Books like 'Alas, Babylon'
Readers who enjoyed Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical sc-fi action / adventure 20th century horror alternate history violent-conflict apocalyptic post-apocalyptic classics
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11/22/63 by Stephen King
Rated: 4.32 of 5 stars · 79 ratingsOn November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? Stephen King’s heart-stoppingly dramatic new novel is about a man who travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination—a thousand page tour de force...Categorized as:
classics drama dystopia historical-fiction politics suspense 20th-century 21st-century -
Sherlock Holmes in Orbit by Mike Resnick, Dean Wesley Smith
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAuthorized by Dame Jean Conan Doyle, this brand-new collection of 26 Sherlock Holmes stories takes place in Holmes' own era, in our present time, and in the future. All the tales contain some science fiction or fantasy element, and all remain true to the spirit and personality of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous and enduring creation...Categorized as:
historical-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens alternate-history anthologies crime -
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsFor Kivrin, preparing an on-site study of one of the deadliest eras in humanity's history was as simple as receiving inoculations against the diseases of the fourteenth century and inventing an alibi for a woman traveling alone. For her instructors in the twenty-first century, it meant painstaking calculations and careful monitoring of the rendezvous location where Kivrin would be received... -
Patternmaster by Octavia E. Butler
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsThe combined mind-force of a telepathic race, Patternist thoughts can destroy, heal, rule. For the strongest mind commands the entire pattern and all within. Now the son of the Patternmaster craves this ultimate power, He has murdered or enslaved every threat to his ambition--except one...Categorized as:
apocalyptic classics dystopia post-apocalyptic suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult -
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BioShock: Rapture by John Shirley
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsIt's the end of World War II. FDR's New Deal has redefined American politics. Taxes are at an all-time high. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has brought a fear of total annihilation. The rise of secret government agencies and sanctions on business has many watching their backs. America's sense of freedom is diminishing . . . and many are desperate to take that freedom back... -
Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWhen am I? Padway asked himself after the lightning-flash knocked him down. He knew where he was--Rome. He was there to study archaeology, and even though the lightning had left him dazed, he could see the familiar Roman buildings... -
The Goblin Reservation by Clifford D. Simak
Rated: 3.99 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsFirst-class entertainment (The Sunday Times) from a classic SF author. En route to an interplanetary research mission, a scientist is abducted by a strange, shadowy race of aliens and taken to a previously uncharted planet, a storehouse of information that would be invaluable--even to an Earth so advanced that time travel allows goblins, dinosaurs, even Shakespeare to coexist...Categorized as:
classics violent-conflict 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens alternate-history audiobook -
On the Beach by Nevil Shute
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsAfter the war is over, a radioactive cloud begins to sweep southwards on the winds, gradually poisoning everything in its path. An American submarine captain is among the survivors left sheltering in Australia, preparing with the locals for the inevitable. Despite his memories of his wife, he becomes close to a young woman struggling to accept the harsh realities of their situation...Categorized as:
apocalyptic classics cold-war disaster drama dystopia historical-fiction literary-fiction -
Earth Abides by George R. Stewart
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsThe cabin had always been a special retreat for Isherwood Williams, a haven from the demands of society. But one day while hiking, Ish was bitten by a rattlesnake, and the solitude he had so desired took on dire new significance. He was sick for days - although, somehow, he never doubted that he'd live through the ordeal...Categorized as:
apocalyptic classics disaster drama dystopia literary-fiction post-apocalyptic survival -
The Eye in the Pyramid by Robert Shea, Robert Anton Wilson
Rated: 3.82 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsIt was a deadly mistake. Joseph Malik, editor of a radical magazine, had snooped into rumors about an ancient secret society that was still alive and kicking. Now his offices have been bombed, he's missing, and the case has landed in the lap of a tough, cynical, streetwise New York detective...Categorized as:
classics dystopia historical-fiction suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history -
The Bloody Red Baron by Kim Newman
