Books like 'Melchior's Fire'
Readers who enjoyed Melchior's Fire by Jack L. Chalker also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary sc-fi action / adventure religion space-opera spirituality
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Exhalation by Ted Chiang
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 37 ratingsalternate cover for this ISBN can be found hereThe universe began as an enormous breath being held.From the acclaimed author of Stories of Your Life and Others — the basis for the Academy Award-nominated film Arrival — comes a ground-breaking new collection of short fiction: nine stunningly original, provocative, and poignant stories...Categorized as:
religion spirituality 21st-century action-adventure adult ai aliens alternate-history -
![Abaddon's Gate by James S.A. Corey]()
Abaddon's Gate by James S.A. Corey
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 71 ratingsAbaddon's Gate is the third book in the New York Times bestselling Expanse series. For generations, the solar system - Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt - was humanity's great frontier. Until now. The alien artefact working through its program under the clouds of Venus has emerged to build a massive structure outside the orbit of Uranus: a gate that leads into a starless dark...Categorized as:
religion space-opera spirituality 21st-century action-adventure adult aliens audiobook -
![Night Light by Terri Blackstock]()
Night Light by Terri Blackstock
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWhat happens when the lights go out and don't come back on? At first, of course, the power shutdown seems like a minor inconvenience or even an occasion for merriment; but as this temporary crisis lengthens into months, it becomes apparent that this global blackout is a catastrophe of biblical proportions... -
![One More Life to Live by Steven Decker]()
One More Life to Live by Steven Decker
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsImagine being given a chance at a second life but with a catch. You have no say in when, where, or who you will be. Would you take it?Edward Stubbins is a boy robbed of all that is good in life. An orphan in post-war England, he's shipped to Australia at age ten. Cruelty, rejection, and a severely broken heart are the hallmarks of his youth...Categorized as:
spirituality religion europe british-isles united-kingdom england australia contemporary -
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![Hyperion by Dan Simmons]()
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 73 ratingsOn the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all... -
![Stealth Retribution by Vikki Kestell]()
Stealth Retribution by Vikki Kestell
Rated: 4.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsRetribution. Also known as "payback" or a more dated word: "vengeance." Arnaldo Soto has taken Emilio and intends to use him as bait to trap Gemma. It's an effective strategy, because Gemma will do anything-anything-to save the young boy.The woman known as Gemma Keyes is gone, her molecular structure destroyed and reassembled as . . . something else... -
![The Boy Who Cried Christmas by Dennis Bailey]()
The Boy Who Cried Christmas by Dennis Bailey
Rated: 4.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratings9-year-old Logan Ailshie, the only son of well-to-do parents, was used to getting his way, especially during the holidays. For him, Christmas wasn't just about making a list, but making sure it was long enough. He also had a reputation for embellishing the truth... -
![Stealth Power by Vikki Kestell]()
Stealth Power by Vikki Kestell
Rated: 4.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsI must survive. For Dr. Bickel’s sake, I must survive. Weakened by the nanomites’ drain, Gemma flees from General Cushing’s renewed pursuit. She finds temporary refuge in Dr. Bickel’s vacant safe house—refuge and time for her body to recover from the damage inflicted by the nanomites.But how does an invisible woman with no identity survive in a visible world?While the nanomites search for Dr... -
![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... -
![Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks]()
Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsIt begins in the realm of the Real, where matter still matters.It begins with a murder.And it will not end until the Culture has gone to war with death itself.Lededje Y'breq is one of the Intagliated, her marked body bearing witness to a family shame, her life belonging to a man whose lust for power is without limit... -
![Fire & Ash by Jonathan Maberry]()
Fire & Ash by Jonathan Maberry
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsIn the gripping conclusion to the action-packed standard bearer (Booklist) of zombie series, the threat of death is given new life.Benny Imura and his friends have found the jet and Sanctuary, but neither is what they expected. Instead of a refuge, Sanctuary is a hospice, and the soldiers who flew the plane seem to be little more than bureaucrats who have given up hope for humanity's future...Categorized as:
religion spirituality action-adventure apocalyptic audiobook book coming-of-age contemporary -
![The Prequel by Patrick Higgins]()
The Prequel by Patrick Higgins
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThis is an alternate cover edition- ASIN B015L6BCEKIt was the weekend before Thanksgiving. More than 100,000 fans were jammed inside Michigan Stadium, on their feet, to witness a heated football rivalry that had spanned more than 100 years...Categorized as:
spirituality action-adventure adult apocalyptic book christian contemporary dystopia -
![Only in Death by Dan Abnett]()
Only in Death by Dan Abnett
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAs the crusade to liberate the Sabbat Worlds continues, Colonel-Commissar Gaunt leads the Tanith First-and-Only into an unforgiving new warzone - the fortress world of Jago... -
![Polity Agent by Neal Asher]()
Polity Agent by Neal Asher
