Recommended Reading

This is the first in a series of three books that tells of the colonization and terraformation of Mars. It spans generations. There really aren't words to describe how much I love this book and its sequels. The books are absolutely fantastic and when you are done, you will have lived the lives of the characters. You cannot read this book without also reading Green Mars and Blue Mars.

For eons, sandstorms have swept the barren, desolate landscape of the red planet. For centuries, Mars has beckoned to mankind to come and conquer its hostile climate. Now, in the year 2026, a group of one hundred colonists is about to fulfill that destiny. John Boone, Maya Toitovna, Frank Chalmers, and Arkady Bogdanov lead a mission whose ultimate goal is to give Mars an Earthlike atmosphere. They will place giant satellite mirrors in Martian orbit to reflect light at the planet;s surface. Black dust sprinkled on the polar ice caps will capture warmth and melt the ice. And massive tunnels, kilometers in depth, will be drilled into the Martian mantle to create stupendous vents of hot gases. Against this backdrop of epic upheaval, rivalries, loves, and friendships will form and fall to pieces-- for there are those who will fight to the death to prevent Mars from ever being changed.

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The second book in the Mars trilogy, this continues the story established in Red Mars.

Nearly a generation has passed since the first pioneers landed, but the transformation of Mars to an Earthlike planet has just begun. The plan is opposed by those determined to preserve the planet's hostile, barren beauty. Led by rebels like Peter Clayborne, these young people are the first generation of children born on Mars. They will be joined by original settlers Maya Toitovna, Simon Frasier, and Sax Russell.

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The third book in the Mars trilogy, this continues the story established in Red Mars and Green Mars.

The red planet is no more. Now green and verdant, Mars has been dramatically transformed from a desert world into one where humans can flourish. But as Mars reaches its final transformation, Earth is in peril. A great flood threatens an already overpopulated and polluted planet, and Mars, its last hope, may find itself facing a population explosion or an interplanetary war. Meanwhile, the First Hundred settlers of Mars are being pulled into a fierce new struggle between the Reds, a group devoted to preserving Mars in its desert state, and the Green "terraformers." Soon the human drama at the centerof this breathtaking epic explodes in political upheaval, leading to new explorations into the solar system and to choices that will decide the ultimate fate of Mother Earth.

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If you saw the movie and never read the book, you do not know what you're missing. Compared to the book, the movie is absolute crap. This is one of my favorite books. There is so much more to the story of Contact than you ever thought possible. To put it simple, the story is absolutely amazing.

An astonomer named Ellie Arroway has spent her whole life searching for extraterrestrial life. When she is about to give up, she receives a message from a nearby star system. The entire world bands together to decode this message and they find out that it contains instructions to build a machine. After the machine is built, they discover that it is a transport. When five people are chosen to go in this transport, the consequences of their journey are farther reaching than anyone could have ever expected. Now Ellie must search for the truth behind the Message, the Machine, and its consequences.

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Yet another absolutely fabulous book. Once again, the book is better than the movie. This was the first real novel I ever read, and I have loved it ever since I first read it in 5th grade. I have read this book at least a dozen times, and it still keeps me in suspense.

A psychologist named Norman Johnson is whisked away to a secret Navy operation where he finds out that the government has discovered a half-mile long spacecraft at the bottom of the Pacific, completely undamaged. Johnson and the people he named in a special report on first contact with aliens are taken to the bottom of the ocean to study this craft. Inside the craft they discover a mysterious artifact of unknown origins, a large metal sphere. Once the sphere is discovered, things go terribly wrong and they must figure out what is happening before they all perish. What they think is an alien enemy actually originates closer to themselves than they could possibly imagine.

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This is probably one of the best books about a biological catastrophe ever written. Although it is a little short (in my opinion), it is still excellently written. As far as the movie goes, it is actually very close to the book and is just as good.

A bacteriologist named Jeremy Stone urges the government to start a program to sterilize returning astronauts and spacecraft, and to build a special lab to handle any type of unknown extraterrestrial orgainsm. Then a mysterious plague in a small Arizona town called Piedmont brings Dr. Stone to the lab he had encouraged to be built. Now he and his colleagues must discover the sceret behind this alien lifeform before it escapes and wreaks havoc over the world.

