83 books like Twilight Company

I’m too clumsy to play games, so I explored the Halo universe through books and animated series. Fans’ opinions on this book are quite divided, but I found it really interesting.

The characters have a deeper development here, and that lets me get personally involved in this story. All sides of the conflict have something to say here. I would recommend this novel to everyone who wants to explore the Halo universe because it really helped me understand the essential aspects of it: alien races, the basic conflicts and technology.

I love books that make me bite my nails and shake like a leaf.

Helsreach was so intense that I could read it in about two days. Every page is filled with action and suspense, what doesn’t downgrade the character development. These two things made this book perfect in my eyes.

Following the characters who struggled to fight an inhuman enemy was fascinating in itself, but discovering their complicated relationships let me get completely involved in this story. They all had a different way of thinking, but the common enemy united them. I want to avoid spoilers, so I will just say that the ending was mind-blowing.

This book isn’t about the war itself; the core focus here is the military technology and its consequences.

As a big fan of the Alien series, I understood the risk of any human-alien encounter... and here I was confronted with the idea of weaponising the aliens. I knew from the very beginning that everything will go wrong, so my fundamental question was, “How exactly would it go wrong?”

If aliens weren’t enough, some members of the space station crew had pretty unfriendly intentions too. That was my favourite aspect of this book – yes, you should fear aliens, but you can’t be sure that your co-worker isn’t planning something sinister.

What is the essence of creating art? That’s what I took away from this book. The main plot of the book has to do with hamartia and the fall of an angel, but it is the commentary on the perfection of art that really stuck with me.

This is more so because Graham McNeil’s prior attempt to depict corruption in False Gods was such a disappointment, which turns Fulgrim into glorious vindication. Artists always lament and torment themselves over their work. Constant doubt makes an artist strive for perfection, with brief moments of feeling like we succeeded. No book encapsulated that for me like this did.

While Star Wars was never the biggest franchise I was into growing up, the Knights of the Old Republic games served as my first proper foray into RPGs that have come to influence my books as a whole. Revan follows up on the titular character, set after the end of the first two Knights of the Old Republic games. Worries over his lost memories returning, Revan must seek out answers as to what drove him to go down the path of a Sith Lord in the first place, along the way meeting with Meetra Surik, the protagonist of the second game, following up on a rarely touched-upon point in the Star Wars universe of what happens when someone learns how to wield both the Light Side and Dark Side of the Force at the same time.

Did you ever hear about the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise? If you’re a Star Wars fan, this is the book that really humanizes the evil side of the galaxy far, far away. While it has the typical sorcery, lightsaber fights, and sweeping space opera, this book, at its core, is the story of a dark father-son relationship. Even the overarching villain of the Star Wars saga, Palpatine, is given a lot of backstory, depth, and humanity in this story. I read this book in college, and it’s what spurred my writing journey.

Okay, if you try to tell me that Star Wars doesn’t have a magic system, then I will fight you right here and now. I mean it, I will actually fight you. In all honesty, Star Wars is sci-fantasy, not really sci-fi. I think every kid and even adult from my generation can remember trying to move something using the force. In fact, I still wave my hand in front of electric doors and pretend I am a Jedi. Oh, don’t judge me, you know you do it too. Jedi and Sith are, after all, simply space wizards. They even dress the part. Well, maybe more like space clerics, but you get the point. Why I chose this book is because I feel that it gets into a lot of discussion on how each side views the force and its applications. I am particularly fascinated by Malgus and his ideology… show more.

At times, C.S. Lewis eschewed writing what would be expected of him. For example, every volume of his Chronicles of Narnia takes the reader in a new direction, a new aspect of that fantasy world, instead of merely rehashing the popular story of the first novel, as many series do.

Science Fiction was not his field, yet Dr. Lewis dived into the genre for three novels and proved he was a master. The third book in Dr. Lewis’s space trilogy continues the epic interplanetary story of the first two but brings the tale to a dystopian Earth.

At first, the story seems unrelated to the earlier space-traveling books of the trilogy, as an engrossing study of professors playing politics and strange dreams. As the novel progresses, however, this proves to be a much larger story involving aliens, demons, the very fabric of human existence, and the return of Merlin. 

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.

This book infused me with that sense of wonder and broadened horizons that come with being transported into the unknown. I especially loved that the creatures featured and portrayed in this work of sci-fi were strange enough to challenge my preconceptions about sentience.

CS Lewis artfully balanced adventure with a comfortable pacing that allowed me to sink into the new world and alien cultures he created. In this book, values like honor, integrity, and community transcend the barriers of other worlds and alien beings. I also love that the plot of this one stands alone while still building a larger through-line that continues in the next book.