Fans pick 87 books like Angelmaker

By Nick Harkaway,

Here are 87 books that Angelmaker fans have personally recommended if you like Angelmaker. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Norse Mythology

Joey Thomas Author Of The Bovine Cul-de-sac

From my list on dystopian and utopian worlds.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was introduced to the paranormal and unknown by my father. He was open to all possibilities. I loved being shocked, awed, and traumatized by the depths of dystopia and the heights of Utopian Imagination! I think, because we all live somewhere in between, flowing up and down as life experiences us, riding us ever onward!

Joey's book list on dystopian and utopian worlds

Joey Thomas Why did Joey love this book?

I knew the basics of the Norse Gods and Goddesses, but told in the perspicacious words of a master storyteller like Gaiman, really painted the ruined walls with all the color needed!

I love processing what the minds who birthed these Gods must have thought, dreamed, meant, and saw!

By Neil Gaiman,

Why should I read it?

11 authors picked Norse Mythology as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Neil Gaiman, long inspired by ancient mythology in creating the fantastical realms of his fiction, presents a bravura rendition of the Norse gods and their world from their origin though their upheaval in Ragnarok.

In Norse Mythology, Gaiman stays true to the myths in envisioning the major Norse pantheon: Odin, the highest of the high, wise, daring, and cunning; Thor, Odin's son, incredibly strong yet not the wisest of gods; and Loki-son of a giant-blood brother to Odin and a trickster and unsurpassable manipulator.

Gaiman fashions these primeval stories into a novelistic arc that begins with the genesis of the…


Book cover of Imajica

Joey Thomas Author Of The Bovine Cul-de-sac

From my list on dystopian and utopian worlds.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was introduced to the paranormal and unknown by my father. He was open to all possibilities. I loved being shocked, awed, and traumatized by the depths of dystopia and the heights of Utopian Imagination! I think, because we all live somewhere in between, flowing up and down as life experiences us, riding us ever onward!

Joey's book list on dystopian and utopian worlds

Joey Thomas Why did Joey love this book?

I love that the first impressions laid out in this tale are so easy to judge. It is a grand opportunity to test your ability to allow this protagonist to unfold at his own pace.

There is magic there, and it is sacred. This unwinding yarn weaves through our streets, otherworldly mountains, to a tower of tyranny, before threading back home. It is a two part journey that is worth the hike!

By Clive Barker,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Imajica as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The story of three people on an epic journey through five Dominions to the border of the greatest mystery of all - the First Dominion. On the other side, if they dare to venture, lies the Holy City of the Unbeheld, where their highest hopes or deepest fears will be realized.


Book cover of Old Man's War

Joey Thomas Author Of The Bovine Cul-de-sac

From my list on dystopian and utopian worlds.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was introduced to the paranormal and unknown by my father. He was open to all possibilities. I loved being shocked, awed, and traumatized by the depths of dystopia and the heights of Utopian Imagination! I think, because we all live somewhere in between, flowing up and down as life experiences us, riding us ever onward!

Joey's book list on dystopian and utopian worlds

Joey Thomas Why did Joey love this book?

I love not knowing anything about a book and finding myself turning from page to page, ever more excited to be a part of the adventure.

This alternate end of life leaves me wondering, why not? Though I look forward to a peaceful Galactic future, this one sure is fun (from the reader's perspective)!

By John Scalzi,

Why should I read it?

11 authors picked Old Man's War as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Perfect for an entry-level sci-fi reader and the ideal addition to a veteran fan’s collection, John Scalzi's Old Man’s War will take audiences on a heart-stopping adventure into the far corners of the universe.

John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife's grave. Then he joined the army.

The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-and aliens willing to fight for them are common. The universe, it turns out, is a hostile place.

So: we fight. To defend…


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Book cover of Aggressor

Aggressor By FX Holden,

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, it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run the…

Book cover of The Fox Run

Joey Thomas Author Of The Bovine Cul-de-sac

From my list on dystopian and utopian worlds.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was introduced to the paranormal and unknown by my father. He was open to all possibilities. I loved being shocked, awed, and traumatized by the depths of dystopia and the heights of Utopian Imagination! I think, because we all live somewhere in between, flowing up and down as life experiences us, riding us ever onward!

