Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle is one of Tom's favorites. In it, Tim Hamner, an amateur astronomer, discovers a new comet! How exciting! Until his comet, "the hammer," actually hits Earth. The story turns survivalist, and then post-apocalyptic. With a wide range of characters and myriad intertwined storylines, Lucifer's Hammer is both a fun and complex read. So how does a story about cometary impact written in 1978 hold up in the 21st century? Let's find out!
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Lost Boys by Orson Scott Card is Tony's pick, and a first-read for Tom. This is one of those quietly unsettling novels that sneaks up on you. It starts out grounded, domestic, almost ordinary — a young family trying to navigate work, school, faith, and a son who doesn’t quite fit in. But as the pages turn, a slow, uneasy strangeness settles over everything, and the story becomes something far more haunting than it first appears.
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Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke is pure, distilled classic science fiction — wide-eyed wonder, cool-headed astronauts, and mysteries big enough to swallow a planet. This one looms large in both Tom and Tony’s memories as the benchmark for hard sci-fi done right.
A giant alien cylinder drifts into our solar system. Humanity pokes its nose inside. What we find is both awe-inspiring and maddeningly enigmatic. Clarke gives us a story that stops short of first contact… and somehow that makes it even better.
And are there parallels to the imaginings of Clarke and the reality of 3I/Atlas, the interstellar visiter even now approaching the Earth IRL? Join us and find out!
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Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton is a favorite of both Tom and Tony, and a real page-turner. Dinosaurs run amok in the 20th century... what's not to love? Join as as we scale the heights and plumb the depths of this fantastic story, and of course, poke fun at the things the film definitely got wrong.
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Conan the Barbarian is Robert E. Howard’s iconic swordslinger, the gold standard of sword-and-sorcery heroes. It’s hard to imagine a more quintessentially pulpy world than the one where Conan makes his living with steely thews, panther-like reflexes, and a well-documented appreciation for fair-skinned women in diaphanous gowns.
Young Tom kept these books on his shelf—dog-eared, tattered, and worn thin from countless rereadings. But will the tales still enchant young-at-heart Tom the same way today? Let’s find out.
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Among Others by Jo Walton is Tony's pick for this episode. This is the first Walton we've featured, which seems like a terrible oversight. What happens when you're a 15-year-old who lost your twin sister while stopping your insane witch mother from taking over the world? You run away, end up in a boarding school, and lose yourself in science fiction novels. At least, while the fairies don't need you.

In Conquest Born is the first novel by C.S.Friedman, one of Tom's favorite authors, and marks her fantastic appearance in the realm of published sci-fi. There are so many Big Ideas crammed into this book that it's hard to give a meaningful summary, but suffice to say it's mighty fine space opera.

Marooned in Realtime is Tony's pick, and wraps up our Vinge Binge for now. A first read for Tom, this is a direct sequel to The Peace War, set a mere 50 million years after those events.

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