We have guest post from Kieran Shea whose debut novel Koko Takes a Holiday has just been released by Titan Books.
Below he shares some of his favorite science fiction books, because as you can guess his book is science fiction. However it has a twist. I have yet to read Koko Takes a Holiday but it has been described as Cyberpunk and the author has a history of writing Noir. Sound interesting? There’s more about his book and him at the bottom of this post.
SOME OF MY FAVORITE SCIENCE FICTION BOOKS: Kieran Shea
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
This was likely the first science fiction book I ever read. Only when I was much older did I come to appreciate the genius of holistically articulating a theme via a series of stand-alone vignettes. Slim, sleek, and aridly precise, I re-read it again earlier this year.
Market Forces by Richard K. Morgan
When people talk of Richard K. Morgan’s works inevitably they think of the Takeshi Kovacs novels. However, for me Market Forces is much more compelling tale. With its near future slant, the novel succinctly satirizes the frightening perils of free-enterprise globalization and vulture-profiteering. I swear, the action sequences alone will leave you gob-smacked—Wall Street meets The Road Warrior.
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Let me simply say this—whenever I encounter someone who admits they haven’t read this book (or its sequels for that matter), I immediately throw up my hands and walk away. My God, what’s wrong with you people?
The Drowned World by JG Ballard.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the prophetic climate change novel circa 1962. A powerful writer and social commentator, Ballard took environmental collapse to the extreme and supercharged the psychological metaphor. Just thinking about the book makes me all clammy.
1984 by George Orwell
Forget all the required reading hoo-ha and take a moment to really think about the importance of this book. Imagine the coarsened guts it took to write it. Timelessly brilliant and politically prescient, 1984 is the quintessential line in the sand by which we measure the lunacy of our modern world.
Death's Head by David Gunn
Like your military science fiction hardboiled? Me too. Meet Sven Tveskoeg—ex-sergeant, drafted enforcer, and interplanetary killer extraordinaire. For my money, Sven is the perfect hardcore anti-hero, and Gunn’s black humor is absolutely priceless.
Here’s more information on Koko Takes a Holiday:
Five hundred years from now, ex-corporate mercenary Koko Martstellar is swaggering through an easy early retirement as a brothel owner on The Sixty Islands, a manufactured tropical resort archipelago known for its sex and simulated violence. Surrounded by slang-drooling boywhores and synthetic komodo dragons, Koko finds the most challenging part of her day might be deciding on her next drink. That is, until her old comrade Portia Delacompte sends a squad of security personnel to murder her.
Titan Books | Paperback | 336pp | 10 June 2014
KIERAN SHEA’s fiction has appeared in dozens of venues including Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Thuglit, Dogmatika, Word Riot, Plots with Guns, Beat to a Pulp, Crimefactory, and Needle: A Magazine of Noir ...as well as in some beefy-looking anthologies most of which will make you question the tether of his shiny, red balloon. To his self-deprecating astonishment he's also been nominated for the Story South’s Million Writers Award twice without sending the judges so much as a thank you note. He co-edited the satiric transgressive fiction collection D*CKED: DARK FICTION INSPIRED BY DICK CHENEY and his debut novel KOKO TAKES A HOLIDAY is forthcoming from Titan Books in June. Kieran divides his time between 38°58′22.6″N- 76°30′4.17″W and 39.2775° N, 74.5750° W.
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