Here are 56 books that Saturn Run fans have personally recommended if you like
Saturn Run.
Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
My parents always encouraged me to explore the world and express myself. I also grew up in a home where the bookshelves were lined with Stephen King novels, encyclopedias, and VHS tapes containing episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. So it came as little surprise that my interests in astronomy, orbital mechanics, and fantastical technology concepts (who doesn't like the idea of a ringworld?) dominated my life. I also love history and the drive for exploring the endless possibilities behind the question "what if." Science fiction is, at its core, about exploring the human condition—this is where you’ll find my writing and the adventures I bring to you.
A science fiction novel that has as much focus on fleshed-out character development as the science? Amazing. The plot of this fascinating novel, even more so. Imagine a world where all the stars you see in the night sky suddenly go out. How would you react when you learned the reason for this was a world-spanning barrier which is not only blocking out the starry night but is also vastly increasing the rate at which time passes beyond the barrier—to the point where the sun ages billions of years in a matter of decades.
From exploring the implications of this time-bending device to witnessing the world as it copes with this new reality, this is one story that—after reading it decades ago—still holds a fond place in my heart.
After witnessing the onset of an astronomical event that has caused the sun to go black and the stars and moon to disappear, Tyler, Jason, and Diane learn that the darkness has been caused by a time-altering, alien-created artificial barrier and that the sun will be extinguished in less than forty years. Reprint.
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…
I’ve always admired epistolary novels—stories told in the form of diaries, letters, or other mass media. They seem so real and so much more believable than plain narratives. When dealing with fantastic subjects, like paranormal phenomena, any technique that can draw the weird back into the real world helps me become more invested as a reader. It’s a quality I’ve also tried to capture as a horror writer. Moreover, the epistolary format pairs well with unreliable narrators, often filtering stories so as to make them more ambiguous and disturbing. From the many epistolary works I’ve read over the years, here are my picks for the most compelling—and creepy.
I know the concept of a sasquatch attack on a remote commune sounds silly on the surface, but Brooks crafts it into a realistic, serious story. As a believer in the possibility of Bigfoot, I was fascinated to see how disastrously an encounter between humans and cryptids could conceivably go.
The naivete of the settlers in the wilderness is even more distressing than the hostility of the animals. Unsettling news reports (of which the characters remain unaware) interspersed with diary entries underscore their desperation and peril. I thought the situation was completely credible. Really, we ought to have more sasquatch horror books.
'TRUE TERROR' Guardian 'NAIL CHOMPING SUSPENSE' Total Film ______________________________________ As the ash and chaos from Mount Rainier's eruption swirled and finally settled, the story of the Greenloop massacre has passed unnoticed, unexamined . . . until now.
But the journals of resident Kate Holland, recovered from the town's bloody wreckage, capture a tale too harrowing - and too earth-shattering in its implications - to be forgotten.
In these pages, Max Brooks brings Kate's extraordinary account to light for the first time, faithfully reproducing her words alongside his own extensive investigations into…
My parents always encouraged me to explore the world and express myself. I also grew up in a home where the bookshelves were lined with Stephen King novels, encyclopedias, and VHS tapes containing episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. So it came as little surprise that my interests in astronomy, orbital mechanics, and fantastical technology concepts (who doesn't like the idea of a ringworld?) dominated my life. I also love history and the drive for exploring the endless possibilities behind the question "what if." Science fiction is, at its core, about exploring the human condition—this is where you’ll find my writing and the adventures I bring to you.
In a future US where NASA and the space program is all but defunct, former astronaut Sally Jensen is brought out of an involuntary retirement to lead a new, barely-qualified team on a most intriguing—and dangerous—mission to an asteroid that's slowing down as it approaches Earth. Gripping and addictive, I found myself not able to put this book down once I started it. This definitely falls into the sci-fi horror camp, a blend which—fortunately—this story handles really well. If you’re looking for a hard science fiction novel with a hefty helping of horror mixed throughout, you cannot go wrong with this gem!
Shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2020! "A terrifying tour de force." --James Rollins "Readers will be riveted." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) Sally Jansen was NASA's leading astronaut, until a mission to Mars ended in disaster. Haunted by her failure, she lives in quiet anonymity, convinced her days in space are over. She's wrong. A large alien object has entered the solar system on a straight course toward Earth. It has made no attempt to communicate. Out of time and out of options, NASA turns to Jansen. But as the object reveals its secrets, Jansen and her crew find…
As an engineer for multiple space projects (including the ISS, Gateway, and commercial space), it seems like I should be a strict sci-fi person. But I love sci-fi and fantasy equally, and I love books that break through the wall between them. Especially in space opera, you can play with how much technology and how much magic shaped a world and a culture. Zooming in, that will greatly influence the characters. Some make it esoteric and exclusive, where others make it more common.All of them transport readers to magical, expansive universes.
The great thing about this one is how closely related the magic and technology are—the magic is really used to manipulate technology. For example, Mechanists can tap into the inner workings of machines, while Datamancers can comb through data even better than AI. The book features fantastic action sequences at a breakneck pace, and a lovable rag-tag team thrown-in together to defeat a terrifying villain named Mother.
Furious and fun, the first book in this bold, new science fiction adventure series follows a crew of outcasts as they try to find a legendary ship that just might be the key to savings themselves-and the universe.
Boots Elsworth was a famous treasure hunter in another life, but now she's washed up. She makes her meager living faking salvage legends and selling them to the highest bidder, but this time she got something real--the story of the Harrow, a famous warship, capable of untold destruction.
