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Ringworld

Larry Niven · back to the book

What’s in it

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24 books with the same feel

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Not Till We Are Lost

Dennis E. Taylor · 12 pages

Space ExplorationFirst ContactAlien PlanetFar Future
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Xenocide

Orson Scott Card · 562 pages

On Lusitania, Ender finds a world where humans and pequeninos and the Hive Queen could all live together. However, Lusitania also harbors the descolada, a virus that kills all humans it infects, but which the pequeninos require in order to become adults. The Starways Congress so fears the effects of the descolada, should it escape from Lusitania, that they have ordered the destruction of the entir

Alien PlanetFirst ContactSpace ExplorationFar Future
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The Mote in God's Eye

Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle · 560 pages

Science fiction classic about the rise, fall and subsequent rise of a civilization where the peak catastrophe is known as the "crazy eddy point". Introduces the concept of frictionless toilets that don't have any water in them but I suspect the authors didn't think it all the way through - I don't recall a negative air pressure that would keep odours in their rightfull place. Nevertheless a fascin

First ContactFar FutureAlien PlanetSpace Exploration
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Startide Rising

David Brin · 462 pages

The exploration vessel Streaker (the first starship designed and crewed by dolphins) discovers evidence on the planet Kithrup of the fate of the Progenitors. Above them dozens of galactic races vie to seize the information for their own advancement.

Space ExplorationFirst ContactAlien PlanetPlot-Driven
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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams · 215 pages

This beautifully illustrated edition of the New York Times bestselling classic celebrates the 42nd anniversary of the original publication—with all-new art by award-winning illustrator Chris Riddell. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read It’s an ordinary Thursday morning for Arthur Dent . . . until his house gets demolished. The Earth follows shortly af

Space ExplorationAlien PlanetFar FutureFirst Contact
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Rendezvous with Rama

Arthur C. Clarke · 256 pages

Written in 1973, a massive 50 kilometre long alien cylinder begins to pass through the solar system provoking a hurried effort to intercept it. The closest available ship rushes to rendezvous so as to have a quick study before it gets too close to the sun. Able to enter via an airlock on one end of the ship, the crew explores the huge world found inside, a world full of wonder and mystery. As usua

First ContactSpace ExplorationFar FuturePlot-Driven
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Out of the Silent Planet

C.S. Lewis · 174 pages

The first book in Lewis's Space Trilogy, *Out of the Silent Planet* tells the story of Dr. Elwin Ransom, a philologist who likes to explore the English countryside on foot. Seeking out a place to stay the night, he ends up at the estate of a colleague who is away in London. However, the house is not empty. Ransom stumbles upon the plot of a megalomaniacal scientist and his collaborator, who jus

Alien PlanetFirst ContactSpace ExplorationScience Fiction
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Old Man's War

John Scalzi · 319 pages

John Scalzi channels Robert Heinlein (including a wry sense of humor) in a novel about a future Earth engaged in an interstellar war against more advanced species. Citizens volunteer for the Colonial Defense Forces after retirement, in exchange for which they have their consciousness transferred into a young body, cloned from their DNA but enhanced. If, against the odds, they survive two years o

Alien PlanetFar FutureFirst ContactSpace Exploration
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A Deepness in the Sky

Vernor Vinge · 699 pages

The story of the Spiders, inhabitants of a planet where the sun regularly stops shining for periods of 200 years, during which they are frozen in ice. The novel picks them up emerging from their most recent hibernation in a frenzy of activity and innovation to make up for lost time. By the author of A Fire upon the Deep.

Far FutureAlien PlanetFirst ContactSpace Exploration
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Foundation's Edge

Isaac Asimov · 426 pages

After the defeat of the Mule by the Second Foundation, Terminus enjoys a period of prosperity and stability which is publicly attributed to the Seldon Plan, but which some feel is the work of the Second Foundation. A search is begun to determine if the Second Foundation still exists. Meanwhile, the Second Foundation finds that there is evidence of an independent force acting against the Mule to

Far FutureAlien PlanetSpace ExplorationPlot-Driven
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Solaris

Stanislaw Lem · 223 pages

The cult-classic by Stanislaw Lem that spawned the movie is now available for your Kindle! Until now the only English edition was a 1970 version, which was translated from French and which Lem himself described as a "poor translation." This wonderful new English translation (by Bill Johnston) of Lem's classic Solaris is a must-have for fans of Lem's classic novel. Telling of humanity's encounte

Alien PlanetFirst ContactSpace ExplorationFar Future
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Caliban's War

