59 Books Like On Basilisk Station

This entire series was amazing. Okay, a few of the books were a bit slow, but overall, it was great. The new worlds, the political intrigue, everything about this story was great. There were histories that drove the characters that were only hinted at or mentioned in passing, but they brought life to them. Just like we are all shaped by our past, our countries, and our places in society, so are all the characters in this book.

My favorite character wasn’t Paul, though; it was Duncan Idaho. I was so sad when he was killed, but I was fascinated when they brought him back from the dead in the second book and others because Herbert made it so interesting. The bodyguard programmed, created even, to kill the one he once died to protect. Now, that’s some drama right there. 😊 

The twists, turns, and world-building were amazing. I learned… show more.

This is the best novel I’ve read about bubonic plague.

Student historian Kivrin travels back in time to England of the Middle Ages—unknowingly at the start of the Black Death. The cause of Black Death was the plague bacteria, unknown to people of that time.

What makes the book memorable is its depiction of everyday life, where children who get lost in the forest must find their way home by the tolling of the village church bell. Ultimately, the bell tolls for all the plague’s victims.

The vivid characterization makes me experience people of a time so distant their minds feel alien to us, yet still deeply human.

I like the psychological nature of this book. It pits human beings against an idea–a computer model of society. Having a degree in economics the concept particularly intrigued me.

It showed no matter how big and important we think we are there are forces outside of our control. This was one of the most innovative books I have read.

This book inspired my love of sci-fi romance. I adore the characters and the deceptively simple premise. Cordelia Naismith is a badass survey captain stranded on a wild planet with only her enemy, Aral Vorkosigan, known as The Butcher of Komarr, for company.

As they trek through the wilderness, Cordelia gets to know Aral and realizes her assumptions about him are all wrong. Originally published in 1986, this book launches the Vorkosigan Saga—my favorite sci-fi series. What I love about this book is how Bujold takes the time to let Cordelia and Aral get to know each other as people and bond on a deep emotional and intellectual level. They may be on opposite sides of a war, but they recognize the humanity in each other.

Shards of Honor and Barrayar form a duology within the wider Vorkosigan Saga, and starting with them both is the best way to become acquainted with the wider series universe and with the origins of Miles Vorkosigan. All of the later books refer back to events that happen in Barrayar, and one of the core conflicts of the novel is the struggle between the conservative isolationists who don’t want to integrate with the rest of the galaxy, and the liberal reformists who do. The political intrigue is extremely well done, and the adventure is superb.

I found this book, the first of four in the series, to be fascinating in its portrayal of a race of intelligent, upright-walking lions. Cherryh’s ability to invent believable and fully fleshed-out alien races is delightful.

In this series, humans are the aliens. I loved how Cherryh made the reader root for the lions and their strange but understandable culture. It's a great concept by a great writer.

This is the first in a long-running, action-packed science fiction series starring Miles Vorkosigan. He is brilliant, driven, ambitious, hyperactive, and neurotic. He also suffers from a chronic disability that makes him unfit for military service on his home planet. This is why he takes to the stars for a life of adventure and excitement under the pseudonym Miles Naismith, Admiral of the Dendarii Free Mercenaries.

This book is our introduction to Miles and shows the birth of the Naismith persona, and it is fabulous fun on every page. I devoured this series like potato chips.

I’m going old-school, back to one of the grandfathers of science fiction, Robert Heinlein.

Not only is his book a masterful example of character-driven storytelling, but it takes a critical eye to many of the things our current society takes for granted as being “true” and “right,” finding them wanting. It’s also been a huge influence on me in my writing, as have many of Heinlein’s other works, and I couldn’t not put it in here.

This is C.S. Forester’s famous naval hero Horatio Hornblower at his best. Captain Hornblower is in command of his first ship of the line. Forester knows ships from bowsprit to sternchasers and you can feel it in every word. There's a truth to the writing that puts you right down in the thick of it. Duty, skill and courage are on display throughout and the climax, when Captain Hornblower accepts an impossible task to protect his allies, and turns his ship to face three to one odds, knowing he cannot win? It’s a masterclass in writing a battle scene, sailors facing certain death with iron will. Nerve wracking doesn’t begin to cover it.

This is a masterpiece of the New Wave fantasy novels of the 1960s and 1970s. The hero, Dorian Hawkmoon, is a nobleman in the far future where science has become so advanced it is indistinguishable from magic. Hawkmoon is forced to work for his enemies by a magical jewel they embed in his forehead. Hawkmoon’s world is Europe, but hardly recognisable, and a vast empire with impossible super-technology is conquering the whole continent. It’s a story of heroism vs magic in a war where the technological wonders feel alien and familiar all at once. The evil empire of Granbretan, where everyone is continuously masked, is one of the most original of the trope that has ever been written.