[nesfa-reading-group] books for voting on tomorrow

[Shelly Thomas]

My 3 suggestions

*The World Inside*

  Robert Silverberg

Welcome to Urban Monad 116. Reaching nearly two miles into the sky, the one
thousand stories of this building are home to over eight hundred thousand
people living in peace and harmony. In the year 2381 with a world
population of over seventy-five billion souls, the massive Urbmon system is
humanity's salvation.

Life in Urbmon 116 is highly regulated, life is cherished, and the culture
of procreation is seen as the highest pinnacle of god's plan. Conflict is
abhorred, and any who disturb the peace face harsh punishment―even being
sent "down the chute" to be recycled as fertilizer.

Jason Quevedo, a historian, searches records of the twentieth century
hoping to find the root of his discontent with the perfection of Urbmon
life.

Siegmund Kluver, a young and ambitious administrator, strives to reach the
top levels of the Urbmon's government and discovers the civilization's dark
truths.

Michael Statler, a computer engineer, harbors a forbidden desire. He dreams
of leaving the building―of walking in the open air and visiting the far-off
sea. This is a dream he must keep secret. If anyone were to find out, he'd
face the worst punishment imaginable.
.
The World Inside is a 1971 Hugo Award Nominee for Best Novella.



*Waiting for the Galactic Bus*

Parke Godwin   1988

The tale begins with two college-age brothers, Barion and Coyul, members of
an advanced alien
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictional_extraterrestrials> world. Their
race is endowed with the power to manipulate physical matter with their
minds, a power which is exploited incessantly by the young adults. An
accident strands the brothers on Earth, which at the time has no human
race. The brothers hope for rescue, but eventually grow despondent. In
their free time, they cause a series of evolutionary changes in the
indigenous primates of Earth <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth>, which
eventually lead to the blossoming of human civilization.



*Andromeda Strain*

*Michael Crichton 1969*

A team from an Air Force
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Force> base is deployed to
recover a military satellite
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_satellite> that has returned to
Earth, but contact is lost abruptly. Aerial surveillance reveals that
everyone in Piedmont, Arizona, the town closest to where the satellite
landed, is apparently dead. The duty officer
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_officer> of the base tasked with
retrieving the satellite suspects it returned with an extraterrestrial
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraterrestrial_life> contaminant
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminant> and recommends activating
"Wildfire", a protocol for a government-sponsored team of scientists
intended to contain threats of this nature.

On Thu, Feb 1, 2024 at 5:20 PM Liz P <lpatton88 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Tea with the black dragon.
>
> RA MacAvoy
>
> Martha Macnamara knows that her daughter Elizabeth is in trouble, she just
> doesn't know what kind. Mysterious phone calls from San Francisco at odd
> hours of the night are the only contact she has had with Elizabeth for
> years. Now, Elizabeth has sent her a plane ticket and reserved a room for
> her at San Francisco's most luxurious hotel. Yet she has not tried to
> contact Martha since she arrived, leaving her lonely, confused and a little
> bit worried. Into the story steps Mayland Long, a distinguished-looking and
> wealthy Chinese man who lives at the hotel and is drawn to Martha's good
> nature and ability to pinpoint the truth of a matter. Mayland and Martha
> become close in a short period of time and he promises to help her find
> Elizabeth, making small inroads in the mystery before Martha herself
> disappears. Now Mayland is struck by the realization, too late, that he is
> in love with Martha, and now he fears for her life. Determined to find her,
> he sets his prodigious philosopher's mind to work on the problem, embarking
> on a potentially dangerous adventure.
>
> =============
>
> Millenium
>
> John Varley
>
> An appalling mid-air collision between a DC10 & a 747 started it all.
> Hundreds of smashed & shattered bodies were scattered among the debris.
> Bill Smith & his team began the gruesome job of investigation. At first it
> was just little things that didn't add up--like all the watches in the
> crash having stopped one hour before it happened. And the odd sensation of
> being followed & watched by people who were not there. But then Bill
> started to discover things that really had no right being where they were &
> found himself right in the middle of the most extraordinary conspiracy, a
> conspiracy that seemed to have its origins somewhere in the far distant
> future.
>
> ============================
>
> Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold
>
> Leo Graf was an effective engineer. Safety regs weren't just the rule book
> he swore by; he'd helped write them. All that changed on his assignment to
> the Cay Habitat. Leo was profoundly uneasy with the corporate exploitation
> of his bright new students... until that exploitation turned to something
> much worse. He hadn't anticipated a situation where the right thing to do
> was neither safe, nor in the rules...
>
> Leo Graf adopted a thousand quaddies---now all he had to do was teach them
> to be free.
>
> ================================
>
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