James S.A. Corey · 608 pages

The second book in the NYT best-selling Expanse series, Caliban's War shows a solar system on the brink of war, and the only hope of peace rests on James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante's shoulders. Now a Prime Original series. We are not alone. On Ganymede, breadbasket of the outer planets, a Martian marine watches as her platoon is slaughtered by a monstrous supersoldier. On Earth, a

First ContactAlien PlanetSpace ExplorationFar Future
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Have Space Suit—Will Travel

Robert A. Heinlein · 256 pages

First ContactSpace ExplorationAlien PlanetPlot-Driven
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The Fall of Hyperion

Dan Simmons · 517 pages

On 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. On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galax

Alien PlanetSpace ExplorationFar FutureScience Fiction
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The Left Hand of Darkness

Ursula K. Le Guin · 304 pages

[Comment by Kim Stanley Robinson, on The Guardian's website][1]: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin (1969) > One of my favorite novels is The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K Le Guin. For more than 40 years I've been recommending this book to people who want to try science fiction for the first time, and it still serves very well for that. One of the things I like about it is how

Alien PlanetFirst ContactFar FutureScience Fiction
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These Broken Stars

Amie Kaufman, Meagan Spooner · 381 pages

It's a night like any other on board the Icarus. Then, catastrophe strikes: the massive luxury spaceliner is yanked out of hyperspace and plummets into the nearest planet. Lilac LaRoux and Tarver Merendsen survive. And they seem to be alone. Lilac is the daughter of the richest man in the universe. Tarver comes from nothing, a young war hero who learned long ago that girls like Lilac are more t

Alien PlanetFar FutureSpace ExplorationScience Fiction
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The First Men in the Moon

H.G. Wells, Steve McLean · 213 pages

When penniless businessman Mr Bedford retreats to the Kent coast to write a play, he meets by chance the brilliant Dr Cavor, an absent-minded scientist on the brink of developing a material that blocks gravity. Cavor soon succeeds in his experiments, only to tell a stunned Bedford the invention makes possible one of the oldest dreams of humanity: a journey to the moon. With Bedford motivated by mo

First ContactSpace ExplorationAlien PlanetScience Fiction
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Cauldron

Jack McDevitt · 378 pages

The year is 2255. The academy that trained the starfarers is long gone and veteran star pilot Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins spends her retirement supporting fund-raising efforts for The Prometheus Foundation, a privately funded organization devoted to deep space exploration.But when a young physicist unveils an efficient star drive capable of reaching the core of the galaxy, Hutch finds herself back

Space ExplorationFirst ContactFar FutureScience Fiction
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Heir to the Empire

Timothy Zahn · 402 pages

It's five years after Return of the Jedi: the Rebel Alliance has destroyed the Death Star, defeated Darth Vader and the Emperor, and driven out the remnants of the old Imperial Starfleet to a distant corner of the galaxy. Princess Leia and Han Solo are married and expecting Jedi Twins. And Luke Skywalker has become the first in a long-awaited line of Jedi Knights. But thousand of light-years a

Alien PlanetSpace ExplorationFar FuturePlot-Driven
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The Garden of Rama

Arthur C. Clarke, Gentry Lee · 441 pages

Book 3 of Clarke's Rama series is about an alien ghost ship that enters the solar system. This book picks up with the story of the crew who stayed aboard Rama at the end of Rama 2.

First ContactSpace ExplorationFar FutureScience Fiction
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Embassytown

China Mieville · 359 pages

Embassytown: a city of contradictions on the outskirts of the universe. Avice is an immerser, a traveller on the immer, the sea of space and time below the everyday, now returned to her birth planet. Here on Arieka, Humans are not the only intelligent life, and Avice has a rare bond with the natives, the enigmatic Hosts - who cannot lie. Only a tiny cadre of unique human Ambassadors can spea

Alien PlanetFirst ContactFar FutureSpace Exploration
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Deathworld

Harry Harrison

Alien PlanetSpace ExplorationPlot-DrivenScience Fiction
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Acorna's People

Anne McCaffrey, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough · 384 pages

Filled with adventure and wonder, Acorna's Peoplecontinues the enthralling saga of Acorna, the beautiful, brave, and kindhearted creature known as the Unicorn Girl."Welcome Home, Linyaari Child!"With the help of her "uncles" and the thousands of humans who love and admire her, Acorna has found her true people, the peaceful, telepathic Linyaari. But Acorna still has much to do before she can enjoy

Alien PlanetFirst ContactSpace ExplorationScience Fiction
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God Emperor of Dune

Frank Herbert · 432 pages

Fourth book in the Dune series. Takes place 3500 years after the events of the original trilogy. Tells the story of Leto, the son of Paul Atreides, who has traded his humanity to become an immortal sandworm of Dune.

Alien PlanetFar FuturePlot-DrivenSpace Exploration
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