Joey's book list on dystopian and utopian worlds

Joey Thomas Why did Joey love this book?

I was eleven when I first read any of this series. It was a book my Mom was reading and I thought the cover was cool.

Then, I found myself immersed within the pages, a dystopia I didn’t want to escape (mostly because I was able to enjoy it from the confines of my bed with the covers over my head when needed)!

By David Robbins,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Fox Run as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A CENTURY AFTERWORLD WAR III. In a post apocalyptic world the descendants of the fewsurvivors of the nuclear holocaust that leveled the earthstruggle to rebuild a vanished civilization within the wallsof The Home.. Realizing that they must venture outside the compoundwalls for help, they send their best warriors Blade, Hickok,and Geronimo to defend their society.. Against impossible odds, the warriors must cross ablasted landscape swarming with threats at every turn,their resolve will be put to the test as never before.


Book cover of The Stone Sky

Stephen Kearse Author Of Liquid Snakes

From my list on that are actually about revenge.

Why am I passionate about this?

I like stories about vengeance because they, by definition, have to center a character’s goals and obsessions. Great storytellers take that fixation and use it to probe the experiences and ideas that fuel the desire for revenge. Does the avenger truly understand what they are embarking on? Is the object of their ire truly deserving of that wrath? I like questions like these because they foreground the role of desire in decision-making, and desire is always personal, circumscribed by our appetites, biases, and intentions. I care little about a character being likable. I want to know what they like and to see what they’re willing to do to get it. 

Stephen's book list on that are actually about revenge

Stephen Kearse Why did Stephen love this book?

I recommend the entire Broken Earth trilogy, but the final book does the most interesting things with the series’ latticework of narrative symmetry. By this point, it’s clear that a mother and her daughter are the centerpieces of the story, and that they are both on track to collide. As they draw nearer and their journeys beget staggering losses and sacrifices, they switch polarities and the daughter, once meek, challenges her warrior mother, who has pacified after a life of war and loss. And amid all this is a story about why the Earth, which is a living being, rages against humanity. The layers amplify the thrills of the payoffs and reversals, and subtly unpack the cyclicity of revenge.

By N. K. Jemisin,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Stone Sky as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

WINNER OF THE HUGO AWARD
WINNER OF THE NEBULA AWARD
WINNER OF THE LOCUS AWARD FOR BEST FANTASY
An Amazon Best Book of the Year

The incredible conclusion to the record-breaking triple Hugo award-winning trilogy that began with the The Fifth Season

The Moon will soon return. Whether this heralds the destruction of humankind or something worse will depend on two women.
Essun has inherited the phenomenal power of Alabaster Tenring. With it, she hopes to find her daughter Nassun and forge a world in which every outcast child can grow up safe.
For Nassun, her mother's mastery of the…


Book cover of The Six-Gun Tarot

Gwendolyn N. Nix Author Of I Have Asked to Be Where No Storms Come

From my list on dark fantasy Westerns with magic and gunslingers.

Why am I passionate about this?

My life quest has been to find true magic. Once believing it could only be uncovered in ruins or cathedrals continents away, I ended up discovering it in my own backyard under the Big Sky. When I was young, I read everything science fiction and fantasy to feel like that magic was real and bask in worlds far different from my own. Now, as a professional editor and author based in the West… I still read everything science fiction and fantasy, but now I get paid to do it.

Gwendolyn's book list on dark fantasy Westerns with magic and gunslingers

Gwendolyn N. Nix Why did Gwendolyn love this book?

A serious Welcome To The Nightvale-styled western, Golgotha is like any other mining town… except full of writhing demonic worms desperate to possess you. So many legends and religions rub elbows in this saloon-heavy godforsaken place that it feels like any re-imagined version of a dark fantasy americana world, warts and all, is possible. Each character threatened to whisk me on a new journey. I mean, there’s a doctor who can keep severed heads alive? A boy with a mysterious green eye? An unkillable gunslinger sheriff? An angel running a casino? An assassin queen? What is even happening? But all this allowed my imagination to flourish. Instead of spelling out the reasoning for the clashing magic and lore, it reminded me why I love speculative fiction in the first place: the possibilities. 

