One thing I get a lot of are review copies of various business books. A very few are worth the read, although mostly I like the case studies for learning about business and technology history, rather than the lessons they necessarily teach. Most books are a chapter of advice with a whole lot of additional junk thrown in to make it book thickness.
There are exceptions, of course, and we’ll occasionally review a business book here on TechCrunch either because it is exceptional or because it provides unique historical insights. But my advice for most entrepreneurs is to ignore most business books. Reading too many of them will only confuse you anyway, since so many of them have conflicting advice on how to grow your company, or how to be a better manager, or how to get more done by working less. Most of the really successful people I’ve met certainly don’t read them – they’ve forged their own path to winning.
If you really want to stoke your imagination, spend all those hours reading science fiction instead. Every good entrepreneur needs a certain amount of imagination to envision the future. Science fiction books tend to keep the imaginative juices flowing. And the better ones have moral or other life lessons that are a lot more fun to read entwined with the drama of an unfolding story that involves spaceships, time travel or other worlds.
Here are a few of my favorite science fiction books, and what I learned from them (they are roughly in my favorite order):
Dune (Frank Herbert, 1965): 20,000 years in the future, a noble family leaves pleasant planet for hopeless desert planet called Dune at order of emperor. Tragedy ensues, but the son fulfills his destiny to become a great and powerful leader. This is my favorite all time science fiction book by a long stretch. Besides giving us an incredibly rich and varied view of an interstellar empire, Herbert has a lot to say about leadership, heroism and strategy in crisis. Dune is the kind of book you really don’t want to end. Herbert wrote five sequels: Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse Dune. Skip the 1984 movie though, it didn’t do the book justice.
Foundation Trilogy (Isaac Asimov, 1951-1953) These three books are a small part of what’s now called the Foundation Series, but they’re the best in my opinion and can be read on their own. I read these when I was very young and plan on hitting them again soon. It’s a massive story, covering a thousand years of galactic empire meltdown far in Earth’s future. The key plot line is that a group of scientists become able to predict the future, given very large population numbers, and seeing the bleakness that’s coming they decide to preserve what’s known of art, science, and technology and begin a new empire. It’s massively entertaining and has had a tremendous impact on science fiction writers ever since (for example, the Encyclopedia Glactica in the Foundation Trilogy is humorously mentioned in HitchHiker’s Guide To The Galaxy: “In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitchhiker’s Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly cheaper; and second, it has the words “DON’T PANIC” inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.” A key takeaway from the novel, besides the importance of guessing the future: resource constraints are actually a competitive advantage. Those with less do more with it, which also explains why so many startups shoot ahead of huge, well capitalized companies and essentially perform their R&D for them before they are acquired (or become disruptive and take the top spot).
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams, 1978-2001): Not sure what you’ll learn from HHGTTG, but it’s one of the funniest series of books of all time and if you haven’t read it you pretty much have to. It’s actually a five book series that’s called a trilogy, and if Adams hadn’t died of a heart attack at age 49 in 2001 there would have likely been more books written. HHGTTG and the WWII epic Catch-22 are among my favorite books when contemplating the meaninglessness and hilarity of life (HHGTTG begins with the Earth being destroyed to to make way for a hyperspatial express route). Like Dune, skip the movie, it doesn’t do the books justice.
Anathem (Neal Stephenson, 2008): I read Anathem about six months ago when it was first released. Neal Stephenson is another author where I drop everything and read whatever he’s published as soon as possible. I’ve read all of his books: The Big U (his first book), Zodiac (eco-thriller), Snow Crash (world chaos, envisions a future Internet called the Multiverse), The Diamond Age (nanotech), Cryptonomicon (cryptography, computer history), and The Baroque Cycle (historical). Anathem is completely new and deals with an imaginary world where monk-like mathematicians have segmented themselves from the rest of society, mostly ignoring their wars and other petty issues. The avouts occasionally venture out from their sanctuaries to mingle with everyone else. Besides creating an entirely new vocabulary and writing a beautiful story, Stephenson also shows how even large problems can be overcome with intelligence, if you have enough time on your hands. Just don’t give up on the book early, it gets better and better as it goes on. And when you’re done, go read everything else he’s written.
