Here are 75 books that Mote Series fans have personally recommended once you finish the Mote Series series.
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I became hooked into science fiction as a kid the day I read an illustrated book of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. From then on, science fiction became an important part of my reading repertoire. Having wide-ranging interests, I enjoy military techno-thrillers, Anglo-French naval warfare, Greek/Egyptian/Roman mythology, most sciences, history of religions, with an occasional novel that strays from the norm and adds a sparkle to my reading. Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills are very close to my heart. Just shows that I’m different. After all, I must do something when I am not writing my own novels! Although I have an extensive library of modern science fiction works, I am fond of many oldies.
Set in man’s far future and vast in scope, I was plunged into this novel without managing to catch my breath. This is science fiction that epitomizes the best in the genre: a powerful story, strong characters, vast vision, and lots of drama.
It is a hard book to put down, and I did not want to! I enjoyed the intricate tapestry the story weaves and, importantly, entertains. The interaction between the main characters is vividly real, as are genuine emotions vented when it is revealed an alien species manipulated man’s development. I would be kind of sore at that as well. This novel left me appreciating powerful writing and gave me a lot to think about, influencing my own writing.
Pierson's puppeteers, strange, three-legged, two-headed aliens, have discovered an immense structure in a hitherto unexplored part of the universe. Frightened of meeting the builders of such a structure, the puppeteers set about assembling a team consisting of two humans, a puppeteer and a kzin, an alien not unlike an eight-foot-tall, red-furred cat, to explore it. The artefact is a vast circular ribbon of matter, some 180 million miles across, with a sun at its centre - the Ringworld. But the expedition goes disastrously wrong when the ship crashlands and its motley crew faces a trek across thousands of miles of…
My father wanted to be an astrophysicist, and as a kid I caught his passion for the future from the many science fiction books he’d left throughout our house. As an adult, the advances in technology have brought the future envisioned in those books closer than ever. My passion for what awaits us led me to write The Price of Safety, which contains innovations that are right around the corner—and have already started to come true (which is freaky), between Elon Musk’s cranial implants to DNA tracking. The world we live in is becoming more like the world in my books. I hope we’re ready!
The oldest book on the list, Lucifer’s Hammer seems to be an end-of-the-world tale. And it is to a degree: the world is forever altered after a comet enters the earth’s atmosphere and breaks apart, the huge pieces slamming into the West Coast.
It’s the aftermath, though, where things get interesting. How do people survive? How much of their humanity survives with them? This is the story Niven and Pournelle tell, with a level of realism that echoes people’s attitudes and actions witnessed during the COVID pandemic.
With a clash between rival forces leading to a showdown that dictates the survivors’ future, Lucifer’s Hammer has continued to resonate with me years after reading it.
“The first satisfying end-of-the-world novel in years . . . an ultimate one . . . massively entertaining.”—Cleveland Plain-Dealer
The gigantic comet had slammed into Earth, forging earthquakes a thousand times too powerful to measure on the Richter scale, tidal waves thousands of feet high. Cities were turned into oceans; oceans turned into steam. It was the beginning of a new Ice Age and the end of civilization.
But for the terrified men and women chance had saved, it was also the dawn of a new struggle for survival—a struggle more dangerous and challenging than any they had ever known.…
Science fiction for grownups not only means avoiding magic and supernatural elements but grounding the stories’ “what-ifs” in hard science and/or narrative anthropology. When we (readers) are invited to a story, we come with a willing suspension of disbelief, and I have as strong a suspension of disbelief as anyone—what if dinosaurs could be grown from ancient DNA, or what if an asteroid struck the earth? However, the ground rules of what-ifs should be laid out and should not include a sweeping suspension of the laws of physics, nature, and common sense. So, no hundred-and-ten-pound woman, with toothpick arms and dressed in cleavage-revealing spandex, beating up twelve burly guys.
I love Charles Sheffield’s good, hard science fiction. An astronomer and mathematician, Charles Sheffield, could craft plotlines supported by hard science like few others.
I'm drawn to his competent, realistic characters and the way his narratives create drama reminiscent of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Unfortunately, he passed away in 2002.
Jay Hara is an ordinary young man growing up on the isolated planet of Erin. But Jay dreams of adventure and escapades and the legend of the lost “Godspeed” drive which allowed humans to travel at faster-than-light speeds.
His life changes when he joins up with the seedy spacer, Paddy Enderton and Captain Daniel Shaker. Captain Shaker is a charming but ruthless adventurer who inspires both fear and admiration in equal measure, and he and his questionable crew are joined by Jay as they race to find the legendary drive Jay Hara used to dream about.
