Books like Dhalgren
30 science fiction books to read after Dhalgren, by Delany, Samuel R., the closest match first.
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1. The Atrocity Exhibition
by J. G. Ballard
- On the same lists
Whenever you put a list of books together, you'll always get disagreements. But this could well be the most controversial choice of all, because J.G. Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition has...
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2. Pavane
by Keith Roberts
- On the same lists
Pavane is a sequence of linked stories set in the 1960s in a world in which the Spanish Armada had succeeded, Catholicism had defeated Protestantism, and the Church ruled Britain...
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3. Inverted World
by Priest, Christopher
- On the same lists
He had reached the age of 650 miles. With its very first words, Inverted World tells us we are in a very different world. In fact, this is one of...
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4. Flowers For Algernon (1967)
by Keyes, Daniel
- On the same lists
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes won the 1967 Nebula Award for Best Novel along with Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany. This is the only time since the start of...
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5. We Were Liars
by E. Lockhart
- On the same lists
In the early 1920s, the manuscript of Zamiatin's novel, We, was smuggled out of Soviet Russia to be published in the West. One of the people who reviewed that novel...
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6. Babel-17 (1967)
by Delany, Samuel R.
- Same author
The literary side of this Sci Fi book is high in its experimentation with language and its exploration of language's role in meaning, action, identity, politics, and culture.
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes won the 1967 Nebula Award for Best Novel along with Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany. This is the only time since the start of...
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7. Stand On Zanzibar
by John Brunner
- On the same lists
In the 1960s, when overpopulation was a common worry for the future, it was often said that the entire population of the world could stand on the Isle of Wight....
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8. Slaughterhouse-five
by Kurt Vonnegut
- On the same lists
Billy Pilgrim was unstuck in time. It sounds like a fairly conventional time travel story. But this is Kurt Vonnegut, and nothing he wrote was ever conventional. In fact, the...
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9. Dangerous Visions
by Harlan Ellison
- On the same lists
Throughout its history, many of the finest and most important works of science fiction have been short stories. Magazines and anthologies have been the lifeblood of the genre for at...
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10. Dying Inside
by Silverberg, Robert
- On the same lists
Despite his credentials championing hard, rational science fiction, John W. Campbell was a fervent believer in psi powers. Perhaps because of that, whenever telepathy appeared in science fiction, as in...
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12. 2010: The City & The City
by Miéville, China
- On the same lists
Imagine two cities that share the exact same geographic space, but do not interact with one another under any circumstances. Unless the government authorities grant permission, that is. If citizens...
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13. Tales Of The Dying Earth
by Vance, Jack
- On the same lists
A series, and the reason there is a Dying Earth sub-genre.
Tale of the Dying Earth truly stands as one of the greatest works ever penned. Everything that's good and bad about the human condition is eloquently expressed within this tale....
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14. The Jewel-hinged Jaw: Notes On The Language Of Science Fiction
by Delany, Samuel R.
- Same author
Curiously, science fiction writers aren't always the best people to write about science fiction, they're too close to have the perspective that's needed. The result is often rather pedestrian, like...
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15. Nova
by Delany, Samuel R.
- Same author
We've already included one example of what might be called new wave space opera, and in a sense this is another, but it is a very different novel. The novel...
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16. Triton
by Delany, Samuel R.
- Same author
Also published as Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia, the novel was conceived as a response to Ursula K. Le Guin’s Ambiguous Utopia, The Dispossessed. But at the core of...
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17. The Ballad of Beta-2
by Delany, Samuel R.
- Same author
The Star Folk left Earth centuries ago, but two of the twelve generation starships didn't make it. A galactic anthropology student is tasked with figuring out what happened to the two ships, now that faster-than-light travel is possible.
The Star Folk left Earth centuries ago, but two of the twelve generation starships didn't make it. A galactic anthropology student is tasked with figuring out what happened to the...