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom eight hundred years in the future, a runcible gate is opened into the Polity and those coming through it have been sent specially to take the alien maker back to its home civilization in the Small Magellanic cloud. Once these refugees are safely through, the gate itself is rapidly shut downbecause something alien is pursuing them. The gate is then dumped into a nearby sun... -
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![Flesh & Bone by Jonathan Maberry]()
Flesh & Bone by Jonathan Maberry
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsReeling from the tragic events of Dust & Decay, Benny Imura and his friends plunge deep into the zombie-infested wastelands of the great Rot & Ruin. Benny, Nix, Lilah and Chong journey through a fierce wilderness that was once America, searching for the jet they saw in the skies months ago. If that jet exists then humanity itself must have survived…somewhere...Categorized as:
religion spirituality action-adventure apocalyptic audiobook book coming-of-age contemporary -
![The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.]()
The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 67 ratingsThe Sirens of Titan is an outrageous romp through space, time, and morality. The richest, most depraved man on Earth, Malachi Constant, is offered a chance to take a space journey to distant worlds with a beautiful woman at his side. Of course there’ s a catch to the invitation–and a prophetic vision about the purpose of human life that only Vonnegut has the courage to tell...Categorized as:
religion space-opera spirituality 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens audiobook -
![Salvation in Death by J.D. Robb]()
Salvation in Death by J.D. Robb
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsSeconds after partaking of wine during a Catholic funeral mass, Father Miguel Flores is dead on the altar. Detective Lieutenant Eve Dallas confirms that the consecrated wine contained enough potassium cyanide to kill a rhino. And though the East Harlem neighborhood is a long way from the stone mansion she shares with her billionaire husband Roarke, it’s the holiness flying around St... -
![Losing Mars by Peter Cawdron]()
Losing Mars by Peter Cawdron
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsDisaster strikes in orbit around Mars. A Chinese spacecraft is disabled, stranded near Phobos. Well over a hundred million miles from Earth, their only hope for rescue comes from the American base on the edge of the Vallis Marineris on the surface of Mars... -
![The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons]()
The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 45 ratingsThe time of reckoning has arrived. As a final genocidal Crusade threatens to enslave humanity forever, a new messiah has come of age. She is Aenea and she has undergone a strange apprenticeship to those known as the Others. Now her protector, Raul Endymion, one-time shepherd and convicted murderer, must help her deliver her startling message to her growing army of disciples... -
![When the People Fell by Cordwainer Smith]()
When the People Fell by Cordwainer Smith
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsA sweeping saga of the centuries to come, from the new dark age that followed a global war, to the new civilization that arose from the ashes to colonize the stars...Categorized as:
space-opera 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies contemporary fiction pulp -
![Last Light by Terri Blackstock]()
Last Light by Terri Blackstock
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn the face of a crisis that sweeps an entire high-tech planet back to the age before electricity, Deni Branning's career ambitions have vanished. She's not about to let her dream of marriage go as well.But keeping it alive will require extraordinary measures. Yesterday's world is gone. All Deni and her family have left is each other and their neighbors... -
![Halo: Ghosts of Onyx by Eric S. Nylund]()
Halo: Ghosts of Onyx by Eric S. Nylund
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsContinuing the saga of the award-winning Xbox(TM) game!The Spartan-II program has gone public. Tales of super-soldiers fending off thousands of Covenant attacks have become the stuff of legend... -
![The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick 4: The Minority Report by Philip K. Dick]()
The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick 4: The Minority Report by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsMany thousands of readers consider Philip K. Dick the greatest science fiction mind on any planet. Since his untimely death in 1982, interest in Dick's works has continued to mount and his reputation has been further enhanced by a growing body of critical attention. The Philip K. Dick Award is now given annually to a distinguished work of science fiction, and the Philip K... -
![The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin]()
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 71 ratingsA groundbreaking work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants can choose - and change - their gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization...Categorized as:
religion space-opera spirituality 20th-century action-adventure aliens audiobook book -
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![Dante by Guy Haley]()
Dante by Guy Haley
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe untold origin story of Chapter Master Dante of the Blood Angels, one of the Imperium's greatest heroes.Dante is Chapter Master of one of the noblest but most troubled Chapters of Space Marines in the Imperium: the Blood Angels. From the time of his birth in the rad-scarred wastes of Baal Secundus, he was destined for glory and strife... -
![Through the Ashes by Jacqueline Brown]()
Through the Ashes by Jacqueline Brown
