Books like 'Let's Put the Future Behind Us'
Readers who enjoyed Let's Put the Future Behind Us by Jack Womack also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical sc-fi cyberpunk dystopia satire humor crime politics literary-fiction
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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...Categorized as:
dystopia humor literary-fiction politics satire 20th-century alternate-history animals -
![Need a Little Time by Adam Eccles]()
Need a Little Time by Adam Eccles
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSometimes, the strangest things can happen, right on your doorstep.When you find out your best friend and business partner is secretly sleeping with your wife, it may be time to move on… From your job and your marriage... Which is precisely what happened to Jamie Newgent... -
![The System of the World by Neal Stephenson]()
The System of the World by Neal Stephenson
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsThe System of the World, the third and concluding volume of Neal Stephenson's shelf-bending Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver and The Confusion), brings the epic historical saga to its thrilling - and truly awe-inspiring - conclusion... -
![George Orwell Complete & Unabridged by George Orwell]()
George Orwell Complete & Unabridged by George Orwell
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsContains the following works by George Orwell:- Animal Farm- Burmese Days- A Clergyman's Daughter- Coming Up for Air- Keep the Aspidistra Flying- Nineteen... -
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![Eclipse of the Sun by Michael D. O'Brien]()
Eclipse of the Sun by Michael D. O'Brien
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn this fast-paced, reflective novel, (the third in a trilogy following Strangers and Sojourners and Plague Journal) Michael O'Brien presents the dramatic tale of a family that finds itself in the path of a totalitarian government... -
![Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.]()
Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 62 ratingsLibrarian note: Alternate cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.Mother Night is a daring challenge to our moral sense. American Howard W. Campbell, Jr., a spy during World War II, is now on trial in Israel as a Nazi war criminal... -
![The Cyberiad by Stanisław Lem]()
The Cyberiad by Stanisław Lem
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsA 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 and remarkable ability to blend meaning and magic into a wholly entertaining and captivating work... -
![Complete Stories by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Dave Eggers]()
Complete Stories by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Dave Eggers
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFeaturing five never-before-published Vonnegut stories!Here for the first time is the complete short fiction of one of the twentieth century’s foremost imaginative geniuses. More than half of Vonnegut’s output was short fiction, and never before has the world had occasion to wrestle with it all together... -
![The Futurological Congress: From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy by Stanisław Lem]()
The Futurological Congress: From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy by Stanisław Lem
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe Futurological Congress is the fourth satirical science fiction novel in the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy series from Kafka Prize–winning author Stanislaw Lem. “Nobody can really know the future. But few could imagine it better than Lem... -
![The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States: A Speculative Novel by Jeffrey Lewis]()
The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States: A Speculative Novel by Jeffrey Lewis
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratings“A brilliantly conceived page-turner.”—Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation and Command and ControlAmerica lost 1.4 million citizens in the North Korean attacks of March 2020. This is the final, authorized report of the government commission charged with investigating the calamity. “The skies over the Korean Peninsula on March 21, 2020, were clear and blue... -
![The Bedbug and Selected Poetry by Vladimir Mayakovsky]()
The Bedbug and Selected Poetry by Vladimir Mayakovsky
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThis selection of Mayakovsky's work covers his entire career--from the earliest pre-revolutionary lyrics to a poem found in a notebook after his suicide. Splendid translations of the poems, with the Russian on a facing page, and a fresh, colloquial version of Mayakovsky's dramatic masterpiece, The Bedbug... -
![Dangerous Visions by Harlan Ellison, Michael Moorcock]()
Dangerous Visions by Harlan Ellison, Michael Moorcock
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsThe most honored anthology of fantastic fiction ever published, featuring the works of such luminaries as Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, Philip Jose Farmer, Robert Bloch, Philip K. Dick, Larry Niven, Fritz Leiber, Poul Anderson, Damon Knight, J.G. Ballard, John Brunner, Frederik Pohl, Roger Zelazny and Samuel Delany... -
![Spares by Michael Marshall Smith]()
Spares by Michael Marshall Smith
