Books like 'Ready for Blastoff'
Readers who enjoyed Ready for Blastoff by Rick North also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical sc-fi alternate history action / adventure children found-family exploration coming-of-age
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Saving Time by Jodi Taylor
Rated: 4.67 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsLife is good for Team Weird, now heroes and fully fledged Time Police officers. Luke can't wait to bear arms. Jane has a date. And Matthew still hasn't had his hair cut.But Time waits for no one and neither do criminal masterminds. A major threat to the Timeline is looming, one far deadlier than mere idiots who want to change history... -
Hard Time by Jodi Taylor
Rated: 4.53 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsA time slip in Versailles, problems in the Ice Age and illegal time travellers in need of rescue. Must be a job for the Time Police. Luke, Jane and Matthew are back and ready to cause havoc, inadvertently or otherwise, in their latest adventures, moving towards the end of their grunt work and towards becoming fully fledged Time Police officers... -
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:
exploration action-adventure adult alternate-history apocalyptic audiobook book colonization -
Doing Time by Jodi Taylor
Rated: 4.34 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsIntroducing The Time Police, the brand-new series by international bestselling author, Jodi Taylor - an irresistible spinoff from the much-loved Chronicles of St Mary's series. Perfect reading for fans of Doctor Who, Terry Pratchett and Jasper Fforde. 'The best way to describe this book: lots of fun' British Fantasy Society'Inventive and entertaining..Categorized as:
coming-of-age action-adventure alternate-history alternate-universe audiobook book comedy crime -
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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...Categorized as:
exploration 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history apocalyptic audiobook book -
Goliath by Scott Westerfeld
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsAlek and Deryn are abroad the Leviathan when the ship is ordered to pick up an unusual passenger. This brilliant/maniacal inventor claims to have a weapon called Goliath that can end the war. But whose side is he really on?While on their top-secret mission, Alek finally discovers Deryn's deeply kept secret. Two, actually. Not only is Deryn a girl disguised as a guy...she has feelings for Alek... -
Starclimber by Kenneth Oppel
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 21 ratings"Mr. Cruse, how high would you like to fly?" A smile soared across my face. "As high as I possibly can." Pilot-in-training Matt Cruse and Kate de Vries, expert on high-altitude life-forms, are invited aboard the Starclimber, a vessel that literally climbs its way into the cosmos. Before they even set foot aboard the ship, catastrophe strikes:Kate announces she is engaged—and not to Matt...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age action-adventure alternate-history audiobook book dystopia fiction -
Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsThe behemoth is the fiercest creature in the British navy. It can swallow enemy battleships with one bite. The Darwinists will need it, now that they are at war with the Clanker powers.Deryn is a girl posing as a boy in the British Air Service, and Alek is the heir to an empire posing as a commoner. Finally together aboard the airship Leviathan, they hope to bring the war to a halt... -
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...Categorized as:
exploration 21st-century action-adventure adult alternate-history book family female-author -
A Gentleman of Means by Shelley Adina
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsBook 8 in the Magnificent Devices steampunk series!How much must one sacrifice for the sake of friendship?Lady Claire Trevelyan has had to deal with betrayal before, in small ways and large. But none is quite so painful as the belief that Gloria Meriwether-Astor had deserted her and her friends and left them to die under the waters of Venice...Categorized as:
coming-of-age action-adventure alternate-history audiobook book fiction historical industrial-era -
Prosperity by Alexis Hall
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA breathtaking tale of passion and adventure in the untamed skies! Prosperity, 1863: a lawless skytown where varlets, chancers, and ne’er-do-wells risk everything to chase a fortune in the clouds, and where a Gaslight guttersnipe named Piccadilly is about to cheat the wrong man. This mistake will endanger his life . . . and his heart. Thrill! As our hero battles dreadful kraken above Prosperity...Categorized as:
found-family 21st-century action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook book dystopia -
Blood in the Water by Taylor Anderson
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsTaylor Anderson’s enthralling New York Times bestselling series of alternate history continues as game-changing revelations upend the Grand Alliance in a potentially cataclysmic war. Ever since the USS Walker came from another world war to defy the terrifying Grik and diabolical Dominion, Matt Reddy and his crew have given their all to protect the oppressed Lemurians...Categorized as:
exploration action-adventure adult aliens alternate-history alternate-universe audiobook book -
Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn which Daniel Waterhouse, fearless thinker and courageous Puritan, pursues knowledge in the company of the greatest minds of Baroque-era Europe -- in a chaotic world where reason wars with the bloody ambitions of the mighty, and where catastrophe, natural or otherwise, can alter the political landscape overnight...Categorized as:
