Items25The creator’s order
  1. 1The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979)The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979) 9.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 1979Earth is demolished with the confidence of a planning department, leaving Arthur Dent to discover that the wider universe is equally poor at explaining itself. Adams makes specifications, procedures and apparently useful answers into comic traps. Start here for brisk absurdity with a recognisable…0
  2. 2Redshirts (2012)Redshirts (2012) 7.5/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 2012Junior crew members notice that away missions are suspiciously dangerous for people in their position. Scalzi lets them investigate the pattern rather than accept the usual television logic. The jokes grow into questions about whose life a story considers expendable. A fast, conversational choice…0
  3. 3Space Opera (2018)Space Opera (2018) 6.7/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 2018A washed-up human act must enter a galactic song contest whose result will determine whether humanity qualifies as a civilisation. Valente makes spectacle, taste and the power to judge another species part of the same outrageous premise. Choose it for extravagant sentences, digressions and…0
  4. 4QualityLand (2017)QualityLand (2017) 8.5/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 2017An automated society insists that its systems know what people want before they do. A delivery Peter does not want becomes an unexpectedly difficult problem because the system cannot admit its recommendation is wrong. Kling's satire turns optimisation into a comic social order, including machines…0
  5. 5The Cyberiad (1965)The Cyberiad (1965) 7.4/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 1965Constructors Trurl and Klapaucius can build almost anything, making the exact wording of a wish exceptionally hazardous. Lem uses robot fables, engineering rivalries and elaborate verbal play to test whether intelligence guarantees wisdom. Choose Michael Kandel's English translation for the puns as…0i
  6. 6Dimension of miracles (1968)Dimension of miracles (1968)Published 1 Jan 1968Tom Carmody wins a prize in a galactic lottery he never entered, then discovers that collecting it was easier than finding his way back to the correct Earth. Sheckley uses successive encounters to make identity, probability and the desire for a familiar universe entertainingly unstable. A short,…0
  7. 7Road to Roswell (2023)Road to Roswell (2023) 5.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 2023Francie arrives in Roswell for a wedding and gets abducted by an alien that does little to clarify anybody's expectations. An accumulating collection of human companions turns the encounter into a road-trip farce. Willis finds comedy in people who already know what an alien visit ought to mean and…0
  8. 8To Say Nothing of the Dog (1997)To Say Nothing of the Dog (1997) 7.4/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 1997Time-travelling historians try to repair a possible disruption to history while also managing a restoration project's unreasonable demands. Victorian manners, romantic misunderstandings and the rules of time travel keep interfering with one another. Willis makes the plotting intricate enough that…0
  9. 9The Automatic Detective (2008)The Automatic Detective (2008) 7.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 2008Mack Megaton is a robot trying to earn citizenship and keep a taxi-driving job in a city built on unreliable weird science. A missing family pushes him into a detective story for which his enormous strength is only intermittently useful. Martinez combines wisecracking noir with a practical question…0
  10. 10Emperor mollusk versus the sinister brain (2012)Emperor mollusk versus the sinister brain (2012) 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 2012A retired alien conqueror finds that even world domination has failed to settle the problem of what to do next. An enemy's scheme gives Mollusk a reason to deploy ridiculous inventions and explain himself with magnificent self-confidence. Martinez builds a pulpy adventure around intelligence…0