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsSpares - human clones, the ultimate health insurance. An eye for an eye, but some people are doing all the taking.Spares - the story of Jack Randall: burnt-out, dropped out, and with a zero credit rating at the luck bank. After five years lying low on a Spares farm, looking after inmates that can't even spell luck, he is finally faced with a chance at redemption... -
![La Jetée: ciné-roman by Chris Marker]()
La Jetée: ciné-roman by Chris Marker
Rated: 4.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsLa Jet�e is the book version of the legendary 1964 science fiction film about time and memory after a nuclear apocalypse. Chris Marker, the undisputed master of the filmic essay, composed the film almost entirely of still photographs... -
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![Watchbird by Robert Sheckley]()
Watchbird by Robert Sheckley
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWhen Gelsen entered, he saw that the rest of the watchbird manufacturers were already present. There were six of them, not counting himself, and the room was blue with expensive cigar smoke. As a watchbird manufacturer, he was a member manufacturer of salvation, he reminded himself wryly. Very exclusive. You must have a certified government contract if you want to save the human race... -
![His Name was Death by Rafael Bernal, Kit Schluter]()
His Name was Death by Rafael Bernal, Kit Schluter
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA bitter drunk forsakes civilization and takes to the Mexican jungle, trapping animals, selling their pelts to buy liquor for colossal benders, and slowly rotting away in his fetid hut... -
![Prophet Song by Paul Lynch]()
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA fearless portrait of a society on the brink as a mother faces a terrible choice, from an internationally award-winning authorOn a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her step. Two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police are here to interrogate her husband, a trade unionist.Ireland is falling apart...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction fiction historical-fiction sci-fi historical parenthood family -
![Uova fatali / Cuore di cane by Mikhail Bulgakov]()
Uova fatali / Cuore di cane by Mikhail Bulgakov
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsDeluxe Russian edition of Bulgakov's two most famous early novellas. Also contains Bulgakov's short story collection The Diaboliad and assorted prose sketches. Gorgeous illustrations, limited edition... -
![Soul by Andrei Platonov, Robert Chandler]()
Soul by Andrei Platonov, Robert Chandler
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 23 ratingsA New York Review Books OriginalThe Soviet writer Andrey Platonov saw much of his work suppressed or censored in his lifetime. In recent decades, however, these lost works have reemerged, and the eerie poetry and poignant humanity of Platonov’s vision have become ever more clear... -
![Memoirs of a Space Traveler: Further Reminiscences of Ijon Tichy by Stanisław Lem]()
Memoirs of a Space Traveler: Further Reminiscences of Ijon Tichy by Stanisław Lem
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIjon Tichy is an ordinary space traveler whose extraordinary curiosity leads him to the very fringes of science. Their plans are grandiose, the bargains they make too often Faustian, for the ends these scientists pursue concern humanity's greatest and most ancient obsessions: immortality, artificial intelligence, and top-of-the-line consumer items... -
![Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley by Robert Sheckley]()
Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley by Robert Sheckley
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsRobert Sheckley was an eccentric master of the American short story, and his tales, whether set in dystopic cityscapes, ultramodern advertising agencies, or aboard spaceships lighting out for hostile planets, are among the most startlingly original of the twentieth century...Categorized as:
dystopia humor literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies classics -
![The Children's Story by James Clavell, George Selden]()
The Children's Story by James Clavell, George Selden
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsIt was a simple incident in the life of James Clavell—a talk with his young daughter just home from school—that inspired this chilling tale of what could happen in twenty-five quietly devastating minutes. He writes, "The Children's Story came into being that day. It was then that I really realized how vulnerable my child's mind was —any mind, for that matter—under controlled circumstances... -
![A Modest Proposal and Other Satirical Works by Jonathan Swift]()
A Modest Proposal and Other Satirical Works by Jonathan Swift
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsThe originality, concentrated power and ‘fierce indignation’ of his satirical writing have earned Jonathan Swift a reputation as the greatest prose satirist in English literature. Gulliver’s Travels is, of course, his world renowned masterpiece in the genre; however, Swift wrote other, shorter works that also offer excellent evidence of his inspired lampoonery... -
![The Snail on the Slope by Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky]()
