Books like 'Motorman'
Readers who enjoyed Motorman by David Ohle also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
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Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 68 ratingsSo far the Foundation was safe. But there was a hidden Second Foundation to protect the first. The Mule has yet to find it, but he was getting closer all the time. The men of the Foundation sought it, too, to escape from Mule's mind control. Only Arkady, a 14 year-old girl seemed to have the answer, or did she.. -
![Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace]()
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 60 ratingsA gargantuan, mind-altering tragi-comedy about the Pursuit of Happiness in America... -
![Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, Thomas Pynchon]()
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, Thomas Pynchon
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 82 ratingsThe new novel by George Orwell is the major work towards which all his previous writing has pointed. Critics have hailed it as his "most solid, most brilliant" work. Though the story of Nineteen Eighty-Four takes place thirty-five years hence, it is in every sense timely. The scene is London, where there has been no new housing since 1950 and where the city-wide slums are called Victory Mansions...Categorized as:
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![I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman]()
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 69 ratings"As far back as I can recall, I have been in the bunker."A young woman is kept in a cage underground with thirty-nine other females, guarded by armed men who never speak; her crimes unremembered... if indeed there were crimes.The youngest of forty - a child with no name and no past - she survives for some purpose long forgotten in a world ravaged and wasted...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult apocalyptic book classics -
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![The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams]()
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 66 ratingsSeconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of the The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out of work actor...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure aliens audiobook book children -
![Axiomatic by Greg Egan]()
Axiomatic by Greg Egan
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsAxiomatic is a collection of Greg Egan's short stories that appeared in various science fiction magazines (mostly Interzone and Asimov's) between 1989 and 1992... -
![Hard to Be a God by Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky]()
Hard to Be a God by Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsThe novel follows Anton, an undercover operative from the future planet Earth, in his mission on an alien planet, that is populated by human beings, whose society has not advanced beyond the Middle Ages...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book classics -
![Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes]()
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars · 79 ratingsCharlie Gordon is about to embark upon an unprecedented journey. Born with an unusually low IQ, he has been chosen as the perfect subject for an experimental surgery that researchers hope will increase his intelligence--a procedure that has already been highly successful when tested on a lab mouse named Algernon... -
![Brave New World / Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley, Christopher Hitchens]()
Brave New World / Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley, Christopher Hitchens
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 66 ratingsThe astonishing novel Brave New World, originally published in 1932, presents Aldous Huxley's vision of the future--of a world utterly transformed. Through the most efficient scientific and psychological engineering, people are genetically designed to be passive and therefore consistently useful to the ruling class... -
![The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.]()
The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 67 ratingsThe Sirens of Titan is an outrageous romp through space, time, and morality. The richest, most depraved man on Earth, Malachi Constant, is offered a chance to take a space journey to distant worlds with a beautiful woman at his side. Of course there’ s a catch to the invitation–and a prophetic vision about the purpose of human life that only Vonnegut has the courage to tell...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction postmodernism 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens audiobook -
![Ubik by Philip K. Dick]()
Ubik by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsGlen Runciter runs a lucrative business—deploying his teams of anti-psychics to corporate clients who want privacy and security from psychic spies. But when he and his top team are ambushed by a rival, he is gravely injured and placed in “half-life,” a dreamlike state of suspended animation...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction postmodernism 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book -
![CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders]()
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsIn six stories and the novella, Bounty, Saunders introduces readers to people struggling to survive in an increasingly haywire world...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction postmodernism 20th-century 21st-century adult anthologies audiobook -
![The Golden Apple by Robert Shea, Robert Anton Wilson]()
The Golden Apple by Robert Shea, Robert Anton Wilson
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsNausea, then microamnesia, then the laughing jag, then sex. Be patient. The clear light comes next. Then we can discuss Truth. As if we haven't been discussing it all along. -Hagbard Celine, The Golden Apple Illuminatus! Part II, from the original and genuine trilogy of conspiracies, is performed in all its unabridged brilliance by a full ensemble cast... -
![Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell]()
