Books like 'Alternate Purpose'
Readers who enjoyed Alternate Purpose by Christopher Coates also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical action / adventure hard sci-fi urban historical-fiction literary-fiction time-travel post-apocalyptic
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The Last Question by Isaac Asimov
Rated: 4.56 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsIf you’re a fan of the Sci-Fi genre, then chances are that you’ve heard of ‘The Last Question’, a science fiction short story written by Isaac Asimov in 1956. The story deals with the development of computers (artificial intelligence) called Multivacs and their relationships with humanity through the courses of seven historic settings, beginning in 2061... -
![Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson]()
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsCryptonomicon zooms all over the world, careening conspiratorially back and forth between two time periods—World War II and the present. Our 1940s heroes are the brilliant mathematician Lawrence Waterhouse, crypt analyst extraordinaire, and gung-ho, morphine-addicted marine Bobby Shaftoe... -
![Before the Storm by Robert Thier]()
Before the Storm by Robert Thier
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsMr. Rikkard Ambrose, cold-hearted billionaire and hero of the “Storm and Silence” series is without a doubt the richest and most powerful man of the British Empire...Categorized as:
historical-fiction romance historical fiction enemies-to-lovers billionaire steamy espionage -
![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... -
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![Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov]()
Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 68 ratingsFoundation and Empire tells the incredible story of a new breed of man who create a new force for galactic government. Thus, the Foundation hurtles into conflict with the decadent, decrepit First Empire. In this struggle for power amid the chaos of the stars, man stands at the threshold of a new, enlightened life which could easily be put aside for the old forces of barbarism... -
![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:
literary-fiction post-apocalyptic 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book classics -
![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... -
![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:
literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure ai audiobook book classics colonization -
![Anathem by Neal Stephenson]()
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsFraa Erasmas is a young avout living in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, protected from the corrupting influences of the outside "saecular" world by ancient stone, honored traditions, and complex rituals. Over the centuries, cities and governments have risen and fallen beyond the concent's walls... -
![The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons]()
The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 68 ratingsOn the world called Hyperion the mysterious Time Tombs are opening and seven pilgrims risk their lives to petition the entity called the Shrike - a creature that may well control the fate of all mankind...Categorized as:
literary-fiction time-travel 20th-century action-adventure adult ai aliens apocalyptic -
![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:
historical-fiction post-apocalyptic action-adventure adult ai alternate-history audiobook book -
![The Forever War by Joe Haldeman]()
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 46 ratingsThe Earth's leaders have drawn a line in the interstellar sand—despite the fact that the fierce alien enemy that they would oppose is inscrutable, unconquerable, and very far away... -
![Endymion by Dan Simmons, Guy Abadia]()
Endymion by Dan Simmons, Guy Abadia
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 50 ratingsThe multiple-award-winning SF master returns to the universe that is his greatest success--the world of Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion--to tell a story of love and memory, triumph and terror in a novel even more magnificent than its predecessors.Two hundred and seventy-four years after the fall of the WorldWeb in Fall of Hyperion, Raoul Endymion is sent on a quest...Categorized as:
literary-fiction time-travel 20th-century action-adventure adult ai aliens audiobook -
![The Dance of Time by Eric Flint, David Drake]()
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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![Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by James Tiptree Jr.]()
Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by James Tiptree Jr.
