Skip to content

The Robot Stories

Books like The Robot Stories

30 science fiction books to read after The Robot Stories, by Asimov, Isaac, the closest match first.

  1. Witch World

    Witch World book 1 Start here

    1. 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....

  2. The Cold Equations

    2. 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...

  3. Who?

    3. 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...

  4. A Case Of Conscience

    After Such Knowledge book 1 Start here

    4. A Case Of Conscience

    by James Blish

    • On the same lists
    Hugo winner 1959

    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...

  5. The Sirens Of Titan

    5. 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...

  6. The Body Snatchers

    6. 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...

  7. Childhood S End

    7. 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...

  8. The Best Of

    8. 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...

  9. Mission Of Gravity

    Mesklin book 1 Start here

    9. 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...

  10. Foundation

    10. Foundation

    by Asimov, Isaac

    • Same author

    Some softer elements, like FTL and antigrav cars, but otherwise a rational series.

    Book Flap Description  One of the great masterworks of science fiction, the Foundation novels of Isaac Asimov are unsurpassed for their unique blend of nonstop action, daring ideas, and extensive...

  11. Fahrenheit 451

    11. 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...

  12. More Than Human

    12. 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...

  13. The Gods Themselves (1973)

    13. The Gods Themselves (1973)

    by Asimov, Isaac

    • Same author

    In the 2070s, a scientist realises that a sample of tungsten has turned into plutonium that cannot exist in our universe. His discovery leads to the Electron Pump, which gives...

  14. I, Robot

    14. I, Robot

    by Asimov, Isaac

    • Same author

    Asimov wrote the three laws of robotics and this collection of stories is a cornerstone of Robot Sci Fi.

    Asimov is the God Father of all things science fiction and robotic, and no self-respecting top robot novel list would be worth reading without this book in prime position. You...

  15. The Space Merchants

    The Space Merchants book 1 Start here

    15. 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...

  16. The Stars My Destination

    16. 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...

  17. Foundation And Empire

    17. Foundation And Empire

    by Asimov, Isaac

    • Same author

    The second book of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series is made up of two stories, "The General" and "The Mule", and in each an outsider attempts to conquer the Foundation, the...

  18. Second Foundation

    18. Second Foundation

    by Asimov, Isaac

    • Same author

    The third novel in Isaac Asimov’s classic science-fiction masterpiece, the Foundation series THE EPIC SAGA THAT INSPIRED THE APPLE TV+ SERIES FOUNDATION The Foundation lies in ruins—destroyed by a mutant...

  19. Foundation's Edge

    19. Foundation's Edge

    by Asimov, Isaac

    • Same author
    Hugo winner 1983

    The fourth novel in Isaac Asimov’s classic science-fiction masterpiece, the Foundation series THE EPIC SAGA THAT INSPIRED THE APPLE TV+ SERIES FOUNDATION At last, the costly and bitter war between...

  20. Foundation And Earth

    20. Foundation And Earth

    by Asimov, Isaac

    • Same author

    The fifth novel in Isaac Asimov’s classic science-fiction masterpiece, the Foundation series THE EPIC SAGA THAT INSPIRED THE APPLE TV+ SERIES FOUNDATION Golan Trevize, former Councilman of the First Foundation,...

  21. The Caves Of Steel

    Robot book 1 Start here

    21. The Caves Of Steel

    by Asimov, Isaac

    • Same author

    Earth is overpopulated a thousand years from now. Planets outside of our solar system have been colonized and development of robots through the âpositronic brain.â In this new society, only...

  22. To The Moon

    22. 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.

  23. The Rediscovery Of Man

    23. 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....

  24. The Man In The High Castle

    24. The Man In The High Castle

    by Dick, Philip K.

    • On the same lists
    Hugo winner 1963

    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...

  25. Dune

    Dune Chronicles book 1 Start here

    25. Dune

    by Herbert, Frank

    • On the same lists
    Hugo winner 1966

    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...

  26. The Skylark Series (cover not available)

    26. The Skylark Series

    by E. E. Smith

    • On the same lists

    The great innovation in American science fiction during the 1920s was the invention of the space opera, and that was largely down to E.E. "Doc" Smith. Sometime around 1916 he...

  27. Herland

    The Herland book 1 Start here

    27. Herland

    by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

    • On the same lists

    Towards the end of the 19th century a big movement for women's suffrage started up on both sides of the Atlantic. Accompanying the political campaign, there were many stories that...

  28. A Voyage To Arcturus

    28. A Voyage To Arcturus

    by David Lindsay

    • On the same lists

    Science fiction has produced some pretty weird novels in its time, but there aren't many that can match A Voyage to Arcturus. It has had a major influence on writers...

  29. Metropolis

    29. Metropolis

    by Thea Von Harbou

    • On the same lists

    This is the novelisation of the film that Thea von Harbou wrote with her husband, Fritz Lang. It was the first feature-length science fiction film, the most expensive film made...

  30. Deluge

    30. Deluge

    by S. Fowler Wright

    • On the same lists

    The idea of a drowned England had been a commonplace in British scientific romances since at least After London by Richard Jeffries, but it received its finest expression in Fowler...

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 Robot Stories.

The shortlist

Liked The Robot Stories? New releases and the lists readers are opening most, by email.