Books I’d Recommend

This page was created on 2019-01-15. There have been updates, most recent at the top. Where a book has an “[Amazon UK]” link following the series or book title, this is an affiliate link. If you like the look of these books, you may also want to track them on eReaderIQ, which tracks book prices and notifies you when the book prices drop.

I make extensive use of GoodReads (please feel free to follow me there), but I can’t really find any way to flag specific series of books as things I’d endorse as good books, so here are some of the books and series that I’d recommend:

Recommendations from 2024-09-02 to 2024-03-09

Series: Legacy of Magic [Amazon UK] and Tracking Trouble [Amazon UK] (Legacy of Magic is actually the second series, and Tracking Trouble the third, but I never read the first series, you don’t actually need to, to catch up with the stories) Dragons and Elves (as well as Trolls, Dwarves, Goblins, etc.) have arrived, en-masse, on Earth, in secret! The governments of the world (well, we only ever see the US naturally, but… what do you expect, eh?) don’t recognise them as actually existing, let along living among us, but they *do* have military teams who clean up after mishaps! Anyway, these stories follow the generally half-human-half-mystical-race protagonist that keeps being landed in trouble because of some naughty different-mystical-race character who just wants to live their life, damnit, but has to recruit the protagonist to help them. And, wouldn’t you know it, but that mystical race character presses all the buttons that makes the protagonist fall in love with them! It sounds corny, but actually, I quite like the stories, so probably worth giving at least one a quick scan to see if you like it.
Book: Nine Tailed [Amazon UK] is the story of a Korean spirit who fled the scene of her mother’s death to America, where she now drifts to avoid forming bonds with humans… until one former friend turns up looking for her, so she can help him work out who killed his brother. It’s a beautiful worldbuilding book, and I’m eagerly awaiting the next in (what I hope will be) the series.
Series: Lightbringer [Amazon UK] tells the story of Gavin Guile, the Prism, who can form tangible objects from the different colours in light. Gavin previously fought his brother, Dazen Guile as they both had the ability to be the Prism, in which civil war fractured the strongest nation and now has let a region attempt to succeed from the nation. During his fight to regain that region, Gavin discovers he has a son fathered during the civil war out of wedlock (gasp) and who he brings home, much to the consternation of his ex-fiance bodyguard who can’t understand why he broke off their relationship during the civil war. Anyway. The first book is a bit heavy handed with how he writes the female characters, but that gets better (at least, to my eye anyway) in the second and subsequent books.
Book: Friends with Secrets [Amazon UK] This is a story of two mothers, one who has the seemingly-perfect life with her rich politician husband but has a giant secret about to devastate her world, the other who gave up a career in News Broadcasting that she loved to bring up her kids. It’s a bit Nancy Drew in places (especially towards the end), but was a good thriller and had a twist I didn’t see coming.
Book: Still the Sun [Amazon UK] Pell lives in a nearly-dead, sun-locked world, where she buries the dead of her town, and looks for artefacts of the people who were there before. Outside her town is a tower, blocked up and unable to get into. During the regular fog (during which they normally sleep) a mysterious stranger arrives and asks her to fix a machine. The World-building (nay, Galaxy-building) here is outstanding, and I’d love to see more stories from this construction… but I think this is a one-off.
Series: Agents of the Crown [Amazon UK] available as a single volume [Amazon UK] is about a world split into Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Trolls/Goblins. Humans have just finished a war against the Elves and one of their Captains, a lord, returns home and is promptly arrested by a religious investigator for stealing an artefact… which would be fine, except he didn’t do it, and doesn’t even know what it is that has allegedly gone missing. Throw in the usual “humans can’t do magic unless they have a talisman”, plus a bit of racial hatred and quite a few acts of terrorism, and it makes for a pretty good romp through this world. Good stuff.
Book: The Dollmakers [Amazon UK] This stand-alone book, written by a mentee of Brandon Sanderson has all the right touches – a great magic system (mark words) a non-understood threat, and our protagonist who is just cocky enough to believe she can understand the threat well enough to fight it on her own (and anyone who stands in her way, be damned). Much like “Still the Sun”, there’s enough world-building here to create a significant series, but it’s just a one-off, but I’ll be keeping an eye out for a sequel.
Series: Ashport Mender [Amazon UK] available as a single volume [Amazon UK] feels oddly World-of-Darkness, where “The Community” (people who have supernatural abilities) hide in the shadows, and ask “a Mender” to fix things for them. This mender was pressured into working for the Non-Community police department as a consultant, but was then seen at the scene of a crime by one of the detectives. He investigates her and finds himself learning about the community and the mender. As I said, it feels very WoD’ish (mostly due to the Masquerade the community keeps, and the way they treat the police officer as “untame” until he becomes an ally when he becomes “tame”), but the stories are compelling.
Word of warning though, it’s quite racy (unnecessarily so, in places) and I felt uncomfortable reading it in public.