The Wasp Factory (Iain Banks, 1984): A creepy book narrated by the 16-year old protagonist Frank Cauldhame. It’s not really science fiction but it was Banks’ first novel and well worth the read, and he has become a giant of science fiction since. Make sure to read all of his Culture novels that may very well lay out the future of humanity. Humans and computers live together harmoniously in a vast galactic empire. Computers are vastly more intelligent than people and treat them with a sort of paternalistic compassion. Whole planets are created to allow larger populations, and people are genetically modified to look however they want. They also tend to live for as many centuries as they like until they get bored and off themselves. These books are very entertaining, and the scope of imagination needed to create this universe is staggering. I highly recommend reading the Wasp Factory and then jumping into the Culture novels. You won’t be unhappy you did so.
Stranger in a Strange Land (Robert Heinlein, 1961): Valentine Michael Smith is a human raised by Martians on Mars, orphaned when the crew of a human expedition to the planet died. He comes back to Earth as an adult when a subsequent expedition finds him. He is initially weak because of the high gravity of Earth, but recovers. He’s superhuman and psychic, and teaches these skills to others. Just about everyone in power on Earth wants him and his followers dead. In addition to being an absolutely great book, Heinlein also coined the term grok for the first time in the novel. He also invented the notion of the waterbed in the novel.
Frankenstein (Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, 1818): Shelley wrote this book as a teenager, and most of us read it in high school. Often credited as the first science fiction novel. You can read just about any political viewpoint you want into the book, and there are strong undertones that technology isn’t all good. But what I get out of it is the creativeness that can come with solitude, and how new technology can be misunderstood, even perhaps by the creator (see Twitter). Key thing to remember: Frankenstein is the name of the scientist/creator, not the Monster. Everybody forgets that.
There are, of course, many other great science fiction novels – these are just a few of my favorites. The point I want to make is that time spent reading books that make you think about what could be isn’t necessarily leisure – you may just get the juices flowing enough to come up with the next great product that just yesterday would have been considered science fiction itself. So get to work, people. And let me know what your favorites are, too.
Author’s note: If I do ever write a business book, and I may, don’t go pointing back to this post and criticizing me. I promise to make it as entertaining as possible.
Allow me to add another recommendation to that list: http://thedaemon.com/
There’s also another excellent book I think every entrepreneur should have on his/her bookshelf.
The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure by Prentiss
http://www.amaz...h/dp/0943015448
While it may not qualify as sci-fi it reflects on how most of the web 2.0 business models have come to existence. Please read responsibly.
Sorry, but that books only makes sense if you’re into pissing your pants while laying in your bad and waking up in your own vomit. Yeah exactly. So what’s on the menu?
Sign me up for the first copy of Arrington’s Art of the Start, if nothing else it will be entertaining.
Knowing Mike, it’s more likely to be titled Fart of the Start.
Knowing Berislav, this is expected.
dont forget to put Peter F. Hamilton in the mix!
“And how can this be? For he is the Kwisatz Haderach!”
WIN!
I don’t particularly agree that business owners shouldn’t read about business. They shouldn’t be followed word for word as you will receive conflicting information, but they can certainly spark ideas and open you up to different ways of doing things.
When you mention successful people you’ve talked to that don’t read books I can only assume they’ve learned in others however by going to seminars, having mentors, or for whatever reason just having good connections.
Books have such a low barrier to entry so if someone can’t be mentored, or afford to go to business events etc they can still get some insight into how successful people have reached their success previously.
Just my thoughts – hopefully they’re coherent. Probably not the best idea to debate when I’m half asleep.
I agree with you concerning Dune bit strongly disagree when it comes to Stranger in a Strange Land. It was not a great book, it is highly over-rated. I absolutely adore the majority of Heinlein’s work and would recommend all of his Future History stories and the posthumous Tramp Royale which was an aotobiographical account of his trip around the world.
