)