80 Books Like Night Train to Rigel

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.

After reading Ender’s Game, I didn’t expect Speaker for the Dead to change register so completely. New characters, new worlds, new species… almost nothing feels the same.

And yet, when you look closer, the core questions remain: how we communicate across difference, how quickly we judge, how often we interpret others through our own narrow lens. Suddenly, Lusitania doesn’t feel so alien after all.

This book was a very different reading experience for me. Deeper, more mature, and far more demanding. Beneath its often gray imagery, something universal emerges. I would call it “human,” but that would miss the point.

What Speaker teaches is precisely that love, friendship, life, death, and memory are not human concepts—they are fundamental to life itself.

I love a good space opera series, and Jenny Schwartz always delivers. I found her Adventures of a Xeno-Archaeologist series back in 2021.

Unlike many space operas, this series doesn’t depend on war and the military to drive its plot. While the military presence exists, the main thrust of the story involves Nora Devi, a solo exploration pilot searching deep space.

Brandon Sanderson hardly needs an introduction as one of the modern-day heavy hitters of sci-fi and fantasy. This book, though, has a wonderfully creative setting, with a world plagued by sunlight so intense it’s only livable in the thin band of twilight that preludes the dawn.

One of my favorite things about science fiction is when an author creates a fantastical world that has deeply impacted the shaping of its society, from the rulers to the rebels and everyone in between. Sanderson delivers on this front, and I love how integral its setting is to its plot and the development of its characters.

I’ve always thought the primary component that drives the perfect paranormal romance is great characters, and I think Nora Roberts kills it in this book. I love the two main characters, Sebastian Donovan, a powerful psychic coming from a family line of similarly gifted individuals, and his nemesis, love interest, private detective Mary Ellen Sutherland. In the grand tradition of hard-boiled detective types, she is skeptical and wants no part of his abilities, until she does.

I love the way Roberts slowly peels away layers of these characters to reveal sensitivities as they find themselves forced to work together to find a kidnapped child. And ultimately, they’re able to teach each other and evolve which I really love about this book.  

I was introduced to this book through Tavernier’s brilliant adaptation, Clean Slate (Coup de Torchon, 1981). Set in Texas, Thompson’s novel was published in 1964, during the Civil Rights Movement, and it offers a portrait of petty-minded racism in the continuing aftermath of slavery. Tavernier’s adaptation transposes the story to 1930s French colonial West Africa. I remain haunted by the ways the two settings illuminate each other. Tavernier’s blending of a deadly serious historical crisis with touches of comedy—slapstick even—brings both eras and the novel itself to life in enjoyable and instructive ways.

When federal judge Alex Sand and his two young sons are brutally murdered in their upscale St. Paul home, the shocking crime sends ripples through their affluent community. With a long list of potential enemies and a major charitable donation left in limbo, suspicion quickly turns to his devastated widow.

As the pressure mounts and both local police and the FBI find themselves at a standstill, seasoned investigators Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers are brought in to untangle the web of deceit. Known for their expertise, the duo meticulously explores every lead and theory, determined to uncover the truth behind the Sand family murders.

The narrative showcases the author’s skill in crafting intricate procedurals, where each twist and turn brings them closer to unraveling the mystery. Every book in the Davenport series could be included in this list, but I liked this one.

One of the great tragedies of the literary world is that Jim Thompson never achieved fame and fortune when he was alive. The NYC literati deemed his books and characters too uncouth and depraved for polite society. His books weren’t populated by well-dressed Robin Hood-type criminals, they were mostly just weak men who followed some good intentions down the road to hell. Frank “Dolly” Dillon epitomizes the Thompson character. An unhappily married door-to-door salesman, he intends to help an underage girl escape her aunt who is pimping her out and holding her captive. Of course, it all goes horribly wrong and ends with Dillon in a cheap hotel with the girl and lots of drugs. The last few pages are the most mind-blowing writing about using drugs I have ever read, even more, impressive since it was written in 1954.

The Getaway by Jim Thompson and the film directed by Sam Peckinpah is a gritty slice of noir and the classic story of a bank heist gone wrong. It’s a beautifully pulpy showcase for the twisted marriage of Doc and Carol, played by Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw with perfection in the film. It plunges you into the very core of moral ambiguity and the ending of the book is unexpected, sublime, and a sledgehammer to the head. A great first book and film to introduce a reader to noir styles.

Cynicism and fatalism drank heavily together in the hardboiled genre of the private detective novel, but no more so than in this mid-40s book. 

I think they even take refuge in the novel’s title: Build My Gallows High. It tells the embittered tale of Red Bailey, a guy in hiding from private detective work after being exploited by a powerful client and betrayed by the beautiful and manipulative woman Bailey loved. 

Bailey would never go back to those days—until he would. His ex-client finds him and blackmails him into searching for that woman, who was also once that powerful man’s lover.  

I love the way each of the three of them harbor conflicting ideas of how this story will end. That’s perfect—the book’s conflict and bile inspired the creation of what has long been one of the darkest and most celebrated of films noir, Out of the Past.