The Snail on the Slope by Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsThe Snail on the Slope takes place in two worlds. One is the Administration, an institution run by a surreal, Kafkaesque bureaucracy whose aim is to govern the forest below. The other is the Forest, a place of fear, weird creatures, primitive people and violence. Peretz, who works at the Administration, wants to visit the Forest... -
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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... -
![Solitaire by Kelley Eskridge]()
Solitaire by Kelley Eskridge
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsConvicted of a crime she did not commit, former Hope child Jackal serves a terrible solitary imprisonment sentence and is eventually abandoned in a strange country where other people like herself help her learn the truth about her imprisonment... -
![The Time Wanderers by Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky]()
The Time Wanderers by Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIN THE FAR FUTURE...Mankind knows contentment until the Earth is besieged by a wave of unexplained phenomena. First come the mass phobias. Then, the creatures. Finally, the transformations.Is this the work of the mysterious Wanderers? Could they be manipulating humanity - and to what end? When agent Toivo Glumov is sent to investigate, he's in for some superhuman surprises.. -
![Escape Attempt by Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky]()
Escape Attempt by Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsContents (three short novels):Escape AttemptThe Kid From HellSpace... -
![Punktown by Jeffrey Thomas, Michael Marshall Smith]()
Punktown by Jeffrey Thomas, Michael Marshall Smith
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIn the city they call Punktown, on a planet where a hundred sentient species collide, you can become a creator of clones. You can become a piece of performance art. You might even become a library of sorrows.. -
![Robot Proletariat: Season One by Sean Platt, Johnny B. Truant]()
Robot Proletariat: Season One by Sean Platt, Johnny B. Truant
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsRobot ProletariatTHIS Is How It StartsIn the future, robots like Mars and Cromwell serve their human masters. Having long since replaced humans in the back hallways and servants' quarters of the ultra-wealthy, new models are acquired, render their service, then are quietly deactivated when obsolete. But then we gave them the ability to learn... -
![Peach Blossom Paradise by Ge Fei]()
Peach Blossom Paradise by Ge Fei
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsAn enthralling story of revolution, idealism, and a savage struggle for utopia by one of China's greatest living novelistsIn 1898 reformist intellectuals in China persuaded the young emperor that it was time to transform his sclerotic empire into a prosperous modern state...Categorized as:
literary-fiction dystopia politics fiction historical-fiction historical classics 21st-century -
![The Mouse on the Moon by Leonard Wibberley]()
The Mouse on the Moon by Leonard Wibberley
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe Duchy of Grand Fenwick, the world's smallest country, whose army of 20 longbow men defeated the United States in The Mouse that Roared is back again... -
![The Book of Disappearance: A Novel by Ibtisam Azem]()
The Book of Disappearance: A Novel by Ibtisam Azem
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWhat if all the Palestinians in Israel simply disappeared one day? What would happen next? How would Israelis react? These unsettling questions are posed in Azem’s powerfully imaginative novel...Categorized as:
literary-fiction satire adult alternate-history book fiction historical historical-fiction -
![The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley]()
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA time travel romance, a speculative spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingeniously constructed exploration of the nature of truth and power and the potential for love to change it Welcome to The Ministry of Time, the exhilarating debut novel by Kaliane Bradley... -
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![Psalms For The End Of The World by Cole Haddon]()
Psalms For The End Of The World by Cole Haddon
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIt's 1962 and physics student Grace Pulansky believes she has met the man of her dreams, Robert Jones, while serving up slices of pecan pie at the local diner. But then the FBI shows up, with their fedoras and off-the-rack business suits, and accuses him of being a bomb-planting mass-murderer...Categorized as:
dystopia crime sci-fi fiction time-travel historical-fiction historical post-apocalyptic -
![The Hopkins Manuscript by R.C. Sherriff]()
The Hopkins Manuscript by R.C. Sherriff
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn The Hopkins Manuscript we watch through his eyes as the moon veers off course, draws slowly closer to the earth, and finally crashes into it on May 3rd 1946. Because it falls into the Atlantic much of humanity survives – only to generate new disasters. But this is not science fiction in the mode of H G Wells's The War of the Worlds; it is a novel about human nature... -
![Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert: A Novel by Bob the Drag Queen]()
Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert: A Novel by Bob the Drag Queen
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratings“It’s a knockout.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) From RuPaul’s Drag Race winner, Traitors contestant, and host of HBO’s We’re Here comes an inventive, wondrous novel about American hero Harriet Tubman that remixes history into a fresh, dynamic novel about love, freedom, salvation, and hip-hop... -
