2015 Reading Challenge

A novel of the future explores a world that has been devastated by ecological and scientific disasters.

The inspiration for Blade Runner. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was published in 1968. Grim and foreboding, even today it is a masterpiece ahead of its time. By 2021, the World War had killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remained coveted any living creature, and for people who couldn't afford one, companies built incredibly realistic simulacrae: horses, birds, cats, sheep. . . They...

Streetwise, tough, and savvy, Nick and his quick sarcasm are the stuff of legend... until the night when his best friends try to kill him. Saved by a mysterious warrior, Nick is sucked into the realm of the Dark-Hunters: immortal vampire slayers who risk everything to save humanity. With his fellow students turning into flesh-eating zombies, how can he stop them... without getting grounded by his mom?

In an ultraconservative America of the not-too-distant future when America has become a police state, the annual marathon is the ultimate sports competition. One hundred boys are selected each year to enter a grueling 450-mile marathon walk. The game is simple: maintain a steady walking pace of four miles per hour without stopping. Three warnings and you're out--permanently. The winner will be awarded whatever he wants for the rest of his life; but...

Told through a central character, Alex, the disturbing novel creates an alarming futuristic vision of violence, high technology, and authoritarianism. A modern classic of youthful violence and social redemption set in a dismal dystopia whereby a juvenile delinquent undergoes state-sponsored psychological rehabilitation for his aberrant behavior. Includes the controversial final chapter deleted from the first American edition and Burgess's introduction...

A monumentally devastating plague leaves only a few survivors who, in a desert world, experience dreams of good and evil in confrontation and, through their choices, move toward an actual confrontation. This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death. And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped...

In the summer of 1953, two 11-year-old boys--best friends--are playing in a Little League baseball game in New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball that kills his best friend's mother. Owen Meany believes he didn't hit the ball by accident. He believes he is God's instrument. What happens to Owen after 1953 is extraordinary and terrifying.

"The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow. When The Two River s is attacked by Trollocs--a savage tribe of half-men, half-beasts--five villagers flee that night into a world they barely imagined, with new dangers waiting in the shadows and...

A graphic novel that tells the story of how and why the Joker turned to a life of crime.

Set in a world in which history has been forever altered by the existence of superheroes, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' monumental graphic novel WATCHMEN is one of the most influential and critically acclaimed comic book series of all time. Following two generations of masked crime-fighters from the end of World War II to the height of the Cold War, this compelling tale unfolds from a simple murder mystery into an epic saga of power, corruption and...