Books like “Children of Time”

What to read after “Children of Time” by Adrian Tchaikovsky: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
Red Mars
Kim Stanley Robinson · 1992
From the same world: “Hard Science Fiction”
- Hard 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.
2
Blindsight
Peter Watts · 2006
From the same world: “Hard Science Fiction”
A crew is sent to the edge of the solar system to meet an alien intelligence that has been watching Earth. Led by a man who has rewired his own brain, they discover that the visitor's mind works nothing like their own.
3
Project Hail Mary
Andy Weir · 2021
From the same world: “Hard Science Fiction”
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.
4
Rendezvous with Rama
Arthur C. Clarke · 1973
From the same world: “Hard Science Fiction”
A giant cylinder enters the solar system, and a small expedition is sent to meet it. Inside they find a sealed alien world of cities, seas and machines, with no sign of its makers and systems that are beginning to wake.
5
Contact
Carl Sagan · 1985
From the same world: “Hard Science Fiction”
- Hard Science Fiction
- First Contact
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.
6
The Three-Body Problem
Cixin Liu · 2008
From the same world: “Hard Science Fiction”
- Hard Science Fiction
- First Contact
During the Cultural Revolution a secret military project sends signals into space, and an answer comes back. Decades later a scientist is pulled into a hidden struggle over how humanity should reply to an alien civilization facing its own collapse.
7
The Martian
Andy Weir · 2011
From the same world: “Hard Science Fiction”
- Hard Science Fiction
- Survival
During a mission to Mars, astronaut Mark Watney is presumed dead and left behind. Alone with limited supplies and no way to call Earth, he applies his botany and engineering skills to grow food and signal that he is alive.
8
Solaris
Stanisław Lem · 1961
Same genre: “Science fiction”
- Space Ship
- First Contact
A scientist arrives at a station orbiting the ocean planet Solaris, where the crew is haunted by visitors shaped from their own memories. As the planet resists every attempt to understand it, he confronts what the living sea seems to be doing to them.
9
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
Becky Chambers · 2014
Same genre: “Space opera”
- Space Ship
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.
10
Station Eleven
Emily St. John Mandel · 2014
Similar setting: “Post-Apocalyptic World”
- Post-Apocalyptic World
- Survival
After a flu wipes out most of humanity, a travelling theatre troupe moves between the small settlements that remain, performing Shakespeare. The story follows survivors across decades and asks what of civilization is worth carrying forward.
11
The Collapsing Empire
John Scalzi · 2017
Same genre: “Space opera”
- Space Ship
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.
12
The Girl with All the Gifts
M. R. Carey · 2014
Same genre: “Science fiction”
- Post-Apocalyptic World
- Survival
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.