Recommendations from 2023-08-17 to 2024-03-08

Book: Empire of the Vampire [Amazon UK] This world feels like it’s nearly our middle ages, the church holds great sway and everyone is mildly worried about the things in the shadows – feykin, witches, duskdancers… and Vampires (or “Coldbloods”). And then daysdeath comes – “a great star falls” and the skies darken so much that these creatures that once lived in the shadows come out and take control. Fighting the things in the shadows are the Silversaints – children born of Vampires and Mortals, who can resist the pull of blood, and walk in the daylight hours, but when they have God on their side, they fight back the darkness… or at least, that was the plan. But now the Silversaints are all but dead, and the last known remaining ‘saint is Gabriel. He’s being interviewed by his captor before he’s killed… and so we hear his tale from teen-to-killing-machine.
Book: Legends & Lattes [Amazon UK] In a world with Trolls, Orcs and Feyfolk, Viv the Orc encountered something new – “Coffee” – humans haven’t come across it – in fact, not many people have, so she decides to hang up her sword (after one last job) and create somewhere to sell coffee. Dragging in a cast of loners and misfits, and facing down the mob, she establishes her small business and, what’s more, thrives while doing it. It was just a lovely little book and I loved reading it.
Late edit 2024-09-02: It now is a series [Amazon UK] … and all the subsequent books are prequels? Still good.
Book: Traitor’s Blade [Amazon UK] The last King was killed because he tried to remove rule-by-might from the barons of his kingdom, and now the kingdom is fractured into baronacies. The protectors of the king, the Greatcoats, stood aside when the king was taken by the barons, and now the people call them traitors and spit where they walk… but there’s a reason they stood aside, a reason the people don’t know, and years after the king is dead, the Greatcoats do what good they can. There’s no magic, just swashbuckling and scoundrels. A great first book, I’ve just not got around to the sequels yet.
Late edit 2024-09-02: Yep, the sequels in the series [Amazon UK] are great and now there’s a new second series [Amazon UK] set in the same world to go with it.
Book: The Malevolent Seven [Amazon UK] There have been wars amongst the magic users. So many wars that there are Scorched-Earth regions of the world, and the denizens of hell and heaven are called upon to support the mages but (critically) can’t get to the mortal plane themselves. This group of seven mages are asked to get a maguffin that every magic user has tried to get… and heaven and hell are encouraging them to get there… hmm, that sounds a little odd, right? There are twists and turns ahead and it’ll leave you backing the anti-heroes almost all the way.
Series: The Stranger Times [Amazon UK] Have you ever really looked at a publication like The Fortean Times and wondered what it’d be like if things that go bump in the dark actually did exist… this is that series. It’s set in Manchester, and you can tell the author lives there, because I knew exactly where he was talking about when he describes the location of the main locations… so much so, I emailed the author to ask if it actually was *there* (and yes, it was!)

Recommendations from 2021-08-27 to 2023-08-17

Apologies for the long delay in this update. Life, eh?

