Books like The Martian Chronicles
30 science fiction books to read after The Martian Chronicles, by Bradbury, Ray, the closest match first.
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1. Fahrenheit 451
by Bradbury, Ray
- Same author
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...
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2. 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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3. 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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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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Mars Trilogy book 1 Start here
5. Red Mars (1994)
by Robinson, Kim Stanley
- On the same lists
A mission is launched to terraform Mars in this scientific epic.
In 2026, a hundred colonists set off on the first long voyage to Mars. Among them are John Boone, the first man to walk on the planet, and his rival...
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6. 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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7. 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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8. White Mars
by Brian Aldiss
- On the same lists
It was a time of colour-coded Mars Red, Green, Blue Mars, for instance so it is hardly surprising to find one that offers yet another twist on the spectrum. But...
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Ready Player One book 1 Start here
9. Ready Player One: A Novel
by Cline, Ernest
- On the same lists
Not 'strictly' a LitRPG novel, but Ready Player One has a lot of elements that make up an LITRPG book, those being the in-game sequences. This is not only a...
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10. Martian Time-slip
by Dick, Philip K.
- On the same lists
Just as Ray Bradbury's Mars ignores both contemporary scientific knowledge about Mars and the colourful landscape of the planetary romance in order to create a Mars that is peculiarly his...
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11. Moving Mars (1995)
by Bear, Greg
- On the same lists
Casseia Majumdar grows up in a powerful family on a Mars that is settled, self-governing and increasingly at odds with Earth. As a young politician she is drawn into the...
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Hyperion Cantos book 1 Start here
12. 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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13. 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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Culture book 3
14. 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
15. 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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Revelation Space book 3
16. Redemption Ark
by Alastair Reynolds
- On the same lists
The great wall is a massive construction, large enough to enclose an entire city, and the atmosphere above it. The wall encloses the base of the Conjoiners, a group that...
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17. Sand Of Mars
by Clarke, Arthur C.
- On the same lists
Back to a Mars that draws on contemporary scientific knowledge of the red planet. In this version, Mars is little more than a research establishment, as a very small colony...
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18. Desolation Road
by Ian Mcdonald
- On the same lists
This is the closest modern science fiction has come to the haunting, magical sense of Mars as it appeared in The Martian Chronicles, and McDonald has mixed it with elements...
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19. Space Machine, The
by Priest, Christopher
- On the same lists
One of the signs of how influential H.G. Wells was in the history of science fiction can be seen in the number of later writers who have produced sequels to...
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20. Red Dust: A Path Through China
by Ma Jian
- On the same lists
The revival of interest by NASA in sending missions to Mars in the early 1990s kickstarted a revival of interest in the planet as a setting for science fiction, with...
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21. Rose For Ecclesiastes
by Zelazny, Roger
- On the same lists
This novelette is one of the best works of fiction that Roger Zelazny wrote. It concerns a poet who visits Mars to learn the language of the Martians. The Martians...
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22. Voyage To The Red Planet
by Terry Bisson
- On the same lists
There aren't that many funny novels about Mars, but this is one of them. A satire on contemporary America and particularly on Hollywood, a spoof of many old fashioned sf...
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23. Aelita
by Alexei Tolstoy
- On the same lists
Written in the immediate aftermath of the Russian Revolution, this is one of the classics of Soviet science fiction. A pair of human adventurers arrive on Mars and discover an...
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Space Trilogy book 1 Start here
24. Out Of The Silent Planet
by Lewis, C. S.
- On the same lists
Dr Ransom is kidnapped by Weston and Devine and spirited away to the planet Malacandra, where they plan to sacrifice him to the alien sorns. When they arrive on Malacandra,...
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25. The Sword Of Rhiannon
by Leigh Brackett
- On the same lists
An unlikely hero is plunged into Mars' past.
Leigh Brackett was the queen of the planetary romance, indeed her vivid and highly coloured work practically defined the form. She set many of her stories on the same Mars,...
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26. Rainbow Mars
by Niven, Larry
- On the same lists
Already in this list we have met H.G. Wellss Martian invaders with their huge heads and tentacles, Ray Bradburys Martians who can appear just like the family you left at...
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27. No Man Friday
by Rex Gordon
- On the same lists
A lone astronaut stranded on Mars isnt original with The Martian (see above), nearly 60 years earlier the plot was played out in this extraordinary novel.A secret British rocket is...
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28. The Martian Race
by Benford, Gregory
- On the same lists
When the rocket about to launch the first manned mission to Mars blows up at take off, NASA abandons the project. Instead, a $30 billion prize is offered for the...
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29. Mars
by Ben Bova
- On the same lists
This was the first in what became Ben Bovas huge and on-going Grand Tour sequence of novels detailing human exploration of the Solar System. In this novel six men and...
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Jean Le Flambeur book 1 Start here
30. By Hannu Rajaniemi:the Quantum Thief [hardcover]
by Hannu Rajaniemi
- On the same lists
If you want a Martian society now that is as flamboyant and as varied as the old planetary romances, then your best bet is the digital extravagance of a post-human...
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 The Martian Chronicles.
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