Books like 'Bugs'
Readers who enjoyed Bugs by John Sladek also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary sc-fi satire pulp humor
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Survival Logbook: An AFK Book by Scott Cawthon
Rated: 4.67 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFive Nights at Freddy's fans won't want to miss this Survival Logbook packed with prompts, quizzes, and lists--the perfect way to unwind after a thrilling night shift at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza... -
Beyond Broadhall by Keith A. Pearson
Rated: 4.47 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsThe concluding installment of the acclaimed time-travel novel. To read the first installment, search for 'The '86 Fix' on Amazon. After his miraculous weekend in 1986, Craig Pelling returned to a future he could never have envisaged. Even by his own hapless standards, his plans have spectacularly backfired... -
If I Built a House by Chris Van Dusen
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe much-anticipated follow-up to the E. B. White Award-winning picture book If I Built a CarIn If I Built a Car, imaginative Jack dreamed up a whimsical fantasy ride that could do just about anything. Now he's back and ready to build the house of his dreams, complete with a racetrack, flying room, and gigantic slide... -
Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle by Harold Bloom, Terry Southern
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsA critical overview of the work features the writings of Terry Southern, William S. Doxey, Jerome Klinkowitz, Richard Giannone, John L. Simons, James Lundquist, and other scholars.- After the bomb, Dad came up with ice / Terry Southern- Vonnegut's Cat's cradle / William S... -
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Понедельник начинается в субботу. Сказка о Тройке by Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsШедевр русской фантастики!!! Блистающие юмором истории младшего научного сотрудника Александра Привалова стали настольной книгой многих поколений российских читателей.Федор Симеонович Киврин и Витька Корнеев, ведьмочка Стеллочка и профессор Выбегалло,Лавр Федотович и птеродактиль Кузька, пришелец Константин и Клоп Говорун... Герои "Понедельника..." и "Сказки о Тройке" живут среди нас по сей день... -
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The Secret Billionaire by Erin Swann
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsHe whispered in my ear. Three simple words halted all rational thought...PatrickWomen naturally circle the flame of wealth and power, and mine is brighter than most. Does she love me, does she not? There’s no way to know. They’re all faking something.When I stopped to help her, Liz mistook me for a carpenter. Maybe this time I’ll know.She resisted me, but it was pointless... -
Ravenor Returned by Dan Abnett
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsFollowing the adventures of Imperial Inquisitor Ravenor and his warband of the dark and gothic future, this title is the second in 'Ravenor' series... -
The You You Are: A Spiritual Biography of You by Ricken Lazlo Hale
Rated: 4.43 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThis book is drawn from the universe of Severance, the globally acclaimed hit Apple Original series from director and executive producer Ben Stiller and creator Dan Erickson.Are you ready to meet the person who truly makes you “You”: You?In his quinquennial tome, Dr. Ricken Lazlo Hale, PhD guides You on a brave journey of self-learnedness... -
Stalking the Nightmare by Harlan Ellison, Stephen King
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAn Ellison potpourri: rewrites of tales 1st appearing in 50s pulp magazines (one a Joe L. Hensley collaboration), recent tales & four excellent nonfiction items... -
The Good Part by Sophie Cousens
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 11 ratingsBy the New York Times bestselling author of Just Haven't Met You Yet, a downtrodden twenty-six-year-old wakes up to the life she's always wanted, but is it really a dream come true?At twenty-six, Lucy Young is tired. Tired of fetching coffees for senior TV producers, tired of going on disastrous dates, and definitely tired of living in a damp flat share with flatmates who never buy toilet roll...Categorized as:
humor satire romance contemporary fiction time-travel magical-realism womens-fiction -
Torture the Artist by Joey Goebel
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsVincent Spinetti is an archetypal tortured artist ? a sensitive young writer who falls victim to alienation, parental neglect, poverty, depression, alcoholism, illness, nervous breakdowns, and unrequited love... -
Death or Glory by Sandy Mitchell
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsYet again, reluctant hero Commissar Cain is catapulted into glory in the fourth story of this tremendously popular series. Escaping from a disastrous space battle, the commissar and his malodorous sidekick Jurgen crash-land behind enemy lines. The only way out is to round up what few troops they can find, and fight their way back to the safety of the Imperial lines... -
