66 Books Like Semiosis

This book is prophecy, power, and paranoia wrapped in a sandstorm.

It was the first book that showed me how deeply philosophy and politics could be embedded in a fantastical world. It taught me that “epic” doesn’t mean loud—it means legacy. I still marvel at Herbert’s precision—his control of tone, symbolism, and tension.

It’s the rare kind of book that makes you feel like you’re trespassing into something sacred and dangerous. Every time I return to it, I leave with something new—and a little unsettled.

This science fiction novel, written by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck under the pen name James S. A. Corey, was the beginning of the Expanse series (now totaling 9 novels and additional stories). It is one of the best space science fiction novels of the 21st century and became the basis for one of my favorite TV/streaming series, The Expanse.

The books dive deep into the political, social, and cultural complexities of sending humans to live on the Moon, Mars, and the asteroid belt, and it’s a nuanced reflection of our current ideas and ambitions when it comes to spaceflight. I am particularly drawn to the depiction of humans who, after multiple generations off Earth, consider their primary identity to be Martian.

Isaac Asimov rarely wrote about aliens, but this Hugo and Nebula award-winning novel contains an astounding thought experiment, not only imagining a truly alien species but placing them in a different universe with different physical laws from our own.

I first read this novel as a teenager and was blown away by Asimov’s ability to make me understand and care about the fate of such vastly different alien creatures that possessed three distinct sexes and derived their life energy from photosynthesis.

The fact that the novel inextricably links the fate of these creatures with the fate of our own universe gave me a greater appreciation of how truly diverse life can be. A fact–along with the lessons I learned from the other novels listed here–that continues to inform my own writing on aliens and alien cultures. 

I grew up with and write horror stories, so it’s very difficult for a book to unnerve me; this is one of the only books I can think of that earns the honor. It is half an ecological text and half a horror story, with its romantic prose balanced by intense natural research to create a surreal, unnerving description of the natural world.

This book made me hyper-aware of everything from the grass outside my window to the cells that make up my body, and I love how it uses both existential horror and the real, biological horror of being a living creature to leave a lasting unease. Are you aware you’re breathing? Can you feel your tongue in your mouth? Your heart’s nonstop beating? You can, now.

Admittedly, I had to re-read this novel a few times to comprehend the mystery, but it was well worth it. While the supernatural element was hard to grasp, the plot clicked right into place once I figured it out.

The main character’s confusion added to their story more than subtracted, which alone is a success to me as characters running around confused for half the book can be frustrating. But the scenario was essentially an isolated murder mystery done in a rather clever and unique way.

With a mystery that was so complex, I was worried the ending would be too convoluted for my liking. Yet, it concluded with the clues explained and were relevant to the final reveal, much to my satisfaction.

Like H.G. Wells, Wyndham is excellent at depicting normal people who are dealing with an unusual event in normal locations. This creates a level of reality that makes the circumstances more horrific. I could imagine myself in those places, with those people.

The Triffids have never translated well to the screen because the plants look awkward. This isn’t the case in the book. This is my favorite of all the Wyndham books because of their journeys and their descriptions of the landscape around them.

I rarely read young adult books, but Pure’s cover intrigued me. That’s good because it was a fun read.

Well-developed characters and a clever setting play a large part in the book’s charm. Pure takes place after a nuclear war. There are plenty of survivors, but the radiation left behind has a secret side effect never disclosed to the public: It causes flesh to merge with objects.

For instance, the main character has a doll for a hand. Her grampa has a fan stuck in his throat. Some people are fused with the ground. A group of mothers merged with their children. Adding to this, a giant dome hosts the last “pure” humans. While Pure relies on common young adult tropes, the result feels fresh and unique.

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.

A brilliant science fictional idea changes everything about the world, and in Tade Thompson’s Arthur C Clarke Award-winning Rosewater, where an alien dome has appeared in Nigeria and opens once a year to heal the sick, the world has been thrown dangerously off-kilter.

The murder-mystery is not a conventional one as our hero Kaaro, a human sensitive created by this alien intrusion and now government agent, is trying to figure out why those like him are suddenly dying. There are many strange science-fictional ideas driving this book, but it is Kaaro – a former thief trying his best to do good in difficult circumstances – that gives this book its wonderful heart.

I believed in and rooted for him even though he doesn’t ever seem to believe in himself.

This is a great gateway collection. In fact, this was one of the first anthologies of plant-related speculative stories that I read after falling in love with science-fictional plants. I jumped at it when I saw that it includes authors such as H. G. Wells and Algernon Blackwood and am glad I did. I have written about a number of the stories I met in this collection. Awesome extra: there are two other volumes in this series.