Add anything by Larry Niven and EE Doc Smith too!
“Most books are a chapter of advice with a whole lot of additional junk thrown in to make it book thickness.”
Even a lot of the good ones are that way – often the concept is good, interesting, and perhaps even novel, but could be easily described in a few pages. That’s why summary sites exist for these books, like my own, Squeezed Books. Our twist on the genre is to make things completely open, rather than asking for people to pay for summaries, with the idea that we’d like to foster discussion of the books, as that adds a lot more value than simply reading a brief summary.
Not surprised to see we have a few favorites in common, although I had heard that Iain Banks doesn’t enjoy the stellar popularity in the USA that he does in the rest of the English speaking world. But then Silicon Valley isn’t much like the rest of the USA. Anyway, Another couple authors you would probably love are Charlie Stross and Ken MacLeod. They’re both on pmarca’s must read list: http://blog.pmarca.com/books/
Brilliant round-up of current sci-fi. Many thanks – I’ve just emailed that list to a bunch of friends. Think I’m about 70% of the way through it….
Thanks!
i actually don’t know anyone here that reads Banks. I first read him while working in London in 2001 at a friend’s advice, and went from there.
I tend to read only non-fiction these days but make an exception for everything that Banks writes, especially his science fiction. I started reading his work in the UK where he’s very popular, and was surprised when I moved to the US and nobody had heard of him. Friends here that I loan books to are usually converted! Start with “Consider Phlebas” and go from there.
There are only two books that I read over 3 times.
The holly bible and Banks The Wasp Factory.
I skip through the boring classics likes War and peace and Lord Jim simply because i know there’s always Banks I can turn to and get get a decent bang for the buck.
I’d have to agree with everything on this list – although it’s a bit of a ‘beginners guide’ to sci-fi. Add in Peter F. Hamilton, the Cormac novels of Neal Asher etc. and you’re humming.
I don’t really think a good sci-fi novel has to yield specific lessons (although I understand it makes a better post) as I think the stimulus it provides the imagination is enough. Also, the desire to replicate the extraordinary imagination of the authors in your own endeavours.
However, if you’re going to add in one book that I think has some pretty profound messages and advice on life, the universe and everything (particularly it’s harshness, and coming to terms with it) I think you’d HAVE to include ‘Ender’s Game’, the extraordinary book by Orson Scott Card. Right – no more recommendations, promise!
I’d say Michael’s list is 90% an overlap with mine (sci-fi only, obviously) — i’d add Ender’s Game series as well, and the rest is that 10% we all have as personal faves.
Must be a different Encyclopedia Galactica, no? And why am I asking questions about the publishers of fictionial galactic encyclopedias?
Hi Mike, great to see another science-fiction fan out there!
Definitely have a look the below if you get a chance:
Richard K. Morgan – Altered Carbon (all his stuff is great but AC is a good introduction)
Neal Asher – The Skinner
Alastair Reynolds – Revelation Space (Chasm city and the prefect are also awesome books)
Charles Stross – Singularity Sky (Halting State is another stand out book)
I have being trying to get into Anathem, but keep putting it down. Will have to take your advice and dedicate some time to getting in to it.
…and don’t forget Accelerando from Stross.
Yeah, add Richard Morgan to this list – I like everything he’s written, including Market Forces (seems relevant these days).
Iain Banks Matter is great – but I hated Wasp Factory.
I like about half of Alastair Reynolds books.
Yeah Dune <3 *.
“Most books are a chapter of advice with a whole lot of additional junk thrown in to make it book thickness.”
lol, sharp observation
I actually liked the first half of Anathem a lot more than the second half, because of the growing sense of wonder as more of the world is progressively revealed to you. It was definitely inspiring to see the example of the avout sitting there with their chalkboards, focused purely on the pursuit of knowledge and intentionally distant from the outside world. Although it was a little disappointing to find out that some of the concents were a little more worldly.
John Brunner – The Shockwave Rider (1975)
Before the books Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy was a radio play. Originally carried on BBC and repeated here in America on NPR in1980. The radio play is even better. Imagine the difference between watching Monty Python and reading the script. If your a fan of the books look for the radio play.