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 101 ratingsWinston Smith is a low-rung member of the Party, the ruling government of Oceania. He works in the Ministry of Truth, the Party's propoganda arm, where he is in charge of revising history. He is but a small brick in the pyramid that is the Party, at the head of which stands Big Brother. Big Brother the infallible. Big Brother the all-powerful...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century alternate-history audiobook book classics contemporary -
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![When the People Fell by Cordwainer Smith]()
When the People Fell by Cordwainer Smith
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsA sweeping saga of the centuries to come, from the new dark age that followed a global war, to the new civilization that arose from the ashes to colonize the stars... -
![Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.]()
Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsIt is the year 2081. Because of Amendments 211, 212, and 213 to the Constitution, every American is fully equal, meaning that no one is stupider, uglier, weaker, or slower than anyone else. The Handicapper General and a team of agents ensure that the laws of equality are enforced.One April, fourteen-year-old Harrison Bergeron is taken away from his parents, George and Hazel, by the government... -
![The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse, Theodore Ziolkowski]()
The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse, Theodore Ziolkowski
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsThe final novel of Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game is a fascinating tale of the complexity of modern life as well as a classic of modern literature.Set in the twenty-third century, The Glass Bead Game is the story of Joseph Knecht, who has been raised in Castalia, the remote place his society has provided for the intellectual elite to grow and flourish... -
![Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.]()
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 76 ratingsTold 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, one of the founding 'fathers' of the atomic bomb, has left a deadly legacy to the world. For he's the inventor of 'ice-nine', a lethal chemical capable of freezing the entire planet...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction postmodernism 20th-century absurdism adult apocalyptic audiobook -
![The Complete Short Stories: Volume 1 by J.G. Ballard]()
The Complete Short Stories: Volume 1 by J.G. Ballard
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsFirst in a two volume collection of short stories by the acclaimed author of ‘Empire of the Sun’, ‘Crash’ and ‘Super-Cannes’. The new edition is introduced by Adam Thirwell.With eighteen novels over four decades – from ‘The Drowned World’ in 1962 to his final novel ‘Kingdom Come’ in 2006 – J.G. Ballard is known as one of Britain’s most celebrated and original novelists... -
![Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Курт Воннегут]()
Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Курт Воннегут
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 49 ratingsWelcome to the Monkey House is a collection of Kurt Vonnegut’s shorter works. Originally printed in publications as diverse as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and The Atlantic Monthly, these superb stories share Vonnegut’s audacious sense of humor and extraordinary range of creative vision...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction postmodernism 20th-century adult anthologies audiobook classics -
![Burning Chrome by William Gibson]()
Burning Chrome by William Gibson
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsTen tales, from the computer-enhanced hustlers of Johnny Mnemonic to the technofetishist blues of Burning Chrome... -
![Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.]()
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 70 ratingsAlternate cover for this ISBN can be found hereIn Breakfast of Champions, one of Kurt Vonnegut’s most beloved characters, the aging writer Kilgore Trout, finds to his horror that a Midwest car dealer is taking his fiction as truth. What follows is murderously funny satire, as Vonnegut looks at war, sex, racism, success, politics, and pollution in America and reminds us how to see the truth... -
![A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories by Ray Bradbury]()
A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories by Ray Bradbury
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 34 ratingsContents: 1 • In a Season of Calm Weather • (1957) • short story by Ray Bradbury 7 • A Medicine for Melancholy • (1959) • short story by Ray Bradbury 16 • The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit • non-genre • (1958) • short story by Ray Bradbury 39 • Fever Dream • (1948) • short story by Ray Bradbury 46 • The Marriage Mender • (1954) • short story by Ray Bradbury 51 • The Town Where No One Got Off • (1958)...Categorized as:
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![Of Mice and Mooshaber by Ladislav Fuks, Mark Corner]()
Of Mice and Mooshaber by Ladislav Fuks, Mark Corner
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsLadislav Fuks (1923-94) was an outstanding Czech writer whose work, consisting primarily of psychological fiction, explores themes of anxiety and life in totalitarian systems... -
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![Last of the Curlews by Fred Bodsworth]()
Last of the Curlews by Fred Bodsworth
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratings"The story of this migration is magnificent, informative, breathtaking and exotic". Los Angeles TimesMore than three million readers around the world have been touched by this conservation classic, the story of a solitary Eskimo curlew's last perilous migration and search for a mate. The lone survivor comes to stand for the entirety of a lost species...Categorized as:
literary-fiction 20th-century adult animals anthropomorphism book classics contemporary -
![Log of the S.S. The Mrs. Unguentine by Stanley Crawford, Ben Marcus]()
Log of the S.S. The Mrs. Unguentine by Stanley Crawford, Ben Marcus
