Books like '1985'
Readers who enjoyed 1985 by Anthony Burgess also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical sc-fi 20th century alternate history dystopia classics politics satire
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11/22/63 by Stephen King
Rated: 4.32 of 5 stars · 79 ratingsOn November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? Stephen King’s heart-stoppingly dramatic new novel is about a man who travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination—a thousand page tour de force...Categorized as:
classics dystopia politics 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure adult alternate-history -
![Animal Farm / 1984 by George Orwell]()
Animal Farm / 1984 by George Orwell
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 72 ratingsThis edition features George Orwell’s best-known novels—1984 and Animal Farm—with an introduction by Christopher Hitchens.In 1984, London is a grim city where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston Smith joins a secret revolutionary organisation called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party... -
![Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson]()
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsCryptonomicon zooms all over the world, careening conspiratorially back and forth between two time periods—World War II and the present. Our 1940s heroes are the brilliant mathematician Lawrence Waterhouse, crypt analyst extraordinaire, and gung-ho, morphine-addicted marine Bobby Shaftoe...Categorized as:
classics politics 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history asia audiobook -
![The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal]()
The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsThe Fated Sky continued the grand sweep of alternate history begun in The Calculating Stars. It is 1961, and the International Aerospace Coalition has established a colony on the moon. Elma York, the noted Lady Astronaut, is working on rotation, flying shuttles on the moon and returning regularly to Earth.But humanity must get a foothold on Mars...Categorized as:
dystopia politics 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history apocalyptic audiobook -
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![Four Novels of the 1960s: The Man in the High Castle / The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch / Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? / Ubik by Philip K. Dick]()
Four Novels of the 1960s: The Man in the High Castle / The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch / Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? / Ubik by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 4.37 of 5 stars · 23 ratingsKnown in his lifetime primarily to readers of science fiction, Philip K. Dick is now seen as a uniquely visionary figure, a writer who, in editor Jonathan Lethem’s words, “wielded a sardonic yet heartbroken acuity about the plight of being alive in the twentieth century, one that makes him a lonely hero to the readers who cherish him... -
![Goliath by Scott Westerfeld]()
Goliath by Scott Westerfeld
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsAlek and Deryn are abroad the Leviathan when the ship is ordered to pick up an unusual passenger. This brilliant/maniacal inventor claims to have a weapon called Goliath that can end the war. But whose side is he really on?While on their top-secret mission, Alek finally discovers Deryn's deeply kept secret. Two, actually. Not only is Deryn a girl disguised as a guy...she has feelings for Alek... -
![Winds of Wrath by Taylor Anderson]()
Winds of Wrath by Taylor Anderson
Rated: 4.61 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsMatt Reddy and the crew of the USS Walker are positioned to push the line of battle to the breaking point on an alternate Earth, in the thrilling return to the New York Times bestselling Destroyermen series.Matt Reddy and his sailors have fought, bled, and died for their Lemurian friends and other allies from across time, but their enemies are still operational...Categorized as:
dystopia 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history alternate-universe audiobook book -
![The Lathe Of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin]()
The Lathe Of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 34 ratingsWith a new introduction by Kelly Link, the Locus Award–winning science fiction novel by legendary author Ursula K. Le Guin, set in a world where one man’s dreams rewrite the future. During a time racked by war and environmental catastrophe, George Orr discovers his dreams alter reality. George is compelled to receive treatment from Dr... -
![Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld]()
Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsThe behemoth is the fiercest creature in the British navy. It can swallow enemy battleships with one bite. The Darwinists will need it, now that they are at war with the Clanker powers.Deryn is a girl posing as a boy in the British Air Service, and Alek is the heir to an empire posing as a commoner. Finally together aboard the airship Leviathan, they hope to bring the war to a halt...Categorized as:
dystopia 20th-century action-adventure alternate-history alternate-universe animals asia audiobook -
![To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis]()
