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Built on ISFDB, Wikipedia, Wikidata and Open Library. Curated reading orders carry their reasoning on the page; the rest follow publication order. Data sources & licenses

© Loreful · data: ISFDB · CC BY

More like Close Combat

anchored on:war & militarywarearly 20th centuryhistorical fictionsurvivalislands+2 more

but

Mood

The mood the book leaves you in.

  • The reading experience is propelled by journeys, exploration, and physical risk; excitement and forward momentum dominate over dread or introspection.
  • Joy and loss are deliberately mixed; the resolution grants characters something real while taking something else away, leaving warmth and sorrow together.
  • The book demands work from the reader — dense prose, difficult structure, unfamiliar ideas, or morally uncomfortable material — as part of its intended effect.
  • Grim events, cruelty, or despair dominate the atmosphere, and the book does not soften them with comfort or comic relief.
  • The atmosphere is quietly unsettling — wrongness, unease, and the uncanny pervade the book without necessarily escalating into overt horror.
  • The book is built to move the reader; character feeling is foregrounded and major scenes aim at a strong emotional response.
  • Humor is a primary aim and the prose plays for laughs — comic situations, wit, or dialogue produce sustained comedy, not occasional levity.
  • The book insists that things can improve; effort and decency are shown to matter, and the arc bends toward better outcomes even through hardship.
  • The book teaches as it goes — real facts, history, science, or craft are conveyed in enough depth that learning is part of the reading experience.
  • The book is designed to uplift and motivate, presenting perseverance or achievement in a way that invites the reader to aspire or act.
  • The overall register is cheerful and easygoing; stakes are kept gentle and the book avoids dwelling on pain or dread.
  • Withheld information drives the experience; the book sustains enigmas and secrets the reader wants resolved, whatever its genre.
  • The book is contemplative and inward-looking, giving more weight to thought, memory, and meaning than to external events.
  • The book works as comfort reading — low tension, a soothing pace, and an atmosphere the reader can unwind in.
  • Grief, loss, or melancholy set the dominant register, and the book lets sorrow stand rather than resolving it into comfort.
  • Sustained suspense is the point; the book keeps the reader braced for what happens next through danger, pressure, or impending revelation.
  • Playful invention and charm define the register — fanciful conceits, light absurdity, and a narration that delights in its own oddity.

About

What the story runs on.

  • Stories in which extraterrestrial beings are central — as characters, cultures, or the object of the plot.
  • Stories about venturing into space to explore — survey missions, astronauts, and the frontier of the unknown beyond Earth.
  • Stories structured as a quest — a journey undertaken to find, deliver, or destroy something of great import.
  • Stories in which staying alive against nature, catastrophe, or scarcity is the central problem.
  • Stories of lovers kept apart by law, family, faith, or station, where the obstacle to love is the plot.
  • Stories in which a friendship — its making, testing, or loss — is the emotional center.
  • Stories of growing up — a young protagonist crossing from childhood into adult knowledge and responsibility.
  • Stories about who a character truly is — self-discovery, doubled lives, and the search for a self.
  • Stories in which a buried family truth — hidden parentage, crimes, or shames — surfaces and reorders the present.
  • Stories driven by maneuvering for power — factions, conspiracies, and statecraft conducted in shadow.
  • Stories in which war itself is the subject — combat, occupation, and what warfare does to soldiers and civilians.
  • Stories organized around investigating a killing — the case, the clues, and the pursuit of the killer, in any genre's clothing.

Shelf

Where it sits in the library.

