Science fiction

Doctor Who: Shada: The Lost Adventure by Douglas Adams, by Gareth Roberts. Drawn from one of Douglas Adams’s never-completed and never-aired episodes of Doctor Who, this story focuses on a megalomaniacal moral theologian. For anyone familiar with the show, it will be no spoiler to say that the entire universe is in danger as a result—and that the doctor saves the day. Whether you are a Doctor Who fan or a Douglas Adams fan, you will appreciate this long-lost story.

Existence, by David Brin. Brin explores the social and political impact of technologies that erode privacy and foster interactions that live up to the term global village. Against this background, humanity has its “first contact” with an artifact produced by a nonhuman source. The drama raises questions about whether species and civilizations are doomed to be short-lived, and if so, what it would take for humanity to beat the odds. Religious traditions and motifs are woven into the exploration.

Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas, by John Scalzi. The title of this homage to science-fiction television refers to those crimson-clad security guards in Star Trek who never seem to survive their first trip to an alien world. A few minor crewmen on a starship bearing more than a passing resemblance to the Enterprise begin to suspect that there’s a conspiracy behind the demise of their lower-ranking colleagues. The novel begins as a comedy but becomes a moving exploration of what it means to write, read, watch and care about fictional characters. No one is expendable, the novel argues—even extras have a story of their own.