exploration action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook book colonization cyberpunk -
Firestorm by Taylor Anderson
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsLieutenant Commander Matthew Reddy and the crew of the USS Walker find themselves caught between the nation they swore to defend and the allies they promised to protect... -
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King of the Vagabonds by Neal Stephenson
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA chronicle of the breathtaking exploits of "Half-Cocked Jack" Shaftoe -- London street urchin-turned-legendary swashbuckling adventurer -- risking life and limb for fortune and love while slowly maddening from the pox. . . and Eliza, rescued by Jack from a Turkish harem to become spy, confidante, and pawn of royals in order to reinvent a contentious continent through the newborn power of finance...Categorized as:
exploration 21st-century action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook book colonization -
Bartley's Man (Ring of Fire) by Paula Goodlett, Gorg Huff
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsBartley's Man is about love, respect and honor, and becoming wealthy in the service of David Bartley, an up-timer teenager with a brilliant mind. It is the journey of Johan Kipper, a reluctant soldier in illy's tercio as he collides with the fact of Grantville's existence. Johan decides he doesn't want to be a soldier anymore... -
A Lady of Integrity by Shelley Adina
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsBook 7 in the Magnificent Devices steampunk series! Will a daring rescue put a wedding and a future at risk? Lady Claire Trevelyan and renowned scientist Andrew Malvern are looking forward to domestic felicity in London when they are surprised by an unexpected visitor... -
A Lady of Spirit by Shelley Adina
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsYou can choose your friends, but you cannot choose your family … or can you? Under normal circumstances, Maggie and Lizzie would be delighted to meet their long-lost relatives and be reunited with those who had believed them dead, but when are the Mopsies’ circumstances ever to be considered normal? With her half-brother Claude Seacombe, Lizzie travels to Cornwall to meet her mother’s parents...Categorized as:
coming-of-age action-adventure alternate-history audiobook book espionage fiction historical -
Front Lines by Michael Grant
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratings1942. World War II. The most terrible war in human history. Millions are dead; millions more are still to die. The Nazis rampage across Europe and eye far-off America.The green, untested American army is going up against the greatest fighting force ever assembled—the armed forces of Nazi Germany.But something has changed...Categorized as:
coming-of-age 20th-century action-adventure alpha-mc alternate-history audiobook book dark -
Day of the Predator by Alex Scarrow
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsLiam O’Connor should have died at sea in 1912.Maddy Carter should have died on a plane in 2010.Sal Vikram should have died in a fire in 2026.But all three have been given a second chance—to work for an agency that no-one knows exists. Its purpose—to prevent time travel destroying history . .Categorized as:
children action-adventure alternate-history audiobook book children-books dystopia fiction -
The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsTepper's finest novel to date is set in a post-holocaust feminist dystopia that offers only two political alternatives: a repressive polygamist sect that is slowly self-destructing through inbreeding and the matriarchal dictatorship called Women's Country...Categorized as:
coming-of-age 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history apocalyptic audiobook book -
Her Own Devices by Shelley Adina
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsEscaped lunatics, lost children, vengeful lords, and love. Really, the situation is becoming quite impossible.Seventeen-year-old Lady Claire Trevelyan, left alone after the Arabian Bubble financial disaster claims home and family, now leads the cleverest gang in the London underworld...Categorized as:
coming-of-age action-adventure alternate-history audiobook book female-author female-mc fiction -
Brilliant Devices by Shelley Adina
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsBook four in the Magnificent Devices steampunk series! A lady of resources has the power to change the world-if she can stay alive long enough to do it. Lady Claire Trevelyan had been looking forward to glittering balls, congenial society, and relief from pursuit during her stay with Lord and Lady Dunsmuir in the Canadas. Well, perhaps not entirely...Categorized as:
coming-of-age action-adventure alternate-history audiobook book epic fiction historical -
Starcross by Philip Reeve
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsArt, Myrtle, and their mother accept the kind invitation of a holiday to an up-and-coming asteroid resort...Categorized as:
children action-adventure aliens alternate-history audiobook book children-books comedy -
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Mothstorm by Philip Reeve
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA sinister cloud had appeared on the edge of the Solar System, and seemed to be moving closer. Rather than sit idly by, my family and I decided that we should investigate whatever monstrous force of darkness hid within...Categorized as:
children action-adventure aliens alternate-history audiobook book children-books comedy -
Devils Unto Dust by Emma Berquist
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsLife out here is hard. So you have to be harder.Willie has always survived. No matter what life in Glory, Texas, has thrown at her. The sickness that swept through the state and turned most living creatures into terrifying shakes. Her own mother succumbing to the disease. Her father disappearing into saloons and gambling and liquor. Willie survives...Categorized as:
coming-of-age action-adventure alternate-history apocalyptic audiobook book dark dystopia -
The Bride Wore Constant White by Shelley Adina
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsBook one of the Mysterious Devices series of clockwork cozies set in the Magnificent Devices world!A bride in search of safety. Young ladies in search of their father. A man in search of self-respect. But in the Wild West, you always find more than you’re looking for..Categorized as:
coming-of-age action-adventure alternate-history audiobook book cozy female-mc fiction -
1636: The Atlantic Encounter (Ring of Fire Book 28) by Eric Flint, Walter H. Hunt
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIt has taken almost five years for the United States of Europe to stabilize its position in 17th-century Europe. Now it turns its attention to the New World, where the English have ceded their colonial claims to France. There are vast lands and rich resources across the Atlantic for any nations powerful enough to rule and control them—and equal incentive for other nations to block their path...Categorized as:
exploration action-adventure adult alternate-history book conspiracies espionage fiction -
The Danish Scheme by Herb Sakalaucks, Eric Flint
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSomething new is brewing in the 17th century! Fans of the 1632 series have often asked "What's going on in North America?" Herbert Sakalauks has set out to let you know in his short novel "The Danish Scheme...Categorized as:
exploration action-adventure adult alternate-history alternate-universe book fiction historical -
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... -
Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn one of the most powerful and thought-provoking novels of his remarkable career, Orson Scott Card's Pastwatch interweaves a compelling portrait of Christopher Columbus with the story of a future scientist who believes she can alter human history from a tragedy of bloodshed and brutality to a world filled with hope and healing... -
The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsAn exceptional debut thriller and “exciting journey” into the dark heart of the Cold War and the space race from New York Times bestselling author and astronaut Chris Hadfield (Andy Weir, author of The Martian and Project Hail Mary). 1973: a final, top-secret mission to the Moon. Three astronauts in a tiny spaceship, a quarter million miles from home. A quarter million miles from help...Categorized as:
exploration action-adventure adult alternate-history amateur-sleuth audiobook book cold-war -
Into the Storm by Taylor Anderson
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsPressed into service when World War II breaks out in the Pacific, the USS Walker---a Great-War vintage "four-stacker" destroyer---finds itself in full retreat from pursuit by Japanese battleships. Its captain, Lieutenant Commander Matthew Patrick Reddy, knows that he and his crew are in dire straits... -
Magnificent Devices by Shelley Adina
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAn air voyage to remember turns into a disaster no one may survive.With her orphaned charges, Lady Claire Trevelyan joins the Earl of Dunsmuir’s family on an airship voyage to the Americas. If she can stay out of Lord James Selwyn’s way until her eighteenth birthday, she will be of age and cannot be forced into marriage...Categorized as:
coming-of-age action-adventure alternate-history audiobook book epic fiction historical -
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A Web of Air by Philip Reeve
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsTwo years ago, Fever Crumb escaped the war-torn city of London in a travelling theatre. Now she arrives in the extraordinary crater city of Mayda, where buildings ascend the cliffs on funicular rails, and a mysterious recluse is building a machine that can fly. Fever is the engineer he needs - but ruthless enemies will kill to possess their secrets...Categorized as:
children action-adventure alternate-history apocalyptic audiobook book dystopia female-mc -
Divide and Conquer by Carrie Ryan
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsScholastic's next multi-platform mega-event begins here!Dak, Sera, and Riq might be in over their heads when they attempt to stop a Viking invasion!Hundreds of ships carrying thousands of warriors are laying siege to medieval Paris. The Parisians are holding their own, but the stalemate can only last so long...Categorized as:
children action-adventure alternate-history audiobook book children-books dystopia fiction -
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 Monster War by Alan Gratz
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe Monster War is the third book in the action-packed, steampunk League of Seven series by acclaimed author Alan Gratz.Having discovered the monstrous secret of his origins, Archie Dent is no longer certain that he is worthy to be a member of the League of Seven. But with new enemies to face, he realizes that he may not have the luxury of questioning his destiny...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age action-adventure alternate-history book children-books fiction historical -
