Books like Light
30 science fiction books to read after Light, by M. John Harrison, the closest match first.
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1. Licht - Die Trilogie: Drei Romane
by M. John Harrison
- Same series
- Same author
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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Light book 2
2. Nova Swing
by M. John Harrison
- Same series
- Same author
A far-future space opera by M. John Harrison, set on a world touched by the Event Horizon, where a detective and a smuggler follow strange visitors and stranger objects. It...
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Light book 3
3. Empty Space
by M. John Harrison
- Same series
- Same author
EMPTY SPACE is a space adventure. We begin with the following dream: An alien research tool the size of a brown dwarf star hangs in the middle of nowhere, as...
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4. 2312 (2013)
by Robinson, Kim Stanley
- On the same lists
Society has spread across the solar system. The society is nonbinary and gender and sexuality are thought of fluidly. In this year, 2312, a sequence of events will force humanity to confront its past, present, and future.
In the 24th century, humanity has spread through the solar system to hollowed-out asteroids, Mercury's moving city and the terraformed worlds. When Alex, the grandmother who raised her, dies, Swan...
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5. The Islanders
by Priest, Christopher
- On the same lists
In the late-70s, Christopher Priest wrote a series of stories about the Dream Archipelago, a string of islands that represent neutral territory for the warring nations of the northern continent....
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6. The Quiet War Series
by Paul Mcauley
- On the same lists
The British Boom has been all about reinventing older forms of science fiction, making them fit for the new century, and no-one has done that better than Paul McAuley. The...
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7. Jack Glass The Story Of A Murderer
by Adam Roberts
- On the same lists
Ever since his first novel, Salt (2000), Adam Roberts has established himself as one of the most prolific, challenging, and popular novelists writing in science fiction today. His work often...
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8. Passage
by Willis, Connie
- On the same lists
Immortality, cryogenics, uploading the mind to an AI, extended lifespans, time and again science fiction revolves around the issue of how to avoid death. In this novel, which won the...
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9. Song Of Stone
by Iain Banks
- On the same lists
One of the abiding themes of science fiction in the early twenty-first century is a careful delineation of everyday life in the near future, a future in which the steady...
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10. The Execution Channel
by Ken Macleod
- On the same lists
Ken MacLeod is perhaps the most politically astute novelist working in Britain today. He brings a highly critical left-wing sensibility to his work, while at the same time being very...
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11. Air: Or, Have Not Have
by Geoff Ryman
- On the same lists
An award winning novel concerned with information technology and its potential for change.
The internet changed our lives in ways that, even now, we probably don't fully appreciate. But what is the effect of the internet? To what extent are we different from...
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12. Zoo City
by Lauren Beukes
- On the same lists
One of the most exciting things about science fiction in the new century is that the traditional white, male, Anglo-American voice is being displaced. Wonderful new work is starting to...
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13. The Centauri Device
by M. John Harrison
- Same author
Do you know what they used to call cyberpunk in the 70s? "Hippie space opera", according to the New Worlds Magazine. At least that's what they called Harrison's third space...
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14. Life
by Gwyneth Jones
- On the same lists
We like to say that science is integral to science fiction, yet it is surprising how rarely the practice of science appears in sf novels. One of the rare and...
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15. Viriconium
by M. John Harrison
- Same author
A defining series in the Dying Earth sub-genre because of its use of metafiction.
A defining series in the Dying Earth sub-genre because of its use of metafiction.
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16. Life After Life: A Novel
by Kate Atkinson
- On the same lists
Search the sf award shortlists for 2013 and you will look in vain for this novel. It wasn't even submitted for any of the juried awards. Yet it is arguably...
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Imperial Radch book 1 Start here
17. Ancillary Justice (2014)
by Leckie, Ann
- On the same lists
Ancillary Justice by Anne Leckie (Book 1 in the Imperial Radch trilogy) won the 2014 Nebula Award for Best Novel.
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18. Accelerando
- On the same lists
Ever since the computer became a fixture in the ordinary life of every one of us, it has been one of the most potent images in the idea of posthumanity....
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19. Cloud Atlas: A Novel
by Mitchell, David
- On the same lists
Inevitably, there is a continuity between past and future. The present is not a cut-off point between one and the other, but simply a sliding scale in the process of...
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20. 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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Firefall book 1 Start here
21. 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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22. The Windup Girl (2010)
by Bacigalupi, Paolo
- On the same lists
In a future Bangkok, walled in against rising seas and kept alive by a ruthless seed bank, the world's calories are controlled by a few giant corporations. Anderson Lake poses...
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Revelation Space book 1 Start here
23. Revelation Space
by Alastair Reynolds
- On the same lists
A complex novel that postulates many different lifeforms who struggle against ancient, machine-like intelligences seeking to destroy all new organic life.
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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24. A Darkling Sea -
by James L. Cambias
- On the same lists
When a bunch of Hugo and Nebula award winners queue up to praise a first novel from a brand new writer, and when they compare it to Hal Clement and...
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25. The Aleutian Trilogy
by Gwyneth Jones
- On the same lists
Gwyneth Jones's first novel for adults, Divine Endurance, set in a richly imagined South East Asia, marked the arrival of a novelist intent on using science fiction to explore the...
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26. The Affirmation
by Priest, Christopher
- On the same lists
In contemporary Britain, a young man called Peter Sinclair loses his job and his girlfriend, and retreats to a remote cottage where he sets out to write his life story....
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The Sparrow book 1 Start here
27. The Sparrow
by Mary Doria Russell
- On the same lists
Few debut novels since Neuromancer have had the impact that Mary Doria Russell achieved with The Sparrow. After this novel and its sequel, Children of God, she turned to writing...
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28. The Time Ships
by Stephen Baxter
- On the same lists
1995 was the 100th anniversary of the publication of The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, and in celebration Stephen Baxter produced one of the best novels in his long and...
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Fall Revolution book 1 Start here
29. The Star Fraction
by Ken Macleod
- On the same lists
Ken MacLeod was a lifelong friend of Iain Banks, and their interest in science fiction was parallel, though MacLeod's interest in Trotskyist politics gave his work a harder political edge...
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30. The Child Garden
by Geoff Ryman
- On the same lists
Imagine a London that has become semi-tropical, where people photosynthesise, where cancer has been cured but the human lifespan has been cut in half. Imagine a place where viruses are...
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 Light.
The shortlist
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