Series: Skyward [Amazon UK] Classic a-disgraced-nobody-makes-good story, Spensa (aka “Spin”) is the disgraced daughter of a space pilot who killed the other pilots in his “wing”. She wants to clear the family name by becoming a pilot, but is rebuffed at every turn until she’s the best pilot there is. The series takes place on a planet far from Earth, where this last vestige of Humans is kept prisoner on a planet, where the only way to travel the vastness of space is by using Cytonics – a series of psychic powers that only a few humans can use. Lots of space battles, but some discussion of AI and whether it’s good or bad. Given Brandon Sanderson is better known for his fantasy books and series set in the Cosmere (more on that later), this is a great series.
Series: The Chronicles of St. Mary’s [Amazon UK] and spin-off series; The Time Police [Amazon UK]. Set a couple of decades into the future, St Mary’s Institute of Historical Research is an academic community attached to the University of Thirsk. They experience and record historical events in real-time (don’t ever call it “Time Travel”). Of course, this means they inevitably interact with “contemporaries” which often has an explosive knock-on impact. Jodi Taylor is not afraid to kill characters off, nor is she afraid of letting them have sex (albeit in a couple of lines, not a whole chapter). Around 6 books in, the “Time Police” are mentioned, and after the 10th book, the spin-off series was created, introducing a whole new cast of characters (and consistently thus far, at least one cameo from the St. Mary’s team). The Time Police have a bad reputation for kicking down the door, shooting everyone and then asking questions, and they need to fix it. A new commander is dropped in to fix everything… which she does by putting together a team of misfits. Across the 14 books (thus far) and 21 short stories (I think I counted right!) of St. Mary’s books there are a couple of large WTF moments (like when the Muse of Time plucked the protagonist from a time where her husband was killed, and put her in a new timeline where a previous version of her had died… and no-one particularly blinked) but on the whole the stories are really good!
Multiple Series and Books in a wider universe: Cosmere;
Series: The Stormlight Archive [Amazon UK] (I’ve read books 1-4)
Series: The Mistborn Saga [Amazon UK] (I’ve read Era 1 and 2)
Book: Elantris [Amazon UK]
Book: Tress of the Emerald Sea [Amazon UK]
Book: White Sands (available in comic format which I’ve not read, or in prose by signing up for Brandon’s mailing list)
Novella: The Emperor’s Soul [Amazon UK]
Collection of short stories: Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection [Amazon UK]
I first started reading these books in 2017 – I don’t know why I didn’t include them then, but… I didn’t. I read Mistborn first, and quickly (within a week) had finished the series of three books. Next I read Elantris and then started on the epic saga which is The Stormlight Archive. This last series is HUGE. There are other books and series here too which I’ve not yet read, but look forward to doing so.
What’s more powerful for me is the *universe* building – Each of these books is based on a world in the Cosmere universe, and each world has it’s own system of magic. There’s a character (currently) called Hoid who can jump between the worlds and is able to use magic from another, unseen by me, world. Others are able to travel between these worlds and it’s interesting seeing the whole universe of possibilities open up, but always from the view of the people on the ground, not from the whole universe.
Series: The Green Man [Amazon UK] TW: COVID in later books; due to the impact of lockdown. Set in today’s world, Daniel (Dan) Mackmain is the son of a Dryad (tree spirit) and a human man. As a half-human, he can see things, such as other dryads, the Fae, Boggarts and other unusual spirits from British folklore. The Green Man (the over-spirit of the forests and woods) expects Dan to fix things, situations where the folklore folk have unduely or unfairly impacted normal humans. The first book was spot on, and the series has only got better since then.

