Science fiction · Similar reads
Books like Old Man's War
The best books like Old Man's War are The Things They Carried, Homage to Catalonia, and A Brief History of Time. Old Man's War by John Scalzi is about identity and embodiment, war and mortality, aging and renewal. If that's what drew you in, here are 12 books that share its DNA — each summarized on Superbook, and ready to chat with in the app.
- The Things They Carried
01
Tim O'Brien · Memoir
Tim O'Brien served as a foot soldier in Vietnam in 1969 and 1970.
A kindred science fiction read.
Read the summary → - Homage to Catalonia
02
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.
Read the summary → - A Brief History of Time
03
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.
Read the summary → - Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
04
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
Neil deGrasse Tyson · Science
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry is Neil deGrasse Tyson's deliberately compact introduction to the biggest ideas in modern astrophysics.
A kindred science fiction read.
Read the summary → - Babel
05
R.F. Kuang · Historical fiction
Set in an alternate 1830s Oxford, Babel imagines a Royal Institute of Translation at the heart of the British Empire — a place where silver bars engraved with translation "match-words" generate the industrial magic that powers British supremacy.
Both dig into colonialism.
Read the summary → - Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West
06
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West
Dee Brown · History
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, published in 1970, is Dee Brown's account of the systematic dispossession of Native American peoples across the American West between 1860 and 1890.
Both dig into colonialism.
Read the summary → - Empire of Cotton: A Global History
07
Empire of Cotton: A Global History
Sven Beckert · History
Sven Beckert's Empire of Cotton argues that cotton was not just the raw material of the Industrial Revolution but the commodity through which modern capitalism was invented.
Both dig into colonialism.
Read the summary → - Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches
08
Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches
S. C. Gwynne · History
Empire of the Summer Moon, published in 2010, follows the rise of the Comanche empire on the southern Great Plains and the long, brutal conflict between the Comanches and the expanding United States.
Both dig into colonialism.
Read the summary → - Exhalation: Stories
09
Ted Chiang · Short stories
Exhalation: Stories is Ted Chiang's second collection, containing nine stories written between 2005 and 2019.
Both dig into what it means to be human.
Read the summary → - The Black Jacobins
10
C.L.R. James · History
The Black Jacobins is C.L.R.
Both dig into colonialism.
Read the summary → - The Divide
11
Jason Hickel · Economics
The Divide is Jason Hickel's argument that global poverty is not a natural condition that development has failed to fully remedy, but a product of policies — colonial extraction, debt regimes, trade rules, and structural adjustment — that wealthy countries have imposed on poor ones.
Both dig into colonialism.
Read the summary → - The Man Who Knew Infinity
12
Robert Kanigel · Biography
Srinivasa Ramanujan was born in 1887 in the South Indian town of Erode into a Brahmin family of modest means, received almost no formal mathematical training, and by his mid-twenties had filled notebooks with thousands of mathematical formulas, many of them original results that professional mathematicians would spend decades verifying.
Both dig into colonialism.
Read the summary →
Books like Old Man's War: quick answers
What are the best books like Old Man's War?
The best books like Old Man's War by John Scalzi are The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell, A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Babel by R.F. Kuang, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with Old Man's War, such as identity and embodiment, war and mortality, aging and renewal.
What should I read after Old Man's War?
A natural next read after Old Man's War is The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. A kindred science fiction read. Other strong choices are Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell, A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson.
What books are similar to Old Man's War by John Scalzi?
Old Man's War centers on identity and embodiment, war and mortality, aging and renewal. Books with a similar feel include The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell, A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Babel by R.F. Kuang, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