By R. S. Belcher,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Six-Gun Tarot as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Nevada, 1869: Beyond the pitiless 40-Mile Desert lies Golgotha, a cattle town hiding more than its share of unnatural secrets. The sheriff bears the mark of the noose around his neck; a dead man whose time has not yet come. His half-human deputy is kin to coyotes. The mayor guards a hoard of mythical treasures. And a shady saloon owner, fingers in everyone's business, may know more about the town's origins than he's letting on. Golgotha has known many strange events, but nothing like the primordial darkness stirring in the abandoned silver mine overlooking the town. Bleeding midnight, an ancient…


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Book cover of Magical Disinformation

Magical Disinformation By Lachlan Page,

This book is a spy novel with a satirical edge which will take you on a heart-pumping journey through the streets, mountains, jungles, and beaches of Colombia. Our Man in Havana meets A Clear and Present Danger.

Book cover of The Devil You Know: Encounters in Forensic Psychiatry

Anna Motz Author Of If Love Could Kill: The Myths and Truths of Women Who Commit Violence

From my list on understanding the criminal mind.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a forensic and clinical psychologist and have worked years with violent criminals for over 30 years.  I am passionate about understanding how and why ordinary people end up doing extraordinary things and specialise in violent crimes by women. Some of the best descriptions of the inner lives of criminals are found in works of fiction, revealing how people think, feel and react. The novels I chose do this brilliantly, leading the reader into the mind of the characters, evoking compassion as well as shock and horror. The psychiatric memoirs describe the fascinating work of psychotherapy with criminal patients and unravel the mysteries of what draws people to violence, even murder. 

Anna's book list on understanding the criminal mind

Anna Motz Why did Anna love this book?

I love this book because of how forensic psychiatrist and psychotherapist Dr Adshead and dramatist Eileen Horne reveal what compels people to commit crimes. I enjoyed the variety of the cases described, and the dialogue between Adshead and her patients. By taking me into her forensic psychotherapy sessions she brings the therapeutic encounter with offender patients to life. Although I do very similar work, in prisons and clinics I still learned much from her perspective and was moved by how compassionate, nuanced and rich in detail these stories were, helping me to understand the evolution and treatment of crimes within a social and political context. 

By Gwen Adshead and Eileen Horne,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Devil You Know as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this “unmissable book” (The Guardian), an internationally renowned forensic psychiatrist and psychotherapist demonstrates the remarkable human capacity for radical empathy, change, and redemption.

What drives someone to commit an act of terrible violence? Drawing from her thirty years of experience in providing therapy to people in prisons and secure hospitals who have committed serious offenses, Dr. Gwen Adshead provides fresh and surprising insights into violence and the mind. Through a collaboration with coauthor Eileen Horne, Dr. Adshead brings her extraordinary career to life in a series of unflinching portraits.

Alongside doctor and patient, we discover what human cruelty, ranging…


Book cover of Perelandra

Michael Newton Author Of The Origins of Science Fiction

From my list on science fiction books about visiting alien worlds.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a cultural historian, film critic, literary critic, editor, and essayist–and a frustrated fiction writer–fascinated by ‘the fantastic’ in art or in life. Answering that fascination, I wrote Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children (2002), and I’ve written two books for the BFI Film Classics series on two great movies of the fantastic, Rosemary’s Baby (2020) and It’s A Wonderful Life (2023). I also edited three anthologies of Victorian and Edwardian fantasy, The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories: From Elizabeth Gaskell to Ambrose Bierce (2010) and Victorian Fairy Tales (2015), and now an anthology, Origins of Science Fiction (2022) for Oxford World’s Classics. 

Michael's book list on science fiction books about visiting alien worlds

Michael Newton Why did Michael love this book?

I recently re-read this book, and it returned me at once to the joy and strangeness of the first time I read it.

Lewis offers up the theory that perhaps what we know in this world as myth and archetype exists in reality on other planets. The book brings that thought to vivid life. It detonates all the power and perplexity of the first chapters of "Genesis" and replays "Paradise Lost" on the floating blissful islands of Venus.

Though the endnote is one of glorious joy, few have been as good at depicting evil as Lewis was. Written at the height of the horrors of the Second World War, the Un-Man has haunted my nightmares for much of my life.

By C. S. Lewis,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Perelandra as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The second novel in Lewis's science fiction trilogy tells of Dr Ransom's voyage to the planet of Perelandra (Venus).

