57 books like Old Man's War

Though set less than a century ago, the world of Steinbeck’s novel is so very different from our own. This masterpiece follows the Joad family as they head west to California, escaping the hardship and poverty of the Oklahoma Dust Bowl.

Depression-era America is described with such detail and emotion that the reader feels almost like a companion of the Joads, each of whom are rendered with precision and depth. In other hands, this might have been a grim, gloomy tale, but Steinback evokes themes of loyalty, kindness, and pride with peerless power and skill.  

The Expanse series was a real game-changer for me. An epic space opera set in a very real and gritty future with a host of working-class heroes.

James, Naomi, and Amos work in deep space on an ice trawler and only become involved in the action by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. When they get swept up in the story, the characters must learn and adapt to navigate the world of politics and espionage.

This book series walks the tightrope of creating a very possible future in space without getting too impeded, explaining the science of how that all works. If you like epic space opera set in a plausible future, this series is a fantastic read.

Okay, I’ve only read this book once, but I can tell you I’ll be reading it again. It’s that good.

It's a classic amnesia story. The hero wakes up from a coma and has no recollection of who he is. Over the course of the story, he discovers he’s a middle school science teacher. And he’s in a spaceship. Alone. And he may happen to be humanity’s only hope to survive.

Wow! Talk about a new spin on the amnesia trope. I’m rooting for Ryland Grace from the jump. No matter how crazy bad it gets, and it gets bad, our hero never loses his sense of humor. I laughed out loud many times. I loved the science, and I dug the author’s writing style.

It’s kinda funny; I actually didn’t finish this book the first time around. I don’t even remember why. I tend to juggle a lot of books and sometimes get distracted, and to be fair, this book doesn’t necessarily start with much of a bang. But man, oh man, was I hooked on the journey once I sank my teeth into the seven pilgrims’ stories and really got going. The worlds are fantastically imagined, and the mysteries (of the Shrike and of everything else) kept me turning pages in the best way possible.

Love or hate the rest of the series, I’ll never forget my time with Hyperion. It stands in my mind as a shining example of what sci-fi worldbuilding can be on a similar level to what Frank Herbert accomplished in Dune (which absolutely deserves an honorary spot on this list but won’t be included because it’s getting… show more.

Red Rising and its sequels have a special place in my heart. They’re about war, violence, terrorism, tragedies, and betrayal, but there’s a stronger thread woven throughout the pages: love. Love of your family, of your brothers, and your kin. It’s this love that drives the characters to rise up against godlike enemies. To fight for a better tomorrow.

The bromance that’s on display between Darrow and Sevro is so moving, especially when either of them fall on hard times (which is often). Whenever I feel lost or depressed, reading about these broken, beautiful, loyal characters helps me to find my own path again.

These books were, and are, the single biggest influence on my writing.

This book is the best and most accessible touchstone for Lovecraft’s particular brand of cosmic horror and, certainly, the sheer madness he exposes us to by the end of the book is something to behold.

But where it really shines is in the opening chapters, where it at first seems like this is to be a simple Arctic expedition. The isolation and bleakness of the setting combine perfectly with the unknown to make some of the most ambitious ideas in all horror become fiercely believable and all the more terrifying for it. 

This is the book that forever changed how superheroes were written.  

In Watchmen, masked vigilantes started as a craze in the 1930s, and history got slightly bent in the process. We won the Vietnam War, Nixon stayed president, and...you'll have fun picking out all the bits of altered history in the background.

The heart of the book is its unforgettable characters - slightly over-the-hill superheroes brought out of retirement by the murder of one of their own, to face an ever-deepening mystery and their own midlife crises.

The oldest book on the list, Lucifer’s Hammer seems to be an end-of-the-world tale. And it is to a degree: the world is forever altered after a comet enters the earth’s atmosphere and breaks apart, the huge pieces slamming into the West Coast.

It’s the aftermath, though, where things get interesting. How do people survive? How much of their humanity survives with them? This is the story Niven and Pournelle tell, with a level of realism that echoes people’s attitudes and actions witnessed during the COVID pandemic.

With a clash between rival forces leading to a showdown that dictates the survivors’ future, Lucifer’s Hammer has continued to resonate with me years after reading it.

It’s a big ask to get the reader to identify with, let alone side with, a race of intelligent spiders, particularly when they’re fighting against the remnants of humanity.

Tchaikovsky manages this wonderfully in his Arthur C Clarke Award-winning novel because he absolutely loves spiders, and he communicates this love and fascination to the reader by acquainting them with three very special members of the spider civilisation who are completely surprising and fun to spend time with.

I loved this novel’s playfulness and humour balanced with high-stakes action and thrills. And I learned a lot about spiders along the way.

Not only is Essun a woman, which, unfortunately, is not common when it comes to the history of badass sci-fi protagonists (thankfully this is becoming less true because of writers like N.K. Jemisin), but she’s a middle-aged mother of two living, or I should say, hiding, out in the cut. When her daughter goes missing, Essun hits the road to find her and reveals her, literally, Earth-shaking abilities. If we threw the badasses on this list into a single universe and had them duel, ten-ringer Essun would clean the clocks of every other protagonist. Or more accurately, turn them to ice. I absolutely loved this series, and Essun is the main reason why.