Books like “Kindred”

What to read after “Kindred” by Octavia E. Butler: 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 Day of the Triffids
John Wyndham · 1951
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
- Survival
A meteor shower blinds most of humanity, leaving a few sighted survivors in a world where walking, venomous plants have escaped from farms. A young man and a small group try to reach safety and decide what kind of society can be rebuilt.
2
The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood · 1985
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
In the Republic of Gilead, women have lost their names, jobs and freedom. Offred is a Handmaid, valued only for the child she may bear for a commander and his wife. Remembering the life she had before, she searches for small acts of defiance and a way to survive.
3
The Reformatory
Tananarive Due · 2023
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
- Survival
Florida, 1950. Twelve-year-old Robert is sent to a brutal reform school after a scuffle with a white teenager. He can see ghosts, including the boys who died there, and the warden wants to use that ability. Outside, his sister works with a lawyer to bring him home.
4
The Forever War
Joe Haldeman · 1974
Same genre: “Science fiction”
- Time Travel
A conscripted soldier fights an interstellar war against the Taurans, an alien enemy he barely understands. Relativity means each tour sends him centuries into the future, where the society he left behind has changed beyond recognition and the war has no clear end.
5
Bird Box
Josh Malerman · 2014
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
- Survival
Something outside drives anyone who sees it to violence, so the survivors live blindfolded. Malorie has kept two children safe for years. Now she must row them downriver without looking, toward a refuge that may or may not exist.
6
Hyperion
Dan Simmons · 1989
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
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.
7
Gone with the Wind
Margaret Mitchell · 1936
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- Survival
- Morally Grey Character
Spoiled Southern belle Scarlett O'Hara sees her world torn apart by the American Civil War. Determined to rebuild her family's plantation and her fortune, she schemes and marries her way through the ruins of the Old South, chasing a man she cannot have.
8
The War of the Worlds
H. G. Wells · 1898
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
Cylinders fall from Mars onto the English countryside, and the machines inside prove ruthlessly hostile. A student watches the invasion spread toward London as orderly Victorian society collapses around him.
9
The Ballad of Black Tom
Victor LaValle · 2016
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
- Morally Grey Character
New York, 1924. Tommy Tester runs small errands and plays guitar for money, one of the few Black men willing to do business with a sorcerer. Hired by a strange wealthy man in Flatbush, he is drawn toward the Sleeping King and the Great Old Ones, and chooses what kind of power he is willing to serve.
10
We Need to Talk About Kevin
Lionel Shriver · 2003
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
- Morally Grey Character
Through letters to her estranged husband, Eva looks back on the life of their son Kevin and on the years she struggled to feel any bond with him. She tries to understand the person he became, and to face her own part in what happened.
11
Nineteen Eighty-Four
George Orwell · 1949
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
In the totalitarian superstate of Oceania, every thought and word is watched. Winston Smith works at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting the past, until he starts a diary and a secret affair. His small rebellion against a system that controls reality itself slowly closes in around him.
12
Between Two Fires
Christopher Buehlman · 2012
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
- Morally Grey Character
In 1348, as the Black Death empties France, a disgraced knight finds an orphan girl in a dead village. She says the plague is only part of a larger war between heaven and hell, and persuades him to carry her across a ruined land toward Avignon.