Books like Fahrenheit 451
30 science fiction books to read after Fahrenheit 451, by Bradbury, Ray, the closest match first.
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1. The Martian Chronicles
by Bradbury, Ray
- Same author
A chronology of the human colonization of Mars, after fleeing an atomically devastated Earth, including the conflicts between humans and the native Martians.
Ray Bradbury's science fiction is unlike anything else being written at the time, and that is particularly true of The Martian Chronicles. A collection of linked stories that tell of...
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2. 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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3. Childhood S End
by Clarke, Arthur C.
- On the same lists
An alien race invades Earth, but they are benevolent and a golden age begins on Earth.
You're going to hate me for this. Really. See, Clarke is one of the three giants of science fiction, old-school science fiction. He was writing this novel in 1953 at...
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4. A Sound Of Thunder
by Bradbury, Ray
- Same author
An example of time tourism, this novel is the source of the phrase, "butterfly effect" because a butterfly dies and the traveller's future is altered.
The future, not so far away. Neo-fascists are still battling it out with liberals. Time machines exist. Eckles, hunter extraordinaire, wants to go back in time on a safari to...
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5. 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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6. More Than Human
by Theodore Sturgeon
- On the same lists
There was a period when science fiction tended to refer to the next stage in human evolution as homo superior, and one of the ways of achieving this state was...
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Witch World book 1 Start here
7. Witch World
by Lackey, Andre Norton And Mercedes
- On the same lists
Simon Tregarth is a man on the run from various shadowy ruffians, people he associated with because he was wrongly convicted of working the black market while in the military....
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8. The Robot Stories
by Asimov, Isaac
- On the same lists
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings,...
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9. The Cold Equations
by Tom Godwin
- On the same lists
These were the great years of the sf short story; magazines like Astounding, F&SF, Galaxy and If were in their pomp and most of the brilliant novels of the period...
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10. Who?
by Algis Budrys
- On the same lists
At the height of Cold War paranoia, Algis Budrys wrote a novel that perfectly captured the doubts and distrusts of the time. There is an explosion at an allied research...
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After Such Knowledge book 1 Start here
11. A Case Of Conscience
by James Blish
- On the same lists
A Jesuit investigates an alien race. The aliens have no religion, but have an innate sense of morality.
From Arthur C. Clarke's "The Star" to Walter M. Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz, there was something of a trend in the 1950s for bringing Catholicism into a science fiction...
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12. The Sirens Of Titan
by Kurt Vonnegut
- On the same lists
This is the novel in which we first encounter some of the themes and ideas that would later emerge in Slaughterhouse-Five. There are Tralfamadorians, there's the familiar resignation in the...
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13. The Body Snatchers
by Jack Finney
- On the same lists
Aliens replace the people of a California town with emotionless copies, the paranoid novel behind Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
If you had to name one science fiction movie that encapsulated America's national paranoia in the mid-50s it would have to be Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and this is...
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14. The Man In The High Castle
by Dick, Philip K.
- On the same lists
A novel where Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan win WWII.
Philip K. Dick was one of the most idiosyncratic and successful writers in science fiction. Okay, he's probably better known these days for all the films that have been based...
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The Age Of Discovery book 2
15. The New World
by Stackpole, Micheal A.
- On the same lists
A startling look at the role of government, including eugenics.
The three grandchildren of the royal cartographer Qiro Anturasi, a mapmaker whose magic can reshape reality, must save their world from destruction. Nalenyr is besieged on all sides by those...
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16. The Iron Heel
by Jack London
- On the same lists
London succeeds in doing what many men have tried to do over the course of history, and almost every man has failed in doing: understanding how women think. Unlike most...
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17. Stranger In A Strange Land
by Heinlein, Robert A.
- On the same lists
A Martian visits Earth and teaches humanity a few things--some believe it to be a guide to social change.
An expedition to Mars is lost. Twenty five years later, a second expedition finds there is one survivor of the first expedition, Valentine Michael Smith, who was raised by Martians....
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Triffids book 1 Start here
18. 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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19. The Best Of
by Moore, C. L.
- On the same lists
We often tend to slip into the notion that before the advent of writers like Ursula Le Guin and Joanna Russ, science fiction was an exclusively masculine domain. But that...
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Mesklin book 1 Start here
20. Mission Of Gravity
by Hal Clement
- On the same lists
This story is a discovery of the oceans on planet Mesklin--a planet with an iron core, a rapid rotation, and a sentient species that resemble yard-long centipedes.
Hard science fiction in its purest form didn't have villains; the implacable laws of the universe were enemy enough for anyone. After all, who needs enemies when you're faced with...
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Dune Chronicles book 1 Start here
21. Dune
by Herbert, Frank
- On the same lists
The whole series over time shows the colonization and taming of the wild planet Dune over thousands of years.
A blend of sci-fi and fantasy, Frank Herbert's Dune created a foundation for many of the themes in modern genre fiction. Its exploration of ecology, pacifism, and mysticism pairs with...
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22. We
by Yevgeny Zamyatin
- On the same lists
We was written in the immediate aftermath of the Russian Revolution, and though Zamyatin was himself a Bolshevik, the novel expressed his disquiet at the structuring of society that the...
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23. The Stars My Destination
by Alfred Bester
- On the same lists
A mechanic is the sole survivor on a ship that is just a wreck.
He was one hundred and seventy days dying and not yet dead. Gully Foyle is a shipwrecked sailor abandoned out in space, and when ships pass him by without stopping...
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Hainish Cycle book 4
24. The Left Hand Of Darkness (1970)
by Guin, Ursula K. Le
- On the same lists
Pacifism and a anarchy—both have merits.
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin won the 1970 Nebula Award for Best Novel.One of the best examples of science fiction in the genre.
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25. To The Moon
by Heinlein, Robert A.
- On the same lists
An award winning novel about a colony that rebels against the Lunar Authority that controls it.
Science fiction-roman.
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26. The Rediscovery Of Man
by Cordwainer Smith
- On the same lists
Practically all of Cordwainer Smithâs fiction belongs within a future history that starts just a few years from now and extends for tens of thousands of years into the future....
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The Space Merchants book 1 Start here
27. The Space Merchants
by Pohl, Frederik
- On the same lists
In his pioneering study of science fiction, New Maps of Hell, Kingsley Amis argued that The Space Merchants was possibly the best science fiction novel ever written. In the fifty-odd...
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28. The Dosadi Experiment
by Herbert, Frank
- On the same lists
This novel is a fan-lovers secret. It didn't win anything. But, it should have. Usually readers find a copy by accident recognizing Herbert from his Dune series. Nothing prepares you...
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29. The Running Man
by Richard Bachman/stephen King
- On the same lists
Believe it or not, Stephen King didn't only write hokey horror novels that weren't particularly scary, with completely convoluted "why the fuck did the clown turn into an alien-spider" plots....
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30. The Chrysalids
by John Wyndham
- On the same lists
A Post-Apocalyptic tale where the apocalyptic event is now seen as God's punishment. The society practices a form of fundamentalist Christianity and genetic variance and mutations are considered impure and caused by the Devil.
Another childhood favorite; I felt slightly ripped off that I didn't have any telepathic abilities, despite how hard I tried to communicate to my sister solely using our minds. The...
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 Fahrenheit 451.
The shortlist
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