Books like 'The Precipice'
Readers who enjoyed The Precipice by Ben Bova also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
futuristic sc-fi space hard sci-fi action / adventure space-opera near-future space-travel exploration post-apocalyptic
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Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Rated: 4.53 of 5 stars · 80 ratingsA lone astronaut.An impossible mission.An ally he never imagined.Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and Earth itself will perish.Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time...Categorized as:
post-apocalyptic space-opera space-travel 21st-century action-adventure aliens amnesia apocalyptic -
![Tiamat's Wrath by James S.A. Corey]()
Tiamat's Wrath by James S.A. Corey
Rated: 4.57 of 5 stars · 48 ratingsThirteen hundred gates have opened to solar systems around the galaxy. But as humanity builds its interstellar empire in the alien ruins, the mysteries and threats grow deeper...Categorized as:
exploration space-opera space-travel 21st-century action-adventure adult aliens audiobook -
![Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey]()
Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey
Rated: 4.43 of 5 stars · 61 ratingsThe fifth novel in Corey's New York Times bestselling Expanse series--now being produced for television by the SyFy Channel!A thousand worlds have opened, and the greatest land rush in human history has begun. As wave after wave of colonists leave, the power structures of the old solar system begin to buckle.Ships are disappearing without a trace. Private armies are being secretly formed...Categorized as:
colonization post-apocalyptic space-opera space-travel 21st-century action-adventure adult aliens -
![Persepolis Rising by James S.A. Corey]()
Persepolis Rising by James S.A. Corey
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 53 ratingsIn the thousand-sun network of humanity's expansion, new colony worlds are struggling to find their way. Every new planet lives on a knife edge between collapse and wonder, and the crew of the aging gunship Rocinante have their hands more than full keeping the fragile peace... -
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![A Grimm Sacrifice by Jeffery H. Haskell]()
A Grimm Sacrifice by Jeffery H. Haskell
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn order to survive, Interceptor must change the rules.The Consortium is in real trouble. Caliphate Naval forces have stepped up their raids on the border planets and are taking people by the thousands. They can defend the wormhole, or they can defend their planets, not both... -
![For We Are Many by Dennis E. Taylor]()
For We Are Many by Dennis E. Taylor
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 46 ratingsBob Johansson didn't believe in an afterlife, so waking up after being killed in a car accident was a shock. To add to the surprise, he is now a sentient computer and the controlling intelligence for a Von Neumann probe. Bob and his copies have been spreading out from Earth for 40 years now, looking for habitable planets. But that's the only part of the plan that's still in one piece...Categorized as:
exploration post-apocalyptic space-opera space-travel 21st-century action-adventure ai aliens -
![All These Worlds by Dennis E. Taylor]()
All These Worlds by Dennis E. Taylor
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsBeing a sentient spaceship really should be more fun. But after spreading out through space for almost a century, Bob and his clones just can't stay out of trouble.They've created enough colonies so humanity shouldn't go extinct. But political squabbles have a bad habit of dying hard, and the Brazilian probes are still trying to take out the competition...Categorized as:
colonization exploration post-apocalyptic space-opera space-travel action-adventure ai aliens -
![We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor]()
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 67 ratingsAlternate Cover Edition can be found here. Bob Johansson has just sold his software company and is looking forward to a life of leisure. There are places to go, books to read, and movies to watch. So it's a little unfair when he gets himself killed crossing the street...Categorized as:
colonization exploration post-apocalyptic space-opera space-travel 21st-century action-adventure ai -
![The Saints of Salvation by Peter F. Hamilton]()
The Saints of Salvation by Peter F. Hamilton
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsHumanity is struggling to hold out against a hostile takeover by an alien race that claims to be on a religious mission to bring all sentient life to its God at the End of Time. But while things may look grim in the immediate aftermath of the attack, mankind is busy playing an even longer game than the aliens may have expected...Categorized as:
colonization exploration space-opera space-travel action-adventure adult aliens audiobook -
![Babylon's Ashes by James S.A. Corey]()
Babylon's Ashes by James S.A. Corey
