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If You Like...The Martian
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Rescue Mode
by Ben Bova
When a first human mission to Mars is devastated by a meteoroid strike, the spacecraft's survivors struggle against impossible odds while decision makers on Earth confront bureaucratic political forces.
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Man Plus
by Frederik Pohl
In this Nebula Award-winning masterwork, astronaut Roger Torraway agrees to be transformed by science into Man Plus, the linchpin in opening the new Martian frontier for humanity, which is in danger of extinction on an Earth that is running out of energy and is hopelessly polluted. But Torraway will have his humanity challenged as no man has ever been challenged before.
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The Martian Chronicles
by Ray Bradbury
The tranquility of Mars is disrupted by humans who want to conquer space, colonize the planet, and escape a doomed Earth.
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The Martian Race
by Gregory Benford
With NASA's mission to Mars scrapped because of a tragic accident, billionaire John Axelrod steps in to compete with the European-Chinese effort to reach the fourth planet first, and the race is on.
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Proxima
by Stephen Baxter
Yuri is forced to become a colonial settler on Proxima Centauri, a habitable planet circling a red dwarf star, in a science fiction novel from the author of Flood and Ark.
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Saturn Run
by John Sandford
When a mid-21st-century Caltech intern discovers that a spacecraft from a technologically superior alien source is headed toward Saturn, a ragtag crew of competitors races to be the first to claim the ship and its technological advantages. (Instead of math and Mars, think engineering and Saturn!)
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The Empress of Mars
by Kage Baker
Emigrating to a Martian colony only to find themselves stranded by the company that originally financed their journey, a ragtag band of outcasts endeavors to survive on the hostile planet while plotting the downfall of the abandoning company. Based on a Hugo-nominated novella.
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Old Man's War
by John Scalzi
Enlisting in the army on his 75th birthday, John Perry joins an interstellar war between Earth and alien enemies who would stake claims on the few existing inhabitable planets, unaware that the conflict involves much more than he understands.
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The Fold
by Peter Clines
Despite the secret gifts he was born with, Marco Leland is content to live a quiet life in a small New England town, until an old government friend tells him that DARPA scientists have invented a device that could make teleportation a reality; but the scientists that are working on the device are changing, people are dying and reality itself seems to be ... warping.
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Ready Player One
by Ernest Cline
Immersing himself in a mid-21st-century technological virtual utopia to escape an ugly real world of famine, poverty and disease, Wade Watts joins an increasingly violent effort to solve a series of puzzles by the virtual world's super-wealthy creator, who has promised that the winner will be his heir.
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The Age of Miracles
by Karen Thompson Walker
A painstakingly researched debut imagines the coming-of-age story of young Julia, whose world is thrown into upheaval when it is discovered that the Earth's rotation has suddenly begun to slow, posing a catastrophic threat to all life.
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Ashfall
by Mike Mullin
After the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano destroys his city and its surroundings, Alex must journey from Cedar Falls, Iowa, to Illinois to find his parents and sister, trying to survive in a new society.
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The Dog Stars
by Peter Heller
Surviving a pandemic disease that has killed everyone he knows, a pilot establishes a shelter in an abandoned airport hangar before hearing a random radio transmission that compels him to risk his life to seek out other survivors.
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For more titles of post-apocalyptic survival, please see our Dark Horizons booklist. Looking for ideas about how YOU might survive in unimaginable circumstances? Check out the Wilderness Survival booklist.
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Apollo 13
by Jim Lovell
The story of the American moon shot that almost ended in a fatal catastrophe, told by the flight's commander, offers a chronicle of courage, heroism, and adventure
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Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void
by Mary Roach
The author of Stiff and Bonk describes the weirdness of space exploration and answers questions about the long-term effects of zero gravity on the human body and what happens if you vomit in your helmet during a space walk.
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Trailblazing Mars: NASA's Next Giant Leap
by Pat Duggins
Astronauts travelling to Mars will have to grow their own food, find their own water, and solve their own problems and emergencies without hope of rescue or re-supply. Can the technological hurdles be cleared? Will the public accept the very real possibility of astronaut death? Is the science worth the cost? Award-winning journalist Pat Duggins examines the extreme new challenges that will be faced by astronauts on the journey there and back.
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Eureka! : Discovering Your Inner Scientist
by Chad Orzel
A physicist and science popularizer argues that more people should be embracing science and explains that many actually are without even realizing it, incorporating scientific methods and principles into daily activities like crossword puzzles, playing sports and watching mystery shows.
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The Odyssey
by Homer
The dramatic epic of strife, love and devotion. Odysseus struggles for 10 years to return home after the Trojan War, battling mystical creatures and facing the wrath of the gods along the way. This new translation by Edward McCrorie captures the stark quality of Homer's original language.
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Robinson Crusoe
by Daniel Defoe
During one of his several adventurous voyages in the 1600s, an Englishman becomes the sole survivor of a shipwreck and lives on a deserted island for more than 28 years.
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