Books from Barry Allen

Tomorrowland

New York Times, Wired, Atlantic Monthly, Discover bestselling author Steven Kotler has written extensively about those pivotal moments when science fiction became science fact…and fundamentally reshaped the world. Now he gathers the best of his best, updated and expanded upon, to guide readers on a mind-bending tour of the far frontier, and how these advances are radically transforming our lives. From the ways science and technology are fundamentally altering our bodies and our world (the world's first bionic soldier, the future of evolution) to those explosive collisions between science and culture (life extension and bioweapons), we're crossing moral and ethical lines we've never faced before.As Kotler writes, “Life is tricky sport—and that's the emotional core of this story, the real reason we can't put Pandora back in the box. When you strip everything else away, technology is nothing more than the promise of an easier tomorrow. It's the promise of hope. And how do you stop hope?”Join Kotler in this fascinating exploration of our incredible next: a deep dive into those future technologies happening now—and what it means to be a part of this brave new world.
Barry Allen
Scientist, Superhero
Post-apocalypse and dystopian stories are very popular right now, but we also need stories like this, full of optimism and hope and the promise of science.
Books from Barry Allen

The Multiversity

Now in paperback! The biggest adventure in DC's history is here! Join visionary writer Grant Morrison, today's most talented artists, and a cast of unforgettable heroes from 52 alternative Earths of the DC Multiverse! Prepare to meet the Vampire League of Earth-43, the Justice Riders of Earth-18, Superdemon, Doc Fate, the super-sons of Superman and Batman, the rampaging Retaliators of Earth-8, the Atomic Knights of Justice, Dino-Cop, Sister Miracle, Lady Quark, and the latest, greatest Super Hero of Earth-Prime- YOU! THE MULTIVERSITY is more than a multipart comic-book series. It's a cosmos spanning, soul-shaking experience that puts YOU on the frontline in the battle for all creation against the demonic destroyers known as the Gentry!Featuring artwork by Jim Lee (BATMAN- HUSH), Ivan Reis (JUSTICE LEAGUE), Frank Quitely (ALL-STAR SUPERMAN), Cameron Stewart (BATGIRL), Doug Mahnke (GREEN LANTERN) and many others, THE MULTIVERSITY tells an epic tale that span 52 Earths. Collects THE MULTIVERSITY #1 and 2, THE MULTIVERSITY GUIDEBOOK #1, and these MULTIVERSITY issues- THE SOCIETY OF SUPER-HEROES #1, THE JUST #1, PAX AMERICANA #1, THUNDERWORLD #1, MASTERMEN #1 and ULTRA COMICS #1.
Barry Allen
Scientist, Superhero
Barry Allen's first appearance in Showcase #4, 1956, showed him reading a comic book featuring the original 1940s Flash. This inspired him to take the name Flash when he got his super powers. He soon discovered the other Flash wasn't fictional. but real person fighting crime on an alternate Earth. Grant Morrison's epic The Multiversity takes this up to 11: every alternate Earth appears as a comic in some other alternate Earth, the comics holding the key to saving the multiverse from evil entities.
Books from Barry Allen

Act of Violence

Peaceful Mickleburgh is the perfect English market town - or so it seems. In fact, it is a perfectly constructed façade, having successfully hidden the secrets of its inhabitants for generations. But the casual murder of a man trying to prevent an act of vandalism shatters the genteel appearance. Parents are forced to consider whether their children could be involved, friends avoid each other's eyes, and partners word their conversations carefully. Somebody in the community is close to the murderer - someone with a past that threatens to resurface, bringing damage and devastation to a whole community.
Barry Allen
Scientist, Superhero
The first detective movie to prominently feature forensic science, it's essential viewing for police scientists, even if it's just to chuckle at how science has progressed since the 1950s.
Books from Barry Allen

The Time Machine

The Time Traveller, a mysterious and brilliant inventor, makes a journey to the year 802,701 AD. Earth is a lush paradise inhabited by two humanoid species—the Eloi and the Morlocks. But he soon realizes that this seeming utopia hides darker secrets. The Eloi are peaceful, but apathetic and frail; the monstrous Morlocks live underground and hunt the Eloi by night. This bleak glimpse of the future forces the Time Traveller to reexamine Victorian England's beliefs about progress and inequality. When the Morlocks steal his time machine, will the Time Traveller ever make it back to his own time? Written by British author H. G. Wells and first published in 1895, this is an unabridged version of the science fiction adventure that first introduced the concept of a time machine.
Barry Allen
Scientist, Superhero
The classic SF story about time travel, this is something you'd expect Barry to have read, but if he had, he would have realized much sooner that someone named H. Wells wasn't exactly from the present.
Books from Barry Allen