Recommendations from 2021-08-26 to 2021-03-24

Book: The Future of Another Timeline [Amazon UK] These are two stories which eventually intertwine, the first is where a group of girls become boy-killers where the boys are dangerous towards women. The second is where a diverse group of time travelling women and non-binary people are fighting back against a group of men from the future who want to ensure that women stay as home-makers with no influence or power. It’s a great story and I really loved it, particularly how the two stories ended up intertwining.
Book: The Ardent Swarm [Amazon UK] A parable-like story about a bee keeper where his bees are being attacked by imported hornets, set in an unnamed Middle-Eastern country where the swing of power between one democratic leader (all style, no substance) to another (all religion and bribery) impacts how the people around him behave and react in a crisis.
Series: Lord Hawkesbury’s Players [Amazon UK] (or, at least the first two books, third is currently bought but not yet read!) This romance (with sex, no less!) series, set in Elizabethan England, follows one of several members of the cast of Lord Hawkesbury’s theatre (featuring, no less, William Shakespeare himself!) who finds themselves awkwardly falling in love with someone they shouldn’t. The first story features Minerva, a lady playwright who, due to the cultural norms, is unable to get her plays performed… so she asks a random stranger, Robert, to imply he wrote them, which he does, even though Robert has his own reasons for wanting to become more familiar with Lord Hawkesbury. Towards the end of the book, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth, Minerva realises that Robert must not be in love with her, and she pushes him away (I think it’s fair to say that for this style of book, this is not a spoiler, but a fairly common beat in the book). The second book follows Robert’s half-brother Leo, who is searching for a wife, and hating it. Instead, while following the path that Robert followed to Lord Hawkesbury, he finds Alice, the seamstress to the players, and the same sort of story occurs. While it may seem like these books might be a little repetitive, I quite enjoyed the (probably quite inaccurate) historical setting and the characterizations of the lead characters. The background characters are a little weak, but generally OK.
Book: The Matildas [Amazon UK] TW: Suicide, critical illnesses (inc. Cancer) The protagonist, Matilda, leads two lives, one on their native side of “The basement” – an inter-multiverse-dimension portal to another version of Earth, located in the basement of a “publishing firm” (I’ll explain more about this in a minute), one on the other side of the portal. Some people get to cross the portal – if their corresponding alternative has died in the past, while others can’t. Some people who cross get weird dreams, some get illnesses… and some people find their true loves over there. The protagonist is asked to investigate a mystery – who left a book on the car park of the firm, and why… you see, that book came from the “Other side” of the portal, and didn’t come through the basement. I was gripped. The lead character is very believable and most of the supporting cast are quite well rounded. Towards the end of the book, things chop-and-change quite a bit, and there were a few moments when I wasn’t sure where the character was, or who was around them… but… maybe that’s a concious decision on the part of the author.

