Questions tagged [novel]

For questions about a book of long narrative in literary prose, in order to distinguish it from other types of story. Do NOT use this tag for every question which happens to be about a novel. Use to either identify the media on a [story-identification] question or disambiguate works where the tag covers the novel and its form in other media.

479 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
Filter by
Sorted by
Tagged with
46 votes
1 answer
3k views

Novel about an immortal man exposed by world government relates his life through history

I read the book from my local library in the early- to mid- seventies. It was hardcover (library bound) and the dust jacket had a printed burlap or canvas background. The back flap mentioned that the ...
ImaginaryEvents's user avatar
41 votes
0 answers
2k views

Humorous sci-fi book with a quirky space captain where everyone is turning into "glass"

I posted this question on another website, but I've yet to find the name of the book. I remember some very specific details, but nothing I can type into a search engine (I've tried). Here are the ...
Ron's user avatar
  • 613
34 votes
0 answers
878 views

Futuristic world where reality is humanity's plaything and God is in a zoo

This is a novel I read in 2015. It was an older book. The cover was black and hardcover. Don't remember any specific details. The book was in English. I believe it was from the 1980s or ‘90s. It was ...
Neo Darwin's user avatar
  • 3,160
27 votes
0 answers
482 views

Novel about a spacewoman who needs help finding a holographic recording to defend herself in court

This was a science fiction novel, written in English, which I read in hardcover. I checked it out from a public library around the late 1980s. I don't know how old this book was at the time, but it ...
Lorendiac's user avatar
  • 26.8k
26 votes
0 answers
887 views

Old SF novel about Earth as a prison planet; newly arrived convict has a secret agenda

I think I read this no later than the year 1986. English language, hardback, available in a public library in Indiana in the mid-1980s. I don't think it was by any of the Big Names of 20th Century ...
Lorendiac's user avatar
  • 26.8k
20 votes
0 answers
359 views

Sci-fi novel about a group of astronauts who discover a cylindrical world

In primary school there was a sci-fi novel that scared me into remembering it, I'm now looking to revisit it. This was about 19 years ago, and I estimate it to have been written in the 80's or very ...
Viktor Kock Appelgren's user avatar
20 votes
0 answers
396 views

WW2 airman is thawed out, and saves Earth from interplanetary invasion

I am trying to find the title and author of an extremely pulpy science fiction yarn. Unfortunately I do not know how the cover was - the version I had was secondhand, and in the vicissitudes of its ...
Clara Diaz Sanchez's user avatar
18 votes
0 answers
550 views

Space battle fleets, intergalactic elfs

This again from long ago, i think I read it in the seventies but maybe later. It was one of the first times I came across the concept of motherships and star carriers, before that space battles in ...
Danny Mc G's user avatar
  • 26.3k
17 votes
0 answers
387 views

70s? Novel. Spaceman in suspended animation wakes up in underground city/bunker

Paperback book, in English bought in USA in the 1970s. Spaceman in suspended animation wakes up in underground city/bunker. How he got there... I THINK he was a crewman on a spaceship, and was doing ...
NJohnny's user avatar
  • 11.3k
17 votes
0 answers
600 views

Looking for an erotic novel featuring a woman who is reborn over and over again until she can save her soulmate?

I'm looking for a book that I read maybe 2 years ago that I really enjoyed but have forgotten the title of. Here's what I remember: the initial romance takes place between a man and a woman in the ...
Jojoreads's user avatar
  • 179
16 votes
0 answers
249 views

Anthropologist and blind passenger investigate ancient temple on first manned expedition to alien planet

I read a sci-fi book about 4-6 years back, when I was about 15, and I'd like to reread it, but it was from the library and I can't remember the author or title, only pretty vague pieces of the plot. ...
jemand2001's user avatar
15 votes
0 answers
154 views

