Books like The Windup Girl (2010)
30 science fiction books to read after The Windup Girl (2010), by Bacigalupi, Paolo, the closest match first.
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Ship Breaker book 1 Start here
1. Ship Breaker
by Bacigalupi, Paolo
- Same author
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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2. The Water Knife
by Bacigalupi, Paolo
- Same author
The American Southwest has been decimated by drought. Nevada and Arizona skirmish over dwindling shares of the Colorado River, while California watches, deciding if it should just take the whole...
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3. 2010: The City & The City
by Miéville, China
- On the same lists
Imagine two cities that share the exact same geographic space, but do not interact with one another under any circumstances. Unless the government authorities grant permission, that is. If citizens...
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Firefall book 1 Start here
4. Blindsight
by Peter Watts
- On the same lists
A group of freaks (who are also astronauts) are sent on a one way mission to investigate a mysterious object that appears at the edge of human space. Atmospheric and creepy.
This novel has been hailed as one of the best hard sf stories written this century. It's an awesome novel, packed with invention and new ideas and challenges to the...
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Ship Breaker book 2
5. The Drowned Cities
by Bacigalupi, Paolo
- Same author
In a dark future America that has devolved into unending civil wars, orphans Mahlia and Mouse barely escape the war-torn lands of the Drowned Cities, but their fragile safety is...
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6. Snow Crash
by Stephenson, Neal
- On the same lists
Considered by some as a parody of Cyberpunk. This novel popularized and cemented its use of the term avatar to describe online virtual bodies
Meet Hiro Protagonist: hacker, samurai swinging swordsman and pizza delivery boy. When his best friend dies of a brain fry and his ex girlfriend asks for his help, Hiro switches...
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Spin book 1 Start here
7. Spin
by Robert Charles Wilson
- On the same lists
The stars go out—replaced by an alien-made barrier that slows the passage of time on Earth and the danger the sun poses comes ever closer.
One night, when he is 12 years old, Tyler Dupree and two friends witness all the stars in the sky suddenly disappearing. It turns out that a membrane has been...
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Old Man's War book 1 Start here
8. Old Man's War
by John Scalzi
- On the same lists
Geriatrics are transferred into healthier bodies and enhanced soldier bodies.
John Scalzi is one of the shining lights of today’s science fiction landscape. His first novel, Old Man’s War, was an incredible introduction, bringing Scalzi to international attention, as well...
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9. Air: Or, Have Not Have
by Geoff Ryman
- On the same lists
An award winning novel concerned with information technology and its potential for change.
The internet changed our lives in ways that, even now, we probably don't fully appreciate. But what is the effect of the internet? To what extent are we different from...
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10. The Yiddish Policemen's Union
by Chabon, Michael
- On the same lists
What if the State of Israel was destroyed? They would live in Alaska.
In this book, Chabon created a world where Israel had never been founded after World War II. Instead the state of displaced Jews is located in Sitka, Alaska. Chabon used...
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11. Lord Of Light
by Zelazny, Roger
- On the same lists
Clones and transfer technology make the doctrine of reincarnation a literal truth.
Zelazny may be famous in the fantasy world for his Amber series, but his best work may just be his stand alone novel, Lord of Light. It's a work that's...
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The Ender Quintet book 1 Start here
12. Ender's Game (1986)
by Card, Orson Scott
- On the same lists
The first in a famous series that seems to become more literary as its characters age. Follows a child prodigy and in the process makes the reader think about war, the means to war, and even loneliness.
Earth has survived two invasions by an insect-like alien race, and the International Fleet is training the most gifted children to lead the next defence. Six-year-old Andrew "Ender" Wiggin is...
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Revelation Space book 1 Start here
13. Revelation Space
by Alastair Reynolds
- On the same lists
A complex novel that postulates many different lifeforms who struggle against ancient, machine-like intelligences seeking to destroy all new organic life.