Science fiction for grownups not only means avoiding magic and supernatural elements but grounding the stories’ “what-ifs” in hard science and/or narrative anthropology. When we (readers) are invited to a story, we come with a willing suspension of disbelief, and I have as strong a suspension of disbelief as anyone—what if dinosaurs could be grown from ancient DNA, or what if an asteroid struck the earth? However, the ground rules of what-ifs should be laid out and should not include a sweeping suspension of the laws of physics, nature, and common sense. So, no hundred-and-ten-pound woman, with toothpick arms and dressed in cleavage-revealing spandex, beating up twelve burly guys.
I love anthropology, so what could be better than an alien anthropologist who visits 1350 Earth to study the Black Plague, hoping to find clues to help her civilization respond to a different plague?
Anthropological principles presented through narrative storytelling define science fiction for grownups.
In medieval Italy, Niccolucio, a young Florentine Carthusian monk, leads a devout life until the Black Death kills all of his brothers, leaving him alone and filled with doubt. Habidah, an anthropologist from an alien world racked by plague, is overwhelmed by the suffering. Unable to maintain her neutrality, she saves Niccolucio from the brink of death. Habidah discovers that neither her home's plague nor her assignment on Niccolucio's ravaged planet are as she's been led to believe. Suddenly the pair are drawn into a worlds-spanning conspiracy to topple an empire larger than the human imagination can contain.
Ever since reading Heir to the Empire (Timothy Zahn), I’ve been fascinated by science fiction stories with amazing characters and intriguing concepts. I love finding a new story, especially one that isn’t being talked about, and falling into that world. I still get lost in the worlds of the Deathgate Cycle and Rose of the Prophets because they introduced me to concepts and places I’d never imagined or thought to imagine before reading them. I crafted a world and characters both familiar and alien because of these influences and I’m still drawn to them when I start a new book no one is talking about, like those on this list.
From the moment I first began listening to the audiobook, I fell in love with this story. I was all in the moment Ryland Grace stumbled through answering the question “What is 2 plus 2?” The layering of the story, the threat to Earth concept, the educational presentation of very high-level scientific concepts to an audience of all ages, and the way Andy Weir made this reader feel so many emotions over a rock just keep drawing me back to it.
I literally just finished another listen less than a month ago and already want to go back to a story. I still don’t see many people talking about it. And the ending? Every story has its own perfect dismount landing, and this one nailed it.
Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.
All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.
His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through…
Whereas many seek out stories of human triumph and heroic deeds, I have always been captivated by stories that show humanity for what it is–a bastion of innovation and wonder but also a complex and ethically questionable force of nature. I began writing my book when I was twelve years old, and I immediately knew that my characters would not be one-sided, cast in light or shadow. Instead, they would love at times and hate others, try their hardest to do what is right, but sometimes end up doing more harm than good. Remember that a ‘hero’ is a product of perspective when reading these books.
This book takes everything amazing about the mystery genre and transposes it into an endlessly fascinating, well-developed sci-fi world. I was captivated by the web of interconnected plot lines, told from the perspectives of rich and multi-faceted characters throughout the entire story.
Specifically, the fact that all of their seemingly disconnected backstories converge to form the real picture of the story was masterfully done. Furthermore, the final reveal of the story was quite literally the only plot twist in fiction that has given me a verbal “oh my god” moment.
It was a massive inspiration for me and led to my love of a combination of morally gray mystery, sci-fi, and action adventure.
In this Hugo nominated science fiction thriller by Mur Lafferty, a crew of clones awakens aboard a space ship to find they're being hunted-and any one of them could be the killer.
Maria Arena awakens in a cloning vat streaked with drying blood. She has no memory of how she died. This is new; before, when she had awakened as a new clone, her first memory was of how she died.
Maria's vat is one of seven, each one holding the clone of a crew member of the starship Dormire, each clone waiting for its previous incarnation to die so…
I am a writer, author of the science fiction novel The Site, and a contributor to the website Internet Looks. During my work as an aerospace engineer and manager I participated in NASA and Department of Defense projects such as the International Space Station, the Space Shuttle, the Strategic Defense Initiative, and the USAF C-5A aircraft. I authored various aerospace system functional requirements documents and technical papers, and developed and taught courses in dynamic simulations, aerodynamics, and space vehicle guidance, navigation, and control. When writing fiction, I use my technical background, understanding of physical principles, and documentation to provide clear and concise descriptions and dialog for the reader.
I have the 1971 paperback printing of More Than Human, with the Robert Pepper cover art. The book has a special significance for me; although unrelated in plot, it has similarities to my book: it is science fiction, has an unusual structure, a complex timeline, deals with psychology, and features investigation and discovery. The fact that it was written in 1953, before the Internet, Earth satellites, personal computers, and cell phones, facilitates the reader’s attention to the rather complex story. Seven individuals, Lone, Janie, twins Bonnie and Beanie, Baby, Gerry, and Hip, are exemplars of inequality, with peculiar capabilities and shortcomings. The German word gestalt, meaning the forming of a pattern, describes how, together, they embody the next step in human evolution.