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 57 ratingsThe sixth book in the New York Times bestselling Expanse series. NOW A MAJOR TV SERIES A revolution brewing for generations has begun in fire. It will end in blood.The Free Navy - a violent group of Belters in black-market military ships - has crippled the Earth and begun a campaign of piracy and violence among the outer planets...Categorized as:
near-future post-apocalyptic space-opera 21st-century action-adventure adult aliens apocalyptic -
![The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal]()
The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsMary Robinette Kowal continues her award-winning Lady Astronaut series, which began with The Calculating Stars and The Fated Sky, with The Relentless Moon.The Earth is coming to the boiling point as the climate disaster of the Meteor strike becomes more and more clear, but the political situation is already overheated. Riots and sabotage plague the space program... -
![Foundation by Isaac Asimov]()
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 49 ratingsFor twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future -- to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years...Categorized as:
post-apocalyptic space-opera space-travel 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book -
![Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky]()
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 59 ratingsA race for survival among the stars... Humanity's last survivors escaped earth's ruins to find a new home. But when they find it, can their desperation overcome its dangers?WHO WILL INHERIT THIS NEW EARTH?The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars...Categorized as:
post-apocalyptic space-opera space-travel 21st-century action-adventure adult ai aliens -
![Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey]()
Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 72 ratingsThe fourth novel in James S.A. Corey’s New York Times bestselling Expanse seriesThe gates have opened the way to thousands of habitable planets, and the land rush has begun. Settlers stream out from humanity's home planets in a vast, poorly controlled flood, landing on a new world...Categorized as:
colonization near-future space-opera space-travel 21st-century action-adventure adult aliens -
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![Smuggler's Dilemma by Jamie McFarlane]()
Smuggler's Dilemma by Jamie McFarlane
Rated: 4.41 of 5 stars · 23 ratingsThere’s guerrilla warfare in the main asteroid belt. The Red Houzi pirates have launched a deadly campaign, sacking defenseless mining colonies and then vanishing into the deep dark of space. No one can predict where or when they will show up next, not even the great Mars Protectorate Navy...Categorized as:
exploration space-opera action-adventure audiobook book fiction futuristic hard-sci-fi -
![The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal]()
The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsThe Fated Sky continued the grand sweep of alternate history begun in The Calculating Stars. It is 1961, and the International Aerospace Coalition has established a colony on the moon. Elma York, the noted Lady Astronaut, is working on rotation, flying shuttles on the moon and returning regularly to Earth.But humanity must get a foothold on Mars... -
![Empaths by S.H. Jucha]()
Empaths by S.H. Jucha
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsCaptain Jessie Cinders faces a hazardous choice. The murderer of the governor’s nephew stands before him. But, the frightened teenager, Aurelia Garmenti, doesn’t resemble the commandant’s description of the vicious, hardened killer his security forces seek.To complicate matters, Jessie’s mind has felt Aurelia’s mental powers... -
![Old Man's War by John Scalzi]()
Old Man's War by John Scalzi
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 50 ratingsJohn Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife's grave. Then he joined the army.The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-- and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate...Categorized as:
colonization space-opera space-travel 21st-century action-adventure adult aliens apocalyptic -
![2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke]()
2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 74 ratingsOn the Moon, an enigma is uncovered.So great are the implications of this discovery that for the first time men are sent out deep into our solar system.But long before their destination is reached, things begin to go horribly, inexplicably wrong...One of the greatest-selling science fiction novels of our time, this classic book will grip you to the very end...Categorized as:
exploration space-opera space-travel 20th-century action-adventure ai aliens audiobook -
![Colony Mars Boxset by Gerald M. Kilby]()
Colony Mars Boxset by Gerald M. Kilby
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAll contact is lost with the first privately funded colony on Mars during a long and destructive sandstorm. Satellite imagery of the aftermath shows extensive damage to the facility and the fifty-four colonists who called it home are presumed dead. Three years later, a new mission sets down on the planet surface to investigate what remains of the derelict site...Categorized as:
colonization exploration space-travel action-adventure adult book fiction futuristic -
![Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie]()
Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie
Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsAncillary Mercy is the stunning conclusion to the trilogy that began with Ancillary Justice, the only novel ever to win the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke Awards.For a moment, things seemed to be under control for Breq, the soldier who used to be a warship... -
![The Little Ships by J.A. Sutherland]()
The Little Ships by J.A. Sutherland
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsNewly commissioned lieutenant, Alexis Carew is appointed into HMS Shrewsbury, a 74-gun ship of the line in New London’s space navy. She expects Shrewsbury will be sent into action in the war against Hanover, but instead she finds that she and her new ship are pivotal in a Foreign Office plot to bring the star systems of the French Republic into the war and end the threat of Hanover forever...Categorized as:
colonization space-opera action-adventure audiobook book coming-of-age feminism fiction -
![The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein]()
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsRobert A. Heinlein was the most influential science fiction writer of his era, an influence so large that, as Samuel R. Delany notes, "modern critics attempting to wrestle with that influence find themselves dealing with an object rather like the sky or an ocean." He won the Hugo Award for best novel four times, a record that still stands...Categorized as:
colonization near-future space-opera space-travel 20th-century action-adventure ai audiobook -
![Homeworld by Evan Currie]()
Homeworld by Evan Currie
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsWar comes home to the Sol system when the Drasin track a human ship back to Earth, with devastating consequences. Facing massive force of invading alien ships wielding terrible power, the crew of the NAC spacecraft, their allies, and the people of Earth must mount a desperate effort to stop them... -
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![How Firm a Foundation by David Weber]()
How Firm a Foundation by David Weber
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Charisian Empire, born in war, has always known it must fight for its very survival. What most of its subjects don't know even now, however, is how much more it's fighting for. Emperor Cayleb, Empress Sharleyan, Merlin Athrawes, and their innermost circle of most trusted advisers do know...Categorized as:
colonization post-apocalyptic space-opera action-adventure adult ai alternate-history audiobook -
![Line War by Neal Asher]()
Line War by Neal Asher
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAsher is brilliant at conveying the vastness of space, the strangeness of alien life, and the sweep of planetary horizons.”—SFX MagazineFrom the mind of Neal Asher and his Polity universe comes Line War, which has Agent Cormac once again on the trail, investigating an attack of his AI masters... -
![Rogue World by B.V. Larson]()
Rogue World by B.V. Larson
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsThe Galactics arrived with their Battle Fleet in 2052. Rather than being exterminated under a barrage of hell-burners, Earth joined a vast Empire that spanned the Milky Way. Today, Battle Fleet 921 is returning to Earth. It hasn’t been seen by human eyes since our blissful day of Annexation...Categorized as:
colonization exploration space-opera space-travel action-adventure adult aliens audiobook -
![To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers]()
To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 45 ratingsIn her new novella, Sunday Times best-selling author Becky Chambers imagines a future in which, instead of terraforming planets to sustain human life, explorers of the solar system instead transform themselves. Ariadne is one such explorer. As an astronaut on an extrasolar research vessel, she and her fellow crewmates sleep between worlds and wake up each time with different features...Categorized as:
exploration space-opera space-travel 21st-century action-adventure adult aliens audiobook -
![March Upcountry by David Weber, John Ringo]()
March Upcountry by David Weber, John Ringo
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsPrince Roger MacClintock is a spoiled young princeling hardly worth the space he takes up. Now he must become a man, or the entire galaxy will suffer arrested adolescence... -
![The Hot Gate by John Ringo]()
The Hot Gate by John Ringo
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsNew York Times Best-Selling Author.The Big Showdown with an Alien Empire, to Keep the Earth Free—and Maybe Free the Galaxy as Well. The fight to free the Earth from alien domination began in Live Free or Die, and continued in Citadel. Now Tyler Vernon, and his troops aboard the gigantic battle station Troy, face a desperate battle with the forces of galactic tyranny... -
![House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds]()