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsConnie Willis' Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Doomsday Book uses time travel for a serious look at how people connect with each other. In this Hugo-winning companion to that novel, she offers a completely different kind of time travel adventure: a delightful romantic comedy that pays hilarious homage to Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat...Categorized as:
classics 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history animals audiobook book -
![A Prophet Without Honor: A Novel of Alternative History by Joseph Wurtenbaugh]()
A Prophet Without Honor: A Novel of Alternative History by Joseph Wurtenbaugh
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratings‘A Prophet Without Honor’ is that rare novel that provides a rich, entertaining and fully immersive reading experience, along with a resonant, thought-provoking subtext. Written in epistolary style and populated with interesting, fully-realized characters, the multi-general narrative is a seamless blend of authentic fact and sound speculation... -
![Firestorm by Taylor Anderson]()
Firestorm by Taylor Anderson
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsLieutenant Commander Matthew Reddy and the crew of the USS Walker find themselves caught between the nation they swore to defend and the allies they promised to protect...Categorized as:
dystopia 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens alternate-history alternate-universe audiobook -
![River of Bones by Taylor Anderson]()
River of Bones by Taylor Anderson
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe crew of a WWII destroyer face their greatest challenge yet as they try to survive in a strange new world in the next thrilling book in the New York Times bestselling series.Commander Matt Reddy and his crew are afraid it may finally be the end of the USS Walker...Categorized as:
politics 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens alternate-history alternate-universe audiobook -
![The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey]()
The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn an alternate world where nobody won WWII, three brothers are the only boys left in an orphanage whose dark secret is the reason for their existence—and the key to their survival—from the acclaimed author of Pet.After a very different outcome to WWII than the one history recorded, 1979 England is a country ruled by a government whose aims have sinister underpinnings and alliances...Categorized as:
dystopia europe british-isles united-kingdom england fiction historical-fiction mystery -
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![Acts of War by James L. Young Jr.]()
Acts of War by James L. Young Jr.
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSomehow I doubt that this is quite how anyone expected Adolf Hitler's death to turn out...--Squadron Leader Adam Haynes, No. 303 (Polish) SquadronAugust 1942. London is in flames. Heinrich Himmler's Germany stands triumphant in the West, its "Most Dangerous Enemy" forced to the peace table by a hailstorm of nerve gas and incendiaries...Categorized as:
dystopia 20th-century adult alternate-history book fiction historical historical-fiction -
![In at the Death by Harry Turtledove]()
In at the Death by Harry Turtledove
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFranklin Roosevelt is the assistant secretary of defense. Thomas Dewey is running for president with a blunt-speaking Missourian named Harry Truman at his side. Britain holds onto its desperate alliance with the USA’s worst enemy, while a holocaust unfolds in Texas...Categorized as:
dystopia 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history book fiction historical -
![Tower of Babylon by Ted Chiang]()
Tower of Babylon by Ted Chiang
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA Vintage Shorts “Short Story Month” Selection Together with a crew of other miners and cart-pullers, Hillalum is recruited to climb the Tower of Babylon and unearth what lies beyond the vault of heaven...Categorized as:
dystopia satire 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history anthologies audiobook -
![Front Lines by Michael Grant]()
Front Lines by Michael Grant
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratings1942. World War II. The most terrible war in human history. Millions are dead; millions more are still to die. The Nazis rampage across Europe and eye far-off America.The green, untested American army is going up against the greatest fighting force ever assembled—the armed forces of Nazi Germany.But something has changed...Categorized as:
dystopia 20th-century action-adventure alpha-mc alternate-history audiobook book coming-of-age -
![The Many-Colored Land by Julian May]()
The Many-Colored Land by Julian May
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWhen 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 sought his own brand of happiness. But none could have guessed what awaited them. Not even in a million years...Categorized as:
classics dystopia 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens alternate-history anthologies -
![The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper]()
