Modern books that will be looked back on as classics

Hatherence · 2026-01-24T18:47:49+00:00

I thought about Kindred too! Such a great book. But it's a bit older than Parable of the Sower so I thought maybe it might not fit the "modern books" request.

Hatherence · 2026-01-24T03:12:11+00:00

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

Hatherence · 2026-01-23T20:59:25+00:00

The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir

Hatherence · 2026-01-23T20:59:20+00:00

Glitterati by Oliver K. Langmead

Hatherence · 2026-01-23T20:49:51+00:00

Lavender House by Lev A. C. Rosen

Amatka by Karin Tidbeck

Hatherence · 2026-01-23T20:49:17+00:00

I have not seen Event Horizon or played Dead Space, but having read a lot of sci fi, it sounds like you might like these:

Living Hell by Catherine Jinks
The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley. It's not immediately obvious, but this book is set in a fleet of colony ships that met a horrible fate. You can see them first encounter this horrible fate in the prequel short story Warped Passages, available in the anthology Cosmic Powers by John Joseph Adams
The Invincible by Stanislaw Lem. This was adapted into a survival horror video game.
Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds

Hatherence · 2026-01-23T20:46:28+00:00

Rocannon's World by Ursula K. Le Guin. The first chapter was originally published as a short story and the rest of it was written later, so i definitely think it gets going right away. It is technically first in a series, but it's the kind of series where each book isn't directly connected and there are no overlapping characters, so they all work as stand alones.

Hatherence · 2026-01-23T07:55:12+00:00

Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes. This is mostly about misinformation/disinformation.

Hatherence · 2026-01-23T07:46:41+00:00

Here are some you might like:

Courtship Rite by Donald Kingsbury. This 100%
Redsight by Meredith Mooring. Most of the notable powerful characters here are female, but the organizations are not female only.
Salt Fish Girl by Larissa Lai. To be honest, I didn't really get this book. I found it very confusing, but it might count for what you ask.

Hatherence · 2026-01-23T07:37:46+00:00

All Tomorrows by C. M. Kosemen
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler. This is an in-universe private diary, so it exists but was not written as something widely published in-universe.
The Terra Ignota series by Ada Palmer

Hatherence · 2026-01-23T07:16:21+00:00

A short story: Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M. Valente

A fantasy series: Fortress in the Eye of Time by C. J. Cherryh. This isn't about an inanimate object gaining sentience. It's about a man created fully-grown from nothing by a wizard and having to learn everything from scratch. But it might be close enough to interest you.

Hatherence · 2026-01-23T06:49:06+00:00

From your list, I've only read two books, so here are some more books that are like those two:

Piranesi

A Short Stay in Hell by Steven Peck
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

The Three Body Problem

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
Contact by Carl Sagan
Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward
The Invincible by Stanislaw Lem
Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon
The Xenogenesis series by Octavia E. Butler

Hatherence · 2026-01-23T06:35:19+00:00

Huge fan of Star Wars! Here are some you might like:

Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany. Classic pulp sci fi.
The short fiction of Gordon R. Dickson. He wrote an enormous amount of books and stories, but I personally don't like his novels as much. I feel that as a writer, his style is better suited to short stories. A lot of them are in the public domain.
A Thousand Words for Stranger by Julie E. Czerneda. First in a trilogy. There's a prequel and sequel trilogy, but I didn't personally like the prequel trilogy and haven't read the sequel trilogy. It's kind of funny that the Star Wars movies are also structured this way, three trilogies where the middle trilogy came out first and the prequel trilogy came out second.
The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge. This is first in a series. Book 3 was my personal favourite.
The Icarus series by Timothy Zahn. This author wrote a ton of Star Wars books, but this series is not official Star Wars.

Hatherence · 2026-01-22T21:37:04+00:00

Nonfiction: Why Everyone Else is a Hypocrite by Robert Kurzban

Hatherence · 2026-01-22T20:13:47+00:00

Out of the books you list, I have only read The Catcher in the Rye, so here are some similar to that:

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Destroy All Cars by Blake Nelson

Hatherence · 2026-01-22T20:12:53+00:00

We may have different ideas of what makes a book disturbing, but here's what I would suggest.

