Here are 52 books that The Algebraist fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’ve always had a longstanding interest in space, and particularly in aliens. In researching my breakthrough novel Not Alone, I extensively read as much nonfiction content on the topic as I could find, including governmental-backed scenario analyses of how things might actually play out in a contact or invasion scenario. Naturally, I have also read widely in the sci-fi genre for my own pleasure, with most of my interest in this specific topic.
This was the first major alien arrival novel I read. I recall being awestruck by Arthur C. Clarke’s masterful mixing of incisive storytelling and a deep sense of grandeur.
The Overlords are hugely memorable, but it was the exploration of human identity that had the biggest effect on me. The story endures as a classic for a very good reason.
Arthur C. Clarke's classic in which he ponders humanity's future and possible evolution
When the silent spacecraft arrived and took the light from the world, no one knew what to expect. But, although the Overlords kept themselves hidden from man, they had come to unite a warring world and to offer an end to poverty and crime. When they finally showed themselves it was a shock, but one that humankind could now cope with, and an era of peace, prosperity and endless leisure began.
But the children of this utopia dream strange dreams of distant suns and alien planets, and…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
As an avid explorer having thrice traveled around the world, living and working in over 40 countries, my inspirations as so originally science fiction have found grounding. I looked to level my imagination in the real world and filtered out the impossible from the unnecessary on a path to utopia. Sharing our ideas, exposing misgivings too, all contribute to a shared realization of human potential. This is much of the reason for who I am as a founder of business platforms I designed to achieve things that I envisage as helpful, necessary, and constructive contributions to our world. Those software endeavours underway in 2022, and a longtime coming still, are Horoscorpio and De Democracy.
For the vastly impossible feat of presenting a sequel to a thoroughly immersive narrative, this did impress. The lead out of the original gives the feeling of the impossible and so it was delivered. Brokering A.C. Clarke's range of brilliance plus getting into the popular references of my youth, in the cyberpunk, virtual reality, corporate elite defining drama, aren't we all familiar with dystopia by now? Where or when does the apocalypse become inevitable and what are you steering towards there or then? I was awe-inspired by this handling of ethical uses of hyper-tech which is one I left up to my reader's imagination by the end of my own series. Whether imagined VR can ever become a coded reality, or if it's only ever going to be imagination, this is the challenge of the Age of Aquarius.
Days after winning OASIS founder James Halliday's contest, Wade Watts makes a discovery that changes everything.
Hidden within Halliday's vaults, waiting for his heir to find it, lies a technological advancement that will once again change the world and make the OASIS a thousand times more wondrous - and addictive - than even Wade dreamed possible.
With it comes a new riddle, and a new quest: a last Easter egg from Halliday, hinting at a mysterious prize.
And an unexpected, impossibly powerful, and dangerous new rival awaits, one who'll kill millions to get what he wants.
As an avid explorer having thrice traveled around the world, living and working in over 40 countries, my inspirations as so originally science fiction have found grounding. I looked to level my imagination in the real world and filtered out the impossible from the unnecessary on a path to utopia. Sharing our ideas, exposing misgivings too, all contribute to a shared realization of human potential. This is much of the reason for who I am as a founder of business platforms I designed to achieve things that I envisage as helpful, necessary, and constructive contributions to our world. Those software endeavours underway in 2022, and a longtime coming still, are Horoscorpio and De Democracy.
A galactic society with living ships! This pan-ultimate technological empire is so immense, I seized upon the concept for a sequel to my book regarding the symbiosis of human and machine. Joshua Calver's astro-archeological adventure was the most enjoyable for me. The idea of immersing in progenitor hyper-technological society's exciting, and forms the basis of RPGs such as Mass Effect. It's not entirely alien a concept either but based on the real history of Earth and its megalithic stone cut marvels, featuring precision cutting on either impossibly large building stones or delicate bowls.
The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton is the first in a sweeping galactic series, The Night's Dawn trilogy, from the master of space opera.
In AD 2600, the human race is finally realizing its potential. The galaxy's colonized planets host a multitude of diverse cultures. Genetic engineering has defeated disease and produced extraordinary space-born creatures. Huge fleets of sentient trader starships thrive, living on the wealth created by industrializing entire star systems. And throughout inhabited space, the Confederation Navy keeps the peace.