The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsTepper's finest novel to date is set in a post-holocaust feminist dystopia that offers only two political alternatives: a repressive polygamist sect that is slowly self-destructing through inbreeding and the matriarchal dictatorship called Women's Country...Categorized as:
classics dystopia politics 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history apocalyptic -
![Time and Time Again by Ben Elton]()
Time and Time Again by Ben Elton
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIt’s the 1st of June 1914 and Hugh Stanton, ex-soldier and celebrated adventurer is quite literally the loneliest man on earth. No one he has ever known or loved has been born yet. Perhaps now they never will be.Stanton knows that a great and terrible war is coming. A collective suicidal madness that will destroy European civilization and bring misery to millions in the century to come...Categorized as:
dystopia politics 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure adult alternate-history assassins -
![Doomsday Book by Connie Willis]()
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsFor Kivrin, preparing an on-site study of one of the deadliest eras in humanity's history was as simple as receiving inoculations against the diseases of the fourteenth century and inventing an alibi for a woman traveling alone. For her instructors in the twenty-first century, it meant painstaking calculations and careful monitoring of the rendezvous location where Kivrin would be received...Categorized as:
classics dystopia 20th-century action-adventure alternate-history apocalyptic audiobook book -
![Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank]()
Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 46 ratings“An extraordinary real picture of human beings numbed by catastrophe but still driven by the unconquerable determination of living creatures to keep on being alive.” —The New Yorker“Alas, Babylon.” Those fateful words heralded the end...Categorized as:
classics dystopia politics 20th-century action-adventure alternate-history anthologies apocalyptic -
![Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon]()
Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsStar Maker is a science fiction novel by Olaf Stapledon, published in 1937. The book describes a history of life in the universe, dwarfing in scale Stapledon's previous book, Last and First Men (1930), a history of the human species over two billion years...Categorized as:
classics dystopia politics 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens alternate-history -
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![Black No More by George S. Schuyler]()
Black No More by George S. Schuyler
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA hillarious exploration of the bizarre events which occur when blacks literally 'disappear' from society... -
![Polostan by Neal Stephenson]()
Polostan by Neal Stephenson
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe first installment in Neal Stephenson’s three-part Bomb Light cycle, Polostan follows the early life of the enigmatic Dawn Rae Bjornberg. Born in the American West to a clan of cowboy anarchists, Dawn is raised in Leningrad after the Russian Revolution by her Russian father, a party line Leninist who re-christens her Aurora... -
![What Doctor Gottlieb Saw by Ian Tregillis]()
What Doctor Gottlieb Saw by Ian Tregillis
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsGretel has wires in her head. Gretel likes to pick wildflowers. Gretel is one of the subjects on the farm, and she is Doctor Gottlieb's responsibility, but she knows something she isn't telling -- and if Doctor Gottlieb doesn't figure it out, it may be his body in a ditch next. This story is set in the world of Ian Tregillis's Milkweed series, which began with Bitter Seeds... -
![Lest Darkness Fall & Related Stories by L. Sprague de Camp, Pohl Frederik]()
Lest Darkness Fall & Related Stories by L. Sprague de Camp, Pohl Frederik
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsRarely do books have such a great influence on a genre as Lest Darkness Fall has had on science fiction. Frequently quoted as one of the 'favorite' books of many of the masters of the field, this book by L. Sprague de Camp helped establish time-travel as a solid sub-genre of science fiction...Categorized as:
classics 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history anthologies fiction historical -
![Theater of Spies by S.M. Stirling]()
Theater of Spies by S.M. Stirling
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe second novel in an alternate history series where Teddy Roosevelt is president once more right before WWI breaks out, and on his side is the Black Chamber, a secret spy network watching America's back...Categorized as:
dystopia 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook book espionage -
![Patternmaster by Octavia E. Butler]()
Patternmaster by Octavia E. Butler
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsThe combined mind-force of a telepathic race, Patternist thoughts can destroy, heal, rule. For the strongest mind commands the entire pattern and all within. Now the son of the Patternmaster craves this ultimate power, He has murdered or enslaved every threat to his ambition--except one...Categorized as:
classics dystopia 20th-century action-adventure adult afrofuturism alternate-history apocalyptic -