    • Fiction built on magic or other supernatural elements that have no scientific explanation.
    • Secondary-world fantasy at large scale, where the fate of nations or the world turns on the protagonists' struggle.
    • Fantasy set in a recognizably modern city or contemporary world where the supernatural intrudes on everyday life.
    • Fantasy that blends in horror's atmosphere and imagery, keeping a fantastical frame around grim or frightening material.
    • Action-driven fantasy following warriors or rogues with personal stakes against sorcerous threats, rather than world-spanning conflicts.
    • Fantasy set in a real historical period or a close analogue of one, with magic woven into the era.
    • Fantasy in which protagonists cross from the ordinary world into another world through a portal or similar passage.
    • Fiction that retells or reworks a traditional fairy tale in a new form or setting.
    • Fantasy drawing directly on myths, legends, and folklore, retelling them or building on their figures and logic.
    • Fantasy of ghosts, vampires, shapeshifters, psychics, and similar phenomena, usually set in an otherwise ordinary world.
    • Fiction mixing science-fictional trappings with overtly magical or impossible elements in one setting.
    • Low-stakes fantasy emphasizing comfort, community, and everyday pleasures over conflict and peril.
    • Speculative fiction of pervasive moral ambiguity, violence, and cynicism that rejects heroic conventions — fantasy and SF alike.
      • Fiction that extrapolates from science and technology — future societies, space travel, or speculative inventions — within at least nominally natural laws.
      • Science fiction of interstellar scope — starships, galactic polities, and adventure across star systems.
      • Science fiction committed to scientific rigor, where technical plausibility constrains the story.
      • Science fiction centered on armed forces and warfare, told largely from a military point of view.
      • Science fiction of networked, corporate-dominated near futures, pairing high technology with social decay.
      • Science fiction styled on nineteenth-century steam-powered technology, often in a Victorian or pseudo-Victorian setting.
      • Fiction depicting an oppressive or catastrophic society, presented as a warning.
      • Fiction set after civilization's collapse, following survivors in the ruins of the old world.
      • Fiction in which characters move between past and future, and the mechanics or consequences of that travel drive the plot.
      • Fiction exploring a world where a historical event went differently and history diverged from ours.
      • Science fiction about humanity's first encounter and communication with an alien intelligence.
      • Science fiction in which extraterrestrial forces attack or occupy Earth and humanity resists.
      • Fiction whose primary aim is to frighten or unsettle the reader through dread, menace, or the monstrous.
      • Horror of vast, indifferent, incomprehensible entities before which humanity is insignificant, in the Lovecraft tradition.
      • Horror of decaying houses, buried family secrets, and oppressive atmosphere in the Gothic literary tradition.
      • Horror centered on hauntings and the returning dead.
      • Horror located in the mind — paranoia, obsession, and unreliable perception rather than external monsters.
      • Horror built around the reanimated dead and survival amid their outbreaks.
      • Horror defined by explicit, transgressive gore that refuses to cut away from violence.
      • Speculative fiction of the strange and uncanny that resists both natural explanation and standard genre categories.
      • Fiction organized around solving a crime or puzzle, typically following an investigator toward the identification of a culprit.
      • A puzzle-first mystery that lays out clues so the culprit's identity can be deduced before the reveal.
      • Crime fiction of moral ambiguity, fatalism, and hard-edged style, set among the corrupt and the doomed.
      • A mystery following the realistic routines of police work — forensics, interviews, and case-building.
      • A gentle mystery with an amateur sleuth, a small community, and violence kept off the page.
      • A mystery set in a past era, where the investigation works within that period's methods and society.
      • Fast-paced fiction driven by imminent danger, pursuit, or high-stakes conspiracy, built to sustain tension.
      • A thriller of espionage — agents, tradecraft, and intelligence services in conflict.
      • A thriller centered on lawyers and the courtroom, where litigation carries the suspense.
      • A thriller driven by detailed contemporary or near-future technology, often military or scientific.
      • A thriller whose tension comes from mental states and manipulation between characters rather than external action.
      • Fiction whose central plot is a romantic relationship and its development toward an emotionally satisfying resolution.
      • Romance in which one or both partners are supernatural beings, blending fantasy elements into the love story.
      • A fantasy-romance hybrid in which the romantic arc and the fantasy plot carry equal weight.
      • Romance set in a past era, with courtship shaped by the period's society and manners.
      • Romance set in the present day, without supernatural or historical elements.
      • Fiction set in a real past period, where the historical setting materially shapes characters and events.
        • General and literary fiction emphasizing prose style, character interiority, or formal ambition over genre plot conventions.
        • Fiction in a realistic world where magical events occur and are treated as ordinary, in the tradition of Latin American literature.
        • Fiction that ridicules people, institutions, or society in order to criticize them.
        • Fiction of dreamlike, irrational imagery and logic that breaks from realistic representation.
        • Fiction that plays with narrative convention through metafiction, fragmentation, and self-reference.
        • Fiction propelled by journeys, exploration, and physical peril, where action and survival carry the plot.
        • Adventure fiction of ships and seafaring — naval engagements, voyages, and life at sea.
        • Fiction of the American frontier West — gunmen, ranchers, and lawmen, typically in the late nineteenth century.
        • Fiction centered on soldiers, campaigns, and the experience of warfare, historical or imagined.
          • Fiction written primarily to amuse, using comedic situations, wit, or parody as its organizing principle.
            • Multi-generational fiction following a family or dynasty across decades, with inheritance and kinship as the through-line.
              • Fiction whose world runs on explicit game mechanics — levels, stats, and skills that characters can see and exploit.
                • Fiction about costumed or superpowered heroes and their conflicts with comparable villains.