Then something goes catastrophically wrong. On a primitive colony planet, a renegade criminal encounters an utterly alien…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
As an avid explorer having thrice traveled around the world, living and working in over 40 countries, my inspirations as so originally science fiction have found grounding. I looked to level my imagination in the real world and filtered out the impossible from the unnecessary on a path to utopia. Sharing our ideas, exposing misgivings too, all contribute to a shared realization of human potential. This is much of the reason for who I am as a founder of business platforms I designed to achieve things that I envisage as helpful, necessary, and constructive contributions to our world. Those software endeavours underway in 2022, and a longtime coming still, are Horoscorpio and De Democracy.
Ever wondered if you'd survive in the Mad Max universe? Here's the assurance you can, well maybe if you've loaded die. Choose your own adventure has been a staple literary source of my youth and Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson are both united champions of the genre. Freeway Fighter is one of their few which lends more to science than fantasy, and is thoroughly invigorating. For mind-bending characterization, here you've got the original immersion you need in self-discovery.
The smash-hit Fighting Fantasy gamebook comes to comics for the very first time, in a brand-new story of post-apocalyptic racing and survival against all odds! Bella De La Rosa was heir to a great I-400 racing tradition before the virus hit, before most of humanity was wiped out, and civilization fell. Eighteen months after the collapse of society, she and her blue and red Interceptor prowl the remnants of what once was America, eking out a life among the ruins, trying to evade vicious car gangs like the Doom Dogs, and find enough gas, food, and water to survive. But…
One of the reasons I love my job as a Space History Curator at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum is that I am fascinated to learn how people think about space, the cosmos, and their human connection with the universe. I am always eager to get beyond questions of what we know and how we know it and ask: Why do we ask the questions we ask in the first place? The books I’ve listed here all explore our relationship with space and how we engage personally or collectively with space exploration.
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.
Humanity has colonized the planets - interstellar travel is still beyond our reach, but the solar system has become a dense network of colonies. But there are tensions - the mineral-rich outer planets resent their dependence on Earth and Mars and the political and military clout they wield over the Belt and beyond. Now, when Captain Jim Holden's ice miner stumbles across a derelict, abandoned ship, he uncovers a secret that threatens to throw the entire system into war. Attacked by a stealth ship belonging to the Mars fleet, Holden must find a way to uncover the motives behind the…
Growing up I devoured science-fiction and spy stories by the boatload—the only person I wanted to be more than James Bond was probably Han Solo. Of course, I couldn’t really become either of them, but I always knew the next best thing would be telling stories about those kinds of characters. Ultimately, I couldn’t decide whether to focus on space adventures or spies, so the only real answer was to smash those two genres together. Five years and four novels later, the world of the Galactic Cold War is humming along quite nicely. But I’m still always on the lookout for the next great sci-fi spy novel.
Okay, it’s the second book in the tremendously popular series The Expanse (perhaps you’ve heard of this little series turned TV show), but it’s also my favorite. That’s because Corey ramps up the intrigue as Mars, Earth, and the Belt find themselves enmeshed in an open war that has some decidedly murky underpinnings. This volume also introduces two of the series' best and most memorable characters: Martian marine Bobbie Draper and savvy Earth politician Chrisjen Avasarala. The book kicks off with a bang, and doesn’t let up, concluding with perhaps one of the most page-turning action sequences I’ve ever read.
The second book in the NYT bestselling Expanse series, Caliban's War shows a solar system on the brink of war, and the only hope of peace rests on James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante's shoulders. Now a Prime Original series.
HUGO AWARD WINNER FOR BEST SERIES
We are not alone.
On Ganymede, breadbasket of the outer planets, a Martian marine watches as her platoon is slaughtered by a monstrous supersoldier. On Earth, a high-level politician struggles to prevent interplanetary war from reigniting. And on Venus, an alien protomolecule has overrun the planet, wreaking massive, mysterious changes and threatening…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I love stories that exist within stories. I like to delve into what we think our world is about and discover the layering underneath that reveals complex relationships and real motives behind what characters do and why. One of the most fun things about a book involving conspiracies, like any good mystery, is going back through and reading a second time to see what clues I missed. Did I see this coming in advance? Did my initial perceptions of the characters hold up, or did the twist upend them completely? Should it have been obvious to me, or was it so subtle that only a master detective could’ve picked up on it?
I love Star Wars, and I’ve been a Star Wars nerd forever. This book jumps into an Imperial conspiracy to restore the Empire using the ghost of its old leader, Grand Admiral Thrawn, who was long thought dead.
I read this one thinking that the “conspiracy” was upfront and required no special thought. Still, two of the key players—Borsk Fey’lya and Major Grodin Tierce—are playing their own games within games, creating an interwoven conspiracy I confess I didn’t see coming until I read it. When I re-read the book, I looked hard to find their clues, and I had to carefully study each to find the underlying markers. It was an enjoyable, if jolting, way to delve into Star Wars lore.