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsForty years ago I first linked up with Unguentine and we made love on twin-hulled catamarans, sails a-billow, bless the seas . . .So begins the courtship of a certain Unguentine to the woman we know only as “Mrs. Unguentine,” the chronicler of their sad, fantastical tale. For forty years, they sail the seas together, alone on a giant land-covered barge of their own devising... -
![Leviathan by Robert Shea, Robert Anton Wilson]()
Leviathan by Robert Shea, Robert Anton Wilson
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe ultimate weapon isn't this plague out in Vegas, or any new super H-bomb. The ultimate weapon has always existed. Every man, every woman, and every child owns it. It's the ability to say No and take the consequences. - Hagbard Celine, LeviathanIlluminatus! Part III cheerfully ushers in the apocalyptic high-camp conclusion of the Illuminatus! Trilogy... -
![The Gold Bug Variations by Richard Powers]()
The Gold Bug Variations by Richard Powers
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA national bestseller, voted by Time as the #1 novel of 1991, selected as one of the "Best Books of 1991" by Publishers Weekly, and nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award--a magnificent story that probes the meaning of love, science, music, and art, by the brilliant author of Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance...Categorized as:
literary-fiction postmodernism 20th-century adult book contemporary fiction friendship -
![The Yellow Arrow by Victor Pelevin]()
The Yellow Arrow by Victor Pelevin
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe main character, Andrei, is a passenger aboard the Yellow Arrow, who begins to despair over the trains ultimate destination and looks for a way out as the chapters count down. Indifferent to their fate, the other passengers carry on as usual — trading in nickel melted down fro the carriage doors, attending the Upper Bunk avant-garde theatre, and leafing through Pasternak’s Early Trains...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction postmodernism 20th-century adult alternate-history audiobook book -
![Pastoralia by George Saunders]()
Pastoralia by George Saunders
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsWith this new collection, George Saunders takes us even further into the shocking, uproarious and oddly familiar landscape of his imagination.The stories in Pastoralia are set in a slightly skewed version of America, where elements of contemporary life have been merged, twisted, and amplified, casting their absurdity-and our humanity-in a startling new light...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction postmodernism 20th-century 21st-century adult anthologies audiobook -
![Satantango by László Krasznahorkai]()
Satantango by László Krasznahorkai
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsAlready famous as the inspiration for the filmmaker Béla Tarr’s six-hour masterpiece, Satantango is proof that “the devil has all the good times.” The story of Satantango, spread over a couple of days of endless rain, focuses on the dozen remaining inhabitants of an unnamed isolated hamlet: failures stuck in the middle of nowhere...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction postmodernism 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure adult book -
![The Ice People by René Barjavel]()
The Ice People by René Barjavel
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsWhen a French expedition in Antarctica reveals ruins of a 900,000 year old civilization, scientists from all over the world flock to the site to help explore & understand. The entire planet watches via global satellite tv, mesmerized, as they uncover a chamber in which a man & a woman have been in suspended animation since, as the French title suggests, 'the night of time'... -
![The Virility Factor by Robert Merle, Martin Sokolinsky]()
The Virility Factor by Robert Merle, Martin Sokolinsky
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsThe time: the 1970s. The place: America. A menacing epidemic, Encephalitis 16, sweeps the nation. Women, boys and men over sixty are mysteriously immune. Too late, the President realizes that the male population is dying. Congressmen appoint their wives to succeed them. The Administration changes hands: the new President, a woman. Government and business are ruled by elite wonder-women... -
![Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.]()
Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsBroad humor and bitter irony collide in this fictional autobiography of Rabo Karabekian, who, at age seventy-one, wants to be left alone on his Long Island estate with the secret he has locked inside his potato barn... -
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![The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham]()
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 68 ratingsIn 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 “all the reality of a vividly realized nightmare.”Bill Masen, bandages over his wounded eyes, misses the most spectacular meteorite shower England has ever seen...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure aliens apocalyptic audiobook book -
![The Four-Gated City by Doris Lessing]()
The Four-Gated City by Doris Lessing
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsDorris Lessing's classic series of autobiographical novels is the fictional counterpart to Under My Skin. In these five novels, first published in the 1950's and 60s, Doris Lessing transformed her fascinating life into fiction, creating her most complex and compelling character, Martha Quest...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century adult book classics contemporary female-author -
![Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban]()
Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn the far distant future, the country laid waste by nuclear holocaust, twelve-year-old Riddley Walker tells his story in a language as fractured as the world in which he lives. As Riddley steps outside the confines of his small world, he finds himself caught up in intrigue and a frantic quest for power, desperately trying to make sense of things...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult apocalyptic book classics -
