Books like Earth Abides
30 science fiction books to read after Earth Abides, by George R. Stewart, the closest match first.
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1. Modern Classics The Death Of Grass
by John Christopher
- On the same lists
Also known as No Blade of Grass, this was one of John Christopher's classic cosy catastrophes, although there is very little that is cosy in this post-apocalyptic tale.In Asia, a...
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2. World War Z: An Oral History Of The Zombie War
by Max Brooks
- On the same lists
The zombie war told as interviews with the survivors, Max Brooks's chilling oral history.
The Zombie Apocalypse has become one of the most pervasive themes in sf and horror over the last few years, so much so that it has escaped genre and become...
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3. 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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4. Station Eleven
by Emily St. John Mandel
- On the same lists
Is there anything new to be done with a post-apocalypse scenario? Well, read Station Eleven and find out.In a performance of King Lear, one snowy night in Toronto, the leading...
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5. The Road
by Mccarthy, Cormac
- On the same lists
A father and son walk a burned-out America toward the sea, in McCarthy's bleak and beautiful end-of-the-world novel.
robably one of the most depressing books I’ve read in my life. Oh yes, it’s well written, brilliant maybe, and all that. However, this book stripped all hope away and...
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6. I Am Legend
by Matheson, Richard
- On the same lists
One of the first to make vampirism or zombies have a scientific origin with plenty of medical inquiry and rational causation provided.
This is the story that influenced the zombie genre and popularized the concept of a worldwide zombie apocalypse. Robert Neville is the last human on the earth. He is immune...
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7. A Clockwork Orange
by Burgess, Anthony
- On the same lists
Another famous Sci Fi novel made into a popular movie. A take on a future Britain in which behaviour modification is taken to an extreme in the quest for social order. Unique because the dystopia is still forming and is seen through the eyes of an adolescent protagonist.
Great Music, it said, and Great Poetry would like quieten Modern Youth down and make Modern Youth more Civilized. Civilized my syphilised yarbles. A vicious fifteen-year-old droog is the central...
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8. Contact
by Sagan, Carl
- On the same lists
Scientists discover a message from an intelligent source and must travel deep into space to meet it.
In the year 1999 a multinational team of astronauts sets out to discover the secrets of the universe.
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9. 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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10. The Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret Atwood
- On the same lists
An award winning, Canadian novel that explores themes of women in subjugation and agency in a futuristic theocracy.
Throughout its history, one of the strongest and most interesting aspects of science fiction has been its use in satire. And this is just about the most stunning of contemporary...
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Triffids book 1 Start here
12. The Day Of The Triffids
by John Wyndham
- On the same lists
The world changes when a meteor shower leaves most of the world's population blind. The event is augmented by the flesh-eating and mobile plants.
In Billion Year Spree, his epic history of science fiction, Brian Aldiss coined the term "cosy catastrophe" for the sorts of novels that John Wyndham wrote. Well, they are certainly...
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13. 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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14. 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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15. 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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16. 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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17. 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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Storyteller book 2
18. 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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19. 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...
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20. 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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21. 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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22. 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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23. The Yiddish Policemen's Union
by Chabon, Michael
- On the same lists
What if the State of Israel was destroyed? They would live in Alaska.
In this book, Chabon created a world where Israel had never been founded after World War II. Instead the state of displaced Jews is located in Sitka, Alaska. Chabon used...
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24. 1984
by George Orwell
- On the same lists
A classic novel that is definitively a dystopia.
The words have become so commonplace we hardly realise we are using them: Big Brother is watching you, the Ministry of Truth, Room 101, Newspeak, thoughtcrime. George Orwell gave us...
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25. Swastika Night
by Katharine Burdekin
- On the same lists
If there is one overused cliché in science fiction, it is the alternate history novel in which Hitler won the Second World War. But this is a novel about the...
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26. 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
27. 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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Skylark book 1 Start here
28. The Skylark Of Space And Other Works By E.e.
by E. E. Smith
- On the same lists
"Space opera" was a disparaging term coined by Wilson Tucker for the sort of brash interstellar adventure that has been the staple of science fiction magazines before the Second World...
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29. Licht - Die Trilogie: Drei Romane
by M. John Harrison
- On the same lists
With The Centauri Device, M. John Harrison provided the foundation text of the British Renaissance, or the New Space Opera, or both (depending on who you listen to). Then he...
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30. River Of Gods
by Ian Mcdonald
- On the same lists
The future is here, William Gibson once said, it's just not evenly distributed. That unevenness of distribution is especially apparent in what we still call the Third World, those countries...
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 Earth Abides.
The shortlist
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