I agree with the author, neither the TV version or the movie was very good.
One of your best posts and most are my favorites as well.
You are missing one of my childhood favorites – no Arther C Clarke? I would add Childhood’s End and Rendezvous with Rama.
Great post. More literature and fewer purple cows!
I remember getting much inspiration from true science-based fiction. Jules Verne anyone? Creating modern tools from scratch and ore. Tom Clancy’s style is quite interesting. The net force series, for example.
The venerable Star Trek?
Time travel, entomology fiction (think “Honey I shrunk the kids, but different), robotics nightmares – I read countless volumes of those stories.
Don’t forget the really old Sci-fi shows set in our time frame.
Then there’s always the dark fantasy genre to really trip your mind.
Try books by Michael Moorcock, for example.
Thou shalt not start the Holy Wars. Thou shall not fail to mention Star Wars.
Stranger in a Strange Land is one of my favorite all time books.
I am surprised there was no mention of Foundation. It only won the Hugo award for best series *ever*. (Though I think they only gave it to Foundation over Lord of the Rings because they wanted to do something ‘different’. Still, Foundation is a great series.)
Foundation was the second one mentioned.
I’d throw into the mix Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End, which, imho, is likely one of the closest approximations of the near-future to crop up in recent fiction http://en.wikip...ki/Rainbows_End
As well, any business person landing in a managerial role ought to read Ender’s Game as some real insight into leadership. http://en.wikip...iki/Enders_game
I agree with the others, Ender’s Game must be on this list.
Also, I think the Foundation Trilogy beats the pants out of Dune.
Don’t forget about Cory Doctorow’s books, most of which are also available under a Creative Commons licence. Can’t get much more “low barrier” than that. =]
Thanks for the list. love it.
Philip K Dick, a master of opening the human mind, and inspiration for:
Blade Runner
Total Recall
A Scanner Darkly
Minority Report
http://en.wikip.../Philip_K._Dick
I love all these… If anything I think the HHGTTG teaches you to not take it so seriously and that the journey is the enjoyment and marvel (ridiculously absurd among other things). Things happen without any real logic and the more you force your logic the more there’ll be forces acting against you.
You should be interested to know that a deal has been made, with the approval of Douglas Adams’s widow, to have a final HITCHHIKER’S volume written (completed from the author’s outline and partial) by Jasper Fforde, author of the “Tuesday Next” novels. The first of those is called THE EYRE AFFAIR. Perhaps an odd choice but we shall see.
John Douglas
42
Why don’t you put up a list of your favorite chili recipes ?
You forgot to include Obama’s current budget: now THAT is “science fiction” at its most outrageous!!!
+1 to Enger’s Game. Otherwise, great list!
If you only like reading the case studies in business books, why don’t you just write a book that’s all about tech case studies?
An interesting concept here – and something similar to what I’m developing at my blog – Texas Holdem Investing.
Michael proposes reading Sci-Fi to learn innovation rather than reading business books about how to be an entrepreneur.
Texas Holdem Investing proposes playing poker to learn investing rather than reading investing books.
I blogged about the subject in more detail at http://texashol...earn-investing/
Also, FWIW, here’s what I thought was another good link to a list of science fiction novels that “will change your life” – http://io9.com/...hange-your-life
That’s quite a top 100 but missing just one SF masterpiece”
Replay by Ken Grimwood
I bought the entire Dune series 2nd hand for about $20 a couple of years ago.
Best $20 I ever spent.
Although, the new stuff has nothing on the original trilogy.
I always found the relatively rare people who appreciate SF more imaginative and interesting. There are probably many more books which belong on the list, but two that definitely deserve special mention are:
Hyperion by Dan Simmons – Probably one of the most philosophical and thought provoking books ever written
Ringworld by Larry Niven – Utterly brilliant concepts and innovation
The Player of Games by Iain Banks is great too.
Snowcrash is a pretty good if you haven’t had a chance. Tons of great business tips in there.