                Practical

                How long a commitment, whether it stands alone, and whether it has finished.

                Tap a chip to ask for it · tap again to rule it out · once more to clear. Numbers show what would be left.

                • Cover of The Beardless Warriors
                  The Beardless Warriors

                  Richard Matheson · standalone novel · 1960

                  similar byearly 20th centurywarwar & militaryhistorical fiction+2 more

                  The Beardless Warriors is a 1960 World War II novel by American writer Richard Matheson. It was based on his experiences as a young infantryman in the 87th Division in France and Germany.

                • Cover of Days of Infamy
                  Days of Infamy

                  series · 2 books · 2004

                  similar byearly 20th centurywartensewar & military+2 more

                  Harry Turtledove's Days of Infamy duology reimagines the Pacific theater of World War II with an alternate outcome at Pearl Harbor: a Japanese invasion and occupation of Hawaii rather than a single carrier strike. Days of Infamy covers the invasion itself, while End of the Beginning follows the ensuing occupation and eventual counter-invasion. As in his other alternate-history work, Turtledove follows the changed war through a wide, rotating cast of civilian and military viewpoints.

                • Cover of Corps
                  Corps

                  series · 10 books · 1986

                  completed

                  similar bywarwar & militaryearly 20th centurytense+5 more

                  The Corps is a series of war novels written by W.E.B. Griffin about the United States Marine Corps before and during the years of World War II and the Korean War. The story features a tightly knit cast of characters in various positions within the Marine Corps, Navy, and upper levels of the United States Government.

                • Cover of The Devil's Voyage
                  The Devil's Voyage

                  Jack L. Chalker · standalone novel · 1981

                  similar byearly 20th centurywartensesurvivalhistorical fictionwar & military

                  The Devil's Voyage is a historical novel by science fiction writer Jack Chalker. It describes the final voyage of the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis, which was sunk during World War II in the Pacific by Japanese submarine action, with the loss of many of the initial survivors to sharks.

                • Cover of What Happened to the Corbetts
                  What Happened to the Corbetts

                  Nevil Shute · standalone novel · 1939

                  similar byearly 20th centurywarwar & militarytensesurvival

                  Published less than 5 months prior to the outbreak of WWII, this novel described the horrors of the coming war and speculated about the possible effects of an aerial bombardment of London.

