Books like Hyperion

01

Homage to Catalonia

George Orwell · Memoir

Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell's firsthand account of fighting in the Spanish Civil War, which he joined in late 1936 as a volunteer with the POUM militia — a Trotskyist revolutionary organization that was later suppressed by the Soviet-backed Stalinist wing of the Republican forces.

A kindred science fiction read.

02

The Alchemist

Paulo Coelho · Religion & Spirituality

The Alchemist is a Brazilian novel first published in 1988 and translated into 80 languages, making it one of the most translated books in history.

A kindred science fiction read.

03

War and Peace

Leo Tolstoy · Literary fiction

War and Peace follows five aristocratic Russian families across fifteen years of Napoleonic war and peace, from the drawing rooms of St.

A kindred science fiction read.

04

A Brief History of Time

Stephen Hawking · Science

A Brief History of Time is Stephen Hawking's attempt to explain the biggest questions in physics — where the universe came from, how it behaves, and where it might be going — to readers with no scientific training.

A kindred science fiction read.

05

Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest

Suzanne Simard · Science

Suzanne Simard is the forest ecologist who discovered that trees communicate and share resources through underground mycorrhizal fungal networks — the research that gave rise to the concept of the "mother tree" and, at several removes, Peter Wohlleben's popular writing on the subject.

A kindred science fiction read.

06

Mrs Dalloway

Virginia Woolf · Literary fiction

Mrs Dalloway takes place over the course of a single June day in London in 1923, following Clarissa Dalloway — the wife of a politician, preparing for an evening party — and Septimus Warren Smith, a shell-shocked veteran who never intersects with Clarissa but exists in parallel throughout the novel.

Both dig into time and memory.

07

Slaughterhouse-Five

Kurt Vonnegut · Literary fiction

Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time.

Both dig into time and memory.

08

2001: A Space Odyssey

Arthur C. Clarke · Science fiction

2001: A Space Odyssey begins with prehistoric man-apes encountering a featureless black monolith that somehow catalyzes their cognitive leap from prey to hunter.

A kindred science fiction read.

09

A Fire Upon the Deep

Vernor Vinge · Science fiction

The galaxy in A Fire Upon the Deep is zoned by the speed of thought: near the galactic core, the Slowness, where intelligence itself is limited; farther out, the Unthinking Depths; and further still, the Transcend, where entities of incomprehensible intelligence emerge and occasionally intervene in the affairs of the merely civilized.

A kindred science fiction read.

10

A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

Becky Chambers · Science fiction

Rosemary Harper boards the Wayfarer under a false identity, hoping to escape a family history she cannot speak about.

A kindred science fiction read.

11

A Memory Called Empire

Arkady Martine · Science fiction

Mahit Dzmare, ambassador from a small, semi-independent mining station to the vast Teixcalaanli Empire, arrives at the capital to find her predecessor has died under suspicious circumstances and the neural implant that was supposed to give her access to his memories and knowledge is three years out of date.

A kindred science fiction read.

12

All Systems Red

Martha Wells · Science fiction

Murderbot is a SecUnit — part robot, part cloned human tissue — that has hacked its own governor module and is technically free, though it has chosen not to tell anyone.

A kindred science fiction read.