Books like Ready Player One: A Novel
30 science fiction books to read after Ready Player One: A Novel, by Cline, Ernest, the closest match first.
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1. Bring The Jubilee
by Ward Moore
- On the same lists
Science fiction likes to play with history. Look how fragile our world is, just one small change there, or there, or there, and things would be ever so much worse....
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2. The Martian Chronicles
by Bradbury, Ray
- On the same lists
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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Ship Breaker book 1 Start here
3. Ship Breaker
by Bacigalupi, Paolo
- On the same lists
The first in a YA dystopian series, this novel depicts an Earth where natural resources are exhausted, cities are drowning, and Antarctica is gone, global warming.
The 2011 Printz-award winning Ship Breaker is a dystopian thrill ride. Severe climate change has rendered coastal areas into wastelands; corporations have free reign to do whatever they'd like, and...
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Chaos Walking book 1 Start here
4. The Knife Of Never Letting Go
by Patrick Ness
- On the same lists
The Knife of Never Letting Go is a dystopian sci-fi thriller that will knock your socks off. Shortlisted for the Carnegie medal, the novel is the story of Todd Hewitt,...
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All Our Yesterdays book 1 Start here
5. All Our Yesterdays
by Cristin Terrill
- On the same lists
Fans of Dr. Who will be enthralled by All Our Yesterdays, a time-travel adventure, mystery, and love story. Told in alternating viewpoints between the spoiled, naive Marina who wonders if...
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Drenai Tales book 1 Start here
6. Legend
by Gemmell, David
- On the same lists
Gemmell specializes in heroic fantasy. His best book is widely regarded as Legend. Legend doesn’t try to be anything but what it is: a heroic adventure with lots of blood,...
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7. Solaris
by Lem, Stanislaw
- On the same lists
A trek across an alien planet is also a coming of age story.
Psychologist Kris Kelvin arrives at a research station hovering over the ocean-covered planet Solaris and finds it nearly deserted: his mentor is dead, and the two surviving scientists seem to...
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8. Falling Free (1989)
by Bujold, Lois Mcmaster
- On the same lists
A long running and award winning series that mixes politics, romance, medical ethics, personal identity, and hierarchies.
The quaddies are a generation of people engineered by the corporation GalacTech to work in zero gravity, with four arms and no legs, and they are treated as company property....
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9. Armada
by Cline, Ernest
- Same author
Zack Lightman has spent his life dreaming. Dreaming that the real world could be a little more like the countless science-fiction books, movies, and videogames he's spent his life consuming....
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Dune Chronicles book 1 Start here
10. 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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Leviathan book 1 Start here
11. Leviathan
by Westerfeld, Scott
- On the same lists
Westerfeld takes today's futuristic visions of cyborgs and genetically engineered creatures and puts them into WWI.
A steampunk fantasy with a lot of oomph to it. It’s an alternative history story, one that merges the period history of World War 1 events with a fantastical world...
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12. The Hunger Games Trilogy
by Collins, Suzanne
- On the same lists
Katniss Everdeen, a 16-year-old girl who competes in a battle to the death.
Suzanne Collins' engaging narrative, while not entirely original, has garnered millions of fans across the globe, proving that The Hunger Games Trilogy has something for adults and children alike. On...
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Old Man's War book 4
13. Zoe S Tale
by John Scalzi
- On the same lists
Zoe's Tale is the fourth novel in Scalzi's Old Man's War series, and although, it's not specifically marketed to young adults, it's the perfect introduction to the genre for young...
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Matteo Alacran book 1 Start here
14. House Of The Scorpion
by Nancy Farmer
- On the same lists
Winner of the 2002 National book award as well as a Printz and Newbery Honor book in 2003, House of the Scorpion has a lot of literary acclaim for a...
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The Giver book 1 Start here
15. The Giver
by Lois Lowry
- On the same lists
Newbery Award winning, The Giver, the first of The Giver quartet, is a dystopian coming of age story that is soon to be adapted into a major motion picture. In...
