Books like Clockwork worlds by Richard D. Erlich

Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune follows Paul Atreides as he rises from betrayed heir to the enigmatic Muad'Dib, guarding the precious spice melange that fuels galactic politics and extends life.

In the 29th century, humanity’s vast Hegemony spans dozens of worlds connected by farcaster portals, while the enigmatic Shrike guards the Time Tombs on the lone planet Hyperion. A diverse pilgrimage of chosen individuals must each recount why they were summoned to witness the tombs’ reverse time cycle.

Red Mars chronicles the early days of humanity’s colonization and political upheaval on Mars, blending environmental engineering, terraforming and nation‑building in a hard‑science vision.

Flynne, a young woman living in a drug‑reliant city, helps her veteran brother Burton test a new virtual reality game. When the beta test turns into a murder investigation, she discovers a deadly conspiracy that threatens her life.

Inspector Tyador Borlú journeys from Besźel to Ul Qoma to investigate the murder of a woman, navigating two distinct cities that both share one physical space yet have separate identities.

In a universe where time runs backward, a former religious leader is resurrected, returning to a world where people age in reverse and history is erased from memory.

A work of science‑fiction literature that examines the concept of time travel, the fourth dimension, and related theoretical issues.

"In Scraps of the Untainted Sky, Tom Moylan delivers a critical investigation of the history, aesthetics, and politics of dystopia. To situate this work, he recaps the methodological paradigm that developed within the interdisciplinary fields of science fiction studies and utopian studies as they grew out of the oppositional political culture of the 1960s and 1970s (the context that also produced the project of cultural studies). He then presents a new and comprehensive account of the textual structure and formal operations of the dystopian text. From there, he focuses on the science fictional dystopias that emerged in the context of the conservative restoration and corporate restructuring of the 1980s and 1990s, and he closely examines the "critical dystopias" of Kim Stanley Robinson, Octavia Butler, and Marge Piercy."--BOOK JACKET.

Erika Gottlieb’s study surveys thirty dystopian works from East and Central Europe (1920‑1991 USSR; 1948‑1989 Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia), illustrating how writers used the genre to witness and protest totalitarian violence.

A comprehensive exploration of time travel in fiction and its scientific foundations, suitable for readers with no background in physics but still rich in mathematical elements.

A reader's journey through the postmodern era of literature, from classics to cyberpunk sci-fi and beyond.