HN Books @HNBooksMonth

I love SciFi so here are my top 5 around 10,000 words or less.

1) The Machine Stops - Nothing beats it

2) The Futurological Congress - Best short SciFi novel

3) The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag - Freaking hilarious

4) Perfect Day for Bananafish - Not sci fi but amazing!

5) Blue Screen: How Peter Gustafson Defragmented the World - I wrote a short SciFi novel and my mom tells me its great :)

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Machine-Stops-M-Forster/dp/1609420667

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Futurological-Congress-Memoirs-Ijon-T...

[3] https://www.amazon.com/Unpleasant-Profession-Jonathan-Hoag-e...

[4] https://www.amazon.com/Nine-Stories-J-D-Salinger/dp/03167695...

[5] https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Screen-Peter-Gustafson-Defragmen...

It's actually supposed to be based on The Futurological Congress [1] by Dick's contemporary Stanislaw Lem, although they changed it beyond recognition. The only thing the book and the film have in common is that there's a congress. I didn't enjoy the film at all, but I can recommend the novel, which is excellent.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Futurological-Congress-Memoirs-Ijon-T...

⬐ filoeleven

Yes, I almost added that it was loosely based on Lem, who I have yet to read, but when I went to confirm this on Wikipedia, I found that the director actually stated that he used the book "more as a source of inspiration." So I imagine going in expecting to see a faithful reproduction would be pretty disappointing!

⬐ lobster_johnson

If you like PKD, I think you'll like Lem. He's very different, but they have some commonalities; they were both great, inventive conceptual thinkers with a superbly dry sense of humour. TFC is a very dry, dark satire.

2010: hardware version of these appears in glasses, adjusting what you see in real-time. alcohol consumption drops 40%, prolonging the lives of millions. Huge population boom occurs. 1-10 scale of attractiveness now goes to 11.

2020: global warming forces us to walk around naked. the glasses become mandatory. 40% of all software engineers now employed as virtual fashion/body engineers. Linden Labs is the larget corporation in the world.

2050: the glasses are now implants and control all sensory input; a few hackers then find out that for the last 10 years everyone has been eating slimy green algae and living huddled together in a giant pit, with the rest of the planet free of humanity -- all Earth's troubles was fixed in software -- controlled by small group of Python hackers.

For an actual great story in similar lines about perception and reality, (I hope I don't spoil too much), read Stanislaw Lem's "The Futurological Congress" -- http://www.amazon.com/Futurological-Congress-Memoirs-Ijon-Ti...