2002 - Fiction & Literature Read by Me
Explore a curated list of 2002 fiction and literature books read and reviewed. Discover top novels, hidden gems, and timeless classics from this iconic year in literary history.
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Supermen
by Gardner Dozois
A science-fiction anthology highlighting mind-expanding stories of the future of the human form includes more than 20 classic stories from the most imaginative writers in the field.
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Ultimate Egoist
by Theodore Sturgeon
The first in a ten-volume collection of work by the writer who inspired Gene Roddenberry, Ray Bradbury, and Stephen King, "The Ultimate Egoist" brings together Theodore Sturgeon's earliest pieces.
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We Can Remember It for You Wholesale
by Philip K. Dick
This volume of the classic stories of Philip K. Dick offers an intriguing glimpse into the early imagination of one of science fiction's most enduring and respected names. Since his untimely death in 1982, interest in Dick's work has continued to mount and his reputation has been enhanced by a growing body of critical attention as well as many films based on his stories and novels. Featuring the story We Can Remember It for You Wholesale, which inspired the major motion picture Total Recall, this collection draws from the writer's earliest fiction, written during the years 1952-55. Also included are fascinating works such as The Adjustment Team (basis of the 2011 movie The Adjustment Bureau), Impostor (basis of the 2001 movie), and many others. "A useful acquisition for any serious SF library or collection." --Kirkus Reviews "More than anyone else in the field, Mr. Dick really puts you inside people's minds." --Wall Street Journal "The collected stories of Philip K. Dick are awe-inspiring." --Washington Post
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Second Variety
by Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick won the prestigious Hugo Award for best novel of 1963 for "The Man In the High Castle", and in the last year of his life (1982), the film "Blade Runner" was made from his novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". Here Vol. 3 of the late writer's collected work covers the years 1952-1955 and includes "Second Variety", "Foster, You're Dead", and "The Father-Thing" among many others.
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The Game-Players of Titan
by Philip K. Dick
Having just lost Berkeley and his wife in a game of Bluff, a bizarre game that has become a blinding obsession for the last inhabitants of Earth, Pete Garden prepares to play his next opponent, who isn't even human, for stakes that are much higher
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The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
by Philip K. Dick
In this wildly disorienting funhouse of a novel, populated by God-like--or perhaps Satanic--takeover artists and corporate psychics, Philip K. Dick explores mysteries that were once the property of St. Paul and Aquinas. His wit, compassion, and knife-edged irony make The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch moving as well as genuinely visionary.
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Confessions of a Crap Artist--Jack Isidore (of Seville, Calif.)
by Philip K. Dick
Jack Isidore, a young man living with his sister and her family in California, joins a UFO group that believes the world will end on April 23, 1959.
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The Crying of Lot 49
by Thomas Pynchon
Oedipa Maas finds herself enmeshed in a worldwide conspiracy.
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Notes from Underground; the Double
by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
âIt is best to do nothing! The best thing is conscious inertia! So long live the underground!âAlienated from society and paralysed by a sense of his own insignificance, the anonymous narrator of Dostoyevskyâs groundbreaking Notes from Underground tells the story of his tortured life. With bitter sarcasm, he describes his refusal to become a worker in the âant-hillâ of society and his gradual withdrawal to an existence âundergroundâ. The seemingly ordinary world of St Petersburg takes on a nightmarish quality in The Double when a government clerk encounters a man who exactly resembles him â his double perhaps, or possibly the darker side of his own personality. Like Notes from Underground, this is a masterly study of human consciousness.Jessie Coulsonâs introduction discusses the storiesâ critical reception and the themes they share with Dostoyevksyâs great novels.
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Chapterhouse: Dune
by Frank Herbert
Fifteen thousand years after Leto II's death, the remnants of the Bene Gesserit contend with the ruthless leaders of an alien culture to forge a new civilization and preserve the best of the Old Empire
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Starship Troopers
by Robert Anson Heinlein
In a futuristic military adventure, a recruit goes through the roughest boot camp in the universe and into battle with the Terran Mobile Infantry in what historians would come to call the First Interstellar War.
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The Giants Novels
by James P. Hogan
Discover the first three books in the ground-breaking 21st century hard-science fiction saga by James P. Hogan: INHERIT THE STARS The skeletal remains of a human body are found on the moon. His corpse is 50,000 years old, and nobody knows who he was, how he got there, or what killed him. THE GENTLE GIANTS OF GANYMEDE A long-ago wrecked ship of alien giants is discovered by Earth's scientists on a frozen satellite of Jupiter. Then, spinning out of the vastness of space, a ship of the same strange, humanoid giants has returned.... GIANTS' STAR Humans finally thought they comprehended their place in the universe...until Earth found itself in the middle of a power struggle between a benevolent alien empire and a cunning race of upstart humans who hated Earth!
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Neutron Star
by Larry Niven
Come to Larry Niven's Universe and meet all the natives: Thrints, Bandersnatchi, Puppeteers -- and a host of other wonderfully created characters. Visit Lookitthat, Down, and Jinx -- indeed, an entire galaxy of planets found only in these stories that trace man's expansion and colonization throughout Known Space. A spectacular cycle of the future . . . a 10,000-year history of man on Earth and in space!
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2010: Odyssey Two
by Arthur C. Clarke
âA daring romp through the solar system and a worthy successor to 2001.ââCarl Sagan Nine years after the disastrous Discovery mission to Jupiter in 2001, a joint U.S.-Soviet expedition sets out to rendezvous with the derelict spacecraftâto search the memory banks of the mutinous computer HAL 9000 for clues to what went wrongâŠand what became of Commander Dave Bowman. Without warning, a Chinese expedition targets the same objective, turning the recovery mission into a frenzied race for the precious information Discovery may hold about the enigmatic monolith that orbits Jupiter. Meanwhile, the being that was once Dave Bowmanâthe only human to unlock the mystery of the monolithâstreaks toward Earth on a vital mission of its own . . . âClarke deftly blends discovery, philosophy, and a newly acquired sense of play.ââTime â2010 is easily Clarkeâs best book in over a decade.ââThe San Diego Tribune
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The First Immortal
by James L. Halperin
â[James Halperin] plots the book with thoroughness and imagination. . . . Innovative.ââPublishers Weekly In 1988, Benjamin Smith suffers a massive heart attack. But he will not die. A pioneering advocate of the infant science of cryonics, he has arranged to have his body frozen until the day when humanity will possess the knowledge, the technology, and the courage to revive him. Yet when Ben resumes life after a frozen interval of eighty-three years, the world is altered beyond recognition. Thanks to cutting-edge science, eternal youth is universally available and the perfection of cloning gives humanity the godlike power to re-create living beings from a single cell. As Ben and his family are resurrected in the mid-twenty-first century, they experience a complex reunion that reaches through generationsâand discover that the deepest ethical dilemmas of humankind remain their greatest challenge. . . . â[A] gripping story.ââUnited Press International
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The Pearl
by John Steinbeck
âThere it lay, the great pearl, perfect as the moon.â Like his father and grandfather before him, Kino is a poor diver, gathering pearls from the gulf beds that once brought great wealth to the Kings of Spain and now provide Kino, Juana, and their infant son with meager subsistence. Then, on a day like any other, Kino emerges from the sea with a pearl as large as a sea gull's egg, as "perfect as the moon." With the pearl comes hope, the promise of comfort and of security.... A story of classic simplicity, based on a Mexican folk tale, The Pearl explores the secrets of man's nature, the darkest depths of evil, and the luminous possibilities of love.