Recommendations from 2020-11-18 to 2021-03-24

Series: Little Brother [Amazon UK] Marcus Yarrow is a “regular” school-aged child from San Francisco who happens to be AWOL from school when an explosion brings down the Golden Gate Bridge. He’s rounded up as part of the arrests because he’s acting suspiciously, and this story, set 5 minutes in the future of ~2008 (and it’s sequels) show the descent into authoritarianism of the US government, and how the “Little People” can fight back. There are lots of sensible and YA-appropriate explanations on technologies like Public Key Cryptography, “hacking” (the not-criminal sense of the word) and how your tools can be turned against you (and how you can turn your oppressors tools against them). I don’t recall that much of the second book (and, in fact, rated it 3/5 stars), but the third book tells the story from the other side – what happens inside the oppressor’s world – how they correlate who is a leader in a movement, how they tap and track who is doing what inside their countries, and what happens when the conscience of an oppressor demands that they fight against those things too!
If you’re likely to think that the Government is trying to oppress you, then this book will be right up your street. If you want to know about protests or internet security, these are probably good books for that. The first two books feature some sex scenes which are probably unnecessary, but… shrug, the third does not, but refers to events and characters in the first two books… so, it’s probably worth reading the first two anyway. There are two novellas set between the second and third books, but I don’t recall anything about the first (which I’ve read) and I haven’t read the second of those (which was only available as a kickstarter bonus).
Series: The Chronos Files [Amazon UK] In this series, time travel is real! In the 2300’s there’s a historical society called “CHRONOS” who have developed a capability to send people back in time to observe history, in person. There’s all sorts of checks and balances and you must jump back and forth to a specific spot… except one man figured out how to change that, and he’s corrupted this tiny religious order to make it his engine for change… and then blew up the society and stole all their CHRONOS keys (which, in combination with a genetic marker, lets you travel through time). Later in the books, you see the impact of fracturing timelines and having “splinters” of time. There’s also a sequel set of stories (set in the 2200’s) about the people who developed the technology getting an unintentional headstart by finding one of the CHRONOS keys. Ugh, timey-wimey indeed! It’s a well written set of books, and the series definitely improves once there’s less explaining each thing that’s happening. There are a few novellas which aren’t as strong, but still good and there’s a graphic novel which was quite sweet too.
Series: The Magic Misfits [Amazon UK: Book 1, Book 2, Book 3, Book 4 – Fix your series linking, damnit Amazon!] Six children, all interested in magic, all linked to one town by a former troupe of magicians, who solve crimes orchestrated by one of those former magicians. Very much a YA book, and if you like magic, you’ll love this book. Each book is threaded with tricks for you to learn, secret codes and cyphers. Definitely get these books in paper-or-hardback variants, if only so you can work out the codes!
Series: The Saint of Steel [Amazon UK] There are several gods in this realm, and when one of those gods dies, his berserker paladins go crazy and massacre each other and those around them. The few who are left are constantly fighting against “The Black Tide” – which constantly threatens to rise up and turn them back into undirected berserkers again. They’ve been adopted by another god, The White Rat, who’s followers are not so much religious, as … well, axle greasers. They send their lawyers to court cases to support those who are oppressed or without support, their doctors and medical practitioners care for those who are sick and need care, and everyone trusts them (which considering they also have a healthy spy network, is… um, interesting). The White Rat sends their staff out to more dangerous areas with the support of these recouperating paladins. These stories each follow a different paladin making their way in the world, and learning to trust and be trusted again. Oh, and OMG they’re all so tortured and just need a bit of love to make them whole again, so the stories also follow the (thus far, both) women who fall for them, who are (both, I’m sure it’ll be all) a bit tortured too.