![BioShock: Rapture by John Shirley]()
BioShock: Rapture by John Shirley
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsIt's the end of World War II. FDR's New Deal has redefined American politics. Taxes are at an all-time high. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has brought a fear of total annihilation. The rise of secret government agencies and sanctions on business has many watching their backs. America's sense of freedom is diminishing . . . and many are desperate to take that freedom back...Categorized as:
dystopia politics 20th-century action-adventure alternate-history audiobook biopunk book -
![Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon]()
Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsSpanning the period between the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and the years just after World War I, this novel moves from the labor troubles in Colorado to turn-of-the-century New York, to London and Gottingen, Venice and Vienna, the Balkans, Central Asia, Siberia at the time of the mysterious Tunguska Event, Mexico during the Revolution, postwar Paris, silent-era Hollywood, and one or two places...Categorized as:
classics 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook book -
![Iron to Iron by Ryan Graudin]()
Iron to Iron by Ryan Graudin
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAn original e-novella tied to Ryan Graudin's acclaimed novel, Wolf by Wolf...Categorized as:
dystopia romance historical-fiction young-adult historical fantasy alternate-history fiction -
![The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter]()
The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThere is a secret passage through time...and it leads all the way to the end of Eternity. But the journey has a terrible cost. It alters not only the future but the "present" in which we live.A century after the publication of H. G...Categorized as:
classics 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook book fiction -
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![Into the Storm by Taylor Anderson]()
Into the Storm by Taylor Anderson
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsPressed into service when World War II breaks out in the Pacific, the USS Walker---a Great-War vintage "four-stacker" destroyer---finds itself in full retreat from pursuit by Japanese battleships. Its captain, Lieutenant Commander Matthew Patrick Reddy, knows that he and his crew are in dire straits...Categorized as:
dystopia 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens alternate-history alternate-universe audiobook -
![Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp]()
Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWhen am I? Padway asked himself after the lightning-flash knocked him down. He knew where he was--Rome. He was there to study archaeology, and even though the lightning had left him dazed, he could see the familiar Roman buildings...Categorized as:
classics 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history ancient-civilization book fiction -
![Walk in Hell by Harry Turtledove]()
Walk in Hell by Harry Turtledove
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe year is 1915, and the world is convulsing. Though the Confederacy has defeated its northern enemy twice, this time the United States has allied with the Kaiser. In the South, the freed slaves, fueled by Marxist rhetoric and the bitterness of a racist nation, take up the weapons of the Red rebellion...Categorized as:
politics 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook book fiction -
![White Lotus by John Hersey]()
White Lotus by John Hersey
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe story follows a young Arizona girl renamed White Lotus. As she ages, she evolves from “a bewildered, terrified slave to a conscious and intelligent revolutionary.” Her orchestrated, yet simple act of standing before her captors on one leg, head bowed like a sleeping bird becomes an often repeated act of nonviolent civil disobedience, an unconventional act in the spirit of Gandhi and Dr...Categorized as:
classics dystopia politics 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history anthologies -
![The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal]()
The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
Rated: 3.98 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsOn a cold spring night in 1952, a huge meteorite fell to earth and obliterated much of the east coast of the United States, including Washington D.C. The ensuing climate cataclysm will soon render the earth inhospitable for humanity, as the last such meteorite did for the dinosaurs... -
![Days of Infamy by Newt Gingrich, William R. Forstchen]()
Days of Infamy by Newt Gingrich, William R. Forstchen
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 14 ratings“Absolutely brilliant! Fast paced and filled with tension and suspense. Every page resonates with the momentous events and great personalities of World War II – and scenes so carefully crafted you feel like you’re there. This is a ‘must read’ for all who look at history and wonder: “What if…” -- Oliver North, Lt. Col., USMC (Ret...Categorized as:
politics 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history book fiction historical -
![The Goblin Reservation by Clifford D. Simak]()