In the second novel in C.S. Lewis's classic science fiction trilogy, Dr Ransom is called to the paradise planet of Perelandra, or Venus, which turns out to be a beautiful Eden-like world. He is horrified to find that his old enemy, Dr Weston, has also arrived and is putting him in grave peril once more. As the mad Weston's body is taken over by the forces of evil, Ransom engages in a desperate struggle to save the innocence of Perelandra...


Book cover of Boy's Life

Jeremy Bates Author Of The Sleep Experiment

From my list on coming-of-age horror.

Why am I passionate about this?

I think all horror authors have at least one coming-of-age novel inside them. I suppose I have some expertise on the topic because I recently finished my first coming-of-age novel, The Dancing Plague. I’ve written stories from the perspectives of children before. One of the challenges I found is getting the voice right. Kids think and talk differently than adults, so it can be a bit tricky finding the right balance between credibility and readability. Nobody wants to read an adult novel that sounds as though it was written by a kid. Conversely, nobody wants to read a novel that’s narrated by a twelve-year-old that sounds as though it was written by an adult.

Jeremy's book list on coming-of-age horror

Jeremy Bates Why did Jeremy love this book?

While The Body is poignant and nostalgic, and The Traveling Vampire Show is goofy fun, A Boy’s Life is simply a very solid, weighty, well-written tale. McCammon nails the mindset of his young protagonist so much so it’s hard for the reader not to feel like a twelve-year-old kid again, viewing the world through impressionable and innocent eyes. It’s a book that will evoke memories of your own childhood, and it is one you will remember long after you have stopped reading.

By Robert McCammon,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Boy's Life as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Robert McCammon delivers “a tour de force of storytelling” (BookPage) in this award-winning masterpiece, a novel of Southern boyhood, growing up in the 1960s, that reaches far beyond that evocative landscape to touch readers universally.

Boy’s Life is a richly imagined, spellbinding portrait of the magical worldview of the young—and of innocence lost.

Zephyr, Alabama, is an idyllic hometown for eleven-year-old Cory Mackenson—a place where monsters swim the river deep and friends are forever. Then, one cold spring morning, Cory and his father witness a car plunge into a lake—and a desperate rescue attempt brings his father face-to-face with a…


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Book cover of Victoria Unveiled

Victoria Unveiled By Shane Joseph,

A fast-paced literary thriller with a strong sci-fi element and loaded with existential questions. Beyond the entertainment value, this book takes a hard look at the perilous world of publishing, which is on a crash course to meet the nascent, no-holds-barred world of AI. Could these worlds co-exist, or will…

Book cover of The Eye of the World

Bryan Wilson Author Of The Forsaken Planet

From my list on sci-fi and fantasy books that inspired me to write my book.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have had a love of sci-fi and fantasy since I was twelve, and I have been an avid reader since then. I have always had an obsession with all things space and the mysteries that reside out there, and it was my dream to create a story that intermixed that with the fantasy worlds I grew up adoring. Since I released my debut book, I have broken into the indie social scene across multiple platforms. I am part of a sixteen-person author group where we share our passion and ideas for one another’s writing, and I have been on numerous BookTube channels and podcasts discussing the craft.

Bryan's book list on sci-fi and fantasy books that inspired me to write my book

Bryan Wilson Why did Bryan love this book?

I recommend this book because it is my favorite book series ever. The expansive world-building, the storylines that come full circle throughout the fourteen-book series, and the epic magic system all awed me.

This series was the first time I felt pulled into an in-depth world created by an author. It was like traveling to a new dimension in my mind, and it was a fantastic experience. This recommendation is book one in the series.

By Robert Jordan,

Why should I read it?

18 authors picked The Eye of the World as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 12, 13, 14, and 15.

What is this book about?

The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.

When a vicious band of half-men, half beasts invade the Two Rivers seeking their master's enemy, Moiraine persuades Rand al'Thor and his friends to leave their home and enter a larger unimaginable world filled with dangers waiting in the shadows and in the light .

Since its debut in 1990, The Wheel…


Book cover of Norse Mythology
Book cover of Imajica
Book cover of Old Man's War

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5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in good and evil, dictators, and the end times?

Good And Evil 143 books
Dictators 14 books
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