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsBefore the light, the truth could be slippery. You could work around it, dodge it, run away from it. But in Bria Ford’s new life, the truth is always knocking … about the past, the fate of friends and family, the realities of burgeoning love, and the changed world. For Bria there’s no escaping the truth—no matter how much she may want to... -
![Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card]()
Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 75 ratingsNow available in mass market, the revised, definitive edition of the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning classic. In this second book in the saga set 3,000 years after the terrible war, Ender Wiggin is reviled by history as the Xenocide--the destroyer of the alien Buggers. Now, Ender tells the true story of the war and seeks to stop history from repeating itself. ..Categorized as:
religion space-opera spirituality 20th-century action-adventure aliens audiobook book -
![Warrior's Valor by Gun Brooke]()
Warrior's Valor by Gun Brooke
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAnother thrilling saga in the Supreme Constellations romantic sci-fi adventure series.Environmental activist Dwyn Izontro and law enforcement officer Emeron D'Artansis instinctively dislike everything about each other, even though the attraction between them is unmistakable... -
![Rebel's Quest by Gun Brooke]()
Rebel's Quest by Gun Brooke
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsOn a world torn by war, two women discover a love that defies boundaries, challenges allegiances, and that just might mean the survival—or destruction—of all they hold dear.Roshan O’Landha, a Gantharian resistance fighter, works hard to maintain her cover as a wealthy businesswoman as war on occupied Gantharat seems imminent... -
![The Divide by Jolina Petersheim]()
The Divide by Jolina Petersheim
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn this gripping conclusion to The Alliance, nearly six months have passed since Leora Ebersole's Old Order Mennonite community fled to the mountains for refuge after an attack destroyed the power grid and altered life as they knew it. Since then, Leora has watched and waited for news of Moses Hughes, the young Englischer pilot who held off invading looters long enough for everyone to escape... -
![The Scottish Siren: A McClain Story by Kirsten Osbourne]()
The Scottish Siren: A McClain Story by Kirsten Osbourne
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsBeth has spent her entire life alone. Orphaned at a young age, she bounced around the foster care system until she was old enough to be on her own. When a strange woman approaches her in her book club, she goes to lunch with her, never expecting anything more from it than a fun lunch... -
![Second Time Around (Time Lottery Series) by Nancy Moser]()
Second Time Around (Time Lottery Series) by Nancy Moser
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsCome experience a lottery unlike any other. The prize is not money, or a new car, or a trip to Bermuda. The prize is utterly priceless: time. The annual Time Lottery offers its winners a chance to go back into their pasts and change something--make a different choice... -
![Cracked Control by Viola Grace]()
Cracked Control by Viola Grace
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAddy was a lost Terran. Her ship was captured on the way to the Alliance training center, and she and the other occupants were held for experimentation. Months of agony with her fellow humans dying under the test-to-destruction methods of the researchers ended the day that Addy was taken to the edge of her limits... -
![Deep Shadows by Vannetta Chapman]()
Deep Shadows by Vannetta Chapman
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsLife in Abney, Texas is predictable and safe--until the night a massive solar flare wipes out all modern technology. As the brilliant northern lights give way to deep shadows, single mom Shelby Sparks, her former sweetheart, and their entire small-town community must find a way to survive... -
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![Chaos on CatNet by Naomi Kritzer]()
Chaos on CatNet by Naomi Kritzer
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIn this follow-up to the award-winning near future YA thriller Catfishing on CatNet, It takes an AI to catch an AI…When a mysterious entity starts hacking into social networks and chat rooms to instigate paranoia and violence in the real world, it’s up to Steph and her new friend, Nell, to find a way to stop it—with the help of their benevolent AI friend, CheshireCat... -
![Hacker by Ted Dekker]()
Hacker by Ted Dekker
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratings"My name is Nyah and I'm a hacker. I know things most people would never believe. Things that shouldn't exist, but do." Seventeen-year-old Nyah Parks is a genius hacker who makes a living by cracking the firewalls of the world's largest corporations...Categorized as:
spirituality action-adventure book christian contemporary fiction horror literary-fiction -
![Bolo! by David Weber]()
Bolo! by David Weber
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsControlled by their tireless electronic brains which were programmed to admit no possibility of defeat, the gigantic robot tanks known as Bolos were almost indestructible, and nearly unstoppable... -
![Nightfall by Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg]()
Nightfall by Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsIn 1941, Astounding Science Fiction magazine published a short story by a little-known writer named Isaac Asimov. The story was called "Nightfall", and many years later it has long been recognized as a classic, its author a legend...Categorized as:
religion space-opera spirituality 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens anthologies -
![The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell]()