![You Bright and Risen Angels by William T. Vollmann]()
You Bright and Risen Angels by William T. Vollmann
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsIn the jungles of South America, on the ice fields of Alaska, the plains of the Midwest, and the streets of San Francisco, a fearsome battle rages. The insects are vying for world domination; the inventors of electricity stand in evil opposition. Bug , a young man, rebels against his own kind and joins forces with the insects... -
![Pollen by Jeff Noon]()
Pollen by Jeff Noon
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsThe sweet death of Coyote, master taxi driver, was only the first. Soon people are sneezing and dying all over Manchester. Telekinetic cop Sybil Jones knows that, like Coyote, they died happy - but even a happy death can be a murder. As exotic blooms begin to flower all over the city, the pollen count is racing towards 2000 and Sybil is running out of time... -
![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... -
![The Membranes by Chi Ta-wei]()
The Membranes by Chi Ta-wei
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIt is the late twenty-first century, and Momo is the most celebrated dermal care technician in all of T City. Humanity has migrated to domes at the bottom of the sea to escape devastating climate change. The world is dominated by powerful media conglomerates and runs on exploited cyborg labor...Categorized as:
cyberpunk dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult book feminism -
![The Status Civilization by Robert Sheckley]()
The Status Civilization by Robert Sheckley
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWill Barrent had no memory of his crime . . . but he found himself shipped across space to a brutal prison-planet. On Omega, his only chance to advance himself -- and stay alive -- is to commit an endless series of violent crimes. The average inmate's life expectancy from time of arrival is three years... -
![Animal Farm by Ian Wooldridge, George Orwell]()
Animal Farm by Ian Wooldridge, George Orwell
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsGeorge Orwell’s 1945 satire on the perils of Stalinism has proved magnificently long-lived as a parable about totalitarianism anywhere—and has given the world at least one immortal phrase: “Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others... -
![Apocryphal Tales by Karel Čapek]()
Apocryphal Tales by Karel Čapek
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsThe stories in this collection tackle great events and figures of history, myth, and literature in unexpected ways, questioning views on such basic concepts as justice, progress, wisdom, belief, and patriotism... -
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![Pilgrimage to Earth by Robert Sheckley]()
Pilgrimage to Earth by Robert Sheckley
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsPilgrimage to Earth is a collection of science fiction short stories by Robert Sheckley. It was first published in October 1957 by Bantam Books (catalogue number A1672) and already reprinted a month later... -
![Edie Investigates by Nick Harkaway]()
Edie Investigates by Nick Harkaway
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFrom the author of "The Gone-Away World" and the forthcoming "Angelmaker"--an exhilarating espionage murder-mystery eShort. There has been a strange death in the quiet village of Shrewton: old Donny Caspian has lost his head. In the Copper Kettle tea rooms, Tom Rice, a junior nobody from the Treasury, puzzles over the details of the case... -
![In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka]()
In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka
Rated: 3.97 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsIn the Penal Colony is a short story by Franz Kafka. This story is set in a penal colony with no name. The book describes the last use of a torture and execution device developed sculpting condemned the judgment against her skin before you let him die, all in the course of twelve hours... -
![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:
cyberpunk dystopia politics 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history book -
![White Moon, Red Dragon by David Wingrove]()
White Moon, Red Dragon by David Wingrove
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsChung Kuo VI: White Moon, Red Dragon sees the reign of the Seven T'ang in a time of great, bloody upheaval. The rebel leader DeVore, thought dead by his enemies, has returned and is readying a terrifying flotilla to fight against the T'ang, the dictators of Earth...Categorized as:
cyberpunk dystopia literary-fiction adult alternate-history ancient-china ancient-civilization book -
![Junkers by Benjamin Wallace, Doug Tisdale Jr]()
Junkers by Benjamin Wallace, Doug Tisdale Jr
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIs your TanBot throwing shade? Is your SafetyMan getting a little dangerous? Is your MistaBarista brewing up nothing but trouble? It’s time to call Ashley’s Robot Reclamation of Green Hill. Jake Ashley and his team are used to taking on murderous machines with expired warranties. Stopping a robotic rampage is all in a day's work when you’re a junker. But now there’s a bigger threat growing...
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