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Little Brother book 1 Start here
16. Little Brother
by Cory Doctorow
- On the same lists
A near-future dystopia that has been compared to ground-breaking books such as 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, Little Brother is part coming-of-age story and part political treatise. Marcus Yallow and his...
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17. Shade’s Children
by Nix, Garth
- On the same lists
Winner of the Golden Duck Award and nominated for an Aurealis, Shade's Children is a grim dystopian tale that is high on mystery and action. Earth has been taken over...
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Last Survivors book 1 Start here
18. Life As We Knew It
by Susan Beth Pfeffer
- On the same lists
First in the Last Survivors Quartet, Life as We Knew It chronicles the lives of a family in rural Pennsylvania which are turned upside down when an asteroid knocks the...
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The Jenna Fox Chronicles book 1 Start here
19. The Adoration Of Jenna Fox
by Mary E. Pearson
- On the same lists
The Adoration of Jenna Fox is a novel that raises a lot of questions. When Jenna wakes up after a year long coma, she has no idea who she is...
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Divergent book 1 Start here
20. Divergent
by Roth, Veronica
- On the same lists
Divergent is a teen dystopia that is now a major motion picture. It's an action-packed thrill ride through a post-apocalyptic version of Chicago where society has split up into five...
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The 5th Wave book 1 Start here
21. The 5th Wave
by Rick Yancey
- On the same lists
Tired of corrupt governments and plagues starting your apocalypse? Why not give aliens a whirl? In a concept that worked great for Independence Day, The 5th Wave features aliens who...
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Maximum Ride book 1 Start here
22. Maximum Ride The Angel Experiment
by James Patterson
- On the same lists
Maximum Ride:The Angel Experiment is a mad scientist story from the experiment's point of view. Max is a fourteen year-old girl, oldest of her small group of friends that are...
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The Program book 1 Start here
23. The Program
by Suzanne Young
- On the same lists
A mix of Delirium and The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Program is a vaguely dystopian novel about a society in which teens are afraid to show any...
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Hyperion Cantos book 1 Start here
24. Hyperion
by Simmons, Dan
- On the same lists
So most of this series is in fact, not Dying Earth but it is a pinnacle of science fiction. The Poet's Tale: Hyperion Cantos in the first novel of Hyperion is a part of the Dying Earth sub-genre and it is the connection the readers have from Earth to the strange new universe of Hyperion.
A grand intelligent space opera tale that also tells a series of very personal tales. This juxtaposition between epic and the personal gives real life to the story. The whole...
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25. The Female Man
by Joanna Russ
- On the same lists
The book intertwines the lives of four women who live in parallel worlds—when they meet it is their views on gender roles that startle one another.
It is the 1970s. Joanna lives in a world much like our own, where the feminist movement is just beginning. In Jeannine's world, however, there was no Second World War...
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26. The Martian
by Weir, Andy
- On the same lists
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Brilliant . . . a celebration of human ingenuity [and] the purest example of real-science sci-fi for many years . . . utterly compelling.”—The...
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Culture book 3
27. Use Of Weapons
by Iain M. Banks
- On the same lists
Features a Utopian society (culture) that's post scarcity, controlled by benevolent A. I.'s who act for the good of the society. When Culture encounters less enlightened societies, the fun begins.
Iain Banks burst onto the literary scene with his controversial first novel, The Wasp Factory, the violent story of a girl who had been brought up as an emasculated boy....
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Hainish Cycle book 4
28. 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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Zones Of Thought book 1 Start here
29. A Fire Upon The Deep
by Vernor Vinge
- On the same lists
The first book in the Zones of Thought series and tells the tale of a galactic war. In the story the mind's potential is determined by its location in space.
Set thousands of years into the future, the universe is inhabited by various races, including super-intelligent entities in the Transcend and the simple creatures and technology of the Unthinking Depths....
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Imperial Radch book 1 Start here
30. 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.
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 Ready Player One: A Novel.
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