Books like 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Primary Phase'
Readers who enjoyed The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Primary Phase by Douglas Adams, Simon Jones, Geoffrey McGivern, Mark Wing-Davey, Susan Sheridan, Stephen Moore & Peter Jones also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical sc-fi comedy action / adventure 20th century humor classics space-opera aliens literary-fiction
-
A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 37 ratingsMiles Vorkosigan has a problem: unrequited love for the beautiful widow Ekaterin Vorsoisson, violently allergic to marriage after her first exposure. If a frontal assault won't do, Miles thinks, try subterfuge. He has a cunning plan... Lord Mark Vorkosigan, Miles' brother, also has a problem: his love has just become unrequited again. But he has a cunning plan.. -
![The Star Diaries by Stanisław Lem, Michael Kandel]()
The Star Diaries by Stanisław Lem, Michael Kandel
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsStanislaw Lem's set of short stories, written over a period of twenty years, all feature the adventures of space traveller Ijon Tichy and recount him spinning in time-warps, spying on robots, encountering bizarre civilizations and creatures in space and being hopelessly lost in a forest of supernovae...Categorized as:
classics humor space-opera 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies audiobook -
![The Cyberiad by Stanisław Lem]()
The Cyberiad by Stanisław Lem
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsA brilliantly funny collection of stories for the next age, from the celebrated author of Solaris. Ranging from the prophetic to the surreal, these stories demonstrate Stanislaw Lem's vast talent and remarkable ability to blend meaning and magic into a wholly entertaining and captivating work...Categorized as:
classics humor 20th-century action-adventure ai anthologies audiobook children-books -
![Doctor Who: Shada by Gareth Roberts]()
Doctor Who: Shada by Gareth Roberts
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom the unique mind of Douglas Adams, the legendary "lost" Doctor Who story has been completed at last by Gareth Roberts and narrated by Lalla Ward.The Doctor’s old friend and fellow Time Lord Professor Chronotis has retired to Cambridge University—where nobody will notice if he lives for centuries. But now he needs help from the Doctor, Romana and K-9... -
-
![Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith]()
Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsStark lives in Colour, a neighbourhood whose inhabitants like to be co-ordinated with their surroundings – a neighbourhood where spangly purple trousers are admired by the walls of buildings as you pass them. Close by is Sound, where you mustn’t make any, apart from one designated hour a day when you can scream your lungs raw... -
![Callahan's Crosstime Saloon by Spider Robinson]()
Callahan's Crosstime Saloon by Spider Robinson
Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsCallahan's Place is the neighborhood tavern to all of time and space, where the regulars are anything but. Pull up a chair, grab a glass of your favorite, and listen to the stories spun by time travelers, cybernetic aliens, telepaths...and a bunch of regular folks on a mission to save the world, one customer at a time... -
![The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death by Daniel Pinkwater]()
The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death by Daniel Pinkwater
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWalter and Winston set out to rescue the inventor of the Alligatron, a computer developed from an avocado which is the world's last defense against the space-realtors... -
![The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold]()
The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsBetween the seemingly impossible tasks of living up to his warrior-father's legend and surmounting his own physical limitations, Miles Vorkosigan faces some truly daunting challenges. Shortly after his arrival on Beta Colony, Miles unexpectedly finds himself the owner of an obsolete freighter and in more debt than he ever thought possible... -
![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... -
![War with the Newts by Karel Čapek]()
War with the Newts by Karel Čapek
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsMan discovers a species of giant, intelligent newts and learns to exploit them so successfully that the newts gain skills and arms enough to challenge man's place at the top of the animal kingdom. Along the way, Karel Capek satirizes science, runaway capitalism, fascism, journalism, militarism, even Hollywood... -
![To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis]()
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsConnie Willis' Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Doomsday Book uses time travel for a serious look at how people connect with each other. In this Hugo-winning companion to that novel, she offers a completely different kind of time travel adventure: a delightful romantic comedy that pays hilarious homage to Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat...Categorized as:
classics humor literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history animals -
![The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: Secondary Phase (Hitchhiker's Guide by Douglas Adams, Geoffrey McGivern]()
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: Secondary Phase (Hitchhiker's Guide by Douglas Adams, Geoffrey McGivern
