Prime Reading: Forward
This month, while I was looking at the option for Amazon First Reads, I came across something new. I found Amazon Forward, which is free and available to everyone who has Amazon Prime.
What is it? Well, it’s a collection of short stories that look forward to the future. But, this future isn’t always as bright as one may hope. Here’s the thing, though, they’re by authors you will probably recognize.
Ark by Veronica Roth
On the eve of Earth’s destruction, a young scientist discovers something too precious to lose, in a story of cataclysm and hope by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Divergent trilogy.
It’s only two weeks before an asteroid turns home to dust. Though most of Earth has already been evacuated, it’s Samantha’s job to catalog plant samples for the survivors’ unknowable journey beyond. Preparing to stay behind and watch the world end, she makes a final human connection.
As certain doom hurtles nearer, the unexpected and beautiful potential for the future begins to flower.
Ark by Veronica Roth
Personally, I started with Veronica Roth’s Ark because I absolutely love her writing style. Not only that, but you get the audio narration for free also and it’s voiced by Evan Rachel Wood from Westworld, which I think is absolutely perfect.
Summer Frost by Blake Crouch
A video game developer becomes obsessed with a willful character in her new project, in a mind-bending exploration of what it means to be human by the New York Times bestselling author of Recursion.
Maxine was made to do one thing: die. Except the minor non-player character in the world Riley is building makes her own impossible decision—veering wildly off course and exploring the boundaries of the map. When the curious Riley extracts her code for closer examination, an emotional relationship develops between them. Soon Riley has all new plans for her spontaneous AI, including bringing Max into the real world. But what if Max has real-world plans of her own?
Summer Frost by Blake Crouch
Emergency Skin by N. K. Jemisin
What will become of our self-destructed planet? The answer shatters all expectations in this subversive speculation from the Hugo Award–winning author of the Broken Earth trilogy.
An explorer returns to gather information from a climate-ravaged Earth that his ancestors, and others among the planet’s finest, fled centuries ago. The mission comes with a warning: a graveyard world awaits him. But so do those left behind—hopeless and unbeautiful wastes of humanity who should have died out ages ago. After all this time, there’s no telling how they’ve devolved. Steel yourself, soldier. Get in. Get out. And try not to stare.
Emergency Skin by N. K. Jemisin
You Have Arrived At Your Destination by Amor Towles
Nature or nurture? Neither. Discover a bold new way to raise a child in this unsettling story of the near future by the New York Times bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow.
When Sam’s wife first tells him about Vitek, a twenty-first-century fertility lab, he sees it as the natural next step in trying to help their future child get a “leg up” in a competitive world. But the more Sam considers the lives that his child could lead, the more he begins to question his own relationships and the choices he has made in his life.
You Have Arrived At Your Destination by Amor Towles
Guess who narrated this one? David Harbour from Stranger Things! Truthfully, I’ll probably read this one next because I love him.
The Last Conversation by Paul Tremblay
What’s more frightening: Not knowing who you are? Or finding out? A Bram Stoker Award–winning author explores the answer in a chilling story about identity and human consciousness.
Imagine you’ve woken up in an unfamiliar room with no memory of who you are, how you got there, or where you were before. All you have is the disconnected voice of an attentive caretaker. Dr. Kuhn is there to help you—physically, emotionally, and psychologically. She’ll help you remember everything. She’ll make sure you reclaim your lost identity. Now answer one question: Are you sure you want to?
The Last Conversation by Paul Tremblay
Randomize by Andy Weir
In the near future, if Vegas games are ingeniously scam-proof, then the heists have to be too, in this imaginative and whip-smart story by the New York Times bestselling author of The Martian.
An IT whiz at the Babylon Casino is enlisted to upgrade security for the game of keno and its random-number generator. The new quantum computer system is foolproof. But someone on the inside is no fool. For once the odds may not favor the house—unless human ingenuity isn’t entirely a thing of the past.
Randomize by Andy Weir
I haven’t had the chance to finish them yet, but as soon as I do, you’ll get a book review!
If you want to grab Amazon Forward for yourself, click here.
Also, guess who has so many book reviews? This girl! Click here to check them out.