House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsSix million years ago, at the very dawn of the starfaring era, Abigail Gentian fractured herself into a thousand male and female clones: the shatterlings. Sent out into the galaxy, these shatterlings have stood aloof as they document the rise and fall of countless human empires. They meet every two hundred thousand years, to exchange news and memories of their travels with their siblings... -
![Angles of Attack by Marko Kloos]()
Angles of Attack by Marko Kloos
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThe alien forces known as the Lankies are gathering on the solar system's edge, consolidating their conquest of Mars and setting their sights on Earth. The far-off colony of New Svalbard, cut off from the rest of the galaxy by the Lanky blockade, teeters on the verge of starvation and collapse. The forces of the two Earth alliances have won minor skirmishes but are in danger of losing the war...Categorized as:
post-apocalyptic space-opera space-travel action-adventure adult aliens apocalyptic audiobook -
![Honor Among Enemies by David Weber]()
Honor Among Enemies by David Weber
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsKNOW THY ENEMYFor Captain Honor Harrington, it's sometimes hard to know who the enemy really is. Despite political foes, professional jealousies, and the scandal which drove her into exile, she's been offered a chance to reclaim her career as an officer of the Royal Manticoran Navy. But there's a catch... -
![Field of Dishonor by David Weber]()
Field of Dishonor by David Weber
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsHONOR BETRAYEDThe People's Republic of Haven's sneak attack on the Kingdom of Manticore has failed. The Peeps are in disarray, their leaders fighting for power in bloody revolution, and the Royal Manticoran Navy stands victorious.But Manticore has domestic problems of its own, and success can be more treacherous than defeat for Honor Harrington... -
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![Echoes of Honor by David Weber]()
Echoes of Honor by David Weber
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 37 ratingsFor eight bloody years, the Star Kingdom of Manticore and its allies have taken the war to the vastly more powerful People's Republic of Haven, and Commodore Honor Harrington has been in the forefront of that war.But now Honor has fallen, captured by the Peep Navy, turned over to the forces of State Security ... and executed on the interstellar network's nightly news... -
![Home World by B.V. Larson]()
Home World by B.V. Larson
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThe Galactics arrived with their Battle Fleet in 2052. Rather than being exterminated under a barrage of hell-burners, Earth joined a vast Empire that spanned the Milky Way. When the Earth is invaded by a rival empire, James McGill’s legion must defend the Home World. The top brass has complex plans, but none of that matters much to McGill, who chooses his own unique path...Categorized as:
colonization exploration space-opera space-travel action-adventure adult aliens audiobook -
![Unidentified: A Science-Fiction Thriller by Douglas E. Richards, Dan Bittner]()
Unidentified: A Science-Fiction Thriller by Douglas E. Richards, Dan Bittner
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsUFOs are real. When Jason Ridley discovers their shocking agenda, his actions will either transform humanity...or destroy it entirely. Unidentified details the actual evidence that UFOs are here, while offering a mind-blowing fictional take on the reasons why. A riveting pause-resister packed with nonstop action, epic ideas, and astonishing twists... -
![In Enemy Hands by David Weber]()
In Enemy Hands by David Weber
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 37 ratingsHonor Harrington's career has its ups and its downs. She's survived ship-to-ship battles, assassins, political vendettas, and duels. She's been shot at, shot down, and just plain shot, had starships blown out from under her, and made personal enemies who will stop at nothing to ruin her, and somehow she's survived it all.But this time she's really in trouble... -
![Off Armageddon Reef by David Weber]()
Off Armageddon Reef by David Weber
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsHumanity pushed its way to the stars - and encountered the Gbaba, a ruthless alien race that nearly wiped us out.Earth and her colonies are now smoldering ruins, and the few survivors have fled to distant, Earth-like Safehold, to try to rebuild...Categorized as:
colonization post-apocalyptic space-opera action-adventure adult ai aliens alternate-history -
![Mission of Honor by David Weber]()
Mission of Honor by David Weber
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThe Star Kingdom of Manticore and the Republic of Haven have been enemies for Honor Harrington's entire life, and she has paid a price for the victories she's achieved in that conflict. And now the unstoppable juggernaut of the mighty Solarian League is on a collision course with Manticore... -
![The Dreaming Void by Peter F. Hamilton]()
The Dreaming Void by Peter F. Hamilton