Recommendations from 2019-08-13 to 2020-11-17

Book, potentially series: The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind [Amazon UK] (I read the first book, the sequel is a bit pricy right now!) A girl was the result of experiments performed by her parents. All she wants to do is start a restaurant, but instead she works for a government department who are prepared to disavow her if she gets caught. She can’t tell the guy she likes most in the world about it, because if she does, they’ll both get locked up. She does a Mission: Impossible job at the start of the book, and then spends the rest of the book on the run, because someone was in there just after her and killed the guy they went in to tap the communications on… by bending a thick piece of metal around his throat, which only psychokinetic can do (apparently). It’s a good romp, and I really enjoyed it.
Late edit; 2023-08-17: Yes, it’s a series [Amazon UK]. The later books aren’t quite as great, but it’s still a good series.
Book, potentially series: Enola Holmes: The Case of the Missing Marquess [Amazon UK] As seen as a film on Netflix, I was inspired to read the book. It’s a much shorter story than the film, and much better all round. There are 6 books in the series, but only the first is on Kindle, so I’ll wait for the rest to appear before a make any judgement calls. Enola Holmes is the significantly younger daughter than Shirlock and Mycroft Holmes, who has been raised by her Suffragette leaning mother. When Enola turns 14, her mother abandons the house, and Enola sets off to find her. Unlike in the film, where Enola finds the titular Marquess on the train and then discovers more about him later, in the book Enola instead finds where the Marquess has gone first, then goes to find him, while escaping the clutches of her brothers. A great book, well worth a read!
Late edit; 2023-08-17: Yes, it’s a series [Amazon UK]. The characters in this series are really good. It’s a great expansion to the Holmes’ universe. And now there are an additional 3 books to read. Yey!
Book: The Lies of Locke Lamora [Amazon UK] Locke Lamora was a child thief, raised by a Fagin like character who portrays the role of a priest on a world, in a city that feels like a cross between Victoriana England and Mafia Italy. Locke and his gang steal as much money from the aristocracy as possible by deceit and outright cunning.
Late edit; 2023-08-17: This too is a series [Amazon UK]. The later books are less like England/Italy and more akin to the fantasy stories I’m more used to. Great stories, but there’s not much which joins them into a series.
Series: Legion [Amazon UK] Stephen Leeds has a multiple personality disorder, but they don’t cripple him, they enable him. One persona provides him with a military guidance – allowing him to shoot, and fight, if necessary. Another is a psychiatrist, while another has a diadectic memory. Between Stephen and his personas, projections or … whatever you call them, he solves mysteries, crimes or just helps people. Oh, and the personas all think they’re real, but Stephen knows they aren’t… but his house is big enough to house all 50ish of them, and he tends to be driven around in a limo, so as many of them that need to come with him, can do so. It’s a great concept, and a good series, albeit short lived.
Book: The Dream Daughter [Amazon UK] Totally not my usual story. A woman is pregnant with a child with a heart defect in 1970. Very sad, and unfortunately untreatable in 1970, until her husband reveals that, in fact, he’s actually a stranded time traveller, and to get the condition fixed, she needs to travel into the future. The threads of the Vietnam War, and 9/11 are subtly woven in. This is, at its heart, a story about a woman who will do anything for her daughter, and wanders through time travel to get to the end. The time travel was the initial hook for me, but by the end of the first quarter, I was in it for the story about how that poor mother was coping, and then what happened when she went back.

