Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

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Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is a classic science fiction novel from the early 1950s. I get the feeling nowadays that Bradbury is almost a forgotten legend. Twenty or thirty years ago, his name was always up with Asimov and Clarke, but you rarely hear about him anymore. And it’s a shame, since his novels are completely different than anything else written at the time (or even written now). And Fahrenheit 451 is probably his best known work.

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My Neighbor Totoro by Hayao Miyazaki

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My Neighbor Totoro by Hayao Miyazaki is a wonderful autobiographical movie by Miyazaki. This animated film tells of the misadventures of two Japanese children and the monster they befriend. Miyazaki has stated that the family portion of the story is almost a complete autobiography of his childhood. He changed the genders of the children from male to female to allow him to have some distance from the story. But not so much, that he didn’t make it his most personal film.

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Outside the Dog Museum by Jonathan Carroll

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Outside the Dog Museum by Jonathan Carroll is one of the best books to introduce people to Jonathan Carroll. Carroll is a master of urban fantasy stories. His books are full of interesting people in great locations who happen to be involved with ghosts or reincarnated people or supernatural events. The books start off with normal people in real situations and the supernatural events slowly bring themselves into the book.  Outside the Dog Museum is a wonderful example of this genre and will be enjoyed by fans of Neil Gaiman.

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Church and State by Dave Sim

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Church and State by Dave Sim is one book, split into two volumes because there is no way to fit the story into one volume. 66 issues of 20 pages each is a huge book. So Sim split it into two volumes, so that it could physically fit into books. For some Church and State is the highpoint of Cerebus (for me it’s Jaka’s Story) and contains everything that is good (and some bad) in Cerebus.

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The Last Colony and Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi

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The Last Colonyand Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi are sequels to his first two books (Old Man’s Warand The Ghost Brigades). They are the same story from different points of view. The Last Colony is from John Perry and his wife’s POV and Zoe’s Tale is from their daughter Zoe’s POV. The setting and basic plot are the same, except for the sequence when Zoe goes off-planet. The other main difference is that Zoe’s Tale is a YA book.

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Old Man’s War by John Scalzi

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Old Man’s War by John Scalzi appears at first to be an updated version of Joe Haldeman’s Forever War, but the take on it is much different. Scalzi is an internet favorite due to his long running blog Whatever (if you’re not familiar with his blog, google bacon cat) and Old Man’s War was serialized on his blog before being picked up by a publisher. It’s a different look at intersteller war and the start of a series (that’s up to 4 books now).

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Wicked by Gregory Maguire

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Wicked by Gregory Maguire has become a mini-cottage industry for the author. There is the extremely popular musical, two (and soon to be three) sequels and other novels based on a similar premise (reworking of well known fairy tales). While the basic concept of reworking older, well-known characters isn’t new (Phillip Jose Farmer did itfor years), Maguire works with secondary characters (who aren’t fully developed in the source material) and works his stories around them.

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