The Goblin Reservation by Clifford D. Simak
Rated: 3.99 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsFirst-class entertainment (The Sunday Times) from a classic SF author. En route to an interplanetary research mission, a scientist is abducted by a strange, shadowy race of aliens and taken to a previously uncharted planet, a storehouse of information that would be invaluable--even to an Earth so advanced that time travel allows goblins, dinosaurs, even Shakespeare to coexist...Categorized as:
classics 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens alternate-history audiobook book -
![On the Beach by Nevil Shute]()
On the Beach by Nevil Shute
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsAfter the war is over, a radioactive cloud begins to sweep southwards on the winds, gradually poisoning everything in its path. An American submarine captain is among the survivors left sheltering in Australia, preparing with the locals for the inevitable. Despite his memories of his wife, he becomes close to a young woman struggling to accept the harsh realities of their situation...Categorized as:
classics dystopia 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history apocalyptic audiobook -
![Time and Again by Jack Finney]()
Time and Again by Jack Finney
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsOne of the most beloved tales of our time!Science fiction, mystery, a passionate love story, and a detailed history of Old New York blend together in Jack Finney's spellbinding story of a young man enlisted in a secret government experiment...Categorized as:
classics 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook book fiction -
![NSA - Nationales Sicherheits-Amt by Andreas Eschbach]()
NSA - Nationales Sicherheits-Amt by Andreas Eschbach
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsWeimar 1942: Die Programmiererin Helene arbeitet im Nationalen Sicherheits-Amt und entwickelt dort Programme, mit deren Hilfe alle Bürger des Reichs überwacht werden. Erst als die Liebe ihres Lebens Fahnenflucht begeht und untertauchen muss, regen sich Zweifel in ihr...Categorized as:
dystopia fiction sci-fi audiobook historical-fiction historical alternate-history ww2 -
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![Making History by Stephen Fry]()
Making History by Stephen Fry
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn Making History, Fry has bitten off a rather meaty chunk by tackling an at first deceptively simple premise: What if Hitler had never been born? An unquestionable improvement, one would reason--and so an earnest history grad student and an aging German physicist idealistically undertake to bring this about by preventing Adolf's conception...Categorized as:
dystopia satire 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook book -
![The Probability Broach by L. Neil Smith]()
The Probability Broach by L. Neil Smith
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsDenver detective Win Bear, on the trail of a murderer, discovers much more than a killer. He accidentally stumbles upon the probability broach, a portal to a myriad of worlds--some wildly different from, others disconcertingly similar to our own...Categorized as:
dystopia politics 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history book cyberpunk -
![Exploits & Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician: A Neo-Scientific Novel by Alfred Jarry]()
Exploits & Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician: A Neo-Scientific Novel by Alfred Jarry
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAlfred Jarry is best known as the author of the proto-Dada play "Ubu Roi," but this anarchic novel of absurdist philosophy is widely regarded as the central work to his oeuvre. Refused for publication in the author's lifetime, "Exploits and Opinion of Dr. Faustroll" recounts the adventures of the inventor of "Pataphysics . . . the science of imaginary solutions...Categorized as:
classics 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history book fiction historical -
![The Overman Culture by Edmund Cooper]()
The Overman Culture by Edmund Cooper
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsScience Fiction-Michael was quite young when he discovered that some of his playmates bled if they cut themselves, and some didn’t. For a long time, he didn’t think about it.nor did it seem strange to see zeppelins being attacked by jet fighters above London’s force field, or glimpse queen victoria walking with Winston Churchill in the mall. Not at first... -
![Tuomiopäivä by Jerry Ahern]()
Tuomiopäivä by Jerry Ahern
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsbook #4 in the survivalist...Categorized as:
dystopia 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history apocalyptic audiobook book -
![The Fabulous Riverboat by Philip José Farmer]()
The Fabulous Riverboat by Philip José Farmer
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsIn To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip José Farmer introduces readers to the awesome Riverworld, a planet that had been carved into one large river on whose shores all of humanity throughout the ages has seemingly been resurrected...Categorized as:
classics dystopia 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens alternate-history audiobook
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