Books like To The Moon
30 science fiction books to read after To The Moon, by Heinlein, Robert A., the closest match first.
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1. Stranger In A Strange Land
by Heinlein, Robert A.
- Same author
A Martian visits Earth and teaches humanity a few things--some believe it to be a guide to social change.
An expedition to Mars is lost. Twenty five years later, a second expedition finds there is one survivor of the first expedition, Valentine Michael Smith, who was raised by Martians....
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2. Starship Troopers
by Heinlein, Robert A.
- Same author
The world government in this future Earth is run by veterans and citizens must earn the right to vote and hold public office with federal service.
Book Flap Description A recruit of the future goes through the toughest boot camp in the universe and into battle with the Terran Mobile Infantry against humankind's most frightening enemy. ...
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3. 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...
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4. Farnham's Freehold
by Heinlein, Robert A.
- Same author
This novel was first published in 1964, with the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation—a real apocalypse!—still fresh on people's minds. In this...
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5. The Door Into Summer
by Heinlein, Robert A.
- Same author
1970. A.D. Daniel Boone Davis is an inventor of household robots, who's been cheated out of his patents and company by a conniving friend and girlfriend, who stop just short...
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6. The Man In The High Castle
by Dick, Philip K.
- On the same lists
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...
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Heinlein Juveniles book 1 Start here
7. Rocket Ship Galileo
by Heinlein, Robert A.
- Same author
Three teenagers and an older scientist develop their own atomic rocket, solve their own space problems and blast off for the moon in spite of mysterious setbacks.
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Heinlein Juveniles book 2
8. Space Cadet
by Heinlein, Robert A.
- Same author
A young man reports for the final tests for appointment as a cadet in the Interplanetary Patrol, survives the tests, studies in the school ship, and goes on a regular...
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Heinlein Juveniles book 3
9. Red Planet
by Heinlein, Robert A.
- Same author
Jim Marlow and his strange-looking Martian friend Willis were allowed to travel only so far. But one day Willis unwittingly tuned into a treacherous plot that threatened all the colonists...
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Heinlein Juveniles book 4
10. Farmer In The Sky
by Heinlein, Robert A.
- Same author
A father and son leave an overpopulated Earth and become colonists on the third moon of Jupiter, Ganymede.
Farmer In The Sky is a 1950 science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein about a teenaged boy who emigrates with his family to Jupiter's moon Ganymede, which is in...
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Dune Chronicles book 1 Start here
11. 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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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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Witch World book 1 Start here
13. 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....
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14. 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,...
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15. 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...
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16. 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...
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After Such Knowledge book 1 Start here
17. 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...
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18. 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...
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19. 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...
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The Age Of Discovery book 2
20. The New World
by Stackpole, Micheal A.
- On the same lists
A startling look at the role of government, including eugenics.
The three grandchildren of the royal cartographer Qiro Anturasi, a mapmaker whose magic can reshape reality, must save their world from destruction. Nalenyr is besieged on all sides by those...
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21. 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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22. 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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23. 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...
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24. The Diamond Age
by Stephenson, Neal
- On the same lists
A coming of age story for a young girl in a world where nanotech has become part of all aspects of life.
Unlike the typical steampunk,, Neal Stephenson’s masterpiece does not feature steam and clockwork technology, but futuristic nano-technology that’s pervaded society on every level. This novel is so much more than...
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Space Odyssey book 1 Start here
25. 2001 A Space Odyssey
by Clarke, Arthur C.
- On the same lists
This novel is an epic story, a story in which two astronauts must fight for their lives, against an extraordinary computer named HAL.
The classic science fiction novel that captures and expands on the vision of Stanley Kubrick’s immortal film—and changed the way we look at the stars and ourselves. From the savannas...
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26. 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...
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27. 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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28. 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...
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29. 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...
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Mesklin book 1 Start here
30. 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...
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 To The Moon.
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