It’s a busy week with Convocation here at Ryerson University. I give five speeches alone to graduates on Wednesday. So this week I thought I would just offer some quick ideas for great reads in the Science Fiction/Fantasy genres.

I was inspired by Amazon’s 100 Science Fiction & Fantasy Books to Read in a Lifetime. Here I suggest only eight titles, in no particular order, which didn’t make that list.

1. The Postmortal by Drew Magary.  Aging is cured. People can choose to live forever. What could possibly go wrong?
2. Hounded by Kevin Hearne. An ancient druid who looks like a 20-something hipster, battles witches and Celtic gods with his talking dog in Arizona. Pure fun.
3. Soulless by Gail Carriger. Victorian manners meet vampires and werewolves. It’s as if Jane Austen wrote Twilight. Lord Akeldama is a riot and I could not put down the last half of it.
4. World War Z by Max Brooks. The novel is different from the movie and much better. WWZ is really a series of short stories with a zombie war as a central theme. It makes a nice change to see humans fighting back against the undead and winning.
5. Robopacalypse by Daniel H Wilson. People laugh when I tell them a book entitled “Robopacalypse” is amazingly good. It shares some themes with the Matrix and Terminator franchises, but Wilson’s brilliant writing leaps off the page.
6. The Martian by Andy Weir. It is getting cliché lately to say how good this novel is, but it is the truth. The movie is fairly similar to the book, but how can you not like a novel that opens on page 1 with the words:  “I’m fucked.”
7. Jupiter by Ben Bova. Great novel about the quest to find intelligent life deep in the oceans of Jupiter. Bova finds life everywhere in the solar system in his writings, and I recommend his Grand Tour series. I particularly liked Mars.
8. Children of the Mind, by Orson Scott Card. I don’t particularly jive with some of Card’s political views, but this sequel to Ender’s Game is absolutely exquisite. A bit longish, but exquisite, nevertheless.

Happy reading. I would love to hear you recommendations.

Anthony Bonato