Books like 'Anathem'
Readers who enjoyed Anathem by Neal Stephenson also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical sc-fi space action / adventure alternate history hard sci-fi mystery cyberpunk religion dystopia
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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...Categorized as:
dystopia historical-fiction mystery politics post-apocalyptic space-opera action-adventure adult -
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... -
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:
dystopia epic historical-fiction politics post-apocalyptic religion space-opera spirituality -
The Dance of Time by Eric Flint, David Drake
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe Malwa and their evil have been driven back to their Indian heartland, but there they coil to strike again...Categorized as:
historical-fiction time-travel action-adventure adult alternate-history book fiction hard-sci-fi -
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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... -
A Mighty Fortress by David Weber
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsYoung Cayleb Ahrmahk has accomplished things few people could even dream of. Not yet even thirty years old, he’s won the most crushing naval victories in human history. He’s smashed a hostile alliance of no less than five princedoms and won the hand of the beautiful young Queen Sharleyan of Chisholm... -
By Schism Rent Asunder by David Weber
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe world has changed. The mercantile kingdom of Charis has prevailed over the alliance designed to exterminate it. Armed with better sailing vessels, better guns and better devices of all sorts, Charis faced the combined navies of the rest of the world at Darcos Sound and Armageddon Reef, and broke them...Categorized as:
dystopia epic historical-fiction politics post-apocalyptic religion space-opera spirituality -
The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThere is a secret passage through time...and it leads all the way to the end of Eternity. But the journey has a terrible cost. It alters not only the future but the "present" in which we live.A century after the publication of H. G... -
The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
Rated: 3.98 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsOn a cold spring night in 1952, a huge meteorite fell to earth and obliterated much of the east coast of the United States, including Washington D.C. The ensuing climate cataclysm will soon render the earth inhospitable for humanity, as the last such meteorite did for the dinosaurs... -
The Best of Kim Stanley Robinson by Kim Stanley Robinson, Jonathan Strahan
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAdventurers, scientists, artists, workers, and visionaries — these are the men and women you will encounter in the short fiction of Kim Stanley Robinson... -
Century Rain by Alastair Reynolds
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsThree hundred years from now, Earth has been rendered uninhabitable due to the technological catastrophe known as the Nanocaust. Archaeologist Verity Auger specializes in the exploration of its surviving landscape. Now, her expertise is required for a far greater purpose...Categorized as:
dystopia historical-fiction mystery post-apocalyptic space-opera time-travel action-adventure adult -
The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century by Harry Turtledove, George R.R. Martin
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsExplosive and provocative battles fought across the boundaries of time and space--and on the frontiers of the human mind.Science fiction's finest have yielded this definitive collection featuring stories of warfare, victory, conquest, heroism, and overwhelming odds. These are scenarios few have ever dared to contemplate, and they include: ¸ "Superiority": Arthur C...Categorized as:
dystopia historical-fiction action-adventure adult alternate-history anthologies drama fiction -
The Postman by David Brin
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsThis is the story of a lie that became the most powerful kind of truth. A timeless novel as urgently compelling as War Day or Alas, Babylon, David Brin's The Postman is the dramatically moving saga of a man who rekindled the spirit of America through the power of a dream, from a modern master of science fiction... -
Eon by Greg Bear
Rated: 3.82 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsThe 21st century was on the brink of nuclear confrontation when the 300 kilometer-long stone flashed out of nothingness and into Earth's orbit. NASA, NATO, and the UN sent explorers to the asteroid's surface...and discovered marvels and mysteries to drive researchers mad...Categorized as:
aliens alternate-universe epic first-contact mystery politics post-apocalyptic space-opera -
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Voyage by Stephen Baxter
Rated: 3.82 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe space mission of a lifetime An epic saga of America's might-have-been, Voyage is a powerful, sweeping novel of how, if President Kennedy had lived, we could have sent a manned mission to Mars in the 1980s. Imaginatively created from the true lives and real events...Categorized as:
historical-fiction technology 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook book -
Eifelheim by Michael Flynn
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn 1349, one small town in Germany disappeared and has never been resettled. Tom, a contemporary historian, and his theoretical physicist girlfriend Sharon, become interested. Tom indeed becomes obsessed. By all logic, the town should have survived, but it didn't and that violates everything Tom knows about history...Categorized as:
aliens first-contact historical-fiction mystery religion spirituality time-travel 21st-century -
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:
dystopia literary-fiction politics technology 20th-century action-adventure adult ai -
There Will Be Time by Poul Anderson
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsTime travel is impossible! There is no machine that can take you into time, past or future. But what if you are born a time traveler? Jack Havig did not know how he could cross the centuries merely by willing himself to. But the fact remained, he could... -
Titan by Stephen Baxter, Stéphanie Ravez
Rated: 3.72 of 5 stars · 23 ratingsHumankind's greatest--and last--adventure! Possible signs of organic life have been found on Titan, Saturn's largest moon. A group of visionaries led by NASA's Paula Benacerraf plan a daring one-way mission that will cost them everything... -
Time's Eye by Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen Baxter
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn an instant, Earth is carved up and reassembled like a huge jigsaw puzzle. Suddenly the planet and every living thing on it no longer exist in a single timeline. Instead, the world becomes a patchwork of eras, from prehistory to 2037, each with its own indigenous inhabitants.Scattered across the planet are floating silver orbs impervious to all weapons and impossible to communicate with...Categorized as:
aliens historical-fiction mystery post-apocalyptic space-opera time-travel action-adventure adult -
Flashforward by Robert J. Sawyer
Rated: 3.64 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsFLASHFORWARDTwo minutes and seventeen seconds that changed the worldSuddenly, without warning, all seven billion people on Earth black out for more than two minutes. Millions die as planes fall from the sky, people tumble down staircases, and cars plow into each other.But that’s the least of the survivors’ challenges...Categorized as:
dystopia mystery technology time-travel 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history -
Earthbound by Joe Haldeman
Rated: 3.38 of 5 stars · 15 ratings"One of science fiction's most reliable practitioners" (San Francisco Chronicle) continues his saga of space exploration. The mysterious alien Others have prohibited humans from space travel-destroying Earth's fleet of starships in a display of unimaginable power...Categorized as:
aliens dystopia first-contact post-apocalyptic action-adventure adult alternate-history apocalyptic
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