Books like “All Systems Red”

What to read after “All Systems Red” by Martha Wells: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
The Postman
David Brin · 1985
Same genre: “Science fiction”
- Reluctant Hero
- Survival
A wanderer in a ruined America puts on a dead postman's uniform and invents a story about a restored postal service. The lie gives scattered survivors hope, then grows into something he must defend.
2
The Space Between Worlds
Micaiah Johnson · 2020
Same genre: “Science fiction”
- Survival
- Morally Grey Character
Cara earns her living travelling to parallel worlds where her other selves have died. When a traversal goes wrong, she is thrown into a revolution in the wasteland and uncovers a secret about the multiverse that threatens the powerful people who rely on her.
3
The Windup Girl
Paolo Bacigalupi · 2009
Same genre: “Science fiction”
- Survival
- Morally Grey Character
In a flooded, calorie-poor Bangkok kept alive by genetic engineering, an American trader hunts for lost seed banks while a manufactured woman bred as a servant tries to survive. Their paths cross with corporate enforcers and a city about to boil over.
4
A Psalm for the Wild-Built
Becky Chambers · 2021
Same genre: “Science fiction” and “Novella”
- Found Family
A tea monk who serves travellers on a distant moon meets a robot that has spent centuries in the wild. The two travel together while the monk tries to answer a question the robot asks: what do people need?
5
Speaker for the Dead
Orson Scott Card · 1986
Same genre: “Science fiction”
- Found Family
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.
6
Dungeon Crawler Carl
Matt Dinniman · 2020
Same genre: “Science fiction”
- Found Family
- Survival
When an alien corporation turns Earth into a lethal dungeon for an intergalactic reality show, Carl and his ex-girlfriend's cat, Princess Donut, enter the levels. Carl's only plan is to survive the cameras, the monsters and the audience.
7
The Girl with All the Gifts
M. R. Carey · 2014
Same genre: “Science fiction”
A gifted child lives in a military base, strapped into a chair for lessons while hungries roam outside. When the base falls, she and her teacher cross a broken England while she learns what she is and what she can choose to become.
8
Red Mars
Kim Stanley Robinson · 1992
Same genre: “Science fiction”
- Survival
The first hundred colonists arrive on Mars in 2026 to build a new world, a mission split between those who want to preserve the planet and those who want to change it. Over decades their disagreements grow into open conflict with Earth.
9
Ancillary Justice
Ann Leckie · 2013
Shared in the plot: everything, human
- Morally Grey Character
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.
10
The Outsiders
S.E. Hinton · 1967
Similar plot moves: “Outcast Hero” and “Found Family”
- Outcast Hero
- Found Family
Ponyboy Curtis is a greaser in a city divided between poor kids and the richer Socs. After a fight turns deadly, he and his friend go into hiding, and he begins to see the people around him beyond their labels.
11
Project Hail Mary
Andy Weir · 2021
Same genre: “Science fiction”
- Found Family
- Survival
A man wakes on a spacecraft with no memory of his name and two dead crewmates. As his past returns, he learns he is humanity's last hope against a dying sun, and that his only ally may be something he never expected.
12
Contact
Carl Sagan · 1985
Same genre: “Science fiction”
A radio astronomer detects a signal from a star system twenty-six light years away, and the message it carries turns out to be a set of instructions for a machine. As governments and faiths argue over its meaning, she must decide what she will risk to make the journey.