Duty Calls by Sandy Mitchell
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsWhile assisting local forces quell widespread civil disorder, Commissar Cain and his regiment of Valhallans discover sinister forces are at work behind the scenes... -
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Love in the Time of Bertie by Alexander McCall Smith
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe latest installment in the delightful 44 Scotland Street series finds all our favorite residents up to their usual hilarious hijinks. In the microcosm of 44 Scotland Street, all of life's richness is found in the glorious goings-on of its residents... -
The Cowboy Encounter by Kristy Tate
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAn alternate cover edition of ASIN B00UM6B7TK can be found here.By these waters we do sleepClothed in night so dark and deepLady Moon who doth guide our dreams,Shroud us in your silvery beams.Take us to a distant time When love and hearts doth combine... -
Whirlwind Courtship + High Energy by Jayne Taylor, Dara Joy
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsJAYNE ANN KRENTZ writing as Jayne Taylor WHIRLWIND COURTSHIP When Phoebe Hampton arrived at the doorstep of Harlan Garand's mountain cabin, he was less than pleased. Convinced that she was another marriage-minded female sent by his matchmaking aunt, Harlan would have gladly thrown her out... -
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... -
Better than Life by Grant Naylor
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA wild and wacky SF series--based on the popular BBC-TV series--reminiscent of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Lister--who passed out drunk in London and awakened in a locker on a moon of Saturn--now finds himself trapped in a computer game that transports players to the perfect world of their imaginations--a game people are literally dying to play... -
In Persuasion Nation by George Saunders
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsThe stories In Persuasion Nation are easily his best work yet. "The Red Bow,"about a town consumed by pet-killing hysteria, won a 2004 National Magazine Award and "Bohemians," the story of two supposed Eastern European widows trying to fit in in suburban USA, is included in The Best American Short Stories 2005... -
Tunneling to the Center of the Earth: Stories by Kevin Wilson
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsKevin Wilson's characters inhabit a world that moves seamlessly between the real and the imagined, the mundane and the fantastic. "Grand Stand-In" is narrated by an employee of a Nuclear Family Supplemental Provider—a company that supplies "stand-ins" for families with deceased, ill, or just plain mean grandparents... -
Liberation Day: Stories by George Saunders
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsMacArthur genius and Booker Prize winner George Saunders returns with a collection of short stories that make sense of our increasingly troubled world, his first since the New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist Tenth of DecemberThe "best short story writer in English" (Time) is back with a masterful collection that explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice, and cuts to the... -
Fever Beach by Carl Hiaasen
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAnother instant classic from Carl Hiaasen—laugh-out-loud funny, tackling the current chaotic and polarized American culture (following in the path of Squeeze Me), with two wonderful new Hiaasen heroes“The afternoon of September first, dishwater-gray and rainy, a man named Dale Figgo picked up a hitchhiker on Gus Grissom Boulevard in Tangelo Falls, Florida... -
The Palace of Love by Jack Vance
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn the midpoint novel of the "Demon Princes" series, Kirth Gersen sets his sights upon the mysterious Viole Falushe. Vance describes this murderous creature as a "sybarite." "Sadistic pervert" would probably be a more apropos phrase... -
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How to Buy a Planet by D.A. Holdsworth
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe Earth has been sold to aliens. What could possibly go wrong?It’s the Year 2024. Drowning in debt following the pandemic and facing ruin, the world's leaders have taken the only logical decision.They’ve sold the planet... -
We Have Lost The Chihuahuas by Paul Mathews
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsLondon, 2046. The British Republic has a new First Lady. She’s Californian, ‘in-your-face, for sure’ and she’s got big plans for a Buckingham Palace refurb. When her three Chihuahuas go missing, one man is determined to avoid getting dragged into it all. His name is Pond. Howie Pond – presidential spokesperson, retired secret agent and cat lover... -
