Books like 'Watchbird'
Readers who enjoyed Watchbird by Robert Sheckley also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical sc-fi 20th century classics crime humor dystopia satire
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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... -
Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales by Ray Bradbury
Rated: 4.41 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsFor more than sixty years, the imagination of Ray Bradbury has opened doors into remarkable places, ushering us across unexplored territories of the heart and mind while leading us inexorably toward a profound understanding of ourselves and the universe we inhabit. In this landmark volume, America's preeminent storyteller offers us one hundred treasures from a lifetime of words and ideas... -
The Complete Stories, Vol. 1 by Isaac Asimov
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsThe first volume consists of the stories previously collected in Earth Is Room Enough, Nine Tomorrows, and Nightfall and Other Stories (but not the commentary from Nightfall and Other Stories). Volume One contains the following 48 short stories:- The Dead Past- The Foundation of S. F...Categorized as:
classics dystopia humor 20th-century action-adventure anthologies fiction hard-sci-fi -
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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The Star Diaries by Stanisław Lem, Michael Kandel
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsStanislaw Lem's set of short stories, written over a period of twenty years, all feature the adventures of space traveller Ijon Tichy and recount him spinning in time-warps, spying on robots, encountering bizarre civilizations and creatures in space and being hopelessly lost in a forest of supernovae... -
Bílá nemoc by Karel Čapek
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsDrama Bílá nemoc napsal Karel Čapek v předvečer druhé světové války. Bylo varováním před nastupujícím nacismem. Stejně jako ostatní jeho romány a hry je neskutečně současné a alarmující... -
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
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... -
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... -
Robots and Empire by Isaac Asimov
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsLong after his humiliating defeat at the hands of Earthman Elijah Baley, Keldon Amadiro embarked on a plan to destroy planet Earth. But even after his death, Baley's vision continued to guide his robot partner, R. Daneel Olivaw, who had the wisdom of a great man behind him and an indestructable will to win... -
The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick 1: The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford by Philip K. Dick, Steven Owen Godersky
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMany thousands of readers consider Philip K. Dick the greatest science fiction mind on any planet. Since his untimely death in 1982, interest in his works has continued to mount, and his reputation has been further enhanced by a growing body of critical attention... -
Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsStark lives in Colour, a neighbourhood whose inhabitants like to be co-ordinated with their surroundings – a neighbourhood where spangly purple trousers are admired by the walls of buildings as you pass them. Close by is Sound, where you mustn’t make any, apart from one designated hour a day when you can scream your lungs raw... -
The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick 3: Second Variety by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMany thousands of readers consider Philip K. Dick the greatest science fiction mind on any planet. Since his untimely death in 1982, interest in Dick's works has continued to mount and his reputation has been further enhanced by a growing body of critical attention. The Philip K. Dick Award is now given annually to a distinguished work of science fiction, and the Philip K... -
The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick 2: We Can Remember it for You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsMany thousands of readers consider Philip K. Dick the greatest science fiction mind on any planet. Since his untimely death in 1982, interest in Dick's works has continued to mount and his reputation has been further enhanced by a growing body of critical attention. The Philip K. Dick Award is now given annually to a distinguished work of science fiction, and the Philip K... -
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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
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... -
Those Who Survive by Kir Bulychev
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe Planet Had No Name! When the exploratory starship from Earth PolarStar crashed in the ice-covered mountains of the nameless planet the few survivors who made it to the warmer lowlands had no idea just how hostile this world could be. The plants were poisonous or actively hunted them, the animals were not all that friendly either. Most of them died. Some had children... -
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... -
Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsPhilip K. Dick was a master of science fiction, but he was also a writer whose work transcended genre to examine the nature of reality and what it means to be human. A writer of great complexity and subtle humor, his work belongs on the shelf of great twentieth-century literature, next to Kafka and Vonnegut... -
The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick 2: We Can Remember it for You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMany thousands of readers consider Philip K. Dick the greatest science fiction mind on any planet. Since his untimely death in 1982, interest in Dick's works has continued to mount and his reputation has been further enhanced by a growing body of critical attention. The Philip K. Dick Award is now given annually to a distinguished work of science fiction, and the Philip K... -
The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick 1: The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford by Philip K. Dick, Steven Owen Godersky
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMany thousands of readers consider Philip K. Dick the greatest science fiction mind on any planet. Since his untimely death in 1982, interest in his works has continued to mount, and his reputation has been further enhanced by a growing body of critical attention... -
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... -
The Philip K. Dick MEGAPACK ®: 15 Classic Science Fiction Stories by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe Philip K. Dick Megapack assembles no less than 15 classic science fiction stories by Philip K. Dick. Included are:INTRODUCTION: PHILIP K. DICKEXHIBIT PIECEBEYOND LIES THE WUBTHE DEFENDERSTHE CRYSTAL CRYPTBEYOND THE DOORSECOND VARIETYTHE EYES HAVE ITTHE GUNTHE VARIABLE MANTONY AND THE BEETLESTHE HANGING STRANGERTHE SKULLPIPER IN THE WOODSMR... -