Old science fiction book about mutants / space opera

I'm looking for a novel series that I read in the end of 1990s. There are several novels in the series. Humanity left the Earth because of nuclear apocalypse. Humans inhabited several planets, but ...
mfritz's user avatar
  • 151
15 votes
0 answers
179 views

Book about a boy whose loved ones are possessed by a demon

About 8 years ago I read a book whose protagonist was an only child to a very poor but loving family. I think the setting was semi-modern, as the boy went to school and had school supplies like ...
Ynir's user avatar
  • 101
15 votes
0 answers
489 views

Science fiction novel that had an authoritarian society with rigid eugenics based on intelligence and artificial blood

I read this back in 1992-93. I'm trying to recall a novel that had an authoritarian society with rigid eugenics based on intelligence. I can't recall a great deal more except that the main male ...
Herbie W's user avatar
  • 117
15 votes
0 answers
577 views

Sci-fi novel where humans have a first encounter with 2 different alien species

Read this story many years ago in high school (around 2009), and it's been bugging me since. I can't say for sure when the book was published, but it feels recent (so the 90's or 00's). In the story, ...
FirstLastname's user avatar
14 votes
0 answers
306 views

Trying to find a book with a cube planet

I'm trying to rediscover a book I read as a preteen/young teen, early 2010s. Though I don't think it was new at the time. The plot I remember involves the protagonist (a young girl I think) and her ...
Abel1790's user avatar
  • 141
14 votes
0 answers
424 views

Book about wooden sailing ships with FTL

I read this book in the 1990s; I'm trying to remember the name. It seems like a the start of a series I'd like to read the rest of now. It's a space opera about humans traveling our galaxy with giant ...
nightstalker's user avatar
14 votes
0 answers
97 views

Post-alien war story about a young man searching for his younger siblings and some kind of fanatical Doomsday cult planning to end the world

I read this book in my school library a very long time back. Like around 2004 or something like that. Didn't get to finish the whole book through. But from what I could remember, Story takes place in ...
James Loyd's user avatar
14 votes
0 answers
275 views

Late 90s/Early 00s SF novel: android uprising, gay male protagonist recruited by his mother for a mission

I'm looking for a SF novel I started to read around 2004 (borrowed from a library in London). It might have been written in the late 90s or early 2000s. Can't remember anything about the title nor the ...
Alex San's user avatar
  • 141
14 votes
0 answers
956 views

SF Book about a princess from a magic world

I am trying to find a book I read many, many years ago. The book starts with a princess, from a world with magic, coming through a rift into our world, without magic. She discovers, however, that one ...
Carlos by Day's user avatar
13 votes
0 answers
167 views

Sun turns into red giant, Earth installs a time dilation field and heroes are stranded on Mars

I read this story in French around 1998 (no later than 2003) as a kid (I remember a big book.) The sun becomes a red giant (something to do with nuclear waste/bomb I think) and no way is found to stop ...
Claire's user avatar
  • 131
13 votes
0 answers
287 views

Dystopic Fiction with massive divide between rich and poor, kids are medicated to not rebel

I read a great SF novel about a future city where the divide between rich and poor and education was very stark, even more so than now. Kids in this high school took meals in pill form, were almost a ...
selena.canada's user avatar
13 votes
0 answers
205 views

Paperback YA novel where protagonists assume ghost's unfinished business is charity clothes drive

I read this somewhere in the 1990s, almost certainly as a Young Adult paperback, in English and in the United States. I might have gotten it from the library. There was a ghost that the main ...
FuzzyBoots's user avatar
  • 216k
13 votes
0 answers
461 views

Children raised collectively, girl taken to be translator for aliens

I read this book somewhere around 1996/97, probably on the earlier side, and I'd like to track it down. It was in the school library (Durban High School, South Africa), but for the policies of that ...
robbat2's user avatar
  • 231
12 votes
0 answers
187 views

