Books like “A Fire Upon the Deep”

What to read after “A Fire Upon the Deep” by Vernor Vinge: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
Ancillary Justice
Ann Leckie · 2013
From the same world: “Space Opera”
- Space Opera
A soldier who was once a starship's artificial intelligence wakes in a single human body. Cut off from her many selves, she crosses a collapsing empire to find the officer who destroyed everything she was, and to settle a debt of revenge.
2
Hyperion
Dan Simmons · 1989
From the same world: “Space Opera”
- Space Opera
- Quest
On the eve of war, seven pilgrims travel to the planet Hyperion to seek the Shrike, a deadly creature of legend. Each tells the story of what brought them there, and their tales circle the fate that awaits them at the Time Tombs.
3
A Memory Called Empire
Arkady Martine · 2019
From the same world: “Space Opera”
- Space Opera
- Forbidden Knowledge
Ambassador Mahit Dzmare arrives at the heart of the Teixcalaanli Empire to replace a predecessor who died under unclear circumstances. Guided by his recorded memories, she must survive court politics, assassins, and a capital that hides its own plans.
4
The Collapsing Empire
John Scalzi · 2017
From the same world: “Space Opera”
- Space Opera
The Interdependency is bound together by the Flow, a network of routes that made the empire rich. When a scientist proves the Flow is shifting, an heir to the throne must hold together feuding houses before trade and power collapse.
5
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
Becky Chambers · 2014
From the same world: “Space Opera”
- Space Opera
- Quest
A young woman joins the crew of a tunnelling ship that builds wormholes between distant worlds. The long haul to a new client planet is told through its mismatched crew, a pilot, a doctor, an engineer and an AI, all looking for somewhere to belong.
6
Schismatrix
Bruce Sterling · 1985
From the same world: “Space Opera”
- Space Opera
Abelard Lindsay is a trained diplomat moving between two posthuman factions, the Shapers and the Mechanists, as humanity spreads across space. His long career of alliances and betrayals carries him across a changing solar system.
7
The Quantum Thief
Hannu Rajaniemi · 2010
From the same world: “Space Opera”
- Space Opera
Jean le Flambeur is a thief imprisoned in a city where residents trade their memories and time. He is offered his freedom if he can pull off one more impossible heist, with a warrior from a distant society watching his every move.
8
Foundation
Isaac Asimov · 1951
From the same world: “Space Opera”
- Space Opera
As the Galactic Empire begins to decay, mathematician Hari Seldon foresees thirty thousand years of chaos. To shorten the coming dark age he gathers scholars on the remote world Terminus, where the Foundation must survive plots, warlords and its own predictions.
9
Speaker for the Dead
Orson Scott Card · 1986
Same genre: “Science fiction”
- First Contact
- Forbidden Knowledge
Years after the war against the Formics, Andrew Wiggin travels as a Speaker for the Dead, revealing the truth of the departed. On the colony world Lusitania he is drawn into the fate of a human family and the alien Pequeninos, whose customs hide a terrible secret.
10
Gateway
Frederik Pohl · 1977
From the same world: “Space Opera”
- Space Opera
Prospectors ride alien ships left behind at Gateway, gambling their lives on unknown destinations in search of fortune. A miner haunted by his past signs on for one more trip, and the station's robot therapist records the fears he cannot voice.
11
The Stars My Destination
Alfred Bester · 1956
From the same world: “Space Opera”
- Space Opera
Gully Foyle survives a wrecked spaceship and swears revenge on the vessel that left him for dead. His hunt across a future where people can teleport by thought turns him into a wealthy, dangerous man chasing a weapon that could end the war.
12
Old Man's War
John Scalzi · 2005
From the same world: “Space Opera”
- Space Opera
At seventy-five, John Perry joins the Colonial Defense Forces, leaving Earth for a new body and a war among the stars. What begins as a chance at a second life becomes a fight to understand the colonies, the enemy and what he is fighting for.