The Bride Program by Dane Griggs
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsMaya Arnold was leading a normal life, working and helping care for her sister, until the Cerasteans arrived. Offering a cure for cancer if enough women volunteer as brides, Maya jumped at the chance. Saving her sister was her only goal. She never expected to actually fall in love with an alien, or find best friends in the other bride volunteers... -
Robots Have No Tails by Henry Kuttner, F. Paul Wilson
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsHounded by creditors and heckled by an uncooperative robot, binge-drinking inventor Galloway Gallegher must solve the mystery of his own machines before his dodgy financing and reckless lifestyle catch up with him! This complete collection of Kuttner's five classic "Gallegher" stories presents the author at the height of his imaginative genius... -
Clowns Vs. Spiders by Jeff Strand
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsJaunty the Clown just wants to entertain families with lighthearted slapstick antics, but people think of clowns as terrifying, nightmarish creatures who hide in closets or under beds. When Jaunty, along with his fellow performers Guffaw, Wagon, Reginald The Pleasant Clown, and Bluehead are fired from the circus, they're told that the world just doesn't like clowns anymore... -
I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom by Jason Pargin
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsA standalone darkly humorous thriller set in modern America's age of anxiety, by New York Times bestselling author Jason Pargin.Outside Los Angeles, a driver pulls up to find a young woman sitting on a large black box. She offers him $200,000 cash to transport her and that box across the country, to Washington, DC.But there are rules:He cannot look inside the box.He cannot ask questions... -
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... -
S.N.U.F.F. by Victor Pelevin
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsDamilola Karpov is a pilot. Living in Byzantium, a huge sky city floating above the land of Urkaine, he makes his living as a drone pilot - capable of being a cameraman who records the events unfolding in Urkaine or, with the weapons aboard his drone, of making a newsworthy event happen for his employers: 'Big Byz Media'.His recordings are known as S.N.U.F.F... -
The Authorities™ by Scott Meyer
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsSinclair Rutherford is a young Seattle cop with a taste for the finer things. Doing menial tasks and getting hassled by superiors he doesn't respect are definitely not “finer things... -
Up and Down by Terry Fallis
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsOn his first day at Turner King, David Stewart quickly realizes that the world of international PR (affectionately, known as "the dark side") is a far cry from his previous job with the Canadian government. For one, he missed the office memo on the all-black dress code; for another, there are enough acronyms and jargon to make his head spin... -
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Dog Logic by Tom Strelich
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIf "Dr. Strangelove" and "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" got together and had a litter of puppies you'd get "Dog Logic", a duck-and-cover fable and love story. Funny, inflammatory, and weirdly propheticHertell Daggett is the divorced and damaged caretaker of a failing pet cemetery on the outskirts of Bakersfield, and he's just discovered a lost civilization... -
A History of the Island by Eugene Vodolazkin
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsMonks devious and devout – and an age-defying royal pair – chronicle the history of their fictional island in this witty critique of Western civilization and history itself.Eugene Vodolazkin, internationally acclaimed novelist and scholar of medieval literature, returns with a satirical parable about European and Russian history, the myth of progress, and the futility of war...Categorized as:
satire humor fiction historical-fiction audiobook literary-fiction alternate-history contemporary -
Sky Daddy by Kate Folk
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSubversive and unexpectedly heartwarming, Sky Daddy hijacks the classic love story, exploring desire, fate, and the longing to be accepted for who we truly are.Linda is doing her best to lead a life that would appear normal to the casual observer... -
Vapor by Amanda Filipacchi
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSoon to be a major motion picture directed by Neil LaBute and starring Renee Zellweger, this is a surreal love story from the author of Nude Men. Now in paperback, Amanda Filipacchi's quirky comic romance gives aspiring actress Anna Graham a makeover that no reader will ever forget... -
The Snake Oil Wars or Scheherazade Ginsberg Strikes Again by Parke Godwin