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... -
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R Is for Rocket by Ray Bradbury
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsContents:Introduction · in R Is for Rocket [“King of the Gray Spaces”] · ss Famous Fantastic Mysteries Dec ’43 The End of the Beginning [“Next Stop: The Stars”] · ss Maclean’s Oct 27 ’56 The Fog Horn [“The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms”] · ss The Saturday Evening Post Jun 23 ’51 The Rocket [“Outcast of the Stars”] · ss Super Science Stories Mar ’50 The Rocket Man · ss Maclean’s Mar 1 ’51 The Golden...Categorized as:
classics dystopia 20th-century action-adventure anthologies children-books fiction high-school -
The Heart Of A Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsA rich successful Moscow professor befriends a stray dog and attempts a scientific first by transplanting into it the testicles and pituitary gland of a recently deceased man. A distinctly worryingly human animal is now on the loose, and the professor's hitherto respectable life becomes a nightmare beyond endurance... -
Limes inferior by Janusz A. Zajdel
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsW absurdalnym, sztucznie wykreowanym świecie Argolandu, nic nie jest tym, czym się na pierwszy rzut oka wydaje. Drobny kombinator dzięki sprytowi i inteligencji odkrywa prawdę o pozornie idealnym porządku społeczno-ekonomicznym.Sztandarowa powieść Janusza A. Zajdla, twórcy nurtu fantastyki socjologicznej w Polsce... -
Schrödinger's Cat II: The Trick Top Hat by Robert Anton Wilson
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratings... -
Gunslinger by Ed Dorn, Edward Dorn
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsDorn's high-spirited, crazy-quilt, complex anti-epic is a masterful critique of late twentieth-century capitalism and is one of the great comic poems of American literature... -
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... -
Scepticism Inc by Bo Fowler
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsEdgar Malroy is the founder of a metaphysical betting shop. A weary atheist, Edgar challenges people to put their money where their mouths are about their faith. If someone really believes that the 16th reincarnation of the Dalai Lama is the one true incarnation, or that God is love, or that his grandfather's spirit lives in a tree, Edgar reasons he should be willing to bet money on it... -
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... -
The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World by Harlan Ellison
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratings"It crouches near the center of creation. There is no night where it waits. Only the riddle of which terrible dream will set it loose. It beheaded mercy to take possession of that place. It feasts on darkness from the minds of men. No one has ever seen its eyeless face. When it sleeps we know a few moments of peace. But when it breathes again we go down in fire and mate with jackals... -
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... -
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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... -
I Sing the Body Electric! & Other Stories by Ray Bradbury
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe mind of Ray Bradbury is a wonder-filled carnival of delight and terror that stretches from the verdant Irish countryside to the coldest reaches of outer space. Yet all his work is united by one common thread: a vivid and profound understanding of the vast set of emotions that bring strength and mythic resonance to our frail species... -
The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth by Roger Zelazny
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsHere are strange, beautiful stories covering the full spectrum of the late Roger Zelazny's remarkable talents. In Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth, Zelazny's rare ability to mix the dream-like, disturbing imagery of fantasy with the real-life hardware of science fiction is on full display. His vivid imagination and fine prose made him one of the most highly acclaimed writers in his field... -
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... -
Doorways in the Sand by Roger Zelazny
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe most humorous – and arguably the finest – novel by the master of inventive science fiction. Humanity is not alone in the cosmos. The aliens have given a precious relic to the people of Earth: star-stone. But the harmony of the galaxy is endangered when they discover that the star-stone has disappeared. Likeable Fred Cassidy is an eternal undergraduate... -
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... -
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... -
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.. -
Barfly by Charles Bukowski, Barbet Schroeder
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe screenplay of the 1987 movie, as written by Charles Bukowski... -
Flatland / Sphereland by Edwin A. Abbott, Dionijs Burger Jr.
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFlatland : the classic speculation on life in four dimensions; Sphereland : a continuing speculation on an expanding... -
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The Macropulos Secret - A Comedy by Karel Čapek
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsMany of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork... -
Warm Worlds and Otherwise by James Tiptree Jr.
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsStories:All the Kinds of YesThe Milk of Paradise [1973 Locus Poll Award, Best Short Fiction (Place: 18)]And I Have Come upon This Place by Lost WaysThe Last Flight of Dr. Ain [nominated, 1969 Nebula Award]AmberjackThrough a Lass DarklyThe Girl Who Was Plugged In [winner, 1974 Hugo Award. Nominated, 1973 Nebula Award... -
Chronopolis, and other stories by J.G. Ballard
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsNobody has had more influence on the development of modern science fiction than Ballard. Above all, no one has done more to set new standards for sheer technique in this field. He is a man of towering imagination and acknowledged genius at handling the most intricate of plots.It is an invidious task to choose from such a rich body of work as Ballard's the sixteen finest stories... -
No Doors, No Windows by Harlan Ellison
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsYOU HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT FEAR ITSELF! The only trouble is, fear comes in so many different shapes and sizes these days. It comes as rejection by a beautiful woman. It comes in the brutalization of your love by an amoral man... -
The Last Man Alive by A.S. Neill
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe adventures of a group who survived a poisonous cloud that turned everyone else into stone... -
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...
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