Recommendations from 2019-01-15 to 2019-08-13

Series: The Ministry of Curiosities [Amazon UK] (I’ve read up to Book 4) In Victorian London, a girl can summon the spirits of the deceased and ask them questions. Her father, a church minister, disowns her when she raises the spirit of her mother, and she flees to the streets, where after 5 years she’s picked up by a member of the Ministry of Curiosities, who are tasked with finding and neutralising any mystical things. On the whole it’s a good concept, although the author “borrows” characters from other stories (like Victor Frankenstein), and the lead character has a tendency to run off to investigate things without the support of the rest of the team, in particular without her love interest…
Series: The Naturalist [Amazon UK] Slightly like the TV series “Bones”. A university doctor discovers a pattern to the targets of a series of murders, and then gets arrested at the scene when he thinks he’s found the next spot. Very comprehensive story, using tech and patterns found in nature. The sequels are after he’s left academia, but still very interesting.
Series: Jack Reacher [Amazon UK] has been made into two films staring Tom Cruise, but don’t let that put you off. There are two types of books in this series – the long-form novels (which range from generally above par to fantastic) and the short stories. These generally are rubbish and I wouldn’t bother with another one. Jack Reacher, who was a Military Police officer, when he left the military became a wandering odd-job man. He earns enough from his pension to not have to work, but doesn’t want to be penned in with a house and family, so wanders the US, replacing rather than cleaning his clothes every few days, and apparently being the target of every woman’s desire. Sometimes police procedural, sometimes private investigator, sometimes a flashback to his military days (or earlier in some of the short stories) and usually all action. On the whole, glad I’ve been reading them, but I can’t really tell you which ones I’d miss out if I were to re-read them.
Series: The Laundry Files [Amazon UK] One part “BOFH“, one part Cthulhu story, and one part “Yes Minister” then mixed well. Bob starts his career in “The Laundry”, the occult version of MI6 as a recruit after his rendering engine accidentally nearly triggers an “incursion” from one of the nether realms… after all, you know the phrase “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”, it unfortunately was the wrong way around… magic basically is advanced calculations, and the more computing devices we have, the closer we come to “CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN” – a full-time incursion from the nether realms. Towards the more recent books, Bob gets married, splits up, encounters more than his fair share of mystical beasts and generally moves up towards a senior role at “The Laundry”, even when they threaten to close it. Strongly recommended to anyone working in IT.
Late edit 2024-09-02: Technically, this is now two series both set in the same world, “Laundry Files” is one, “New Management” is the other. Amazon and GoodReads both list these as being part of the same series. I’m reading the “New Management” books with much less interest than the Laundry ones, as they’re more about Company Management Does World Domination than Central Government Covers Up The Truth, but… eh, it’s alright.
Series: The Golden Arrow [Amazon UK] There’s a superhero on the loose, which is a bit odd, as superheros are from the realm of TV and Cartoons. MG works for the publishing house that created “The Golden Arrow” series, which was rebooted after the sad demise of the founder… but now, someone is replicating the scenes from the comic – tying up drug dealers and mob bosses and marking the scenes with golden arrows. MG is brought in by a cop who gets her sense of humour and needs her expertise on the character from the comics. Little does the cop know who else he’s bringing on board – her best friend is a Drag Queen (who may know more about The Golden Arrow than we thought) and her room-mate has suddenly started working out more (to improve his LARPing abilities, honest). Throw in the cast of the writing team at the publishing house (who, to be fair are mostly a bit paper-thin in their characters) and you have a fine story about superheroes.
Book: The Phoenix Project [Amazon UK] Anyone who worked in IT for a large company is likely to read the first few chapters of this and wince, a lot. It’s a parable about adopting Agile culture into your firm, with the mystical “old man in the corner of the inn” (from D&D fame) who will send you towards your foes and gain your party maximum experience points. The existing “Unicorn” (from memory) project has gone over budget, is out of time and everyone is pointing fingers at everyone else. The paranoid security guy is saying “no” to everything, and there’s a guy who is SO CRITICAL to the success of the project that any absence from him causes blockers everywhere else. It’s a reasonably good story and well worth a read if you’re “going DevOps” or “going Agile” any time soon – just to match up what you’re doing with what the people who started the craze thought you should be doing :) Late edit, this becomes a series, with The Unicorn Project released in November 2019. Well worth a read, and a great sequel.
Book: Transgression [Amazon UK] I wrote a review on this book in 2016 “An unexpectedly great book. Ari, a Jewish theoretical physicist who has lost his faith, Damian, an American experimental physicist who believes faith has destroyed civilisation, and Rivika, a Messianic Jewish archaeologist are transported through time to kill (or save) a lynchpin in humanity’s history, and potentially save the Jewish tribes from 2000 years of persecution.” That said, I held off from adding this to my list when I first authored it, because I didn’t find the subsequent books in the series to be quite as awe-inspiring as this book. That said, if you like Religious Fiction, the rest of the series (to date) are really good books, just not to the same standard as this one.

