Books like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

01

Homage to Catalonia

George Orwell · Memoir

Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell's firsthand account of fighting in the Spanish Civil War, which he joined in late 1936 as a volunteer with the POUM militia — a Trotskyist revolutionary organization that was later suppressed by the Soviet-backed Stalinist wing of the Republican forces.

A kindred science fiction read.

02

Consciousness Explained

Daniel C. Dennett · Philosophy

Consciousness Explained is Daniel Dennett's attempt to replace what he calls the Cartesian Theater — the intuitive picture of consciousness as a single unified stream of experience observed by a self — with a model he calls Multiple Drafts.

A kindred science fiction read.

03

Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control

Stuart Russell · Science

Human Compatible is Stuart Russell's argument, from inside mainstream AI research, that the standard model of AI — build a system that optimizes for a fixed objective — is the wrong approach, and that the transition to much more capable AI systems requires a fundamental change in how AI is designed.

A kindred science fiction read.

04

How to Create a Mind

Ray Kurzweil · Science

Ray Kurzweil's central claim in How to Create a Mind is that the neocortex — the part of the brain responsible for higher thought — operates on a single repeating algorithm called the pattern recognition theory of mind.

A kindred science fiction read.

05

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

Gail Honeyman · Contemporary fiction

Eleanor Oliphant is twenty-nine years old, works in a Glasgow office doing data entry, and has not had a proper conversation with anyone outside of work in years.

Both dig into loneliness and connection.

06

Nine Perfect Strangers

Liane Moriarty · Contemporary fiction

Nine Perfect Strangers gathers nine guests at Tranquillum House, an exclusive wellness retreat in the Australian countryside run by the enigmatic Masha — a former Russian corporate executive who had a near-death experience and emerged convinced she can guide others through radical transformation.

Both dig into loneliness and connection.

07

The Goblin Emperor

Katherine Addison · Fantasy

The Goblin Emperor begins with an accident: Maia, the half-goblin, half-elf youngest son of the Emperor — long exiled to a remote estate and treated as an embarrassment — learns that his father and three brothers have been killed in an airship crash.

Both dig into loneliness and connection.

08

2001: A Space Odyssey

Arthur C. Clarke · Science fiction

2001: A Space Odyssey begins with prehistoric man-apes encountering a featureless black monolith that somehow catalyzes their cognitive leap from prey to hunter.

A kindred science fiction read.

09

A Fire Upon the Deep

Vernor Vinge · Science fiction

The galaxy in A Fire Upon the Deep is zoned by the speed of thought: near the galactic core, the Slowness, where intelligence itself is limited; farther out, the Unthinking Depths; and further still, the Transcend, where entities of incomprehensible intelligence emerge and occasionally intervene in the affairs of the merely civilized.

A kindred science fiction read.

10

A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

Becky Chambers · Science fiction

Rosemary Harper boards the Wayfarer under a false identity, hoping to escape a family history she cannot speak about.

A kindred science fiction read.

11

A Memory Called Empire

Arkady Martine · Science fiction

Mahit Dzmare, ambassador from a small, semi-independent mining station to the vast Teixcalaanli Empire, arrives at the capital to find her predecessor has died under suspicious circumstances and the neural implant that was supposed to give her access to his memories and knowledge is three years out of date.

A kindred science fiction read.

12

All Systems Red

Martha Wells · Science fiction

Murderbot is a SecUnit — part robot, part cloned human tissue — that has hacked its own governor module and is technically free, though it has chosen not to tell anyone.

A kindred science fiction read.