91 books like Red Mars

I see this book as the greatest alien-related story of all time.

Carl Sagan’s humanity and philosophy make it so much more than a tale of alien contact. This is a human story about how alien contact would affect us and the world around us, from the personal to the political and on all levels from micro to macro.

The breadth of the story’s scope opened my mind in countless ways.

J.R.R. Tolkien's masterful storytelling is unmatched, and The Lord of the Rings weaves together moral dilemmas and profound philosophical ideas seamlessly, encouraging me to contemplate the nature of power, the importance of preserving the natural world, and the significance of individual choices.

The book's themes of heroism, friendship, sacrifice, and the struggle between good and evil resonate deeply. In addition, each of his characters feels like an aspect of oneself; the introspection it inspires is brilliant!

The Lord of the Rings instills a sense of wonder, ignites the imagination, and imparts timeless wisdom, which heavily transformed my perspective on life, my values, and my understanding of the human condition.

When I say Slaughterhouse-Five is funny, people eye me like I’m a monster. But it is. The New York Times even has my back on this.

Is the novel also gut-wrenchingly tragic and horrifying? Of course. It’s one of the most potent stories ever written, and I’m not sure I’ve encountered anything whose biting satire eviscerates the absurdity of war (and of existence) so well.

Vonnegut balances humor and grief on the head of a pin: “Billy turned on the Magic Fingers, and he was jiggled as he wept.” 

Robert Zubrin is the foremost authority on how to get to Mars, and in addition to his engineering expertise, he is one of the most prominent advocates of colonizing it. This classic book, now in its updated 25th Anniversary edition, should be read by everyone interested in the future of humankind. It contains more technical detail about space travel than some people will care to learn, but that can be skimmed; the section about colonization, and the concluding chapter explaining why going to Mars is important, are what I chose it for. In Zubrin's opinion and my own, Mars is "the door to an open future, a new frontier on a new world, a planet that can be settled, the beginning of humanity's career as a spacefaring species."

I can’t pick just one, and they’re really all the same. The burly, idiosyncratic title character, an Army veteran, is like a knight-errant, stumbling into colossal evildoings and coolly saving America, the Army, or (occasionally) a pretty woman. The books are popcorn, potato chips, cotton candy – once you pick them up, you’ll rarely read less than a hundred pages. Is it art? Most definitely not. But will it get you through a very bad afternoon? Quite possibly.

It is a truism that Science Fiction dates itself. SF stories that were written only a few years previous often fail to foresee technological innovations ̶ cell phones, GPS, gene-splicing ̶ that seem obvious and inevitable to hindsight-blessed present-day readers. Those disconcerted by such, let us call them “backwards anachronisms,” should find Quantum Thief a welcome relief for decades to come, because the novel is set so far in the future that hi-tech things like, say, cell phones seem quaint curios out of far-distant days of yore. Long-distance communications in Quantum Thief are effected by something more like telepathy (although the word is never used).

“Quantum” is the operative term in this novel, make no mistake.

Be forewarned: Quantum Thief is chock-full of coined terminology. But have no fear. You have a choice. Either use the online glossary - or you can just read for the story and absorb the… show more.

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.

Folks daunted at the prospect of jumping in to a longer series will be delighted to know that this is just a standalone novel. In fact, it was the only novel Walter M. Miller, Jr. wrote in his lifetime. There is a posthumously published sequel to this novel, but it was completed by another writer and is generally considered the lesser work, and at any rate, Canticle stands on its own. This is a post-apocalyptic novel, set after a nuclear war in the 1960s wiped out civilization. It takes place over the course of centuries, and follows a small Roman Catholic monastery in the American southwest as they struggle to preserve documents from before the bombs destroyed everything—scientific knowledge, mostly, knowledge the poor monks can’t even begin to understand.

This is one of the most beautifully written novels in the genre’s history, and one that—though I’ve only read it two… show more.

OK, this is an oldie by today’s standards. I read this when I was much younger (high school) and it’s just one of those books that stuck with me. Heinlein is a master of science fiction, and it shows in Stranger.

Between the 2nd and 3rd World Wars, an expedition was sent to Mars.  While on its way to the red planet, one Valentine Michael Smith was born. As the only survivor of the expedition, he was raised on Mars by Martians. Upon his eventual return to Earth, now post WWIII and run by politically powerful organized religions, and The World Federation of Free Nations, which includes the demilitarized US, and a world government supported by Special Service troops. 

As Smith shows special abilities and roams through the world, fear of the unknown and prejudice raise their ugly heads, forcing Smith to learn the ways of his new world… show more.

This book seems a bit strange at first, when the story begins with Moon-Watcher, the leader of a tribe of early ape-man, who struggles for survival during the brutal Pleistocene ice age. After an alien monolith appears, it seems to advance the way he thinks, leading him to develop crude weapons. When the same monolith is discovered in the future, we seem fated to find the answers behind the eerie structure. Skipping to a team of astronauts who travel aboard a ship to further investigate, things take an unexpected turn when the ship’s A.I. called HAL-9000, gets very confused about keeping secrets. Something about the way it remains so polite while it deceives the crew, is enough to give anyone a nightmare.