![Second Variety: Short Story by Philip K. Dick]()
Second Variety: Short Story by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn the aftermath of a devastating nuclear war between the United Nations and the Soviet Union, sophisticated robots nicknamed “claws” are created to destroy what remains of human life. Left to their own devices, however, the claws develop robots of their own. II-V, the second variety, remains unknown to the few humans left on Earth. Or does it?Philip K...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult ai anthologies apocalyptic -
![Engine Summer by John Crowley]()
Engine Summer by John Crowley
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsBorn into the community of Truthful Speakers one thousand years after the Storm, he was raised on stories of the old days -- a world filled with saints, a world in which all things were possible, a world which finally destroyed itself. In love with a beautiful woman, Rush journeys far and learns much. Taken into the society of Dr... -
![A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess]()
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 84 ratingsTold by the central character, Alex, this brilliant, hilarious, and disturbing novel creates an alarming futuristic vision of violence, high technology, and authoritarianism...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction postmodernism 20th-century audiobook book british-isles classics -
![Aurélia and Other Writings by Gérard de Nerval]()
Aurélia and Other Writings by Gérard de Nerval
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAurelia is French poet and novelist Gerard de Nerval's account of his descent into madness--a condition provoked in part by his unrequited passion for an actress named Jenny Colon...Categorized as:
literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies classics contemporary fiction literary -
![The Cyclist Conspiracy by Svetislav Basara]()
The Cyclist Conspiracy by Svetislav Basara
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe Cyclist Conspiracy tells the tale of a secret Brotherhood who meet in dreams, gain esoteric knowledge from contemplation of the bicycle, and seek to move in and out of history, manipulating events; the Brothers are part of a conspiracy so vast and so secret that, in many cases, the conspirators themselves are unaware of their participation in it... -
![Hello Summer, Goodbye by Michael G. Coney]()
Hello Summer, Goodbye by Michael G. Coney
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIt was an alien planet - yet not too alien from Earth. It had its differences; its ice goblins, its curious furry lorrin, its thickening water, and its unearthly tides, but for a young man like Alika-Drove thinking of a vacation by the sea these oddities were the norm.But this vacation was different...Categorized as:
dystopia 20th-century action-adventure bildungsroman book classics coming-of-age contemporary -
![The Trial by Franz Kafka]()
The Trial by Franz Kafka
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsWritten in 1914 but not published until 1925, a year after Kafka’s death, The Trial is the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information... -
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![V. by Thomas Pynchon]()
V. by Thomas Pynchon
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThe wild, macabre tale of the twentieth century and of two men—one looking for something he has lost, the other with nothing much to lose—and "V.," the unknown woman of the title... -
![Look at the Birdie: Unpublished Short Fiction by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.]()
Look at the Birdie: Unpublished Short Fiction by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsLook at the Birdie is a collection of fourteen previously unpublished short stories from one of the most original writers in all of American fiction...Categorized as:
literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies audiobook classics contemporary fiction -
![Egalia's Daughters: A Satire of the Sexes by Gerd Brantenberg]()
Egalia's Daughters: A Satire of the Sexes by Gerd Brantenberg
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWelcome to the land of Egalia, where gender roles are topsy-turvy as "wim" wield the power and "menwim" light the home fires...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history book classics -
![The Place of Dead Roads by William S. Burroughs]()
The Place of Dead Roads by William S. Burroughs
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA good old-fashioned shoot-out in the American West of the frontier days serves as the springboard for this hyperkinetic adventure in which gunslingers, led by Kim Carson, fight for galactic freedom. The Place of Dead Roads is the second novel in the trilogy with Cities of the Red Night and The Western Lands...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction postmodernism 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book -
![The Affirmation by Christopher Priest]()
The Affirmation by Christopher Priest
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsPeter Sinclair is tormented by bereavement and failure. In an attempt to conjure some meaning from his life, he embarks on an autobiography, but he finds himself writing the story of another man in another, imagines, world whose insidious attraction draws him even further in.. -
![Memories of the Future by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky]()
Memories of the Future by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWritten in Soviet Moscow in the 1920s—but considered too subversive even to show to a publisher—the seven tales included here attest to Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s boundless imagination, black humor, and breathtaking irony: a man loses his way in the vast black waste of his own small room; the Eiffel Tower runs amok; a kind soul dreams of selling “everything you need for suicide”; an absentminded...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies classics communism contemporary
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