                • Cover of Rising Sun
                  Rising Sun

                  Robert Conroy · standalone novel · 2012

                  similar byearly 20th centurywarwar & militaryadventuroustense

                  "1942: what should have been a decisive victory for the Allies in the Battle of Midway has become a horrendous disaster instead. America's handful of carriers in the Pacific have blundered into a Japanese submarine picket line and most have been sunk. The United States has only one carrier remaining, while the ragtag remnants of U.S. battleships - an armada still reeling from the defeat at Pearl Harbor - are in even worse shape. The Pacific belongs to the Japanese. Yet, despite disaster, the U.S. is determined to strike back. And now a grand plan is put forth to lure the Japanese into an ambush that could restore the balance in the Pacific and give the forces of freedom a fighting chance once more." Goodreads Oct 20, 2022

                • Cover of Fata Morgana
                  Fata Morgana

                  Steven R. Boyett & Ken Mitchroney · standalone novel · 2017

                  similar byearly 20th centuryadventuroustensesurvivalwarwar & military

                  At the height of the air war in Europe, Captain Joe Farley and the baseball-loving, wisecracking crew of the B-17 Flying Fortress Fata Morgana are in the middle of a harrowing bombing mission over East Germany when everything goes sideways. The bombs are still falling and flak is still exploding all around the 20-ton bomber as it is knocked like a bathtub duck into another world. Suddenly stranded with the final outcasts of a desolated world, Captain Farley navigates a maze of treachery and wonder—and finds a love seemingly decreed by fate—as his bomber becomes a pawn in a centuries-old conflict between remnants of advanced but decaying civilizations. Caught among these bitter enemies, a vast power that has brought them here for its own purposes, and a terrifying living weapon bent on their destruction, the crew must use every bit of their formidable inventiveness and courage to survive.

                • Cover of 1920: America's Great War
                  1920: America's Great War

                  Robert Conroy · standalone novel · 2013

                  similar byearly 20th centurywaradventuroustensewar & military

                  1920: America's Great War is an alternate history novel by the Michigan economics professor Robert Conroy. It was first published as an ebook by Baen Books in November 2013. A hardcover edition followed in December of the same year and then a paperback edition in March 2015. The novel depicts a fictional world in which Imperial Germany had emerged victorious early in World War I and launches a surprise invasion of the United States in 1920 from Mexico. The book's premise is based on an actual plan that Germany had proposed to Mexico during the war.

                • Cover of Brotherhood of War
                  Brotherhood of War

                  series · 9 books · 1982

                  completed

                  similar bywarwar & militarytense+3 more

                • Cover of Red Inferno: 1945
                  Red Inferno: 1945

                  Robert Conroy · standalone novel · 2010

                  similar byearly 20th centurywartensewar & military+1 more

                  Red Inferno: 1945 is a 2010 novel written by Robert Conroy, the author of other alternate history novels.

                • Cover of Faces in a Dusty Picture
                  Faces in a Dusty Picture

                  Gerald Kersh · standalone novel · 1944

                  similar byearly 20th centurywarwar & militarytensesurvival

                  Soldiers are on a march towards a short but brutal desert battle in WWII.

                • Cover of Resistance
                  Resistance

                  Owen Sheers · standalone novel · 2007

                  similar byearly 20th centurytensewarhistorical fiction+1 more

                  Resistance is a 2007 alternative history novel by Welsh poet and author Owen Sheers. The plot centers on the inhabitants of a valley near Abergavenny in Wales in 1944–45, shortly after the failure of Operation Overlord and a successful German counterinvasion of Great Britain. A group of German Wehrmacht soldiers stay there after men leave to serve in the covert British Resistance. The novel follows abandoned farmer's wife Sarah Lewis and German commanding officer Albrecht Wolfram, as they form an unlikely relationship in spite of their backgrounds and political standings.

                • Cover of Barney Custer
                  Barney Custer

                  series · 3 books · 1914

                  completed

                  similar byearly 20th centuryadventuroustense+2 more

                  Barney Custer is an American farmer from Nebraska who travels to the small European kingdom of Lutha only to discover he's the spitting image of its unstable ruler, King Leopold. Edgar Rice Burroughs's The Mad King drops him into court intrigue on the eve of World War I, as a scheming uncle's plot for the throne and a budding romance with a princess force Barney to impersonate the king he resembles. It's a standalone Ruritanian adventure rather than an ongoing series.