In this genre-bending novel—among the first to have launched sci-fi into the arena of literature—one of the great imaginers of the twentieth century tells a story as mind-blowing as any controlled substance and as affecting as a glimpse into a stranger's soul.
There's Lone, the simpleton who can hear other people's thoughts and make a man blow his brains out just by looking at him. There's Janie, who moves things without touching them, and there are the teleporting twins, who can travel ten feet or ten miles. There's Baby, who invented an antigravity engine while still in the cradle, and…
Growing up in Indiana and Illinois meant that Chicago has always been, for me, the city—the place where people went to make a name for themselves and took the world by storm. From my local Carnegie Library, I read voraciously across genres—history, science, literature. They transported me out of my small town—across the universe sometimes. I learned that setting in fiction was for me a major feature of my enjoyment, and Chicago was where I set my own mystery series. These books, when I read them, explored that grand metropolis—and brought Chicago to life on and off the page. I hope you enjoy these books as much as I have.
When I closed this book, I set it down and said, “Wow.” I really enjoy reading science books—the ones written for non-scientific folks like me…books by Michio Kaku and Brian Greene—and this one combines my love of thrillers and science in a fantastic way. Jason Dessen is kidnapped and begins a long journey to return home, but to do so, he visits many alternate versions of Chicago.
As every chapter ended, I wanted to continue reading to find out what happened to Jason and his family, to see some new version of Chicago, and to see how or if Jason succeeded. The novel kept surprising me, and Crouch played with the implications of some wild physics concepts.
'Brilliant. . . I think Blake Crouch just invented something new' - Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher series.
From Blake Crouch, the author of the bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy, Dark Matter is sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human - a relentlessly surprising thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we'll go to claim the lives we dream of, perfect for fans of Stranger Things and Ready Player One.
'Are you happy in your life?' Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. Before he awakes to find…
I became hooked into science fiction as a kid the day I read an illustrated book of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. From then on, science fiction became an important part of my reading repertoire. Having wide-ranging interests, I enjoy military techno-thrillers, Anglo-French naval warfare, Greek/Egyptian/Roman mythology, most sciences, history of religions, with an occasional novel that strays from the norm and adds a sparkle to my reading. Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills are very close to my heart. Just shows that I’m different. After all, I must do something when I am not writing my own novels! Although I have an extensive library of modern science fiction works, I am fond of many oldies.
This book epitomizes all the qualities a hard science fiction story should have, and which many fail to achieve. I found the theme enthralling - men turning themselves into gods, and the scenario frighteningly plausible.
I love this story because it deals with real characters and doesn’t spare their flaws. I sympathized with the main character, a man prepared to battle heaven for freedom, shunning the mantle of godhood. This novel not only entertained but also forced me to think, something I relished.
Once started, this work is difficult to put down and I nodded with satisfaction when I turned the last page.
Imagine a distant world where gods walk as men, but wield vast and hidden powers. Here they have made the stage on which they build a subtle pattern of alliance, love, and deadly enmity. Are they truly immortal? Who are these gods who rule the destiny of a teeming world?
Their names include Brahma, Kali, Krishna and also he who was called Buddha, the Lord of Light, but who now prefers to be known simply as Sam. The gradual unfolding of the story - how the colonization of another planet became a re-enactment of Eastern mythology - is one of…
I became hooked into science fiction as a kid the day I read an illustrated book of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. From then on, science fiction became an important part of my reading repertoire. Having wide-ranging interests, I enjoy military techno-thrillers, Anglo-French naval warfare, Greek/Egyptian/Roman mythology, most sciences, history of religions, with an occasional novel that strays from the norm and adds a sparkle to my reading. Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills are very close to my heart. Just shows that I’m different. After all, I must do something when I am not writing my own novels! Although I have an extensive library of modern science fiction works, I am fond of many oldies.
Told by a master storyteller I enjoy reading, this book grabbed me immediately and drew me inexorably into the main character’s life as an eternity technician.
Not a unique theme – man manipulating his future – but I liked the twist when all future is threatened for the love of one woman. I kept turning pages, wanting to know how my hero would reconcile forbidden love at the price of eternity’s end.
This is a thoughtful book that denied me peace until it ended. I liked the technical concepts revealed in the story and how they were woven into very human reactions. A lesson for our modern time?
A spellbinding novel set in the universe of Isaac Asimov’s classic Galactic Empire series and Foundation series
Due to circumstances within our control . . . tomorrow will be canceled.
The Eternals, the ruling class of the Future, had the power of life and death not only over every human being but over the very centuries into which they were born. Past, Present, and Future could be created or destroyed at will.
You had to be special to become an Eternal. Andrew Harlan was special. Until he committed the one unforgivable sin—falling in love.