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsThe year is 3589, fifteen hundred years after Commonwealth forces barely staved off human extinction in a war against the alien Prime. Now an even greater danger has surfaced: a threat to the existence of the universe itself...Categorized as:
exploration space-opera space-travel 21st-century action-adventure adult aliens audiobook -
![Lines of Departure by Marko Kloos]()
Lines of Departure by Marko Kloos
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsVicious interstellar conflict with an indestructible alien species. Bloody civil war over the last habitable zones of the cosmos. Political unrest, militaristic police forces, dire threats to the Solar System…Humanity is on the ropes, and after years of fighting a two-front war with losing odds, so is North American Defense Corps officer Andrew Grayson...Categorized as:
post-apocalyptic space-opera space-travel action-adventure adult ai aliens audiobook -
![Winter World by A.G. Riddle]()
Winter World by A.G. Riddle
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsA new ice age... and a shocking discovery...will change humanity forever.In the near future, a new ice age has begun.Humanity stands on the brink of extinction.Desperate for answers, scientists send probes into the solar system to take readings. Near Mars, a probe spots a mysterious object drifting toward the Sun...Categorized as:
near-future post-apocalyptic space-travel action-adventure ai aliens apocalyptic audiobook -
![Matter by Iain M. Banks]()
Matter by Iain M. Banks
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsIn a world renowned within a galaxy full of wonders, a crime within a war. For one brother it means a desperate flight, and a search for the one - maybe two - people who could clear his name. For his brother it means a life lived under constant threat of treachery and murder. And for their sister, it means returning to a place she'd thought abandoned forever... -
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![Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke]()
Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsAn all-time science fiction classic, Rendezvous with Rama is also one of Clarke's best novels--it won the Campbell, Hugo, Jupiter, and Nebula Awards. A huge, mysterious, cylindrical object appears in space, swooping in toward the sun. The citizens of the solar system send a ship to investigate before the enigmatic craft, called Rama, disappears...Categorized as:
exploration space-opera space-travel 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens audiobook -
![Citadel by John Ringo]()
Citadel by John Ringo
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsOf all the hosts of Eurotas the Troias were the most fell. For they were born of Winter.Between the Solar Array Pumped Laser and Troy, the two trillion ton nickel-iron battlestation created by eccentric billionaire Tyler Vernon, Earth has managed to recapture the Sol system from their Horvath conquerors and begin entering the galactic millieu... -
![Unreconciled by W. Michael Gear]()
Unreconciled by W. Michael Gear
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsNow in paperback, the fourth book in the thrilling Donovan sci-fi series returns to a treacherous alien planet where corporate threats and dangerous creatures imperil the lives of the colonists.Where does one put a messianic cult of practicing cannibals? That becomes the question when Ashanti appears in Donovan's skies. She was designed for no more than four years in space. It's taken ten...Categorized as:
colonization exploration space-opera space-travel action-adventure adult audiobook book -
![The Lady Astronaut of Mars by Mary Robinette Kowal]()
The Lady Astronaut of Mars by Mary Robinette Kowal
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsThirty years ago, Elma York led the expedition that paved the way to life on Mars. For years she's been longing to go back up there, to once more explore the stars. But there are few opportunities for an aging astronaut, even the famous Lady Astronaut of Mars. When her chance finally comes, it may be too late... -
![Silver by Linda Nagata]()
Silver by Linda Nagata
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA Lost Ship – A New World Urban is no longer master of the fearsome starship Dragon. Driven out by the hostile, godlike entity, Lezuri, he has taken refuge aboard the most distant vessel in his outrider fleet. Though Lezuri remains formidable, he is a broken god, commanding only a fragment of the knowledge that once was his... -
![Building Victoria by M.D. Cooper]()
Building Victoria by M.D. Cooper
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe Intrepid is drifting slowly between the stars. After near calamity at LHS 1565, the ship is headed for Kapteyn's Star to make repairs. There, the crew will need to spend decades building a temporary industrial base. Across the void, the Noctus prepare to leave Sirius for the same destination. Their plan is to colonize the system and forge a new lives for themselves ..Categorized as:
colonization exploration space-opera space-travel action-adventure adult alpha-mc audiobook
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