Books like 'They Know Not What They Do'
Readers who enjoyed They Know Not What They Do by Jussi Valtonen 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..Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book classics -
![I, Robot by Isaac Asimov]()
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 76 ratingsThey mustn't harm a human being, they must obey human orders, and they must protect their own existence...but only so long as that doesn't violate rules one and two. With these Three Laws of Robotics, humanity embarked on a bold new era of evolution that would open up enormous possibilities - and unforeseen risks...Categorized as:
drama dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure ai alternate-history anthologies -
![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... -
![The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin]()
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars · 67 ratingsFrom the brilliant and award-winning author Ursula K. Le Guin comes a classic tale of two planets torn apart by conflict and mistrust — and the man who risks everything to reunite them.A bleak moon settled by utopian anarchists, Anarres has long been isolated from other worlds, including its mother planet, Urras—a civilization of warring nations, great poverty, and immense wealth... -
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![Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang]()
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars · 67 ratingsTed Chiang's first published story, "Tower of Babylon," won the Nebula Award in 1990. Subsequent stories have won the Asimov's SF Magazine reader poll, a second Nebula Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, and the Sidewise Award for alternate history. He won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1992. Story for story, he is the most honored young writer in modern SF...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure adult aliens alternate-history -
![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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![The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin]()
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsA classic science fiction novel by one of the greatest writers of the genre, set in a future world where one man's dreams control the fate of humanity. In a future world racked by violence and environmental catastrophes, George Orr wakes up one day to discover that his dreams have the ability to alter reality. He seeks help from Dr...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century adult aliens alternate-history apocalyptic audiobook -
![Blindness by José Saramago]()
Blindness by José Saramago
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 72 ratingsFrom Nobel Prize–winning author José Saramago, a magnificent, mesmerizing parable of lossA city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" that spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and assaulting women...Categorized as:
drama dystopia literary-fiction suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult apocalyptic -
![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... -
![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:
drama dystopia literary-fiction suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
![Monday Begins on Saturday by Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky]()
Monday Begins on Saturday by Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsWhen young programmer Aleksandr Ivanovich Privalov picks up two hitchhikers while driving in Karelia, he is drawn into the mysterious world of the Scientific Research Institute of Sorcery and Wizardry, where research into magic is serious business...Categorized as:
literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book classics comedy contemporary -
![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:
drama dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century alternate-history audiobook book classics -
![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... -
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![Replay by Ken Grimwood]()
Replay by Ken Grimwood
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsAt forty-three Jeff Winston is tired of his low-paid, unrewarding job, tired of the long silences at the breakfast table with his wife, saddened by the thought of no children to comfort his old age. But he hopes for better things, for happiness, maybe tomorrow ...But a sudden, fatal heart attack puts paid to that...Categorized as:
drama dystopia literary-fiction suspense 20th-century action-adventure alternate-history audiobook -
![The Positronic Man by Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg]()
The Positronic Man by Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsPowerful and haunting, The Positronic Man is an unforgettable novel that redefines Isaac Asimov's and Robert Silverberg's place among the greatest science fiction authors of all time.In the twenty-first century the creation of the positronic brain leads to the development of robot laborers and revolutionizes life on Earth... -
![The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin]()
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 71 ratingsA groundbreaking work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants can choose - and change - their gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure aliens audiobook book classics -
![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... -
![The Wall by Marlen Haushofer]()
The Wall by Marlen Haushofer
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsFirst published to acclaim in Germany, The Wall chronicles the life of the last surviving human on earth, an ordinary middle-aged woman who awakens one morning to find that everyone else has vanished. Assuming her isolation to be the result of a military experiment gone awry, she begins the terrifying work of survival and self-renewal...Categorized as:
drama dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult animals apocalyptic -
![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 20th-century 21st-century adult anthologies audiobook classics -
![Solaris by Stanisław Lem]()
Solaris by Stanisław Lem
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsA classic work of science fiction by renowned Polish novelist and satirist Stanislaw Lem.When Kris Kelvin arrives at the planet Solaris to study the ocean that covers its surface, he finds a painful, hitherto unconscious memory embodied in the living physical likeness of a long-dead lover... -
![The Long Walk by Richard Bachman, Stephen King]()
The Long Walk by Richard Bachman, Stephen King
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 67 ratingsOn the first day of May, 100 teenage boys meet for an event known throughout the country as The Long Walk. If you break the rules, you get three warnings. If you exceed your limit, what happens is absolutely terrifying. Reissue... -
![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... -
![The Lottery by Shirley Jackson]()
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 55 ratingsIn a small American town, the local residents are abuzz with excitement and nervousness when they wake on the morning of the twenty-seventh of June. Everything has been prepared for the town’s annual tradition—a lottery in which every family must participate, and no one wants to win. “The Lottery” stands out as one of the most famous short stories in American literary history... -
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![The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester]()
The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsIn a world in which the police have telepathic powers, how do you get away with murder?Ben Reichs heads a huge 24th century business empire, spanning the solar system. He is also an obsessed, driven man determined to murder a rival. To avoid capture, in a society where murderers can be detected even before they commit their crime, is the greatest challenge of his life... -
![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... -
![The Summer Guest by Justin Cronin]()
The Summer Guest by Justin Cronin