Throughout its history, one of the strongest and most interesting aspects of science fiction has been its use in satire. And this is just about the most stunning of contemporary...
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14. The Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret Atwood
- On the same lists
An award winning, Canadian novel that explores themes of women in subjugation and agency in a futuristic theocracy.
Throughout its history, one of the strongest and most interesting aspects of science fiction has been its use in satire. And this is just about the most stunning of contemporary...
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Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy book 1 Start here
15. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
by Douglas Adams
- On the same lists
It began as a radio series on the BBC. It was quickly adapted for television (with many of the same cast), and much later there came a film version (though...
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16. Accelerando
- On the same lists
Ever since the computer became a fixture in the ordinary life of every one of us, it has been one of the most potent images in the idea of posthumanity....
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17. Cloud Atlas: A Novel
by Mitchell, David
- On the same lists
Inevitably, there is a continuity between past and future. The present is not a cut-off point between one and the other, but simply a sliding scale in the process of...
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18. 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...
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Takeshi Kovacs book 1 Start here
19. Altered Carbon
by Morgan, Richard K.
- On the same lists
Humans can transfer their conciousness into new bodies. This sets up a detective style story about a murder.
After dying in a particularly gruesome death, ex UN-envoy Takeshi Kovacs wakes up to find himself "re-sleeved" into a fresh body with a job offer: find who killed Laurens Bancroft...
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20. 2312 (2013)
by Robinson, Kim Stanley
- On the same lists
Society has spread across the solar system. The society is nonbinary and gender and sexuality are thought of fluidly. In this year, 2312, a sequence of events will force humanity to confront its past, present, and future.
In the 24th century, humanity has spread through the solar system to hollowed-out asteroids, Mercury's moving city and the terraformed worlds. When Alex, the grandmother who raised her, dies, Swan...
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Light book 1 Start here
21. Light
by M. John Harrison
- On the same lists
M. John Harrison's The Centauri Device (1974) was a new wave space opera that was acknowledged as a major influence by writers as varied as Iain M. Banks and China...
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22. The Islanders
by Priest, Christopher
- On the same lists
In the late-70s, Christopher Priest wrote a series of stories about the Dream Archipelago, a string of islands that represent neutral territory for the warring nations of the northern continent....
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23. The Quiet War Series
by Paul Mcauley
- On the same lists
The British Boom has been all about reinventing older forms of science fiction, making them fit for the new century, and no-one has done that better than Paul McAuley. The...
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24. Jack Glass The Story Of A Murderer
by Adam Roberts
- On the same lists
Ever since his first novel, Salt (2000), Adam Roberts has established himself as one of the most prolific, challenging, and popular novelists writing in science fiction today. His work often...
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25. Passage
by Willis, Connie
- On the same lists
Immortality, cryogenics, uploading the mind to an AI, extended lifespans, time and again science fiction revolves around the issue of how to avoid death. In this novel, which won the...
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26. Song Of Stone
by Iain Banks
- On the same lists
One of the abiding themes of science fiction in the early twenty-first century is a careful delineation of everyday life in the near future, a future in which the steady...
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27. The Execution Channel
by Ken Macleod
- On the same lists
Ken MacLeod is perhaps the most politically astute novelist working in Britain today. He brings a highly critical left-wing sensibility to his work, while at the same time being very...
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28. Blood Music
by Bear, Greg
- On the same lists
A biotechnologist hides his biological computer creation in his body, but then they multiply and evolve. One of the first Sci Fi stories to treat DNA as a computational system that can be modified.
If Xenogenesis explores the emergence of posthumanity through exogamy, Blood Music explores it through infection. A renegade biotechnologist faces having his research shut down, so he injects himself with the...
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29. Anathem
by Stephenson, Neal
- On the same lists
Wow, what a ride from beginning to end. True to a Neal Stephenson tradition, it ties a number of completely different ideas and themes together into a (somehow) working thread....
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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 Windup Girl (2010).
The shortlist
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