Rated: 3.81 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWAR IS HELL... It is 1918 and Graf von Dracula is commander-in-chief of the armies of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The War of the Great Powers in Europe is also a war between the living and the undead...Categorized as:
historical-fiction war 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook book -
Timeline by Michael Crichton
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 66 ratingsIn an Arizona desert, a man wanders in a daze, speaking words that make no sense. Within twenty-four hours he is dead, his body swiftly cremated by his only known associates. Halfway around the world, archaeologists make a shocking discovery at a medieval site. Suddenly they are swept off to the headquarters of a secretive multinational corporation that has developed an astounding technology...Categorized as:
classics drama high-school historical-fiction suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Them Bones by Howard Waldrop
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsMadison Yazoo Leake, of the bombed-out, radiation-ridden 21st century, wanted to go back in time to stop World War III before it began. When he stepped through the time portal, he thought he was entering 1930s-era Louisiana... -
Fallout by Todd Strasser
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWhat if the bomb had actually been dropped? What if your family was the only one with a shelter?In the summer of 1962, the possibility of nuclear war is all anyone talks about. But Scott's dad is the only one in the neighborhood who actually prepares for the worst...Categorized as:
apocalyptic cold-war dystopia high-school historical-fiction politics post-apocalyptic realistic -
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R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) by Karel Čapek
Rated: 3.82 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsA visionary work of science fiction that introduced the word "robot"Written in 1920, premiered in Prague in 1921, and first performed in New York in 1922—garnered worldwide acclaim for its author and popularized the word robot. Mass-produced as efficient laborers to serve man, Capek’s Robots are an android product—they remember everything but think of nothing new...Categorized as:
apocalyptic classics drama dystopia literary-fiction politics 20th-century action-adventure -
Eye in the Sky by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 3.74 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsWhile sightseeing at the Belmont Bevatron, Jack Hamilton, along with seven others, is caught in a lab accident. When he regains consciousness, he is in a fantasy world of Old Testament morality gone awry—a place of instant plagues, immediate damnations, and death to all perceived infidels...Categorized as:
classics dystopia literary-fiction suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history -
By the Blood of Heroes by Joseph Nassise
Rated: 3.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratings“Joe Nassise has raised the bar for the whole genre.” —Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of The Dragon FactoryCombine the take-no-prisoners heroic grit of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds with the irreverent inventiveness of George A... -
The Company Man by Robert Jackson Bennett
Rated: 3.58 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe year is 1919.The McNaughton Corporation is the pinnacle of American industry. They built the guns that won the Great War before it even began. They built the airships that tie the world together. And, above all, they built Evesden-a shining metropolis, the best that the world has to offer.But something is rotten at the heart of the city... -
Darwinia by Robert Charles Wilson
Rated: 3.37 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsIn 1912, history was changed by the Miracle, when the old world of Europe was replaced by Darwinia, a strange land of nightmarish jungle and antedeluvian monsters. To some, the Miracle is an act of divine retribution; to others, it is an opportunity to carve out a new empire... -
The Domination by S.M. Stirling
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIn this "tour de force" of alternate history and military science fiction, Stirling imagines a world where only the United States stands between the Draka and their dream of an enslaved humanity.Compilation of Stirling's four Draka novels...Categorized as:
dystopia violent-conflict war 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens alternate-history -
The Manhattan Projects, Vol. 1: Science. Bad. by Jonathan Hickman, Nick Pitarra
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhat if the research and development department created to produce the first atomic bomb was a front for a series of other, more unusual, programs?A collection of the coolest new series of the year into one super science package...Categorized as:
dystopia historical-fiction military violent-conflict war 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Ghosts of Manhattan by George Mann
Rated: 3.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratings1926. New York. The Roaring Twenties. Jazz. Flappers. Prohibition. Coal-powered cars. America is in the midst of a cold war with a British Empire that has only just buried Queen Victoria, her life artificially preserved to the age of 107...
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