Recommendations up to 2019-01-15

Series: The Frontiers Saga – Part 1 [Amazon UK], Part 2 [Amazon UK] (completed 2020), Prequels (still in progress?), Part 3 [Amazon UK] Good if you don’t mind buying each chapter separately. After a “digital plague” that killed most of the humans on Earth, and left us in a Dark Age of over 1000 years, Humans of Earth are starting to recover and re-establish ourselves in space. At which point, we’re now being attacked by the “Jung” – one of the more aggressive factions who fled Earth at the start of the plague. Earth has managed to open “The Ark” – a collection of all the technological advanced we’d made before the plague and use some of that knowledge to build a new technology – “Jump Drives”. During the first test of the Jump Drive on a “Real” ship, the test is sabotaged, and the ship jumps hundreds of light years, across the galaxy only to find another ex-colony in the midsts of a war. Can they make their way back, and recruit some allies on the way? (Yes, yes they can. And it’s a great romp… and still on-going. The first saga is 15 books long, the second is currently at 10, and there are currently 4 prequels, but I expect lots more to follow)
Series: Jumper Classic teleportation story. The first half of the first book was made into the first half of a passable film, but they then rewrote the rest of it. The books are much better (although the end of the last one is a bit meh)
Series: Nexus Mind linking drugs – pretty tight story too.
Series: The Rho Agenda, Sequel and Prequel Two spaceships are discovered on Earth. Scientists can’t figure out how to get into the first, but kids get into the second, “bond” with the ship, and stop the invasion of Earth by the species who lost the first one. Ably assisted later on by an Ex-CIA Assassin who has a touch of pre-cognition (due to… well, something from the Prequels) and his girlfriend (also an assassin).
Series: Sandman Slim Not so much Sci-fi. This is a magician who’s sent to hell before he died, and then fights his way back. Later on there’s lots of interactions with the Devil (who, in later books, he becomes for “reasons”), God (or rather, fragments of God) and the denizens of both realms.
Series: The Bridge Chronicles Great Cyberpunk stories about an amoral fixer. The full three-book series is available as a single e-book.
Series: The Lost Fleet SHIPS IN SPACE! The fate of the last of Earth’s fleet of ships rests in the hands of the legendary “Black Jack” – a captain who was recovered from his rescue pod one hundred years after his “last stand” was made famous for the deaths of all his crew but his destruction of the attacking fleet. Can he bring the fleet home… and at what cost?
Series: Spinward Fringe We follow a bounty hunter who lost his memory as he tries to find his past, and rescue most of humanity in the process.
Series: Samuil Petrovitch More Cyberpunk :) There was a nuclear explosion in Russia, wiping out most of the cities in Europe. Samuil lives in London, and just tries to survive, until he stops a kidnapping attempt in progress of one of the daughter of one of the most dangerous men in London. At the same time, AI is starting to rise up, and, well, Samuil ends up being one of the few people who’s able to negotiate with them.
Series: A Galaxy Unknown Another “Rescued from her life capsule” book, this sees the last survivor of a ship grinding her way up through the ranks and taking on the invading forces from (eventually several) enemies. There’s lots of space battles and miraculous wins. Quite a good romp :D
Series: Indexing Indexing is the modern day police procedural where the narrative in Fairy Tails bleed into our current world, where girls with pale skin, blood red lips and dark hair can enchant the birds from the trees just by singing, and sewing or spinning needles can cause you to fall asleep. Really enjoyable but only a couple of books.
Series: Rachel Peng (part of the wider “A Girl And Her Fed” web-comic universe, along with Hope Blackwell book 1, book 2 and Josh Glassman book 1) 500 elite members of various government branches were recruited into “The Program” several years ago, where they received a chip in their heads and drastic personality rewrites to make them compliant, with the aim being a force of staff that could be taken over and used for corporate greed. Fortunately, in the AGAHF webcomic one of those program members was able to break his personality reprogramming and managed to stop the program. They formed a new government department called OACET, and now loan their staff (nowhere near the 500 members are left due to how drastic the reprogramming was) to other departments. Rachel Peng is one of those people, and she’s loaned to the LAPD. Rachel can use her chip, not just to join the OACET hive-mind, but also to control technology and, as a side line, to help her see. These books and the Josh books are fantastic, and you don’t need to have read the comics to make sense of the books. I wasn’t that taken with the Hope Blackwell books, but… eh, they’re OK I guess :)
Series: Silo (sometimes also referred to as “Wool”) This is a dark, post-apocalyptic story about people who’s whole world is “The Silo”. There are cameras reminding the people inside the silo about how bad the world is outside, but if you resist the law of the silo, you’re sent outside, and the last thing you need to do is to clean the lenses on the cameras before you die. It’s a really really good series and very powerful.
Series: Lens of Time Imagine being able to see what happened in the past. All you need to do is to see the light from that far away… But, of course, we don’t have faster than light drives, so to travel that far, we’d have already seen the event happen before we got there… Except, someone’s built a faster than light drive, so now we can! Huzzah. Turns out there’s something coming, and we need to travel 65000 light years away to find out what it is, as it’s been here before! Lots of suspension of disbelief needed here, but, it’s a great series and really enjoyable.
Series: Hail DRONE! Vigilante drones that kill! After a 9/11 style event, billionaire energy tycoon recruits kids to kill those who caused the attack.
Series: Magic 2.0 Reality has a bit of a glitch in it – there’s a file you can find in computer systems that let you make changes to reality, including having money appear, being able to fly, travel in time and teleport. What do you naturally do? TRAVEL BACK TO BE MERLIN (or find Atlantis)…. same as everyone else who found the file… D’oh! The earlier books are better than the later ones, but… it’s a good concept.

Picture is “Library” by “Daniel Go” and is released under a Creative Commons By-Attribution, Non-Commercial license.