Nilah Brio is the top driver in the Pan Galactic Racing Federation and the…
Whereas many seek out stories of human triumph and heroic deeds, I have always been captivated by stories that show humanity for what it is–a bastion of innovation and wonder but also a complex and ethically questionable force of nature. I began writing my book when I was twelve years old, and I immediately knew that my characters would not be one-sided, cast in light or shadow. Instead, they would love at times and hate others, try their hardest to do what is right, but sometimes end up doing more harm than good. Remember that a ‘hero’ is a product of perspective when reading these books.
This book takes everything amazing about the mystery genre and transposes it into an endlessly fascinating, well-developed sci-fi world. I was captivated by the web of interconnected plot lines, told from the perspectives of rich and multi-faceted characters throughout the entire story.
Specifically, the fact that all of their seemingly disconnected backstories converge to form the real picture of the story was masterfully done. Furthermore, the final reveal of the story was quite literally the only plot twist in fiction that has given me a verbal “oh my god” moment.
It was a massive inspiration for me and led to my love of a combination of morally gray mystery, sci-fi, and action adventure.
In this Hugo nominated science fiction thriller by Mur Lafferty, a crew of clones awakens aboard a space ship to find they're being hunted-and any one of them could be the killer.
Maria Arena awakens in a cloning vat streaked with drying blood. She has no memory of how she died. This is new; before, when she had awakened as a new clone, her first memory was of how she died.
Maria's vat is one of seven, each one holding the clone of a crew member of the starship Dormire, each clone waiting for its previous incarnation to die so…
As a planetary scientist and college professor, I love the adventure of finding something new, the wonder of strange worlds, and the magic of mysterious discoveries that behave logically in a way that I can figure out. Unsurprisingly, that is what I like in my fiction too. I also love a story that explores the nature of the interaction between people, particularly in friendship or romance (all proper of course—I’m an old-fashioned guy). The books on this list are all touchstones in my own journey into science and life, and I hope that you can find in them the delight, wonder, insight, and motivation that I have found.
High school student Kip Morgan wins an internship at an oceanographic institute in Hawaii where he, with help of new friend Julie Scott, overcomes multiple personal and engineering challenges to solve an archaeological mystery and raise a sunken ship from the sea floor. This story from the 1970s was key in guiding me toward a life of science, and the portrayal of a realistic, mentored research experience gave me a vision for what I might do in my own journey through college and into science.
I loved the exotic location, scuba diving, and seafloor exploration, mystery, adventure, and romance!
I am a former primary teacher, now a gardener and more recently an author of children’s books–maths features heavily in my writing! My love of maths began when I started teaching it and really took off when I explored maths alongside the concept of Growth Mindsets. Through much study I found that the majority of children can access a good level of maths by adopting a Growth Mindset. Maths is a fascinating subject area, full of beauty and patterns, complexity and wonder; hopefully, over the years, I have inspired at least a few children to feel the same.
I love this book for the same reason that I loved the 1970s TV series of the same name: Johnny Ball loves maths, and his infectious enthusiasm for the subject is enough to make the most reluctant mathematician raise a smile.
This book delves into the history of maths and ancient peoples from all over the world. It shows how ridiculously complicated our daily lives would be without some way of counting and generally shows maths to be magical, fascinating, and sometimes funny!
Maths isn't just about sums and calculations, number can take you anywhere. With Think of a Number you'll explore a fantastic world of wonder that is full of surprises. Join Johnny Ball on a dazzling adventure to infinity and beyond -crack codes, unravel mazes and discover why finding a prime number could make you a millionaire. Test your friends with magic tricks and mind-reading techniques and find out about the simple puzzles that stumped the world's brainiest mathematicians for centuries. Think maths is boring? Think again!
I want an adventurous life filled with experiences and challenges that make me appreciate the world around me. My experience in running 50 miles shows just how determined I am to lead an uncommon life. The books I’ve compiled here all share that one thing in common, they chronicle the author’s paths in following this mantra. Life is meant to be lived, no matter what form you find that in. I hope you find and nurture your adventurous life from these stories that were written from the heart.
Although the author is a runner, these stories don’t focus solely on that, but the adventures she can do because she is a runner. Anna speckles her life with adventures she can manage all the time instead of waiting for an epic adventure that you might only get to once or twice a year. She embodies my philosophy that life is meant to be lived. Do what inspires you right now. Sometimes that’s a race with a team number, and sometimes it’s a climb to the top of a mountain. Anna retells her tales of adventure in a collection of fun stories about epic undertakings and colors her stories with personality.
The past is a powerful thing. It’s what we turn to when confronted with the question “how did we get here?” When I began my journey as an author in earnest, that was the question I was facing, and it was the one I wanted my characters to explore. But one book wasn’t enough to satisfy me, and I went searching for other titles that scratched that same itch of examining and confronting our pasts to work out our future. For me, these books were the ones that struck that cord the hardest.
Imagine, if you will, a classic pulp sci-fi hero, standing bold on the cover of a dimestore paperback, raygun in one hand, a beautiful woman in the other, and dangerous aliens all around him. Now imagine it's many years later, and that hero is now a deadbeat relic of a bygone era, and the heroism of his glory days has become little more than inspiration for cheap entertainment. The hero of Will Save the Galaxy for Food is confronted with the reality of the world leaving him behind, and has to figure out what he can do about it. Or even if he should do anything.
A not-quite epic science fiction adventure about a down-on-his luck galactic pilot caught in a cross-galaxy struggle for survival! Space travel just isn't what it used to be. With the invention of Quantum Teleportation, space heroes aren't needed anymore. When one particularly unlucky ex-adventurer masquerades as famous pilot and hate figure Jacques McKeown, he's sucked into an ever-deepening corporate and political intrigue. Between space pirates, adorable deadly creatures, and a missing fortune in royalties, saving the universe was never this difficult!
From the creator of Mogworld and Jam!
Benjamin Richard "Yahtzee" Croshaw is a British-Australian comedic writer, video game journalist,…