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18. To Your Scattered Bodies Go
by Farmer, Philip Jose
- On the same lists
This series can also be considered Science Fiction. Humanity is resurrected (from across all of history) on the banks of a constructed world.
There are some problematic things about this series, but it's an interesting concept and the action scenes are some of the most fun to come out of the 70s. The...
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19. Frankenstein
by Shelley, Mary
- On the same lists
Arguably the first Sci Fi novel and one that is also very much part of the Gothic tradition.
While not “strictly” a steampunk, this is one of the first science fiction novels, the ultimate science-gone-wrong story, and Victor Frankenstein is the quintessential mad-scientist, harnessing the power of a...
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20. Red Rising (not Magic, But Hunger Games Survival Meets School Setting With Some Fantasy Elements)
by Brown, Pierce
- On the same lists
Books in this sub-genre focus almost entirely on magic, but Red Rising stands in stark contrast to that. Part dystopia, part sci-fi fantasy, Red Risingfocuses on the story of a...
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The Commonwealth Saga book 1 Start here
21. Pandora's Star
by Hamilton, Peter F.
- On the same lists
Hummanity can live forever by uploading themselves into new bodies.
The Commonwealth Saga is a vast, sprawling space opera that is spread over several novels and short stories. In a precursor to the main series, Misspent Youth, a rejuvenation procedure...
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22. R.u.r.
by Karel Capek
- On the same lists
Czech is hardly a widely spoken language, and in the years immediately after the First World War Czechoslovakia had barely gained its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire which had largely...
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Ringworld book 1 Start here
23. Ringworld (1971)
by Niven, Larry
- On the same lists
One of the most famous books of the genre, that follows the pros and cons of living on a spinning ring instead of a round planet. The fact that makes this book so famous is that after the author’s ideas were proven impracticable, he wrote a sequel explaining the inadequacies.
In the year 2850, Louis Wu turns 200 and is bored with life. Then a two-headed alien Puppeteer called Nessus offers him a job: join a small expedition to a...
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24. A Canticle For Leibowitz
by Jr., Walter M. Miller
- On the same lists
After a nuclear war monks preserve civilization.
A Canticle for Leibowitz follows the rejuvenation of "civilization" after a devastating nuclear holocaust. It has three distinctive chapters, each one disconnected by centuries, focusing on life at a desert...
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Firefall book 1 Start here
25. Blindsight
by Peter Watts
- On the same lists
A group of freaks (who are also astronauts) are sent on a one way mission to investigate a mysterious object that appears at the edge of human space. Atmospheric and creepy.
This novel has been hailed as one of the best hard sf stories written this century. It's an awesome novel, packed with invention and new ideas and challenges to the...
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26. Lord Of Light
by Zelazny, Roger
- On the same lists
Clones and transfer technology make the doctrine of reincarnation a literal truth.
Zelazny may be famous in the fantasy world for his Amber series, but his best work may just be his stand alone novel, Lord of Light. It's a work that's...
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27. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea
by Verne, Jules
- On the same lists
The classic example.
When Hugo Gernsback wanted to define "scientifiction" in the very first issue of Amazing, he called it the "Edgar Allan Poe, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells type of story". It puts...
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28. Her Smoke Rose Up Forever
by James Tiptree Jr.
- On the same lists
In the late 1960s stories suddenly started to appear from a writer no-one had heard of before, and no-one had met. But the stories were just too good, too quirky,...
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Storyteller book 2
29. Cry Of The Wind
by Sue Harrison
- On the same lists
We all know what happens when aliens invade: there's a big fight and then the aliens are driven off, or humanity is reduced to servitude. Well, no. We've got enough...
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30. Contacting Aliens: An Illustrated Guide To David Brin's Uplift Universe
by Brin, David
- On the same lists
When the black monolith appears in Arthur C. Clarke's 2001, A Space Odyssey, or the demons in Childhood's End, that is Uplift. But what if humanity has reached into space...
Matches come from series and authors, from the lists the books share, and from the books readers open together. They are rebuilt every night. Back to Dhalgren.
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