Most science fiction depicts things that, while imaginable, don’t reflect any possible reality.
Anything written by Ayn Rand should fall into this category. Her characters are from another planet. Like the Bizarro Superman planet.
Check out Snow Crash. You won’t be disappointed.
The additions to your list suggested by other readers are pretty good ones. I would also recommend John Scalzi, Wil McCarthy, S.M. Stirling, David Brin and Harry Turtledove. That’s just for starters, of course. I followed the link to the list of Top 100 books and found that I agreed with most of it and have read almost all of them. Not much of a shock given I’ve been reading the genre since I was 8, if you don’t count the Scholastic Book Club even earlier. I was really pleased to see one of Clifford Simak’s books on there. He deserves to be remembered.
Posts like this, and the suggestions in the comments are why I like the Sample feature on the Kindle. This gives me a whole bunch of first chapters to try before buying, with no need to leave the house or commit any cash. I might even try and tackle Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle again (had to stop in the middle of the first one because it uses 18th century English that was hard to read.
I second the Philip K. Dick recommendation, particularly The Man in the High Castle, Ubik, and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.
Other recommendations:
Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy
World War Z
Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere
Jonathan Barnes’ The Somnambulist
Jeanne Duprau’s City of Ember series
D’oh. Just realized that Stranger in a Strange Land and The Wasp Factory aren’t available on Kindle.
Some good picks in your list. I think the real story, though, is that most ‘business’ books are worthless garbage. I have colleagues who buy one b-book after another and then inflict the drivel they just ingested on the rest of us. Most b-books take a simple concept worth a few paragraphs and stretch it out into a tome. It’s interesting too that so many b-books dedicate much of their pages to telling us to ignore the hot b-book of last year.
If you can find it…the movie Bladerunner bought the rights to the title from a book by a surgeon named Alan E. Nourse. Supposedly the actual source for the name was a copy of a novella that was produced from a screenplay treatment of the novel by William Burroughs after no studio picked up on the treatment. A bladerunner was a black market provider of medical care for those who weren’t supposed to have it in the chaotic world following the Health Care riots. Think about it…
Great post. Great list. And great comments.
Agreed. Science/speculative when done right can be wildly imaginative and someone needs to do a “Everything I Learned about Business I Read in Science Fiction (And I’m not afraid to admit it).”
It’s interesting that no one mentioned any of the cyberpunk books – Gibson, Sterling, et al. – which are must-reads if you’re doing any type of technology or biotech development. Brunner’s Shockwave Rider and The Sheep Look Up are precursors to cyberpunk. (His Stand On Zanzibar takes the Burroughs’ cut-up technique, places it in an SF novel and invents NYC 2013
But yeah, great SF = great inspiration for business.
I pity people who read business books and have never read SF. They do not know what they are missing. The collected short stories of Asimov and Clarke have been my bedside reading for years!
I totally agree with Dune & Foundation. However, you may want to add A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley….it is a super treatment of a future society. And very disturbing for that.
Selling to the VITO – still seems to have the right message.
Am i the only one (in this crowd) that thinks anything by Neal Asher is simply superb? His inventiveness around alien biology and descriptions of AI are brilliant. He even throws in AI humour and it will make you laugh out loud.
http://www.amaz...amp;x=0&y=0
smallest of small changes to a superb post; instead of ‘entrepreneurs’, have ‘visionary founder’ or something. For it is the latter who have got overawed by all business gyan floating around, attempting to catch up to all it, so as to have ’success’ or funding or credibility. For other variety, ones with business degree, experience and or orientation, well they have always read, and continue to read business books. Sigh, even you concede to probably authoring one in future.
MarsCrunch would surely make for a worthy addition to modern sci-fi pantheon.
This list has a strong resemblance to my bookshelf. Great minds, and all that jazz.
And the few I haven’t read, I soon shall. I really enjoyed this post, sir!
While talking Iain Banks – don’t forget his blend of SF and business, funnily enough, entitled:
The Business.
One of my favourites – and also has some very nice tech in there as well.
Otherwise – Excession is just a masterpiece.