Books like The Space Merchants
30 science fiction books to read after The Space Merchants, by Pohl, Frederik, the closest match first.
-
The Space Merchants book 2
1. The Merchants' War
by Pohl, Frederik
- Same series
- Same author
A sequel to The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl, a satire of advertising and corporate power in a future where companies run the world. It was written by Pohl alone.
-
Heechee Saga book 1 Start here
2. Gateway (1978)
by Pohl, Frederik
- Same author
- On the same lists
Robinette Broadhead is rich, and he has a lot to feel guilty about. In sessions with his robot psychiatrist, he talks about how he got there: he won a lottery...
-
3. 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....
-
Triffids book 1 Start here
4. 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...
-
Mesklin book 1 Start here
5. 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...
-
6. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea
by Verne, Jules
- On the same lists
The classic example.
When Hugo Gernsback wanted to define "scientifiction" in the very first issue of Amazing, he called it the "Edgar Allan Poe, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells type of story". It puts...
-
Storyteller book 2
7. Cry Of The Wind
by Sue Harrison
- On the same lists
We all know what happens when aliens invade: there's a big fight and then the aliens are driven off, or humanity is reduced to servitude. Well, no. We've got enough...
-
8. Contacting Aliens: An Illustrated Guide To David Brin's Uplift Universe
by Brin, David
- On the same lists
When the black monolith appears in Arthur C. Clarke's 2001, A Space Odyssey, or the demons in Childhood's End, that is Uplift. But what if humanity has reached into space...
-
9. A Canticle For Leibowitz
by Jr., Walter M. Miller
- On the same lists
After a nuclear war monks preserve civilization.
A Canticle for Leibowitz follows the rejuvenation of "civilization" after a devastating nuclear holocaust. It has three distinctive chapters, each one disconnected by centuries, focusing on life at a desert...
-
Witch World book 1 Start here
10. 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....
-
11. The Robot Stories
by Asimov, Isaac
- On the same lists
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings,...
-
12. 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...
-
13. 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...
-
After Such Knowledge book 1 Start here
14. A Case Of Conscience
by James Blish
- On the same lists
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...
-
15. 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...
-
16. 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...
-
17. Man Plus (1977)
by Pohl, Frederik
- Same author
With nuclear war looming, the United States decides that the only way for humanity to survive is on Mars, and that people must be rebuilt for the planet's thin air....
-
Heechee Saga book 2
18. Beyond The Blue Event Horizon
by Pohl, Frederik
- Same author
Heechee Saga #2 “In book two of the Heechee Saga, Robinette Broadhead is on his way to making a fortune by bankrolling an expedition to the Food Factory--a Heechee spaceship...
-
Heechee Saga book 3
19. Heechee Rendezvous
by Pohl, Frederik
- Same author
The third novel in Frederik Pohl's 'Heechee Saga', continuing the story of mankind's discovery of, and search for, an ancient space-faring civilization that had risen and then disappeared before the...
-
Heechee Saga book 4
20. The Annals Of The Heechee
by Pohl, Frederik
- Same author
From back cover Del Ray paperback May 1988: HORIZON'S GATEWAY Advanced Heechee technology had enabled Robinette Broadhead to live after death as a machine-stored personality. He passed the time flitting...
-
21. The Gateway Trip
by Pohl, Frederik
- Same author
The Gateway Trip is a Frederik Pohl collection of Heechee stories, from the world of the Gateway novels.
-
Heechee Saga book 5
22. The Boy Who Would Live Forever: A Novel Of Gateway
by Pohl, Frederik
- Same author
The Boy Who Would Live Forever is Frederik Pohl's last Gateway novel, in which the Heechee universe faces a new crisis.
-
-
24. Dying Inside
by Silverberg, Robert
- On the same lists
Despite his credentials championing hard, rational science fiction, John W. Campbell was a fervent believer in psi powers. Perhaps because of that, whenever telepathy appeared in science fiction, as in...
-
25. 1984
by George Orwell
- On the same lists
A classic novel that is definitively a dystopia.
The words have become so commonplace we hardly realise we are using them: Big Brother is watching you, the Ministry of Truth, Room 101, Newspeak, thoughtcrime. George Orwell gave us...
-
26. Tales Of The Dying Earth
by Vance, Jack
- On the same lists
A series, and the reason there is a Dying Earth sub-genre.
Tale of the Dying Earth truly stands as one of the greatest works ever penned. Everything that's good and bad about the human condition is eloquently expressed within this tale....
-
27. To Your Scattered Bodies Go
by Farmer, Philip Jose
- On the same lists
This series can also be considered Science Fiction. Humanity is resurrected (from across all of history) on the banks of a constructed world.
There are some problematic things about this series, but it's an interesting concept and the action scenes are some of the most fun to come out of the 70s. The...
-
28. Inverted World
by Priest, Christopher
- On the same lists
He had reached the age of 650 miles. With its very first words, Inverted World tells us we are in a very different world. In fact, this is one of...
-
29. 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...
-
30. 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...
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 Space Merchants.
The shortlist
Liked The Space Merchants? New releases and the lists readers are opening most, by email.