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsQuandary and Quintessential Phases) to give a full, vibrant sound, now with Philip Pope’s version of the familiar theme tune and specially re-recorded announcements by John Marsh.Stranded on Prehistoric Earth since the end of the first series, Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect are once again trying to hitch their way off the planet... -
![Brothers in Arms by Lois McMaster Bujold]()
Brothers in Arms by Lois McMaster Bujold
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsIn the wake of unexpected planetary peace and the disappearance of the Dendarii payroll, mercenary captain Miles Naismith attempts to discover the link between the insufferable Captain Galeni and the Komarran rebel expatriates. Reissue. AB... -
![Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.]()
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 94 ratingsSelected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time, Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world's great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous firebombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we fear most... -
-
![The Best of Connie Willis: Award-Winning Stories by Connie Willis]()
The Best of Connie Willis: Award-Winning Stories by Connie Willis
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThis new collection of stories from the multi-award-winning author of Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog contains:A Letter from the ClearysAt the RialtoDeath on the NileThe Soul Selects Her own SocietyFire WatchInside JobEven the QueenThe Winds of Marble ArchAll Seated on the GroundLast of the WinnebagosTen stories - which have all won the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award or both - are...Categorized as:
aliens classics humor literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies -
![Retief At Large by Keith Laumer]()
Retief At Large by Keith Laumer
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe publication of certain accounts of Jame Retief under the title RETIEF AT LARGE has generated such response that we of Ace Books have felt compelled, as a public service, to publish a second volume of the affairs - some would call them adventures - of that redoubtable member of the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne... -
![The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge by Harry Harrison]()
The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge by Harry Harrison
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsDiGriz and Angelina are happily married and expecting the birth of their sons. The planet Cliaand is waging interstellar war, and against the odds, its Grey Men are invading and taking over planet after planet. The Rat is sent to Cliaand to start a one-man guerrilla campaign to put a stop to the plans of the planet's leader, Kraj... -
![Star Trek IV the Voyage Home by Vonda N. McIntyre]()
Star Trek IV the Voyage Home by Vonda N. McIntyre
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThere is a full color photo and a profile of each major actor and actress in the Star Trek IV movie... -
![Redshirts: Chapters 1-4 by John Scalzi]()
Redshirts: Chapters 1-4 by John Scalzi
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsTHEY WERE EXPENDABLE . . . UNTIL THEY STARTED COMPARING NOTESA free preview of Redshirts, the astonishing new science-fiction yarn from John Scalzi."Redshirts is (a) ruin-your-underwear funny, (b) a mind-bender sure to Philip K. Dick you over, and (c) absurdly rich in ideas and feeling. John Scalzi sets his imagination to STUN and scores a direct hit. Read on and prosper... -
![Breath of Magic by Teresa Medeiros]()
Breath of Magic by Teresa Medeiros
Rated: 3.91 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsPrecocious Puritan and aspiring witch Arian Whitewood spends her lonely nights dreaming of magic and excitement. She gets more excitement than she bargains for when she crash lands straight out of a witch hunt into the 20th century and the arms of Tristan Lennox, a reclusive billionaire... -
![Making History by Stephen Fry]()
Making History by Stephen Fry
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn Making History, Fry has bitten off a rather meaty chunk by tackling an at first deceptively simple premise: What if Hitler had never been born? An unquestionable improvement, one would reason--and so an earnest history grad student and an aging German physicist idealistically undertake to bring this about by preventing Adolf's conception... -
![Catch-22 by Joseph Heller]()
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 85 ratingsWith a new preface by the authorExplosive, subversive, wild and funny, 50 years on the novel's strength is undiminished. Reading Joseph Heller's classic satire is nothing less than a rite of passage... -
![Who Goes Here? by Bob Shaw]()
Who Goes Here? by Bob Shaw
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn the 24th century, men join the Space Legion to forget. A memory-erasing machine makes sure they do just that. The machine purges the memory of all traces of guilt, but for Legion recruit Warren Pearce it has wiped out everything. He must have had a very nasty past indeed - if only he could recall it... -
![Phule's Paradise by Robert Lynn Asprin]()
Phule's Paradise by Robert Lynn Asprin
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe bestselling author of the Myth series proves once again that not just anyone can join Phule's Company. They used to be the laughingstock of the interstellar armed forces--until their last mission proved successful. Now they must guard an intergalactic casino called the Fat Chance from a criminal takeover--and the odds are against the oddballs... -
