Books like Lucifer's Hammer
30 science fiction books to read after Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven And Jerry Pournelle, the closest match first.
-
1. The Disappearance
by Philip Wylie
- On the same lists
The apocalypse here is kind of personal. The world's just fine to start with, but... From one moment to the next all the women disappear from the world of men—and...
-
2. The Stand
by King, Stephen
- On the same lists
A popular novel, and possibly King's best, is an end-of-the world story caused by the accidental release of a mutating influenza virus that wipes out 99% of humanity.
You either love him or hate him (and if you do hate him, it's probably because every second sentence is a ridiculous metaphor), but there's no denying that Stephen King...
-
3. Planet Of The Apes
by Boulle, Pierre
- On the same lists
The book that launched a cinematic saga is a version of Xenofiction taking place on another planet where apes are intelligent and civilized.
In the year 2500, a French journalist joins an expedition to a planet near Betelgeuse and finds a world ruled by intelligent apes, where humans are mute animals kept in...
-
Big Planet book 1 Start here
4. Big Planet
by Vance, Jack
- On the same lists
A craft crash lands on the Big Planet and the survivors face a 40,000 mile trek across a dangerous landscape.
Big Planet is BIG. Really big, but with a surface gravity about equal to that of Earth. It was colonized by a whole bunch of colorful characters, ranging from rebels,...
-
Null-a book 1 Start here
5. World Of Null-a
by A. E. Van Vogt
- On the same lists
Protagonist lives in one body and then dies, and awakens in another.
Aristotelian logic for dummies 101: "X results of necessity from Y and Z if it would be impossible for X to be false when Y and Z are true." Clear...
-
6. The Deep Range
by Clarke, Arthur C.
- On the same lists
Most of the population is now fed from the sea--whale and plankton farms. Plausible adventures about the mysteries of the sea.
While we associate Clarke with stories about, or set in, space, this one's set underwater in the 21st century. Oceans are fenced off like fields and whales are cattle. Wardens...
-
7. The Jupiter Legacy
by Harry Harrison
- On the same lists
A.K.A. The Plague From Space or The Jupiter Plague. The explorer ship Pericles returns from Jupiter. The single surviving crewman is infected with a deadly plague that has the potential...
-
8. Seahorse In The Sky
by Edmund Cooper
- On the same lists
Like his later novel, Transit, this here is a story of—what looks like—an abduction of a bunch of humans by aliens (in this instance from the interior of a transatlantic...
-
9. Macroscope
by Anthony, Piers
- On the same lists
Probably the most significant of Piers Anthony's SF (he did mostly fantasy). The Macroscope floats in orbit; it's like a super Hubble Space Telescope, only that it doesn't use light,...
-
10. The Dragon Masters
by Vance, Jack
- On the same lists
On the rocky planet Aerlith, humans have managed to gain a spotty foothold. They live in the valleys with fertile soil and fight occasional battles for territory and general dominance....
-
Lord Valentine book 1 Start here
11. Lord Valentine's Castle
by Silverberg, Robert
- On the same lists
First novel in the 'Majipoor' series, comprising a total of 11 novels and novellas. Majipoor is, one might argue, direct offspring of Vance's Big Planet (#3 in this list); a...
-
12. Empire Of The East
by Saberhagen, Fred
- On the same lists
ARDNEH (Automatic Restoration Director, National Executive Headquarters) was a super computer that averted nuclear war by—temporarily; or that was the plan—dicking with the local laws of physics and preventing nuclear...
-
13. The Postman
by Brin, David
- On the same lists
Made into a much—wrongly!—maligned movie, Postman is set in a post-apocalyptic world, in which the United States has fallen apart into a lawless patchwork of civil disorder. That's what powerful...
-
14. The Furies
by Keith Roberts
- On the same lists
Dinosaurs popping up everywhere? How about giant, semi-intelligent wasps? In this novel by the late Keith Roberts we get a different kind of menace, unleashed in apparent consequence of the...
-
15. Greenhouse Summer
by Norman Spinrad
- On the same lists
A century hence. Melted Antarctic ice cap and flooded coastlines, drowned cities and low-lying inland areas. Temperatures have risen to making Paris a tropical destination, and Siberia a super-fertile growing...
-
16. The White Plague
by Herbert, Frank
- On the same lists
This story is set in Ireland, which doesn't happen in most post-apocalyptic tales. Doesn't happen in most of SF, if the truth be told. Molecular biologist becomes bi-polar as a...
-
17. Farnham's Freehold
by Heinlein, Robert A.
- On the same lists
This novel was first published in 1964, with the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation—a real apocalypse!—still fresh on people's minds. In this...
-
18. The Drowned World
by J. G. Ballard
- On the same lists
Remember the fist apocalypse? You don't? I guess you're not all that old then. It's the one with the flood. Heard of it? Noah and the animals and the ship...
-
19. The Quiet Earth
by Craig Harrison
- On the same lists
Here's a very cool novel by a New Zealand author, that was made into a pretty good film as well. Geneticist John Hobson wakes up from a nightmare and finds...
-
20. Resurrection Day
by Brendan Dubois
- On the same lists
The British Empire v2.0? Hard to believe, I know. What could precipitate such an event? Well, if's a nuclear conflict in 1982 between the US and the USSR, which leaves...
-
21. 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....
-
22. The Children Of Men
by P.d. James
- On the same lists
The ultimate nightmare of the world's males came true in 1994. (In the novel anyway, though there are some suggestions that things are trending that way.) The sperm count of...
-
Triffids book 1 Start here
23. 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...
-
Maddaddam book 1 Start here
24. Oryx And Crake
by Margaret Atwood
- On the same lists
It's difficult to summarize what this tale is all 'about.' That's maybe the hardest and most challenging aspect of this novel. It starts after the collapse of civilization and focuses...
-
25. Babel-17 (1967)
by Delany, Samuel R.
- On the same lists
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...
-
26. Immortality Inc
by Robert Sheckley
- On the same lists
Many of those in the Transhumanist camp believe that sooner or later, in a twisted take on the 'reincarnation' mythos, we'll be able to effectively separate minds from bodies and...
-
Quantrill book 1 Start here
27. Systemic Shock
by Dean Ing
- On the same lists
Ted Quantrill is a freak: he fastest gun in the West (and probably the world). After the total collapse of Russia, India and China band together (unlikely, I know, but...
-
28. Fahrenheit 451
by Bradbury, Ray
- On the same lists
A classic "What if?" story about book banning, happiness, and knowledge.
Everyone loves the idea of the thinking man's fireman (particularly middle aged women who read Fifty Shades of Grey), but that's not why Fahrenheit 451 made it to second on...
-
-
30. 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....
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 Lucifer's Hammer.
The shortlist
Liked Lucifer's Hammer? New releases and the lists readers are opening most, by email.