Techno-Thrillers discussion

Post your nominees in this thread for the September 2025 Book of the Month.

We’ll do two polls, and have two selections for BOTM. I have two separate themes:
- The GOAT: The Greatest Of All Technothrillers
- The Apocalypse: Something wipes out the majority of humanity

All nominees:
- must be a techno-thriller
- must not be your own book
- must have at least 100,000 ratings

I don’t think I’ll always impose a “theme” for BOTM. I’m in a bit of a phase here, wanting two selections a month, that are fairly distinct from each other. I usually only require 1,000 ratings but for the themes this month, I want something legitimately popular, so 100K is the minimum.

I’ll go to a poll in a couple weeks. We’ll just do one poll on one category/theme at a time, not two at the same time. So you have some time to post your book nominees. First come first serve. If more than 5 people nominate, I take the first book (that fits the criteria) from the first five people. If less than 5 people nominate, I take the second nominee from the first person, and so on. Sometimes, no one else nominates a book, so all nominees ended up being mine. I prefer it to be a group effort. Please feel free to suggest books for the group. Please identify which theme or category you are nominating the book for, if it isn’t obvious from the title.

GOAT is just a theme for nominees. We’re not voting on our favorites or what we’ve already read that might be the GOAT. We always vote only for which book we actually want to read, or re-read, for the month. Don’t nominate a book if you don’t want to read/reread it.

Nominee for the GOAT theme:

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (2021)


My pick for the GOAT. You can see my full list here.
If you liked The Martian, you’ll probably like this. I think it is much better than The Martian. They are making movie coming out in March of 2026. It hit the fantastic “joy of reading” button a few times for me. Probably helped that I bought it day one and no one else had shared any thoughts to bias me.

It won the Hugo award, the Goodreads Best Sci-Fi of 2021, and an Audie award for best audiobook of 2022. I really liked the audiobook. There is a challenging character to convey this way, but they did what I thought was a good job. Took me by surprise. I wasn’t sure what to think and thought the narration for that character was maybe a little corny initially. It was embarrassing when my kids got in the car and heard this playing. They teased me. I didn’t care. It won me over and then some in the long run. I got my son to listen to it, and it is his favorite book of all time. Took some cajoling because he’d heard that character and teased me about it. He’s come full circle.

Nominee for the Apocalypse theme:

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks (2006)


As long as it has some sort of “scientific” basis/rationale (not just a fantasy), Earth is in the story (not a galaxy far away) … and makes your pulse surge at least once, we can call it a techno-thriller. What is the impact of this emerging technology or natural/scientific phenomenon? This pandemic thriller keeps a pretty high pace, perhaps exceeded only by Ice Station.

Nominee for the GOAT theme:

The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy (1984)


The book that popularized the genre from the techno-freak himself.

Nominee for the apocalypse theme:

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson (1954)



Just finished reading this. It’s somewhat different from the movie, and just interesting from its impact. Simpler. It does recast the bad horror beast of earlier books as not being some biblical devil’s scourge, but having a natural cause, which basically recasts it as a techno-thriller in my mind, and in doing so creates a whole new sub-genre. This was the inspiration for Night of the Living Dead.

We probably need Crichton in the GOAT conversation, so I'll submit: Jurassic Park

Nominee for the apocalypse theme:

The Stand by Stephen King (1978)

Nominee for apocalypse theme:

The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006)

This is a real stretch as a techno-thriller, as it feels like a drag more often though the pulse does pound at moments, and there is no technology per se. But, while it falls short on connecting the details of a science/technology cause to the effect, it is super strong on the effect … what would/might happen if “something” caused this situation. We usually prefer the details on the cause, but in this case, it is actually a feature that you don’t know what happened. You can’t waste calories second guessing the plausibility of it. And, the main thing is really exploring how do you stay motivated to move ahead and vigilant enough to avoid fatal risks in such a crushing, demoralizing situation. But he makes the connection to the mission and comes through with the deepest fatherly love. The stretch is there, but this is such an exceptional book that there is adequate award for the deviation, if you can handle the incessant, crushing adversity. Most frankly can’t deal with it, haven’t seen much adversity in their lives, can’t cope with the evil levels of it that Cormac traffics in, and prefer rainbows and happy fairytale or Hollywood endings. I don’t like the evil hell slogs he normally puts out. Blood Meridian and No Country for Old Men? Damn! But, it is counterbalanced by the good here, … the force of never-give-up I’ll-die-trying fatherly love.

Nominee for the GOAT theme:

Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy (1986)

What is Clancy at his best? Red October paved a new path, but the WW3 scope here was pretty damn amazingly large scale. And, he couldn’t get lost in a rabbit hole like Sum of All Fears, because there was too much surface area, … too many rabbit holes to explore them all. I used to say this was his best. I’m not sure any more. I can stand one more reread.

Nominee for apocalypse theme:

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham (1951)


Allegedly the inaugural book of the post-apocalypse genre.

Nominee for GOAT theme:

Contact by Carl Sagan (1985)

How would the world react if aliens made contact?