8 Books Like Scoundrels

If you experience bouts of nostalgia for classic pulp sci-fi, you should read this.

While not all aspects of this 1950s book aged well, I love its style and its protagonist, “Slippery Jim” diGriz, for his ideological stance, which involves zero grand motives. He intentionally chooses the life of crime because he believes it’s public entertainment in an otherwise pristine system, but is ultimately out-conned and forced to catch other criminals for an organisation called Special Corps.

This makes for a fun journey.

Artemis feels underrated compared to Weir’s other books, but has his signature style—hard sci-fi delivered as amusing and accessible first-person banter.

It speculates on what life might look like in the Moon’s first city through the perspective of a brilliant yet somewhat selfish and immature female protagonist, Jaz, which only makes her more interesting to follow. She pulls off a dangerous, scientifically plausible heist and uncovers a hidden secret.

I listened to the audiobook, and Rosario Dawson’s narration was incredible.

Museum heists in space! But also so much more.

Maya is a former art thief who is asked to do one last job: steal a valuable artefact to help save an alien species from extinction. But while doing so, she may also condemn humanity. What emerges is a story about a touching friendship between two characters from different species and a varied found family.

I enjoyed the world building with its fascinating planets, species, and cultures, and the exploration of themes of cultural appropriation and anticolonialsm.

​​A con man with a quantum intellect assembles a team of other bizarre post-humans—including AI and genetically engineered characters—to pull off a heist that could start a galactic-scale war or help these new species find meaning.

I love that the book incorporates pretty complex elements, like quantum mechanics, genetic engineering, and unique societies with plausible far-future world-building, yet the heist story at the heart of it is fun, accessible, and occasionally humorous.

Good things normally happen when passion and talents combine. That’s certainly true of this book by Sean C. Jackson, an experienced maze creator and lifelong Star Wars fan. There are 30 lovingly illustrated mazes that take you through the Star Wars universe, from the Death Star to Jabba’s Palace and beyond. I love the style of the mazes, they are detailed and fun to look at, and while they live together as a family, Sean manages to add plenty of variation to keep young people engaged. Also, because the maze paths are depicted as roads and paths within each setting, it is very clear where you can and can’t go, an important consideration for a maze.

Not only do I absolutely adore this book, my own would not exist without it. Try to imagine just how complicated an undertaking it must be to convert the entirety of the Star Wars ‘Skywalker Saga’ into an in-universe journalist-style biography while still making it exciting, insightful, and readable.

Kristin Baver brings her real-world experience and background as a journalist and applies them to a fictional world in a way that lends it real gravitas. That’s why I love this book: It enhances your enjoyment and understanding of the films and, through its very existence, has paved the way for other ‘fictional nonfiction’ style books in the Star Wars franchise.

With only two books out (referencing Star Wars: A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back) the From a Certain Point of View books are brilliant. So brilliant. I can’t explain how much I love these books in one short paragraph. They are a collection of short stories written by dozens of authors who recall events in the films both big and small. Did you ever want to know who the guy is on Hoth who interrupts Han and Leia arguing? Well, now you do! With each story taking only about 20 minutes to read, they’re a perfect nighttime story that add such richness to the films we’ve all seen dozens, if not hundreds, of times.

I have used this book many times in courses on the history of monsters and on monster movies. Carrol is a philosopher, and the book is written with exacting clarity. It is primarily about the genre of horror, but as Carrol writes, “monsters are central to horror.” Therefore, the author sets out both to define the generally indefinable category of “monster” and to analyze how we respond to them when they appear in fictional narratives. If you’ve ever wondered why a werewolf is a monster but Chewbacca isn’t, this is the book to read!