A Lady of Resources by Shelley Adina
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsBook 5 in the Magnificent Devices series!You can choose your friends, but you cannot choose your family … or can you?Now sixteen, the twins Lizzie and Maggie are educated young ladies who have not been called “the Mopsies” in years … except by their guardian, Lady Claire Trevelyan... -
The Expeditioners and the Treasure of Drowned Man's Canyon by S.S. Taylor, Katherine Roy
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsComputers have failed, electricity is extinct, and the race to discover new lands is underway! Brilliant explorer Alexander West has just died under mysterious circumstances, but not before smuggling half of a strange map to his intrepid children—Kit the brain, M.K. the tinkerer, and Zander the brave...Categorized as:
children action-adventure alternate-history alternate-universe book children-books dystopia family -
The League of Seven by Alan Gratz
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe launch of a middle grade fantasy trilogy set in an alternate 1870s America, where electricity is a dangerous and forbidden science, Native Americans and Yankees live side-by-side as a United Nations, and eldritch evil lurks in the shadows beyond the gaslights...Young Archie Dent knows there really are monster in the world...Categorized as:
children action-adventure alternate-history book children-books fiction friendship historical -
Clockwork Alchemist by Sara C. Roethle
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe clock ticks for London… Liliana is trapped alone in the dark. Her father is dead, and London is very far away. If only she hadn’t been locked up in her room, reading a book she wasn’t allowed to read, she might have been able to stop her father’s killer. Now he’s lying dead in the next room, and there’s nothing she can do to bring him back. Arhyen is the self-declared finest thief in London...Categorized as:
coming-of-age action-adventure alternate-history audiobook book fiction gaslamp historical -
The Enceladus Crisis by Michael J. Martinez
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsTwo dimensions collided on the rust-red deserts of Mars—and are destined to become entangled once more in this sequel to the critically acclaimed The Daedalus Incident.Lieutenant Commander Shaila Jain has been given the assignment of her dreams: the first manned mission to Saturn. But there’s competition and complications when she arrives aboard the survey ship Armstrong...Categorized as:
exploration action-adventure adult aliens alternate-history book fiction first-contact -
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...Categorized as:
exploration action-adventure adult aliens alternate-history anthologies audiobook colonization -
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Summer of Love: A Time Travel by Lisa Mason
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe year is 1967 and something new is sweeping across America: good vibes, bad vibes, psychedelic music, lab-designed drugs, anti-war protests, racial tension, free love, dropouts, flower children. An age of innocence, a time of danger: The Summer of Love... -
Flash Gold by Lindsay Buroker
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsEighteen-year-old Kali McAlister enters her steam-powered "dogless sled" in a race, intending to win the thousand-dollar prize and escape remote Moose Hollow forever. The problem? Fortune seekers and airship pirates are after her for the secret to flash gold, her late father's alchemical masterpiece...Categorized as:
coming-of-age action-adventure alternate-history book crime fiction historical historical-fiction -
Ripper by Stefan Petrucha
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsYou thought you knew him. You were dead wrong.Carver Young dreams of becoming a detective, despite growing up in an orphanage with only crime novels to encourage him...Categorized as:
coming-of-age 19th-century action-adventure alternate-history book children-books crime death -
Conquistador by S.M. Stirling
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA new alternate history of America from the author of The Peshawar Lancers, the bestselling novel the Chicago Sun-Times called "a pleasure to read" and Harry Turtledove hailed as "first-rate adventure all the way."1945: An ex-marine has discovered a portal that permits him to travel between the America he knows-and a virgin America untouched by European influence...Categorized as:
exploration action-adventure adult alternate-history alternate-universe apocalyptic audiobook book -
Arabella and the Battle of Venus by David D. Levine
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsArabella’s wedding plans to marry Captain Singh of the Honorable Mars Trading Company are interrupted when her fiancé is captured by the French and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp on swampy Venus. Now, Arabella must find passage to an enemy-controlled planet in the middle of a war, bribe or fight her way past vicious guards, and rescue her Captain... -
Larklight by Philip Reeve
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsArthur (Art) Mumby and his irritating sister Myrtle live with their father in the huge and rambling house, Larklight, travelling through space on a remote orbit far beyond the Moon. One ordinary sort of morning they receive a correspondence informing them that a gentleman is on his way to visit, a Mr Webster. Visitors to Larklight are rare if not unique, and a frenzy of preparation ensues...Categorized as:
children exploration action-adventure aliens alternate-history audiobook book comedy
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