-
![The High Crusade by Poul Anderson]()
The High Crusade by Poul Anderson
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn the year of grace 1345, as Sir Roger Baron de Tourneville is gathering an army to join King Edward III in the war against France, a most astonishing event occurs: a huge silver ship descends through the sky and lands in a pasture beside the little village of Ansby in northeastern Lincolnshire...Categorized as:
aliens humor space-opera 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook -
![The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World by Harry Harrison]()
The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World by Harry Harrison
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsSomeone was tampering with time, altering the past to eliminate the present, fading people out of existence into a timeless limbo. One of the victims was Angelina, the wife of James de Griz, better known as the Stainless Steel Rat. That put Slippery Jim on the trail of the villains, a trail that went back to 1984 and an ancient nation called the United States of America... -
![My Teacher Flunked the Planet by Bruce Coville]()
My Teacher Flunked the Planet by Bruce Coville
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsALIEN INVASION OF EARTH!Peter Thompson, a typical seventh-grader, finds himself touring the planet with his friends Susan Simmons and Duncan Dougal, and three aliens in disguise! Their mission? To file the final report that will determine Earth's future in the universe. As the clock ticks away the hours before their meeting in space, the tour becomes weirder and weirder... -
![Moscow 2042 by Vladimir Voinovich]()
Moscow 2042 by Vladimir Voinovich
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe year is 1982, just two years before that made famous by Orwell. An exiled Soviet writer discovers that a German travel agency is booking flights through a time warp to a variety of tempting sites and dates in the future. Moscow? The year 2042? How can he resist? Afterword by the Author. Translated by Richard Lourie... -
![Last Human by Doug Naylor]()
Last Human by Doug Naylor
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsLister gazed out of the porthole and catalogue the series of disasters that had led him to this point in space and time: the bad decisions, the poor career choices, the unreliable friendships that had led him here - on a prison ship bound for the most inhospitable penal colony in the outer cosmos... and all he'd ever wanted was to be a soft metal guitar icon... -
![The Eye in the Pyramid by Robert Shea, Robert Anton Wilson]()
The Eye in the Pyramid by Robert Shea, Robert Anton Wilson
Rated: 3.82 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsIt was a deadly mistake. Joseph Malik, editor of a radical magazine, had snooped into rumors about an ancient secret society that was still alive and kicking. Now his offices have been bombed, he's missing, and the case has landed in the lap of a tough, cynical, streetwise New York detective... -
![The Stainless Steel Rat for President by Harry Harrison]()
The Stainless Steel Rat for President by Harry Harrison
Rated: 3.81 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe Stainless Steel rat is back! Slippery Jim diGriz, the future's most lovable, laughable, larcenous conman tumed counterspy, retums for yet another high-tension mission.This time the Special Corps has given the Rat a daring assignment - liberate a backward tourist planet from the clutches of an aging dictator... -
![My Teacher Fried My Brains by Bruce Coville]()
My Teacher Fried My Brains by Bruce Coville
Rated: 3.79 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsBrains are sizzling in the seventh grade...The first day of seventh grade is probably the worst day of Duncan Dougal's life... -
![A Phule and His Money by Robert Lynn Asprin, Peter J. Heck]()
A Phule and His Money by Robert Lynn Asprin, Peter J. Heck
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsCaptain Willard Phule has whipped his troops into shape. That's how he turned Phule's Company from the laughingstock of the Legion into... a crack team of casino security guards.Now his company is deployed to help an underdeveloped planet... -
![My Teacher Glows in the Dark by Bruce Coville]()
My Teacher Glows in the Dark by Bruce Coville
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsKidnapped in Space?Peter Thompson has had some pretty weird teachers in his time. By the time he discovers that his newest teacher glows in the dark, he’s flying away from Earth in a spaceship full of aliens and there’s no one he can call. How do you report an alien to the F.B.I... -
-
![The Impossible Fortress by Jason Rekulak]()
The Impossible Fortress by Jason Rekulak
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsA dazzling debut novel—at once a charming romance and a moving coming-of-age story—about what happens when a fourteen-year old boy pretends to seduce a girl to steal a copy of Playboy but then discovers she is his computer-loving soulmate.Billy Marvin’s first love was a computer. Then he met Mary Zelinsky... -
![Venus on the Half-Shell by Philip José Farmer, Kilgore Trout]()
Venus on the Half-Shell by Philip José Farmer, Kilgore Trout
Rated: 3.77 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsSimon Wagstaff is the Space Wanderer, a seeker of truth and electric banjo player who narrowly escapes the Deluge that destroys Earth when he happens upon an abandoned Chinese spaceship, the Hwang Ho. A man without a planet, he gains immortality from an elixir drunk during a sexual interlude with a cat-like alien queen in heat... -