Novel where single-atom blades bounce off from each other

A long while ago (5-10 years) I read a science fiction novel in which characters dueled with nanotechnology blades that are Sharpened to a Single Atom. One aspect I found interesting was that the ...
Adam Q's user avatar
  • 221
12 votes
0 answers
168 views

Sci-fi novel (c2000±10) of time differential universes

Trans-solar human society, consciousness download to mini-bots fighting bugs, a scientist & an autist in an asteroid (Ceres?), and alien invasion foiled by travel to a time differential universe.  ...
Charles Rockafellor's user avatar
12 votes
0 answers
336 views

Young boy dreams of alien planet that's drying up and its princess

The novel centers around many characters, the main one is a young boy, who when he dreams can see into another planet. On this planet is a princess, a young alien girl who he states has features that ...
ejiggy's user avatar
  • 121
11 votes
0 answers
143 views

Trying to remember an older planetary romance novel

I am trying to remember a book that I read fairly recently, although it was much older (from the 1970s at the latest). I probably found a copy of it online somewhere like the Internet Archive. It ...
Buzz's user avatar
  • 95.6k
11 votes
0 answers
247 views

Story Identification - Boy invites in a female ghost who was standing under a tree outside his house

This is probably a book (or story in an anthology) from the 80s (or very early 90s). The gist that I recall is that there's a brother and sister who see a woman standing under a tree outside their ...
amkingTRP's user avatar
  • 488
11 votes
0 answers
280 views

Sci-fi novel where mankind participates in combat that's like Ender's Game to prevent full scale war in a distant section of the galaxy

It's between 20 and 25 years ago that I read this hardback sci fi story. No cover details come to mind. Story details: Generations earlier, mankind made it to part of the galaxy many light years away....
Danny Mc G's user avatar
  • 26.3k
11 votes
0 answers
148 views

Looking for title about people trying to fix machinery on a planet or they die out

I'm looking for a science fiction book that I read back in high school during the 1980's. There was an alien race that colonized a planet and drove the natives away. The alien race constructed ...
wkl's user avatar
  • 111
11 votes
0 answers
164 views

Identifying a Wizard of Oz-esque children's novel

I read this (English, medium-length) novel about 8 or so years ago, though the copy I received seemed a good few years older. I am Australian, so there is a higher likelihood that it was an Australian ...
Ryan Moloney's user avatar
11 votes
0 answers
667 views

Book about humans fighting a losing war with aliens and setting a trap for them

In the stand-alone novel I read 1-2 years ago on Amazon, a young soldier (White) in armor (full body and super expensive) fights aliens on a planet. I think it is his home planet and he is familiar ...
Commander44's user avatar
10 votes
0 answers
141 views

Post-apocalyptic book involving a protagonist who needs antibiotics, and an underground colony

I read an excerpt of a book in one of those edited collections that pops up in school libraries, and I've been trying to find the book. It's been years and I've searched every forum, best of list, and ...
Chameleon's user avatar
  • 101
10 votes
0 answers
136 views

Sci-fi novel about a highly self-destructive race

I read a novel ~10-20 years ago, but it could be written many decades earlier. Since it was so long, I don't remember if it was a standalone book or a novel in a collection. I read a non-English ...
corey979's user avatar
  • 201
10 votes
0 answers
216 views

Story about a scientist turning people into plants

I read this children's book over 10 years ago (as a kid) and was super freaked out by it. From what I can remember, a scientist puts a chemical/solution into a town’s water supply which gradually ...
Adi's user avatar
  • 101
10 votes
0 answers
189 views

SF novel about a machine killing inhabitants because of not recognizing them because of data lost after magnetic storm

I'm looking for a Science Fiction novel I read in the early 2000's. In a dystopian city emptied of its inhabitants, a stranger arrives. He speaks with a resident, then is eliminated by a police ...
ivan7's user avatar
  • 101
10 votes
0 answers
164 views

Young adult novel about a girl who has false memories of a human childhood, but was stolen from the woods to be experimented on