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Another very good thriller by Crichton, this time it's about airline safety. I really liked this book, it's suspenseful and it will really make you think.

Cruising 35,000 feet above the earth, a twin-engine commercial jet encounters an accident that leaves 3 dead, 56 wounded, and the cabin in shambles. What happened? With a multi-billion-dollar company-saving deal on the line, Casey Singleton is sent by her hard-driving boss to uncover the mysterious circumstances that led to the disaster before more people die. But someone doesn't want her to find the truth.

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Robin Cook is an excellent author of medical suspense thrillers, and this book is no exception. As a medical doctor, he knows what he's talking about. This book explores a very interesting concept, that I found fascinating.

At a large Boston clinic, a world-class biologist stumbles upon a major scientific breakthrough. Soon, healthy, middle-aged patients are dying of old age. And the ultimate experiment in terror begins...

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This is the classic medical thriller. It was also the book that a movie was based on, a very good movie in my opinion.

The book that put Cook on the bestseller lists, Coma is the gripping story of patients who check into a hospital for "minor" surgery--and never wake up again...  

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Charles Martel is a brilliant cancer researcher who discovers that his own daughter is the victim of leukemia. The cause: a chemical plant conspiracy that not only promises to kill her, but will destroy him as a doctor and a man if he tries to fight it... 

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A research scientist discovers a mood-altering, enhancing drug and involves himself and other researchers in a deadly experiment. Blended with this story of greed and laboratories gone awry is a woman's relationship troubles and her increasingly troubled conviction that something has gone wrong.  

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A medical examiner in New York worried by some odd autopsy findings and a scientist in equatorial Africa performing genetic experiments that could dramatically alter life on earth are drawn together in Cook's latest medical thriller.  

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Newly divorced surgeon Dr. Kim Regis is determined to remain a good father to his only son, Selden. On a special night out, Kim takes Seldon to his favorite fast-food restaurant for a feast of burgers and fries. But the good time turns to tragedy: the young boy becomes gravely ill and dies as a result of poisoning by E. coli. bacteria found in the meat. Was Seldon's death a result of shoddy food-handling practices? Or was it a sophisticated case of product tampering by a rival fast-foot giant... 

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An alien spaceship drops thousands of tiny black disks onto Earth, and when unsuspecting humans touch them, they are injected with some kind of mysterious toxin. This toxin turns ordinary people into mindless zombies in a strange alien consciousness.

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I'm not sure if the movie by the same name was based on this book, but if it was, it was based only loosely. 

When a bizarre plague that attacks only physicians and their patients sweeps the country, Dr. Melissa Blumenthal discovers that sinister forces are behind the threat and finds her own life in deadly peril. 

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When not one but three different extremely rare diseases kill several patients at a New York hospital, forensic pathologist Jack Stapleton suspects it's more than just coincidence. He thinks there's a connection between the appearance of the mysterious microbes responsible for the deaths and the HMO that owns the hospital--the same HMO that once destroyed his flourishing medical practice. Is Americare deliberately killing off its sickest patients--those who cost the most money to treat? Or is there an even more sinister motive behind the strange goings-on at Manhattan General, not to mention the attempts on Jack's life? And what is beautiful Terese Hagen, the hard-driving creative director of a Madison Avenue ad agency, doing in the middle of this slightly muddled, but still engrossing, tale of greed, medicine, and mayhem? 

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The scientists aboard a research ship explore an undersea volcano to try to solve one of the most perplexing mysteries of geology. While exploring this volcano, a group of researchers and divers are sucked down into what they think is an extinct volcano. The world they discover under the Earth is far beyond anything they can imagine.

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Although I really don't like Stephen King a whole lot, this is one of the few works of his that I like. This version is a special uncut edition that contains text that was cut from the original version.

A terrible biological weapon engineered by the government escapes a lab and kills 99.6% of the human population on Earth. The few remaining survivors gather together to rebuild society. This gathering of people will eventually lead to an apocalyptic struggle between good and evil.

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