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsOn an evening in late summer, the great financier Harry Wainwright, nearing the end of his life, arrives at a rustic fishing camp in a remote area of Maine. He comes bearing two things: his wish for a day of fishing in a place that has brought him solace for thirty years, and an astonishing bequest that will forever change the lives of those around him... -
![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... -
![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 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... -
![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...Categorized as:
drama literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies classics contemporary -
![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 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.. -
![Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban]()
Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe turtles in London Zoo become the mutual obsession of two lonely strangers who dream of setting free the turtles and themselves. Detail by detail their diaries record a world in which thought leads to action and action brings William G. and Neaera H. to their own open sea... -
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![The Trial by Franz Kafka, Arthur H. Samuelson]()
The Trial by Franz Kafka, Arthur H. Samuelson
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 71 ratingsWritten in 1914 but not published until 1925, a year after Kafka's death, The Trial is one of the most important novels of the twentieth century: 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... -
![God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.]()
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 53 ratingsSecond only to Slaughterhouse-Five of Vonnegut's canon in its prominence and influence, God Bless You, Mr... -
![Bellwether by Connie Willis]()
Bellwether by Connie Willis
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsConnie Willis has won more Hugo and Nebula awards than any other science fiction author. Now, with her trademark wit and inventiveness, she explores the intimate relationship between science, pop culture, and the arcane secrets of the heart.Sandra Foster studies fads - from Barbie dolls to the grunge look - how they start and what they mean...Categorized as:
literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure animals audiobook book comedy contemporary -
![Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy]()
Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAfter being unjustly committed to a mental institution, Connie Ramos is contacted by an envoy from the year 2137, who shows her a utopian future of sexual and racial equality and environmental harmony.But Connie also bears witness to another potential outcome: a dystopian society of grotesque exploitation. One will become our world. And Connie herself may strike the decisive blow..Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book classics -
![Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov]()
Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsCincinnatus, unable to fit into the world around him, has been reported to the authorities and sentenced to death for his strange, unrecognizable nature. Exploring the prison cell as he counts down his final days, Cincinnatus cannot even find out when the moment of his execution will occur, and is troubled by the lack of control a condemned man has over his own life... -
![Brave New World by Aldous Huxley]()
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Rated: 3.91 of 5 stars · 97 ratingsBrave New World is a dystopian novel by English author Aldous Huxley, written in 1931 and published in 1932... -
![The Transmigration of Timothy Archer by Philip K. Dick]()
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Transmigration of Timothy Archer, the final novel in the trilogy that also includes Valis and The Divine Invasion, is an anguished, learned, and very moving investigation of the paradoxes of belief. It is the story of Timothy Archer, an urbane Episcopal bishop haunted by the suicides of his son and mistress - and driven by them into a bizarre quest for the identity of Christ... -
![Wish by Peter Goldsworthy]()
Wish by Peter Goldsworthy
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsJ.J. has always been more at home in Sign language than in spoken English. Recently divorced, he returns to school to teach Sign. His pupils include the foster parents of a beautiful and highly intelligent ape named Eliza. The author has also written "Maestro" and "Honk If You Are Jesus"... -
![The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand]()
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsThe revolutionary literary vision that sowed the seeds of Objectivism, Ayn Rand's groundbreaking philosophy, and brought her immediate worldwide acclaim.This modern classic is the story of intransigent young architect Howard Roark, whose integrity was as unyielding as granite...of Dominique Francon, the exquisitely beautiful woman who loved Roark passionately, but married his worst enemy.. -
![We by Yevgeny Zamyatin]()
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 62 ratingsThe exhilarating dystopian novel that inspired George Orwell's 1984 and foreshadowed the worst excesses of Soviet RussiaYevgeny Zamyatin's We is a powerfully inventive vision that has influenced writers from George Orwell to Ayn Rand... -
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![Island by Aldous Huxley]()
Island by Aldous Huxley
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsIn Island, his last novel, Huxley transports us to a Pacific island where, for 120 years, an ideal society has flourished. Inevitably, this island of bliss attracts the envy and enmity of the surrounding world. A conspiracy is underway to take over Pala, and events begin to move when an agent of the conspirators, a newspaperman named Faranby, is shipwrecked there...Categorized as:
drama dystopia literary-fiction suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
![The Martian Child: A Novel About a Single Father Adopting a Son by David Gerrold]()
The Martian Child: A Novel About a Single Father Adopting a Son by David Gerrold
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsBasis for the major motion picture from New Line Cinema —starring John Cusack, Amanda Peet, and Joan Cusack—in theaters November 2007When David Gerrold decided he wanted to adopt a son, he thought he had prepared himself for fatherhood. But eight-year-old Dennis turned out to be more than he expected—a lot more... -
![Idoru by William Gibson]()
Idoru by William Gibson
Rated: 3.82 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsNow in trade paperback from the author of Neuromancer comes a story that takes readers to 21st century Tokyo after the millennial quake, where something violently new is about to erupt... -
![The Lost World by Michael Crichton]()
The Lost World by Michael Crichton
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 66 ratingsIt is now six years since the secret disaster at Jurassic Park, six years since the extraordinary dream of science and imagination came to a crashing end – the dinosaurs destroyed, the park dismantled, the island indefinitely closed to the public.There are rumors that something has survived... -
![Chocky by John Wyndham]()
Chocky by John Wyndham
Rated: 3.79 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsCover Artist: Harry WillockMatthew, they thought, was just going through a phase of talking to himself. And, like many parents, they waited for him to get over it, but it started to get worse. Mathew's conversations with himself grew more and more intense - it was like listening to one end of a telephone conversation while someone argued, cajoled and reasoned with another person you couldn't hear...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century aliens audiobook book children children-books -
![Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers]()
Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAfter four novels and several years living abroad, the fictional protagonist of Galatea 2.2 — Richard Powers — returns to the United States as Humanist-in-Residence at the enormous Center for the Study of Advanced Sciences. There he runs afoul of Philip Lentz, an outspoken cognitive neurologist intent upon modeling the human brain by means of computer-based neural networks...
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