Books like Distress by Greg Egan

George Orwell’s dystopian classic 1984 explores the chilling power of totalitarian regimes, surveillance, and propaganda in a future society.

Neal Stephenson’s cyberpunk classic follows hacker Hiro as he confronts a deadly digital drug in a slick, future Metaverse full of hackers, virtual reality, and ancient Sumerian intrigue.

In a post‑alien‑invasion future, a diverse crew of highly modified humans and a resurrected ancient predator are sent to the edge of the solar system to make contact with unknown extraterrestrial intelligence.

After a life‑sav­ing cure, poet Robert Gu awakens in 2025 San Diego to a world of smart contact‑lens tech, low‑rent buildings that take on any form, and a digital age that reshapes reality. As he struggles to catch up, a conspiracy threatens the future—and only his granddaughter may hold the key.

Explore a future where a billionaire’s quest for immortality unleashes a reality‑bending, virtual world, challenging what it means to be human.

In Discworld’s Ankh-Morpork, reporter William de Worde battles villains and the press to uncover the truth about the city’s ruler, Lord Vetinari.

In a far‑future solar system where most humans live as conscious software or in robotic bodies, a genderless digital orphan discovers a cosmic threat that could erase the conscious minds and must gather knowledge to save all of humanity.

Zombies

When the universe is suddenly sealed off, a private investigator seeks a mentally disabled woman who may hold humanity’s key to escape.

Axiomatic is a collection of eighteen science‑fiction short stories that explore speculative ideas—from time‑travel communication and crystalline consciousness to body‑swapping experiments—each with a twist that blurs the line between mystery and mind‑bending science.

When a breakthrough in quantum optics allows people to see through walls and later look back in time, a new technology abolishes privacy forever and transforms what it means to be human.

In a near‑future South Texas where illegal commodities are anew, a quiet rancher is drawn into a surreal underworld of illicit foods and mythic power after an investigative journalist invites him to a forbidden feast.

Jake is a journalist in a post-World War II Berlin trying to solve the mystery of a murder and the disappearance of a scientist.

A principled Chinese-American reporter in New York pursues a career‑driven former wife whose literary ambitions betray her, risking career and life amid corruption and political intrigue.

In Boone Creek, North Carolina, skeptical journalist Jeremy Marsh becomes entangled with the granddaughter of a local psychic, blending romance and mystery in a small-town setting.

"FEEDBACK is a full-length Newsflesh novel which overlaps the events of Feed and covers the Presidential campaign from the perspective of reporters covering the Democrats side of the story. There are two sides to every story ... The year was 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beat the common cold. But in doing so we unleashed something horrifying and unstoppable. The infection spread leaving those afflicted with a single uncontrollable impulse: FEED. Now, twenty years after the Rising, a team of scrappy underdog reporters relentlessly pursue the truth while competing against the superstar Masons, surrounded by the infected, and facing more insidious forces working in the shadows."-- In 2014 we cured cancer, beat the common cold-- and unleashed an infection that unleashed an uncontrollable impulse to feed. Now, twenty years after the Rising, a team of scrappy underdog reporters relentlessly pursue the truth while competing against the superstar Masons. Surrounded by the infected, and facing more insidious forces working in the shadows, they hit the presidential campaign trail to uncover dangerous truths... or die trying.