100 books like A Princess of Mars

This book presents perhaps the most prescient and today-relevant sci-fi premise ever: how could technology evolve without thinking machines?

After reading this book, I finally understood that my thinking does not have to be constrained by the "scientific consensus" of the day. The book presents a future so radically different from what most futurists are envisioning that it not only freed my thinking about science and futurism...it freed my mind of all constraints.

Even further, it beckoned me to explore the limits of my own human potential.

I love the contrast of bleak desperation with gross opulence and excess that Collins creates in The Hunger Games.

The parallels between Panem and Rome turn what could otherwise be seen as a somewhat far-fetched or unlikely story into a reasonably plausible post-apocalyptic future possibility. I enjoyed the building of tension in the lead-up to the beginning of the games, as well as the explosive release and action when Katniss finally enters the arena.

I liked the way Collins creates an enemy in the very terrain of the arena itself so that, when coupled with the threat of the other contestants, the tension is heightened even further. 

The Colour of Magic is the first entry in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series and it’s a classic—it being a children’s book should not put you off.

In fact, if you’re new to fantasy, enjoying the light-hearted nature of Pratchett’s work and his appeal to the child’s mind only makes the book more fantastic. I don’t believe I’ve found another fantasy novel that matches the imagination found in The Colour of Magic.

It’s this imagination of Pratchett’s—and his unrelenting self-awareness—that inspired my latest book.

Stephen King’s Dark Tower series might be uneven at the end, but the beginning is masterful.

Roland, a dusty old cowboy on the edge of reality, is the prototypical antihero. He doesn’t care much for other people, he’s got a dark past, and I wanted to follow every dusty step of his journey. The broken pieces of Roland are what make The Dark Tower series unique—that and some astral plane travelling shenanigans. With each dark deed or questionable decision, I wanted to know more about Roland and what led him to that point.

It’s difficult to stay grounded in a world with interdimensional travel and monsters, but I always felt like I had one foot planted in humanity through Roland.

This book was just fun. (And informative!) As my editor, Lisa Poisso, put it (paraphrased), “I’ve never seen an author manage to build so much narrative tension around something so simple as, ‘And now I have to push this button.’”

So yes, Weir continues to be awesome at making hard sci-fi fun and thrilling. What really stuck with me most, though, was the relationship the main character, Ryland Grace, forms with his unexpected interstellar buddy, the Eridian he dubs Rocky. The care and thought Weir puts into every aspect of their interactions… Those were the moments that got me. Never have I ever had so much fun watching a character think about how to solve problems. And who couldn’t use a bit more laughter and problem-solving in their life?

This book blew my mind! It changed my life and gave me food poisoning; well, maybe it was some lousy shrimp that did that, but it came around the same time anyhow.

I loved the initial point of revenge, how the main character was abandoned to die in a broken spaceship in the middle of nowhere. I, too, would be pissed if a ship flew by me without stopping to save my butt.

I was happy that the book also played with metaphysical notions and cranked up the ending to a glorious finish that broke from the standard good-guy wins trope.

I love how this book is a fast-paced read that explores what technology could be in the near future. 

This book touts a world where virtual reality is everything, and the real world is not a place you want to be. It’s only too believable. Go anywhere in public and what do you find? People on their phones. Even when reality is great, we can often turn to our devices. The allure of social media likes, polyopia victories, entertainment, or messages can sabotage our real-world relationships. I’m just glad we don’t wear headsets in our reality . . .

Yet. 

I liked this book because it's a collection of stories about unrelated people's exploits, real and imagined, as they work together to make their mark in a new frontier.

The stories portray amazing accounts of people ranging from the mundane to the supernatural. It's one of the last stories to describe Mars with a somewhat hospitable climate, and that doesn't matter.

The incredible storytelling of Ray Bradbury makes anything that his characters are doing always believable no matter where they are because he writes from the heart.

Westlake gets into the head of a successful career criminal, making available the kind of attitude and thinking that most readers would normally abhor.

Somehow, we don’t in the Parker series. Even as the clever, convoluted plot unfolds, we never stop caring what happens to Parker and we root for him against creepier crooks.

I especially like the authentic feel of the techniques and procedures Parker employs. It’s almost as though Westlake was a criminal himself. His work inspired me to write about what I don’t think most authors have directly experienced—what happens in a therapist’s head.

So I think my books also feel real.

I read these as a young teenager and loved them, they’re star-spanning, rip-roaring tales of civilisations pitted against each other across the universe. Triplanetary is the first book of the Lensman series but we have to wait until book two; First Lensman, for the arrival of the titular characters.

The good guys (Hooray! Including Earth, of course) have an advantage in that certain of them have been selected by the Arisians to wear a device called the Lens - which allows them to harness their mental powers against the Boskonians (the bad guys - boo!), who are assisted by the evil Eddorians.

It’s all good fun, and I admit to the stories having influenced me slightly.