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 55 ratingsIn 2019, humanity finds proof of extraterrestrial life when a listening post picks up exquisite singing from the planet Rakhat. While the U.N. debates possible contact missions, the Society of Jesus quietly organizes an 8-person expedition of its own. What the Jesuits find is a world so beyond comprehension that it will lead them to question what it means to be human...Categorized as:
religion space-opera spirituality 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens audiobook -
![Solaris by Stanisław Lem]()
Solaris by Stanisław Lem
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsA classic work of science fiction by renowned Polish novelist and satirist Stanislaw Lem.When Kris Kelvin arrives at the planet Solaris to study the ocean that covers its surface, he finds a painful, hitherto unconscious memory embodied in the living physical likeness of a long-dead lover...Categorized as:
religion space-opera spirituality 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens audiobook -
![Children of God by Mary Doria Russell]()
Children of God by Mary Doria Russell
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsMary Doria Russell's debut novel, The Sparrow, took us on a journey to a distant planet and into the center of the human soul. A critically acclaimed bestseller, The Sparrow was chosen as one of Entertainment Weekly's Ten Best Books of the Year, a finalist for the Book-of-the-Month Club's First Fiction Prize and the winner of the James M. Tiptree Memorial Award...Categorized as:
religion space-opera spirituality 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens audiobook -
![Hunted by Lisa Harris]()
Hunted by Lisa Harris
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsHe promised to protect her.But what happens when the hunter becomes the prey?Welcome to Shadow Ridge, where LONGMIRE meets JERICHO.From USA Today Best-selling author Lisa Harris comes an epic series where the survival of Shadow Ridge depends on learning how to fight crime all over again... -
![Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban]()
Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn the far distant future, the country laid waste by nuclear holocaust, twelve-year-old Riddley Walker tells his story in a language as fractured as the world in which he lives. As Riddley steps outside the confines of his small world, he finds himself caught up in intrigue and a frantic quest for power, desperately trying to make sense of things... -
![They Will Drown in Their Mothers' Tears by Johannes Anyuru]()
They Will Drown in Their Mothers' Tears by Johannes Anyuru
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn the midst of a terrorist attack on a bookstore reading by Göran Loberg, a comic book artist famous for demeaning drawings of the prophet Mohammed, one of the attackers, a young woman, has a sudden premonition that something is wrong, changing the course of history. Two years later, this unnamed woman invites a famous writer to visit her in the criminal psychiatric clinic where she's living...Categorized as:
religion spirituality 21st-century action-adventure adult audiobook book contemporary -
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![Ascension by Victor Dixen]()
Ascension by Victor Dixen
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratings'This thrilling space odyssey will keep you turning pages late into the night.'C. J. Daugherty, author of NIGHT SCHOOLSix girls, six boys. Each in the two separate bays of a single spaceship. They have six minutes each week to seduce and to make their choices, under the unblinking eye of the on-board cameras...Categorized as:
space-opera action-adventure audiobook book contemporary dystopia fiction love-triangle -
![The Devastation of Baal by Guy Haley]()
The Devastation of Baal by Guy Haley
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsThe Blood Angels Chapter and their successors mount a desperate defence of their home world of Baal from the predations of the tyranid hive fleet Leviathan.After a brutal campaign in the Cryptus System fighting the alien tyranids, Lord Dante returns to Baal to marshal the entire Blood Angels Chapter and their Successors against Hive Fleet Leviathan... -
![Conquerors' Legacy by Timothy Zahn]()
Conquerors' Legacy by Timothy Zahn
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWhile humans and alien Zhirrzh prepare for galactic war, a handful of individuals from both sides learn that the reason was all a misunderstanding. Both were mistaken. To avoid extinction for both their races, this band becomes the focus of a subtle dangerous force that intends overall destruction... -
![Dragon and Liberator by Timothy Zahn]()
Dragon and Liberator by Timothy Zahn
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsJack Morgan 14, and Draycos, poet/warrior K’da dragon hiding as tattoo on his back face Neverlin, who killed Jack’s parents and destroyed the scout fleet of which Draycos was the sole survivor. When their friend Alison is captured, Jack gives himself up, and Draycos is imprisoned too...Categorized as:
space-opera action-adventure aliens book children-books coming-of-age contemporary dragons -
![Old Soldiers by David Weber, Keith Laumer]()
Old Soldiers by David Weber, Keith Laumer
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsCaptain Maneka Trevor was the sole human survivor of the Dinochrome Brigade's 39th Battalion . . . but she hadn't wanted to be one. The Bolo known as "Lazarus" -- Unit 28/G-179-LAZ -- was the 39th's sole surviving Bolo . . . but he hadn't been hers. The doctors and the Bolo techs have put them both back together again, yet there are wounds no doctor or technician can heal... -
![Suspicion by Mike McQuay]()
Suspicion by Mike McQuay
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA man without memory, stranded in a city of robots gone wild. At his side, a woman who claims to know who he is, but who refuses to tell him. On a planet whose other inhabitants are entirely robotic, these unwilling allies are the only logical suspects in a case of murder. The young man calls himself Derec; she calls herself Katherine...
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