                • Cover of Men at War
                  Men at War

                  series · 5 books · 1998

                  similar byearly 20th centurywarwar & militarytense+2 more

                  Men at War is a series of World War II novels created by W. E. B. Griffin in 1984. More recently, the series' newest novels were co-authored by his son, William E. Butterworth. Originally, the series was written under the pseudonym of Alex Baldwin. Some editions of the books listing Baldwin as the author contain cover blurb quotations, attributed to Griffin, praising the books.

                • Cover of Angel Island
                  Angel Island

                  Inez Haynes Gillmore · standalone novel · 1914

                  similar byearly 20th centuryislandsadventuroussurvival

                  Angel Island is a science fiction/fantasy novel by American feminist author, journalist and suffragette Inez Haynes Irwin, writing under the name Inez Haynes Gillmore. It was originally published by Henry Holt in January 1914. The novel is about a group of men shipwrecked on an island occupied by winged-women.

                • Cover of The Last Shot
                  The Last Shot

                  Frederick Palmer · standalone novel · 1914

                  similar byearly 20th centurywarwar & militarytense

                  Novel of imaginary warfare between certain European nations, described as the 'Browns' and the 'Grays'

                • Cover of How Few Remain Universe
                  How Few Remain Universe

                  series · 11 books · 1997

                  similar byearly 20th centurywartense+1 more

                  How Few Remain opens Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory timeline, imagining a North America where the Confederacy won the Civil War. Set mostly in 1881-1882, it follows political and military figures on both sides of a divided continent as old grievances resurface into a new war. It's a single novel here, but the starting point for a much longer alternate-history sequence Turtledove extended across both twentieth-century world wars.

                • Cover of The War in the Air
                  The War in the Air

                  H. G. Wells · standalone novel · 1908

                  similar byearly 20th centurywartense+1 more

                  The War in the Air: And Particularly How Mr. Bert Smallways Fared While It Lasted is a military science fiction novel written by H. G. Wells and published in 1908.

                • Cover of Himmler's War
                  Himmler's War

                  Robert Conroy · standalone novel · 2011

                  similar byearly 20th centurywartensewar & military+1 more

                  Himmler's War is an alternate history novel written by Robert Conroy. It was published by Baen Books online as an ebook on December 1, 2011, before being published in print five days later.

                • Cover of The War That Came Early
                  The War That Came Early

                  series · 6 books · 2009

                  similar byearly 20th centurywarwar & militarytense

                  The War That Came Early is a six-novel series by Harry Turtledove depicting an alternate history of World War II. As is typical of Turtledove's alternate histories, the narrative follows a large cast of both fictional and historical characters.

                • Cover of Prizrak (Ghost)
                  Prizrak (Ghost)

                  series · 1 book · 2025

                  similar byearly 20th centurywartensesurvivalhistorical fictionwar & military

                • Cover of Tarzan
                  Tarzan

                  series · 50 books · 1912

                  part of Tarzan Universe

                  similar byearly 20th centuryadventurous+1 more

                  Tarzan is a series of 24 adventure novels written by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875–1950) and published between 1912 and 1966, followed by several novels either co-written by Burroughs, or officially authorized by his estate. There are also two works written by Burroughs especially for children that are not related to the main series.

                • Cover of Lord of the Flies
                  Lord of the Flies

                  William Golding · standalone novel · 1954

                  similar byislandstensesurvival+1 more

                  Lord of the Flies is the 1954 debut novel of British author William Golding. The plot concerns a group of prepubescent British boys who are stranded on an uninhabited island and their disastrous attempts to govern themselves that lead to a descent into savagery. The novel's themes include morality, leadership, and the tension between civility and chaos.

                • Cover of War Year
                  War Year

                  Joe Haldeman · standalone novel · 1972

                  similar bywarwar & militarytensesurvivalhistorical fiction

                  About a soldier on combat duty in South Vietnam during 1968. See also Haldeman's more recent _1968_ for another perspective.