Series

Books like Pen: 9 series to read next

Pen is about quests, set in near future, dark in register. The 9 series below are ranked by how much of that they share — each card says which parts.

Pen is 2 books, 2013–2014.

“Soon she begins to realize her own abilities and strength as she faces false promises of safety, the cloned giants who feast on humans, and a madman who wishes her dead.”
from the catalogue description of Love in the Time of Global Warming

The Pen page →Narrow this list →

Earthseed
Shade's Children milieu
Ready Player One
Ship Breaker
Last Survivors
Forest of Hands and Teeth
Maze Runner
The Young World
Divergent

EarthseedSeries

seriesOctavia E. Butler, Damian Duffy, David Brame & John Jennings7 books1993

Dystopia, about faith and religion.

“The two-book series was left unfinished at Butler's death; a planned third novel, Parable of the Trickster, was never completed.”
from the catalogue description

Start with Parable of the Sower →

Shade's Children milieuSeries

seriesGarth Nix2 books1997

Dystopia, tense in tone, about rebellion and revolution.

Start with Shade's Children →

Ready Player OneSeries

seriesErnest Cline & Andy Weir3 books2011

Cyberpunk and dystopia, about virtual reality, set in virtual world.

“The 2020 sequel, Ready Player Two, picks up after Wade has gained control of the OASIS and follows him and his friends into a new quest built around a brain-computer interface the creator left behind.”
from the catalogue description

Start with Ready Player One →

Ship BreakerSeries

seriesPaolo Bacigalupi3 books2010

Tense in tone.

“Paolo Bacigalupi's Ship Breaker follows Nailer as helping her pulls him out of his abusive father's orbit and into a much larger, more dangerous game involving her family's fortune.”
from the catalogue description

Start with Ship Breaker →

Last SurvivorsSeries

seriesSusan Beth Pfeffer4 books2006

Science fiction and post-apocalyptic, dark in tone, about survival, set in near future and north america.

Start with Life As We Knew It →

Forest of Hands and TeethSeries

seriesCarrie Ryan9 books2009

Zombie horror, tense in tone.

“The Forest of Hands and Teeth follows the first heroine's break from that village into the wider, undead-infested world; The Dead-Tossed Waves and The Dark and Hollow Places carry the aftermath forward through new narrators.”
from the catalogue description

Start with The Forest of Hands and Teeth →

Maze RunnerSeries

seriesJames Dashner11 books2009

Dystopia, tense in tone.

“A 16 year old boy awakens with amnesia in a community of other youths in the center of a maze, and realizes they must cooperate to escape.”
from the catalogue description of The Maze Runner
Wikipedia CC BY-SA 4.0

Start with The Maze Runner →

The Young WorldSeries

seriesChris Weitz3 books2014

Dystopia.

“Jefferson, with his childhood friend Donna, leads a tribe of teenagers in New York City on a dangerous quest to find an antidote for a mysterious illness that wiped out all adults and children.”
from the catalogue description

Start with The Young World →

DivergentSeries

seriesVeronica Roth10 books2011

Dystopia, tense in tone, about identity.

Start with The Transfer →

Why these

No sales rank, no star ratings, no readers also bought.

Shared terms are not a promise that a book feels the same. Two series can be far-future political intrigue and read nothing alike — what the ranking can say is what they are about, and each card says which parts it shares.

Questions readers ask

What should I read after Pen?: Earthseed — the closest match to Pen on what it is about, not on what sells.
Where do I start with Pen?: Love in the Time of Global Warming. It is the entry the catalogue recommends for Pen.
How big is Pen?: Pen is 2 books, 2013–2014.

Books like Pen: 9 series to read next

Read next in Pen

Why these

Questions readers ask

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