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsBarion and Coyul are at it again... This time, they've been discovered toying with evolution. Barion has been summoned back to answer to the Council for their transgressions and Coyul is left behind to clean up the mess.. -
The Dark Side of the Earth by Alfred Bester
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAlfred Bester writes fiction that is offbeat and intensely imaginative. In THE DARK SIDE OF THE EARTH, a volume that includes his new novella and five short stories, Mr. Bester is at his most inventive... -
How Best to Avoid Dying by Owen Egerton
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratings[i]Lazarus Dying[/i]: the man Jesus raised from the dead is alive and living in New York City. [i]The Fecalist[/i]: an author whose best selling work is his latest poop. [i]Christmas[/i]: she loves you, you love her, she has a gun in your mouth. Welcome to the award-winning short fiction of Owen Egerton... -
The Lake Wobegon Virus by Garrison Keillor, Richard Dworsky
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsBestselling author and humorist Garrison Keillor returns to one of America's most beloved mythical towns, beset by a contagion of alarming candor. A mysterious virus has infiltrated the good people of Lake Wobegon, transmitted via unpasteurized cheese made by a Norwegian bachelor farmer, the effect of which is episodic loss of social inhibition... -
The Hall of the Singing Caryatids by Victor Pelevin
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAfter auditioning for the part as a singing geisha at a dubious bar, Lena and eleven other “lucky” girls are sent to work at a posh underground nightclub reserved exclusively for Russia’s upper-crust elite. They are to be a sideshow attraction to the rest of the club’s entertainment, and are billed as the “famous singing caryatids.” Things only get weirder from there... -
Mania by Lionel Shriver
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSet in a parallel yet all too familiar near past, a brilliant subversive novel from the New York Times bestselling author about a lifelong friendship threatened by the Culture Wars. In an alternative 2011, the Mental Parity movement takes hold. Americans now embrace the sacred, universal truth that there is no such thing as variable human intelligence... -
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The Love Interest by Helen Comerford
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA swoony, speculative and entirely electric YA debut with a humorous and satirical take on the conventions of the superhero-verse, for fans of Michelle Quach's Not Here To Be Liked and the Marvel Universe.Seventeen-year-old Jenna Ray has just been saved by the world's newest superhero, Blaze. And, in the eyes of the public, that means one thing: Jenna Ray has been cast as the Love Interest.No... -
Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsHe claims he's not a fan of rock-and-roll, but somehow Harlan Ellison's seminal novel based on the career of Jerry Lee Lewis ended up in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. One of the first -- and still one of the best -- dissections of the wildly destructive rock-and-roll lifestyle, Spider Kiss isn't about giant cockroaches that attack Detroit or space invaders that smell like chicken soup... -
Povídky o vlasti by Dmitry Glukhovsky
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsRuská satira má hluboké kořeny. Již sám název této knihy je ironickým odkazem na podobnou sovětskou tradici malých, povětšinou oslavných próz. Autor však píše o zcela jiné vlasti, než byla ta sovětská, a jeho povídky mají leckdy podobu politických thrillerů. Z různých úhlů rentgenuje ruskou „demokracii“ z počátku 90... -
Waiting for the Galactic Bus by Parke Godwin
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsImagine two brothers off on an intergalatic Spring Break. When their friends leave them behind on Earth, they've got a few millenia to kill before they'll manage to get back to school. So, as an experiment, mind you, they decide to give evolution a bit of a nudge... And that's when all hell breaks loose... a little more literally than either of them planned.. -
Immaculate Conception by Ling Ling Huang
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhat if you could enter the mind of the person you love the most? Enka meets Mathilde in art school and is instantly drawn to her. Mathilde makes art that feels truly original, and Enka—trying hard to prove herself in this fiercely competitive world—pours everything into their friendship... -
Arhanghelul Raul by Ovidiu Eftimie
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsRaul, un publicitar din București, nu bănuia că atunci când va muri va ajunge în Iad. Și nici că de acolo se va întoarce pe Pământ nemuritor și cu misiunea de a preveni Apocalipsa: invazia nemuritorilor prin gaura spațio-temporală din gara de la Teiuș...
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