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThese 18 darkly complex short stories and novellas touch upon human nature and perception, metaphysics and epistemology, and gender and sexuality, foreshadowing a world in which biological tendencies bring about the downfall of humankind. Revisions from the author's notes are included, allowing a deeper view into her world and a better understanding of her work...Categorized as:
post-apocalyptic time-travel 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens anthologies audiobook -
![Callahan's Lady by Spider Robinson]()
Callahan's Lady by Spider Robinson
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA HOUSE OF "HEALTHY" REPUTE...Welcome to Lady Sally's, the House that "is" a home -- the internationally (hell, interplanetarily) notorious bordello. At Lady Sally's House, the customer doesn't necessarily come first: even the staff are genuinely enjoying themselves... -
![Yellowstone Fallout by Bobby Akart]()
Yellowstone Fallout by Bobby Akart
Rated: 4.37 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsYellowstone was not an ordinary volcano.It was a cannon of immense size, equal in destructive capability to all of mankind's nuclear weapons - combined.It was quite frankly, Earth's greatest killer...Categorized as:
post-apocalyptic action-adventure adult apocalyptic audiobook book disaster dystopia -
![1637: No Peace Beyond the Line by Eric Flint, Charles E. Gannon]()
1637: No Peace Beyond the Line by Eric Flint, Charles E. Gannon
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsTHE BATTLE FOR THE NEW WORLD IS A FIGHT TO THE FINISH! A NEW RING OF FIRE NOVEL BY BEST-SELLING WRITING TEAM ERIC FLINT AND CHARLES E. GANNONA New Day in the New WorldIt’s 1637 in the Caribbean. Commander Eddie Cantrell and his ally and friend Admiral Martin Tromp start it off with some nasty surprises for Spain, whose centuries-long exploitation and rapine of the New World has run unchecked... -
![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... -
![A Mighty Fortress by David Weber]()
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]()
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... -
![Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein]()
Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 46 ratingsIn one of Robert Heinlein's most controversial bestsellers, a recruit of the future goes through the toughest boot camp in the Universe--and into battle with the Terran Mobile Infantry against mankind's most frightening enemy...Categorized as:
literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure aliens audiobook book classics coming-of-age -
![Do Overs: A Time Travel Thriller of Sudden Second Chances by Jon Spoelstra]()
Do Overs: A Time Travel Thriller of Sudden Second Chances by Jon Spoelstra
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsTime travel: This is the trip you gotta take. And then when you take it--wham--you are faced with a savage choice of do-overs to correct past blunders. Roy Hobbs blew the cash windfall from his best-seller book. Gone was his money, and then his wife Rachel was murdered with the killer never found. Roy chose to pick up the pieces, riding into his sunset as a crime reporter in a smaller market...Categorized as:
time-travel action-adventure adult alternate-history book fiction hard-sci-fi historical -
![1636: Flight of the Nightingale by David Carrico]()
1636: Flight of the Nightingale by David Carrico
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsTWO SHORT NOVELS SET IN ERIC FLINT'S BEST-SELLING RING OF FIRE SERIES from David Carrico, coauthor of 1636: The Devil's Opera and The Span of Empire...Categorized as:
historical-fiction time-travel action-adventure adult alternate-history book drama family -
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![Criptonomicón III: El código Aretusa by Neal Stephenson, Pedro Jorge Romero]()
Criptonomicón III: El código Aretusa by Neal Stephenson, Pedro Jorge Romero
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsEn 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse, genio matemático y capitán de la marina estadounidense, colabora con Allan Turing y los especialistas británicos de Bletchley Park en el trabajo de descifrar los códigos secretos de las potencias del Eje...Categorized as:
historical-fiction action-adventure adult book cyberpunk fiction hard-sci-fi historical -
![Gestation by John Gold]()
Gestation by John Gold
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsTo face Death itself, to hide from deadly guards, to conduct dark rituals and to use forbidden death magic? Being sent to Hell is definitely not what 12-year-old Anji would have ever expected from a government orphanage program. Chrysalis — the project of the century. It is a hyper-realistic fantasy RPG game, set in the Middle Ages... -
![Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle]()
Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsTHE LUCKY ONES WENT FIRST…The gigantic comet has slammed into Earth, forging earthquakes a thousand times too powerful to measure on the Richter scale, tidal waves thousands of feet high. Cities were turned into oceans; oceans turned into steam...Categorized as:
post-apocalyptic 20th-century action-adventure adult apocalyptic audiobook book classics -
![Stories Volume 1 by Ray Bradbury]()
Stories Volume 1 by Ray Bradbury
Rated: 4.32 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsOne hundred classic stories from the celebrated author of Fahrenheit 451. In this, the first volume of Ray Bradbury's short stories, some of the author's finest works are published together, among them 'Homecoming', 'Veldt', 'A Sound of Thunder' and 'The Long Rain'...Categorized as:
literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies classics fiction hard-sci-fi -
![The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein]()
The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsIt is 1970, and electronics engineer Dan Davis has finally made the invention of a lifetime: a household robot with extraordinary abilities, destined to dramatically change the landscape of everyday routine... -
![The City and The Stars by Arthur C. Clarke]()
The City and The Stars by Arthur C. Clarke
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsMen had built cities before, but never such a city as Diaspar; for millennia its protective dome shutout the creeping decay and danger of the world outside. Once, it held powers that rules the stars. But then, as legend had it, The invaders came, driving humanity into this last refuge...Categorized as:
literary-fiction post-apocalyptic 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens apocalyptic audiobook -
![Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley by Robert Sheckley]()
Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley by Robert Sheckley
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsRobert Sheckley was an eccentric master of the American short story, and his tales, whether set in dystopic cityscapes, ultramodern advertising agencies, or aboard spaceships lighting out for hostile planets, are among the most startlingly original of the twentieth century...Categorized as:
literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies classics dystopia fiction -
![Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein]()
Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsThe capstone and crowning achievement of the Future History series, from the New York Times bestselling Grand Master of Science Fiction...Time Enough for Love follows Lazarus Long through a vast and magnificent timescape of centuries and worlds... -
![Against the Fall of Night by Arthur C. Clarke]()
Against the Fall of Night by Arthur C. Clarke
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsONE BILLION YEARS FROM NOW . . .Mankind has reached the heights of civilization. Men live thousands of years in perfect freedom and leisure—their wants are attended to by ingenious machines—peace and culture flourish in ways undreamed of in our time. And yet ... mankind is dying...Categorized as:
post-apocalyptic 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies apocalyptic classics dying-earth -
![Revelations by Robert Storey]()
Revelations by Robert Storey
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsHidden deep beneath a remote desert is our planet’s biggest secret. Sarah Morgan’s only mistake? Finding it.The world holds its breath as the colossal asteroid 2011 AG5 hurtles towards the earth. As humanity is faced with extinction, archaeologist Sarah Morgan is in a race against time to uncover a secret that has been buried for millennia: that an advanced ancestor once populated the earth...Categorized as:
post-apocalyptic action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook book christian classics -
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![The Unlikely Ones by Mary Brown]()
The Unlikely Ones by Mary Brown
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThing is a young girl who hides beneath a mask. Her companions include a crow, a toad, a goldfish, and a kitten, each in some way handicapped. Never has there been a more unlikely band of unheroic heroes. Yet each needs the other to discover what they all seek -- the Dragon of the Black Mountain, who can restore them to health and happiness... -
![Black Projects, White Knights: The Company Dossiers by Kage Baker]()
Black Projects, White Knights: The Company Dossiers by Kage Baker
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn these tales, sci-fi fans follow the secret activities of the Company's field agents--once human, now centuries-old time-traveling cyborgs--as they attempt to retrieve history's lost treasures...Categorized as:
historical-fiction time-travel action-adventure adult anthologies cyborgs fiction hard-sci-fi -
![Ilium by Dan Simmons]()
Ilium by Dan Simmons
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsThe Trojan War rages at the foot of Olympos Mons on Mars—observed and influenced from on high by Zeus and his immortal family—and twenty-first-century professor Thomas Hockenberry is there to play a role in the insidious private wars of vengeful gods and goddesses...Categorized as:
historical-fiction post-apocalyptic time-travel 21st-century action-adventure adult ai aliens -
![1635: Music and Murder by David Carrico]()
1635: Music and Murder by David Carrico
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratings1635: Murder and Music.Music . . .It's been said that musicians live for the next new sound. Well, the musicians of Europe were presented with the biggest new sound ever when the Ring of Fire brought the future back to 1631... -
![Writers of the Future, Vol 34 by L. Ron Hubbard, Brandon Sanderson]()
Writers of the Future, Vol 34 by L. Ron Hubbard, Brandon Sanderson
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratings24 Award-Winning Authors and IllustratorsAccompanied by Orson Scott Card, Brandon Sanderson, Jody Lynn Nye, Jerry Pournelle, Ciruelo and Echo Chernik and Edited by David FarlandYour search for something new and different in sci-fi and fantasy ends here.Presenting this year’s collection of fresh voices, fabulous worlds, and fantastic new characters... -
