How would you like to be a professional game player in a utopian space society? Sounds better than sitting at home on your PlayStation, right? Here’s the scene in The Player of Games: Having mastered every tactic and strategy, Jernau Morat Gurgeh finds that he has become bored with easy victories. So he decides to go on […]
Engineered Happiness?
We’re living in an era when some of the wildest plots described in science fiction stories sound. . .well, a little too much like contemporary life. Take Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, for Instance. The book describes a future in which people are brainwashed to be happy by taking a drug called soma. An Extremely Banned […]
The Answer To The Ultimate Question of Everything
New in the Instaread library: one of the most famous books in all of science fiction. Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy follows Arthur Dent’s improbable hitchhike across the galaxy with his alien friend Ford Prefect after the Earth’s destruction. The Tour Begins Arthur’s journey takes him from the President of the Galaxy’s ship to a […]
The First Rule of Fight Club…
You know how it is. Sometimes guys just want to beat each other up for recreational reasons. Step one: gather a group of the fellas, preferably in the basement of a bar. Step two: take off your shirts. Step three: punch each other very hard. No, this isn’t really what people did for fun in […]
Does AI Want To Kill Us?
With all the hype around Microsoft’s Sydney chatbot, which has been disturbing some in the tech world with her “dark thoughts,” there has been renewed interest in the question of what happens if and when artificial intelligence runs amok. Many readers are revisiting 2001: A Space Odyssey, the dark tale by Arthur C. Clarke. A classic of science […]
Wounds, Woods, and Warriors
Don’t look away. The conflict was brutal, and so is the story. Arnold Boleman’s novel retells a centuries-old tale of violence and politics that would eventually shape modern-day India. A deft blend of real history and fictional characters, Yalgaar looks at the life of India’s great warrior king, Shivaji, through the eyes of ordinary people. Terror and Upheaval Hiroji is […]
Ready for a Road Trip?
The year is 1954. Emmett and Billy—two young brothers from Nebraska—are on a cross-country road trip with two other boys Emmett met in juvenile detention. The four set off for New York City, but the other boys are scammers who steal the car. Stranded but determined to track them down, Emmett and Billy embark on […]
True Love isn’t Just a One-Time Deal
With a fake identity and very little money, Katie is hoping to start a new life in Southport, North Carolina. She’s running from her abusive husband, Kevin, who had beaten her horribly for years. He kept promising to do better, but the beatings had gotten worse. Katie escaped, but she knows that Kevin is looking […]
Get More Out of What You Read
You don’t need a fancy degree to get the most out of your reading. But learning even a little bit more about literature will enhance every book you read for the rest of your life. Yes, even those paperbacks they sell at the airport. Take the opening page of a novel. That first page—or even […]
A Mother’s Worst Nightmare
In 1948, a striking black-and-white photograph ran in a newspaper. A group of small children sat under a sign: “4 children for sale.” Their mother cried into her hands in the background. The picture was taken in Chicago. Some claim it was staged. At least two of the children have come forward to say that […]