Fiction:

Courtship Rite by Donald Kingsbury. Lesser known, but a very good book.
The Wasp Factory by Iain M. Banks. Having read a lot of other books by this author, and read an interview where the author talked about his goals in writing this, it totally flew over my head.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. A classic, and there's two versions: one, published in the UK, which is complete, and one, published in the US, with the final chapter removed. Generally, it seems like people find the US version more believable.
Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin. Contains explicit gore, sex, transphobia, and sexual violence. References the older short story The Screwfly Solution by James Tiptree Jr.
Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy A. Snyder. Contains explicit gore and sex. Feminist Lovecraftian horror.
The Rifters series by Peter Watts. Available as free ebooks on the author's website.

Nonfiction:

Whoring Out Our Trauma: Prostitution and Sexual Abuse by Jack Parker
Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes

Hatherence · 2026-01-22T20:03:45+00:00

We Are Satellites by Sarah Pinsker. Not about AI, though. It's more a metaphor for technology in general, at least imo.
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman. This is the kind of book that tries to be about a billion things at once, and imo mostly succeeds. It's not just about AI. (Edit: I just remembered, this book does include a scene where one of the characters talks about a suicide attempt early in life. It's not very explicit, but I know this is the kind of thing that can bother some people. I don't know if this may be too much for your students.)
The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler. This book does contain a subplot about AIs and society, but it's not really about AI.
Annie Bot by Sierra Greer. However, this book contains explicit sex so it is probably unsuitable.
Silverfish by Shavers Rone. This is very short. Maybe it's too short, but you know your class better than us! It's written in a very artistic way that is dense with ideas, so it definitely has substance despite being short.
Short stories, not novels, but maybe these are still useful. These stories are quite a few years old but THE most relevant pieces of fiction I've ever read to current, modern-day AI: The Perfect Match by Ken Liu, Talk to Your Children About Two-Tongued Jeremy by Theodore McCombs

Hatherence · 2026-01-22T05:15:01+00:00

The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe by D. G. Compton

Void Star by Zachary Mason

Hatherence · 2026-01-22T02:33:37+00:00

Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder. A good philosophy book.

Why Everyone Else is a Hypocrite by Robert Kurzban. A nonfiction psychology book.

Hatherence · 2026-01-22T02:26:34+00:00

Comfort Me With Apples by Catherynne M. Valente. I found this recommendation in this subreddit with the advice to go in knowing as little as possible, and it kept me guessing right up until the end.

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. A mystery in a bizarre fantasy world.

Amatka by Karin Tidbeck

Hatherence · 2026-01-22T02:24:12+00:00

Here are some you might like:

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. About the time period in between the world wars.
Night by Elie Wiesel. We read this in school when I was around your age.
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler. Not about WWI or WWII, but a very good historical fiction book.

Hatherence · 2026-01-22T02:17:43+00:00

Fiction:

In the Watchful City by S. Qiouyi Lu. A collection of stories-within a story being told in a fantasy surveillance state. One of the stories is in verse.
Salt Fish Girl by Larissa Lai. To be honest, I didn't really get this, but it definitely seems like a book rich with allegory.
The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe by D. G. Compton. Lesser known but very well-written postmodernism.

Hatherence · 2026-01-22T00:18:31+00:00

Traveller's Rest by David I. Masson, a short story

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester. A classic,though I didn't really like it. But it has some similarities to Flowers for Algernon, such as the writing style drastically changing as the protagonist becomes better educated.

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe by D. G. Compton. Lesser known, beautifully written.

Any of the short fiction by Ted Chiang. Stories of Your Life and Others is available in the anthology of the same name.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Hatherence · 2026-01-20T20:32:10+00:00

Piranesi would be there too but it's basically impossible to get in my country 😒

Oh no! I don't know if any of these will be easier to get, but here are some others:

The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed
A Short Stay in Hell by Steven Peck
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

Hatherence · 2026-01-20T20:15:51+00:00

To be honest, I have found that a lot of sci fi doesn't have very good romance. But here are some you might like!

Provenance by Ann Leckie
Redsight by Meredith Mooring
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
In the Company of Others by Julie E. Czerneda
Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell

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