Hugo Award-winning author Timothy Zahn makes his triumphant return to the Star Wars(r) universe in this first of an epic new two-volume series in which the New Republic must face its most dangerous enemy yet--a dead Imperial warlord.
The Empire stands at the brink of total collapse. But they have saved their most heinous plan for last. First a plot is hatched that could destroy the New Republic in a bloodbath of genocide and civil war. Then comes the shocking news that Grand Admiral Thrawn--the most cunning and ruthless warlord in history--has apparently returned from the dead to lead the…
I’ve been reading and enjoying science fiction since, as a kid, I rode my bicycle to the local library to read everything they had. That’s given me a broad exposure to the field from the Golden Age classics to new stuff hot off the presses. I’ve had four science fiction novels published, and in all of them I’ve used personal experiences to create as realistic a world as possible. I’ve also focused on ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances – that combination makes for better stories. I’ll leave the superheroes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe – they’ve got the budget to Blow Stuff Up Real Good!
Fergus Ferguson is an ordinary man who just happens to be good at one thing – finding stuff. So he becomes an intergalactic repo man, and when the book starts he’s been tasked with finding a stolen starship, as one does.
He’s also found himself wrapped up in a civil war and a possible alien invasion.
This book is a little darker than the others on the list, in that Fergus has a lot of personal baggage to deal with, the people behind the civil war aren’t nice, and it’s really hard to figure out what the aliens want. But the darkness is leavened by Fergus’s humor and strong moral code.
It’s also book one of a (very nicely tied-up) trilogy.
From Hugo Award-winning debut author Suzanne Palmer comes an action-packed sci-fi caper starring Fergus Ferguson, interstellar repo man and professional finder
Fergus Ferguson has been called a lot of names: thief, con artist, repo man. He prefers the term finder.
His latest job should be simple. Find the spacecraft Venetia's Sword and steal it back from Arum Gilger, ex-nobleman turned power-hungry trade boss. He'll slip in, decode the ship's compromised AI security, and get out of town, Sword in hand.
Fergus locates both Gilger and the ship in the farthest corner of human-inhabited space, a backwater deep space colony called…
I have loved reading since I was very young, and would bring home an armful of books from the library. I first discovered the dystopian genre while in junior high, and it quickly became my favorite genre. My favorite aspect of dystopias is the new world created within each book. When I began writing my own stories, I spent several hours building the world within my book. Even today, nearly 20 years after I first began writing, I spend hours drawing and designing everything within each book, whether or not it’s dystopian. My hope is that my readers find my worlds as fascinating as I found the worlds of the stories on my list!
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is a bold, futuristic epic that immediately sucked me in and wouldn’t let me go. Starting on the far-off world of Adrasteia, the story follows Kira across the galaxy after she mistakenly walks into an interstellar war. Paolini perfectly paints this fantastical story, leaving you desperate for more. Having read Eragonat a young age, I wasn’t expecting Paolini to write this genre, but I am so impressed by his work. While I’d recommend any of his books, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is my new favorite. His world-building is amazing and wildly entertaining!
Winner of Best Science Fiction in the 2020 Goodreads Choice Awards!
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is a brand new epic novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eragon, Christopher Paolini.
Kira Navárez dreamed of life on new worlds.
Now she's awakened a nightmare.
During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, Kira finds an alien relic. At first she's delighted, but elation turns to terror when the ancient dust around her begins to move.
As war erupts among the stars, Kira is launched into a…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I’m drawn to science fiction that forces characters to confront the limits of their own understanding, especially when faced with someone labeled as an enemy. These are the stories that taught me how fragile judgment can be, and how costly it is to mistake difference for threat. I return again and again to books where communication across cultures, species, or systems is difficult, incomplete, and often arrives too late. What fascinates me most is not conflict itself, but the moral effort required to truly see the other. These novels shaped how I think about empathy, memory, and responsibility, and they continue to influence the kinds of stories I write.
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.
'There aren't too many recent sf novels we can confidently call truly moral works, but Speaker for the Dead is one. It's a completely gripping story.' - The Toronto Star
'Achieves and delivers more than almost anything else within the science fiction genre, Ender's Game is a contemporary classic' - New York Times on Ender's Game
A FALLEN HERO - HAUNTED BY HIS PAST, BUT CAN HE CHANGE THE FUTURE?
Ender Wiggin was once considered a great military leader, a saviour for mankind. But now history judges his destruction of an alien race as monstrous rather than heroic.
