Books like “Starship Troopers”

What to read after “Starship Troopers” by Robert A. Heinlein: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
Ender's Game
Orson Scott Card · 1985
Same genre: “Military science fiction”
Andrew "Ender" Wiggin is taken from his family to a battle school in space, where gifted children are trained to command fleets against an alien enemy. Ender's talent lifts him above his classmates, but the games meant to shape him may cost everything he is.
2
The Forever War
Joe Haldeman · 1974
Similar atmosphere: “Philosophical”
- Philosophical
- War Fiction
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.
3
Old Man's War
John Scalzi · 2005
Same genre: “Military science fiction”
- War Fiction
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.
4
Childhood's End
Arthur C. Clarke · 1953
Similar atmosphere: “Philosophical”
- Philosophical
- Alien Invasion
Giant alien ships appear above Earth's cities and impose a peaceful rule under the Overlords. Decades of calm and progress pass, but humanity's golden age hides a purpose no one can guess until the Overlords finally reveal themselves.
5
Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut · 1969
Similar atmosphere: “Philosophical”
- Philosophical
- War Fiction
Billy Pilgrim, a chaplain's assistant and prisoner of war in Dresden, becomes unstuck in time, living his life out of order among moments in the war and on another planet. His flat, looping account turns a firebombing and a life's small cruelties into a dark joke about fate.
6
Hyperion
Dan Simmons · 1989
Similar atmosphere: “Philosophical”
- Philosophical
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
The End of Eternity
Isaac Asimov · 1955
Similar atmosphere: “Philosophical”
- Philosophical
Andrew Harlan works for Eternity, an organization that lives outside time and edits human history for what it believes is the greater good. His work is upended when he falls in love with a woman from his own past.
8
All You Need Is Kill
Hiroshi Sakurazaka · 2004
Same genre: “Military science fiction”
- War Fiction
- Alien Invasion
A young soldier is thrown into a war against alien Mimics and killed on his first day of battle, then wakes on the morning before, again and again. Each death teaches him something, and he must relive the same fight until he can survive long enough to find a way out.
9
Speaker for the Dead
Orson Scott Card · 1986
Similar atmosphere: “Philosophical”
- Philosophical
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
Foundation
Isaac Asimov · 1951
Similar atmosphere: “Philosophical”
- Philosophical
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.
11
Dark Matter
Blake Crouch · 2016
Similar atmosphere: “Philosophical”
- Philosophical
A physicist is knocked out and wakes in a version of Chicago where he never married and never had a son. To get home, he must cross a multiverse of his own choices while another version of himself hunts him.
12
The Three-Body Problem
Cixin Liu · 2008
Similar atmosphere: “Philosophical”
- Philosophical
- Alien Invasion
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.