Lately it seems that this is the decade of movie remakes and reboots. It’s as if some uncreative person was like “hey, all the ideas have already been done.  That gives me an idea! Let’s remake old ideas that sold well.”

Can you imagine anyone doing that in the publishing world? They’d get torn apart!  But here’s my reading list for the summer of the reboot:

1. The Lord of the Rings by Patrick Rothfus,  

‘I have a ring stolen with a riddle in the dark, and a magic sword from a troll-hoard. I have seen the eye of Sauron and left with both my sanity and my life. I tread paths through Mordor that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to rangers, broken curses, and done things that made a king kneel before me. My name is Frodo. You may have heard of me.’

2. The Martian Chronicles by Andy Weir,

‘Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars, a place of hope, dreams and metaphor-of crystal pillars and fossil seas-where a fine dust settles on the great, empty cities of a silently destroyed civilization.

After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate without him, Mark finds himself as the first space invader, come to despoil and commercialize, to grow and to learn -first a trickle, then a torrent, rushing from a world with no future toward a promise of tomorrow.

Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts comfort and familiarity, enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race the Earthman conquers Mars ... and then is conquered by it.’

3. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, (he’s the one who originally wrote it, it’s just due for a reread)

‘In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut--young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.’

4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

‘According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact, to make way for a galactic freeway. With the Vogons bringing in their massive construction ships everything is going according to plan, until a somewhat fussy Arthur Dent and friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, hitch a ride off the planet.’

5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (and Ice): Book 1 by George R. R. Martin (now a trilogy, oops I mean a quadrilogy… Wait, no it’s now a pentilogy. Darn he died before finishing it ala Robert Jordan.)

‘Harry Potter thinks he is an ordinary boy, whose parents were both strip naked, paraded about the village streets and beheaded in the town square before the infant’s eyes. Raised by his evil aunt and uncle, he his forced to live the life of an indentured servant – until one day an owl arrives with white wings and dark words: VOLDEMORT IS COMING!  His captors attempt to stop him from running away to Hogwarts by breaking both his legs, but when the half-giant Haggrid arrives with a special saddle built just for Harry, they know it too late to stop Harry from becoming A WIZARD!’

Praise for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (and Ice): 

“This book is just torture porn, I would never read it to my children, but my mistress loves it!” 

“George R. R. Martin’s first book in the visionary retelling of Harry Potter, ends just beyond chapter 2 of J.K. Rowling’s version. Finishing it may take the rest of my lifetime, not to mention Martin’s”

-Tyler McNamara