Omar El Akkad
Goodreads Author
Born
Cairo, Egypt
Website
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Member Since
March 2017
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American War
59 editions
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published
2017
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What Strange Paradise
20 editions
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published
2021
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A People's Future of the United States: Speculative Fiction from 25 Extraordinary Writers
by
8 editions
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published
2019
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Guantanamo Voices: True Accounts from the World’s Most Infamous Prison
by
3 editions
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published
2020
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The Annotated Arabian Nights: Tales from 1001 Nights (The Annotated Books)
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The World As We Knew It: Dispatches From a Changing Climate
by
3 editions
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published
2022
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Terraform: Watch/Worlds/Burn
by
7 editions
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published
2022
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WHAT STRANGE PARADISE
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What Strange Paradise: A Novel
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Riverbed
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Omar’s Recent Updates
Omar Akkad
is now friends with
Barry Becker
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“It seemed sensible to crave safety, to crave shelter from the bombs and the Birds and the daily depravity of war. But somewhere deep in her mind an idea had begun to fester-perhaps the longing for safety was itself just another kind of violence-a violence of cowardice, silence, submission. What was safety, anyway, but the sound of a bomb falling on someone else's home?”
― American War
― American War
“This country has a long history of defining its generations by the conflicts that should have killed them.”
― American War
― American War
Polls
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Please vote only for a book you will read (or re-read if you've read it) and return to discuss if it wins. Happy voting!
Borne by Jeff VanderMeer
2017, 336 pages, 3.9 stars
$9.99 Kindle, print from $5.64, at library
2017, 336 pages, 3.9 stars
$9.99 Kindle, print from $5.64, at library
"In a ruined, nameless city of the future, a woman named Rachel, who makes her living as a scavenger, finds a creature she names “Borne” entangled in the fur of Mord, a gigantic, despotic bear. Mord once prowled the corridors of the biotech organization known as the Company, which lies at the outskirts of the city, until he was experimented on, grew large, learned to fly and broke free. Driven insane by his torture at the Company, Mord terrorizes the city even as he provides sustenance for scavengers like Rachel.
At first, Borne looks like nothing at all—just a green lump that might be a Company discard. The Company, although severely damaged, is rumoured to still make creatures and send them to distant places that have not yet suffered Collapse.
Borne somehow reminds Rachel of the island nation of her birth, now long lost to rising seas. She feels an attachment she resents; attachments are traps, and in this world any weakness can kill you. Yet when she takes Borne to her subterranean sanctuary, the Balcony Cliffs, Rachel convinces her lover, Wick, not to render Borne down to raw genetic material for the drugs he sells—she cannot break that bond.
Wick is a special kind of supplier, because the drug dealers in the city don’t sell the usual things. They sell tiny creatures that can be swallowed or stuck in the ear, and that release powerful memories of other people’s happier times or pull out forgotten memories from the user’s own mind—or just produce beautiful visions that provide escape from the barren, craterous landscapes of the city.
Against his better judgment, out of affection for Rachel or perhaps some other impulse, Wick respects her decision. Rachel, meanwhile, despite her loyalty to Wick, knows he has kept secrets from her. Searching his apartment, she finds a burnt, unreadable journal titled “Mord,” a cryptic reference to the Magician (a rival drug dealer) and evidence that Wick has planned the layout of the Balcony Cliffs to match the blueprint of the Company building. What is he hiding? Why won’t he tell her about what happened when he worked for the Company?"
American War by Omar El Akkad
2017, 384 pages, 3.82 stars
$11.99 Kindle, cheap used print, at library
2017, 384 pages, 3.82 stars
$11.99 Kindle, cheap used print, at library
"An audacious and powerful debut novel: a second American Civil War, a devastating plague, and one family caught deep in the middle a story that asks what might happen if America were to turn its most devastating policies and deadly weapons upon itself.
Sarat Chestnut, born in Louisiana, is only six when the Second American Civil War breaks out in 2074. But even she knows that oil is outlawed, that Louisiana is half underwater, and that unmanned drones fill the sky. When her father is killed and her family is forced into Camp Patience for displaced persons, she begins to grow up shaped by her particular time and place. But not everyone at Camp Patience is who they claim to be. Eventually Sarat is befriended by a mysterious functionary, under whose influence she is turned into a deadly instrument of war. The decisions that she makes will have tremendous consequences not just for Sarat but for her family and her country, rippling through generations of strangers and kin alike."
The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
1969, 327 pages, 3.88 stars
$9.99 Kindle, cheap used print, at library
1969, 327 pages, 3.88 stars
$9.99 Kindle, cheap used print, at library
"AThe United States government is given a warning by the pre-eminent biophysicists in the country: current sterilization procedures applied to returning space probes may be inadequate to guarantee uncontaminated re-entry to the atmosphere. Two years later, seventeen satellites are sent into the outer fringes of space to collect organisms and dust for study. One of them falls to earth, landing in a desolate area of Arizona. Twelve miles from the landing site, in the town of Piedmont, a shocking discovery is made: the streets are littered with the dead bodies of the town's inhabitants, as if they dropped dead in their tracks."
The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
2018, 431 pages, 4.33 stars
$9.99 Kindle, paper from $7.77, *may* be at library (it's fairly new)
2018, 431 pages, 4.33 stars
$9.99 Kindle, paper from $7.77, *may* be at library (it's fairly new)
"A meteor decimates the U.S. government and paves the way for a climate cataclysm that will eventually render the earth inhospitable to humanity. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated timeline in the earth’s efforts to colonize space, as well as an unprecedented opportunity for a much larger share of humanity to take part.
One of these new entrants in the space race is Elma York, whose experience as a WASP pilot and mathematician earns her a place in the International Aerospace Coalition’s attempts to put man on the moon. But with so many skilled and experienced women pilots and scientists involved with the program, it doesn’t take long before Elma begins to wonder why they can’t go into space, too—aside from some pesky barriers like thousands of years of history and a host of expectations about the proper place of the fairer sex. And yet, Elma’s drive to become the first Lady Astronaut is so strong that even the most dearly held conventions may not stand a chance."
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
1969, 275 pages, 4.07 stars
$6.99 Kindle, cheap used print, at library
1969, 275 pages, 4.07 stars
$6.99 Kindle, cheap used print, at library
"It took Vonnegut more than 20 years to put his Dresden experiences into words. He explained, "there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again." Slaughterhouse Five is a powerful novel incorporating a number of genres. Only those who have fought in wars can say whether it represents the experience well. However, what the novel does do is invite the reader to look at the absurdity of war. Human versus human, hedonist politicians pressing buttons and ordering millions to their deaths all for ideologies many cannot even comprehend. Flicking between the US, 1940's Germany and Tralfamadore, Vonnegut's semi- autobiographical protagonist Billy Pilgrim finds himself very lost. One minute he is being viewed as a specimen in a Tralfamadorian Zoo, the next he is wandering a post-apocalyptic city looking for corpses. Slaughterhouse Five-Or The Children's Crusade A Duty-Dance with Death is a remarkable blend of black humour, irony, the truth and the absurd. The author regards his work a "failure", millions of readers do not. Released the same time bombs were falling on South East Asia, this title caused controversy and awakening. Essential reading for all. So it goes. —Jon Smith"
Topics Mentioning This Author
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