![L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future 33 by David Farland, Anne McCaffrey]()
L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future 33 by David Farland, Anne McCaffrey
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsYou are about to meet: YOUR NEXT FAVORITE AUTHOR. The 33rd edition of Writers of the Future may be the best new book yet! Brand-new adventure through space, time and possibility. Along the way new authors will introduce you to fascinating characters...Categorized as:
post-apocalyptic action-adventure anthologies dark dystopia exploration fiction gaslamp -
![Terminator Salvation: Cold War by Greg Cox]()
Terminator Salvation: Cold War by Greg Cox
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWe Fight BackRussia 2003. When it appears that the United States has unleashed its entire nuclear arsenal upon the world, Captain Dmitri Losenko, commander of the nuclear submarine Gorshkov, has no choice but to retaliate. His target? Alaska.Alaska 2018. Fighting for survival in the frozen wilderness, Molly Kookesh struggles to protect her makeshift Resistance cell from the Terminators...Categorized as:
post-apocalyptic time-travel action-adventure adult apocalyptic book cyberpunk dystopia -
![The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester, Neil Gaiman]()
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester, Neil Gaiman
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 34 ratingsIn this pulse-quickening novel, Alfred Bester imagines a future in which people "jaunte" a thousand miles with a single thought, where the rich barricade themselves in labyrinths and protect themselves with radioactive hitmen—and where an inarticulate outcast is the most valuable and dangerous man alive...Categorized as:
literary-fiction time-travel 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book classics -
![1637: The Volga Rules by Eric Flint, Paula Goodlett]()
1637: The Volga Rules by Eric Flint, Paula Goodlett
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsNEW ENTRY IN THE NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING, GENRE-DEFINING ALTERNATE HISTORY SERIES. It’s been five years since a cosmic incident known as The Ring of Fire transported the modern day town of Grantville, West Virginia, through time and space to 17th century Europe. The course of world history has been forever altered. And Mother Russia is no exception...Categorized as:
historical-fiction time-travel action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook book conspiracies -
![A Fall of Moondust by Arthur C. Clarke]()
A Fall of Moondust by Arthur C. Clarke
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsFor a million years the bubble had been growing, like a vast abscess, below the root of the mountains. Now the abscess was about to burst. Captain Harris had left the controls on autopilot and was talking to the front row of passengers as the first tremor shook the boat...Categorized as:
literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book classics fiction -
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![The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter]()
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...Categorized as:
historical-fiction time-travel 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook book -
![Earth by David Brin]()
Earth by David Brin
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsTIME IS RUNNING OUT Decades from now, an artificial black hole has fallen into the Earth's core. As scientists frantically work to prevent the ultimate disaster, they discover that the entire planet could be destroyed within a year...Categorized as:
literary-fiction post-apocalyptic 20th-century action-adventure adult apocalyptic audiobook book -
![The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner]()
The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsOne man has made it his mission to liberate the mental prisoners. to restore their freedom in a world run mad...Categorized as:
post-apocalyptic 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies classics cyberpunk dystopia -
![Paradox Alley by John DeChancie]()
Paradox Alley by John DeChancie
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsJake McGraw, independent space trucker, has been shanghaied. He and his crew, fresh off their adventures in STARRIGGER and RED LIMIT FREEWAY, are plucked off the Skyway by a creature of unknown power. Now on an alien planet where most of the rules of the regular universe don’t seem to apply, Jake confronts the builders of the Skyway once and for all... -
![The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal]()
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 Oppenheimer Alternative by Robert J. Sawyer]()
The Oppenheimer Alternative by Robert J. Sawyer
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsOn the 75th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb, Hugo and Nebula-winning author Robert J. Sawyer takes us back in time to revisit history…with a twist.While J. Robert Oppenheimer and his Manhattan Project team struggle to develop the A-bomb, Edward Teller wants something even more devastating: a bomb based on nuclear fusion—the mechanism that powers the sun...Categorized as:
historical-fiction time-travel 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook book
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