Books like “The Space Between Worlds”

What to read after “The Space Between Worlds” by Micaiah Johnson: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
Dark Matter
Blake Crouch · 2016
Same genre: “Science fiction”
- Parallel Worlds
- Survival
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.
2
All Systems Red
Martha Wells · 2017
Same genre: “Science fiction”
- Survival
- Morally Grey Character
A security android that has quietly hacked its own governor module would rather watch soap operas than protect the survey team it is assigned to. When the planet turns hostile, it must choose between staying hidden and risking everything for the humans in its care.
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
The Postman
David Brin · 1985
Same genre: “Science fiction”
- Mistaken Identity
- 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.
5
Ancillary Justice
Ann Leckie · 2013
Similar plot moves: “Morally Grey Character”
- 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.
6
Neuromancer
William Gibson · 1984
Same genre: “Science fiction”
- Morally Grey Character
Case is a washed-up computer hacker living in a Japanese city, until a mysterious employer hires him for one more job. Working with a street samurai and a woman with mirrored eyes, he is drawn into a scheme far larger than the theft he was promised.
7
Dungeon Crawler Carl
Matt Dinniman · 2020
Same genre: “Science fiction”
- 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.
8
A Psalm for the Wild-Built
Becky Chambers · 2021
Same genre: “Science fiction”
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?
9
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.
10
Speaker for the Dead
Orson Scott Card · 1986
Same genre: “Science fiction”
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.
11
The Three-Body Problem
Cixin Liu · 2008
Same genre: “Science fiction”
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.
12
Snow Crash
Neal Stephenson · 1992
Same genre: “Science fiction”
- Morally Grey Character
In a future Los Angeles split between franchised city-states, a hacker and a teenage skateboard courier chase a drug that works on both computers and human minds. The trail runs from the neon Metaverse to ancient languages and a plan to reshape civilisation.