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

From a 5 Under 35 winner, comes a razor-sharp, hilarious, and touching story of a son searching for his father . . . through quantum space-time.Look for Charles Yu’s new novel, Interior Chinatown, available in January. Every day in Minor Universe 31 people get into time machines and try to change the past. That's where Charles Yu, time travel technician, steps in. He helps save people from themselves. Literally. When he's not taking client calls, Yu visits his mother and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. The key to locating his father may be found in a book. It's called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, and somewhere inside it is information that will help him. It may even save his life.
Barry Allen
Scientist, Superhero
This fun, imaginative, quirky novel involves time travel and parallel worlds, just like the Flash's stories. And considering how often Barry has interfered with his own past to try to make things better, this story of maintaining a stable time loop could teach him a thing or two about accepting one's mistakes and letting things go.
Books from Barry Allen

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Presenting 12 tales starring the legendary British detective Sherlock Holmes, this 1892 book is Arthur Conan Doyle's first short-story collection. The mystery compilation includes some of Holmes's finest cases with his dutiful sidekick, Doctor Watson, most notably "A Scandal in Bohemia," in which Holmes matches wits with the crafty former lover of a European king. Also featured is "The Adventure of the Red-Headed League," a study in misdirection that unfolds to become a much larger scheme. The stories, initially published in the Strand Magazine, are essential reading for Holmes fans.
Barry Allen
Scientist, Superhero
The classic standard for scientific detectives, how could a forensic scientist like Barry Allen not read the original Holmes adventures?
Books from Barry Allen

A Wrinkle in Time

Madeleine L'Engle's ground-breaking science fiction and fantasy classic, soon to be a major motion picture.It was a dark and stormy night; Meg Murry, her small brother Charles Wallace, and her mother had come down to the kitchen for a midnight snack when they were upset by the arrival of a most disturbing stranger."Wild nights are my glory," the unearthly stranger told them. "I just got caught in a downdraft and blown off course. Let me sit down for a moment, and then I'll be on my way. Speaking of ways, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract."A tesseract (in case the reader doesn't know) is a wrinkle in time. To tell more would rob the reader of the enjoyment of Miss L'Engle's unusual book. A Wrinkle in Time, winner of the Newbery Medal in 1963, is the story of the adventures in space and time of Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin O'Keefe (athlete, student, and one of the most popular boys in high school). They are in search of Meg's father, a scientist who disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government on the tesseract problem.A Wrinkle in Time is the winner of the 1963 Newbery Medal. It is the first book in The Time Quintet, which consists of A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time. A Wrinkle in Time is soon to be a movie from Disney, directed by Ava DuVernay, starring Storm Reid, Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling.This title has Common Core connections.Books by Madeleine L'EngleA Wrinkle in Time QuintetA Wrinkle in TimeA Wind in the DoorA Swiftly Tilting PlanetMany WatersAn Acceptable TimeA Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel by Madeleine L'Engle; adapted & illustrated by Hope LarsonIntergalactic P.S. 3 by Madeleine L'Engle; illustrated by Hope Larson: A standalone story set in the world of A Wrinkle in Time.The Austin Family ChroniclesMeet the Austins (Volume 1) The Moon by Night (Volume 2) The Young Unicorns (Volume 3)A Ring of Endless Light (Volume 4) A Newbery Honor book!Troubling a Star (Volume 5)The Polly O'Keefe booksThe Arm of the StarfishDragons in the WatersA House Like a LotusAnd Both Were YoungCamillaThe Joys of Love
Barry Allen
Scientist, Superhero
A timeless (sorry, not sorry) classic about traveling through time and space to fight evil. Even if someone like Barry Allen has already read this, it deserves a reread.
Books from Barry Allen

Physics of the Impossible

Teleportation, time machines, force fields, and interstellar space ships—the stuff of science fiction or potentially attainable future technologies? Inspired by the fantastic worlds of Star Trek, Star Wars, and Back to the Future, renowned theoretical physicist and bestselling author Michio Kaku takes an informed, serious, and often surprising look at what our current understanding of the universe's physical laws may permit in the near and distant future.Entertaining, informative, and imaginative, Physics of the Impossible probes the very limits of human ingenuity and scientific possibility.
Barry Allen
Scientist, Superhero
Noted physicist Kaku explains how far-out things like time travel, parallel universes, antimatter and anti-universes, and teleportation might work. Just the kind of physics the Flash regularly deals with.
Books from Barry Allen

The Physics of Superheroes

James Kakalios explores the scientific plausibility of the powers and feats of the most famous superheroes — and discovers that in many cases the comic writers got their science surprisingly right. Along the way he provides an engaging and witty commentary while introducing the lay reader to both classic and cutting-edge concepts in physics, including: What Superman’s strength can tell us about the Newtonian physics of force, mass, and acceleration How Iceman’s and Storm’s powers illustrate the principles of thermal dynamics The physics behind the death of Spider-Man’s girlfriend Gwen Stacy Why physics professors gone bad are the most dangerous evil geniuses!
Barry Allen
Scientist, Superhero
As a scientist as well as a superhero, Barry Allen is constantly experimenting with his powers and testing what he can do. This book, which addresses how super powers would work with our real world science, would be a great source for him. There's even a section that talks about the Flash's superspeed!