Bioshock: Rapture by John Shirley

Combination video game novelization and dystopian parody of Atlas Shrugged in which a new civilization is built that doesn't turn out quite as awesome as expected.

This book is a prequel to the BioShock video games, which I have not played.  It begins with wealthy capitalist, Andrew Ryan, recruiting people to populate his wonderful, new, underwater, capitalist paradise called Rapture and apparently bridges the descent of Rapture from perfect society to the setting of the horror games.

Warning, some spoilers will follow.

World War Z by Max Brooks

An oral history of the zombie war. World War Z is a series of interviews with survivors of a recent zombie near-apocalypse from all over the world. It's set in the reasonably near future, several years after zombies almost destroyed humanity.


This might be my favorite single book I've ever read. I've read it several times and it's definitely one I get more out of each reading. There are intricacies I failed to pick up on the first time around! It's supposed to be a sequel to the Zombie Survival Guide sort of, but it's totally different. I don't recommend the Zombie Survival Guide, it's not entertaining much it's just what it sounds like: suggestions on how to survive zombies!