![Ethan of Athos by Lois McMaster Bujold]()
Ethan of Athos by Lois McMaster Bujold
Rated: 3.76 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsOn Athos, a world without women, Dr. Ethan Urquhart delivers babies from uterine replicators. But when the ovarian cultures start dwindling, he is sent abroad on a mission to replenish the planets stocks... -
![Noir by Christopher Moore]()
Noir by Christopher Moore
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsSan Francisco. Summer, 1947. A dame walks into a saloon . . .It’s not every afternoon that an enigmatic, comely blonde named Stilton (like the cheese) walks into the scruffy gin joint where Sammy "Two Toes" Tiffin tends bar. It’s love at first sight, but before Sammy can make his move, an Air Force general named Remy arrives with some urgent business...Categorized as:
aliens humor literary-fiction 20th-century absurdism action-adventure adult alternate-history -
![Martians, Go Home by Fredric Brown]()
Martians, Go Home by Fredric Brown
Rated: 3.74 of 5 stars · 23 ratingsTHEY WERE GREENTHEY WERE LITTLETHEY WEREBALD AS BILLIARD BALLSAND THEY WERE EVERYWHERE Luke Devereaux was a science-fiction writer, holed up in a desert shack waiting for inspiration. He was the first man to see a Martian.. -
![The Oakdale Affair by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Fiction, Mystery & Detective by Edgar Rice Burroughs]()
The Oakdale Affair by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Fiction, Mystery & Detective by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Rated: 3.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe house on the hill showed lights only upon the first floor -- in the spacious reception hall, the dining room, and those more or less mysterious purlieus thereof from which emanate disagreeable odors and agreeable foods... -
![The Evolution Man: Or, How I Ate My Father by Roy Lewis]()
The Evolution Man: Or, How I Ate My Father by Roy Lewis
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsHere is a typical Stone Age family, reimagined by Roy Lewis in this hilarious novel as characters in some glittering drawing-room comedy. Father, who has a scientific turn of mind, has just discovered fire. Mother makes sure the children finish supper, even when the plat du jour is toad... -
![The Eyes Have It by Philip K. Dick]()
The Eyes Have It by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 3.58 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsTheoretically, you could find this type of humor anywhere. But only a topflight science-fictionist, we thought, could have written this story, in just this way. . . . Start here: It was quite by accident I discovered this incredible invasion of Earth by lifeforms from another planet. As yet, I haven't done anything about it; I can't think of anything to do...Categorized as:
aliens classics humor literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
![Brain Twister by Mark Phillips]()
Brain Twister by Mark Phillips
Rated: 3.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn nineteen-fourteen, it was enemy aliens. In nineteen-thirty, it was Wobblies. In nineteen-fifty-seven, it was fellow-travelers. And, in nineteen seventy-one, Kenneth J. Malone rolled wearily out of bed wondering what the hell it was going to be now. One thing, he told himself, was absolutely certain: it was going to be terrible. It always was... -
![Mindswap by Robert Sheckley]()
Mindswap by Robert Sheckley
Rated: 3.66 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn the future, interstellar travel to alien worlds will be too expensive for most ordinary people. It certainly is for Marvin, a college student who wants to take a really good vacation. And so he signs up for what he can afford, a mindswap, in which your consciousness is swapped into the body of an alien lifeform... -
-
![Young Zaphod Plays It Safe by Douglas Adams]()
Young Zaphod Plays It Safe by Douglas Adams
Rated: 3.65 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsYoung Zaphod Plays it Safe is a novella by Douglas Adams set in his The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy universe. It doesn't appear as a standalone work, but is included with several collections. The story is a prequel to the events in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and has the young Zaphod Beeblebrox working as a salvage ship operator... -
![Bill, The Galactic Hero by Harry Harrison]()
Bill, The Galactic Hero by Harry Harrison
Rated: 3.60 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsIt was the highest honor to defend the Empire against the dreaded Chingers, an enemy race of seven-foot-tall lizards. But Bill, a Technical Fertilizer Operator from a planet of farmers, wasn't interested in honor-he was only interested in two things: his chosen career, and the shapely curves of Inga-Maria Calyphigia... -
![Douglas Adams's Starship Titanic by Terry Jones]()
Douglas Adams's Starship Titanic by Terry Jones
Rated: 3.61 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsArguably the greatest collaboration in the whole history of comedy!Bestselling author Douglas Adams wrote the storyline based on his CD-ROM game of the same name (as this novel, not as him, obviously).Terry Jones of Monty Python wrote the book. In the nude! Parents be warned! Most of the words in this book were written by a naked man!So. You want to argue with that? All right, we give in...
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.