I read this book when I was quite young, maybe 12 years old (2013). I remember it was about a girl who grew up in a futuristic society. This society’s government guards people from the woods/forest ...
Valeria Rios's user avatar
10 votes
0 answers
128 views

Medieval fantasy book: flat worlds, golden skins, eternal night and days

I am looking for a fantasy (medieval) book, for teenagers/young adults. Here is what I remember: In a world split in constant night and day part Nobody goes to the night part There are 'normal people'...
Nicolas's user avatar
  • 101
10 votes
0 answers
151 views

Horror novel from the 1990s involving vampires, the cult of Kali, and thuggees

I purchased this book second-hand in the late 90's, so it was probably published somewhere between 1989-1998. I'm basing this on the fact that the book was near new condition when I bought it. The ...
medusawink's user avatar
10 votes
0 answers
207 views

Identifying a near future Sci-fi novel where Rainforests are now a global treasure, with wars launched to take them over

I am looking for this book that I am trying to identify from memory: It is a sci-fi novel taking place in the near-future It was definitely printed before 2005, as I remembered borrowing it from my ...
Ronald's user avatar
  • 149
10 votes
0 answers
124 views

Title of novel: mass murderer, enshrouded planet, dead civilization, female military captain

I read this novel roughly about 25 years ago. What I remember is that the protagonist was a mass murderer and he ended up on a planet on which the civilization was gone, but their buildings and ...
D. Iannello's user avatar
10 votes
0 answers
208 views

Sci Fi book about a miner who worked in space

I bought a book from a Meijer grocery store in late 90's early 2000's. It was a sci fi book about a human miner that worked in space blasting up large meteors that were heading towards their space ...
Heather Matuszak's user avatar
10 votes
0 answers
179 views

Inventor of FTL drive is granted ownership of an Earthlike planet. Native species prevents destruction of life

I am looking for a Sci Fi book I read many years ago. The synopsis is as follows: A guy discovered FTL drive or something and would share the secret under one condition. He was to be granted ...
Mike Flowers's user avatar
10 votes
0 answers
346 views

Fantasy book about a boy who is a hybrid of angel (or elf) and human

The book is about a boy who comes to realize that his father is a dark angel/elf who used his mother to get a new elf/angel into the world. When he grew up, he was taken by a certain elf/angel, named ...
user avatar
10 votes
0 answers
215 views

Man from interplanetary tourism ring goes native, fights own people

I wonder if anyone knows this book that I read about 30 (possibly more) years ago: A race of people who have generated large wealth on their planet by running tourist operations on other planets. They ...
Dan's user avatar
  • 101
10 votes
0 answers
607 views

Story about a mental, emotional, and physical energy absorbing girl, with a romance subplot

The novel in question is about an Asian girl who attracts all types of energy towards her, even emotional. This is not good for her, because when she is filled up, she releases it as a big blast. ...
ambrose's user avatar
  • 117
10 votes
1 answer
221 views

Short story or novel set in a simulacrum of Christian Hell, populated by humans and non-human creatures

Identify the following short story or novel. I read the book in the 1990s in the German language. Very likely the book was published one or more decades earlier, a typical softcover Heyne or Bastei-...
daxim's user avatar
  • 531
9 votes
0 answers
121 views

Aliens exchange their dying sun for ours. Humans steal their ship and seek revenge

I'm looking for a book about aliens exchanging our sun with their dying sun (or some other sun). Humans must retreat underground to survive. Years later, aliens make contact and humans ambush them to ...
Richard Sundal's user avatar
9 votes
0 answers
104 views

Book about people who are taken through portals all over the world and wake up in a strange world

I read this book in 2019, it was a paperback and I believe the cover was green. It wasn't very thick. It starts with a man waking up in a forest and he finds others after that. They are attacked in a ...
Jeremiah's user avatar

1
2 3 4 5
10