War of the Worlds remains very worthwhile imo - the vivid descriptions of the effects (physical and psychological) of Martian weaponry are eerily prescient of both the blitzkrieg of WW2 and its shock-and-awe descendants today.
Nonfiction is also where my brain went with Systems Thrillers! I read a lot of history, and while I have some pet peeves with the current trend for narrative history (there's an annoying, very common tendency to describe what people of the past *might have felt* or *could have thought* as if it were fact) there are lots of fantastic books in that style. Adrian Tinniswood's 'The Rainborowes' certainly has an air of the apocalyptic, following a single family, on both sides of the Atlantic, through the political and social turmoil of the English Civil War. William Dalrymple's 'The Anarchy', about the disintegration of the Mughal Empire and the rise of the East India Company, is less narrative but has a lot of fascinating recurring characters, given voice by Indian chronicles of the time. Would highly recommend both!
War of the Worlds remains very worthwhile imo - the vivid descriptions of the effects (physical and psychological) of Martian weaponry are eerily prescient of both the blitzkrieg of WW2 and its shock-and-awe descendants today.
Nonfiction is also where my brain went with Systems Thrillers! I read a lot of history, and while I have some pet peeves with the current trend for narrative history (there's an annoying, very common tendency to describe what people of the past *might have felt* or *could have thought* as if it were fact) there are lots of fantastic books in that style. Adrian Tinniswood's 'The Rainborowes' certainly has an air of the apocalyptic, following a single family, on both sides of the Atlantic, through the political and social turmoil of the English Civil War. William Dalrymple's 'The Anarchy', about the disintegration of the Mughal Empire and the rise of the East India Company, is less narrative but has a lot of fascinating recurring characters, given voice by Indian chronicles of the time. Would highly recommend both!