More like Red Ether
anchored on:science fiction
but
- H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds
universe65 books1898
Start hereThe War of the Worlds · Start here
similar byscience fiction+3 more
No one would have believed, in the closing years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched keenly and closely from the timeless worlds of space. And then the cylinders fell. H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds opens in the quiet of the Surrey commons, where a falling star proves to be the first Martian craft — and from the pit rise the towering tripods, the Heat-Ray, the choking Black Smoke and the creeping red weed, wielded by minds that regard mankind much as we regard the creatures we boil for supper. This is invasion rendered as natural disaster: cold, methodical, and vast beyond argument. Wells' 1898 novel is the seed; everything else grows from that Martian soil. The catalogue gathers direct sequels and continuations alongside a wide field of other hands. In War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches the invasion is retold across the whole planet through the eyes of Twain, Verne, Tolstoy, Lowell and Kipling; in the Manly Wade and Wade Wellman crossover, Sherlock Holmes, Watson and Professor Challenger take the field against the machines; and Scott Washburn's Great Martian War stretches the fighting into a decades-long alternate history of steam, artillery and grinding attrition. It is a loose shared world — no single decreed sequence, many voices answering one calamity. What sets this world apart is its refusal of heroics: the invaders fall not to generals but to the smallest things of Earth, humbling and indifferent. Begin, always, with Wells' original novel — it is short, and it is the ground every later book stands upon. From there follow your appetite: Global Dispatches for the panorama, the Holmes campaign for adventure, Washburn for the long war.
- Cavor
series2 books1901
similar byaliensscience fictionearly 20th century
H. G. Wells's 1901 novel The First Men in the Moon is narrated by the businessman Bedford, who joins the reclusive scientist Cavor after Cavor invents cavorite, a gravity-blocking substance that carries the two men to the Moon. There they discover a vast underground civilization of insect-like Selenites, and the expedition that began as a hunt for lunar minerals turns into an encounter with an alien society. It is a standalone novel; later editions crediting Stephen Baxter add an introduction or afterword rather than a continuing story.
- Stranger in a Strange Land
Robert A. Heinleinstandalone novel1961
similar byaliensscience fictionour world
Stranger in a Strange Land is a 1961 science fiction novel by the American author Robert A. Heinlein. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who comes to Earth in early adulthood after being born on the planet Mars and raised by Martians, and explores his interaction with and eventual transformation of Terran culture.
- Childhood's End
Arthur C. Clarkestandalone novel1953
similar byaliensscience fictionour world
Childhood's End is a 1953 science fiction novel by the British author Arthur C. Clarke. The story follows a peaceful alien invasion of Earth by mysterious Overlords, whose arrival begins decades of apparent utopia under indirect alien rule, at the cost of human identity and culture.
- The Sirens of Titan
Kurt Vonnegut & Jr.standalone novel1959
similar byaliensscience fiction+1 more
The Sirens of Titan is a comic science fiction novel by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., first published in 1959. His second novel, it involves issues of free will, omniscience, and the overall purpose of human history, with much of the story revolving around a Martian invasion of Earth.
- Cosmic Trilogy (C. S. Lewis)
series4 books1938
completed
similar byaliensscience fiction+1 more
The Space Trilogy is a series of science fiction novels by British writer C. S. Lewis. The trilogy consists of Out of the Silent Planet (1938), Perelandra (1943), and That Hideous Strength (1945). A philologist named Elwin Ransom is the protagonist of the first two novels and an important character in the third.
- The Black Cloud
Fred Hoylestandalone novel1957
similar byaliensscience fictionour world
The Black Cloud is a 1957 science fiction novel by British astrophysicist Fred Hoyle. It details the arrival of an enormous cloud of gas that enters the Solar System and appears about to destroy most of the life on Earth by blocking the Sun's radiation.
- The Kraken Wakes
John Wyndhamstandalone novel1953
similar byaliensscience fictionour world
" Behind a spectacular meteor shower actually hides the beginning of an invasion by a mysterious and powerful alien race. Earth's life is disrupted by the attacks of extraterrestrials whose war machines, emerging from the depths of the oceans, seem indestructible. The coalitioned forces of the whole world are worthless, powerless in the face of the indecipherable and deadly plans of a superior intelligence, capable of bringing the entire planet to the brink of catastrophe" Goodreads May 20, 2022
- Time for the Stars
Robert A. Heinleinstandalone novel1956
similar byscience fiction+2 more
Explorer spaceships need a way to communicate back to earth in a timely manner when they are light years away. When telepathy is found to have no delay, pairs of twins are hired. One twin stays on Earth to receive reports, and the other twin goes into space.
- Chocky
series2 books1968
similar byaliensscience fiction+1 more
Chocky (1968) is John Wyndham's science fiction novel about an eleven-year-old boy, Matthew, whose parents grow alarmed by his conversations with an unseen presence that feeds him unsettling insights into mathematics and human progress, building toward the reveal of what, or who, Chocky really is. Mark Daniel's Chocky's Challenge (1986), published after Wyndham's death, is an authorized continuation that carries the story forward.
- Tripods
series4 books1967
completed
similar byaliensscience fictionour world
The Tripods is a series of young adult science fiction novels by John Christopher. The series takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity is enslaved by "Tripods"—gigantic three-legged walking machines piloted by an alien race later identified as the "Masters". The first two books were the basis of a science fiction TV series, produced in the United Kingdom in the 1980s.
- The Man Who Fell to Earth
Walter Tevisstandalone novel1963
similar byaliensscience fictionour world
The Man Who Fell to Earth is a 1963 science-fiction novel by American writer Walter Tevis. Published by Gold Medal Books as a paperback original, it was Tevis's second novel, following The Hustler. The novel follows Thomas Jerome Newton, an extraterrestrial from the drought-stricken planet Anthea, who comes to Earth hoping to build a spacecraft that can save the surviving members of his species.
- This Immortal
series2 books1966
similar byaliensscience fictionour world
This Immortal is a single science fiction novel by Roger Zelazny, expanded from his 1965 serial ...And Call Me Conrad. In a depopulated future Earth largely toured by an alien race, its long-lived, secretive protagonist Conrad Nomikos is assigned to guide and protect a visiting alien across the ruins of Greece and Egypt, uncovering old grudges and assassination plots along the way. The novel shared the 1966 Hugo Award for Best Novel with Frank Herbert's Dune.
- Forge of God
series2 books1987
completed
similar byaliensscience fiction+1 more
The Forge of God (1987) is Greg Bear's science fiction novel about Earth's discovery that it is the target of an incomprehensible, overwhelming alien attack, following scientists and ordinary people as they try to understand what is destroying the planet. Its 1992 sequel, Anvil of Stars, follows a group of young survivors sent on a mission of interstellar retaliation, continuing directly from the first book's ending.
- The Wanderer
Fritz Leiberstandalone novel1964
similar byaliensscience fictionour world
The Wanderer is a science fiction novel by American writer Fritz Leiber, published as a paperback original by Ballantine Books in 1964. It won the 1965 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
series16 books1979
part of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Universe
similar byscience fiction+2 more
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally a radio sitcom broadcast over two series on BBC Radio 4 between 1978 and 1980, it was soon adapted to other formats, including both novels and comic books, a 1981 BBC television series, a 1984 text adventure game, stage shows and a 2005 feature film.
- Footfall
Larry Niven & Jerry Pournellestandalone novel1985
similar byaliensscience fictionour world
When aliens travel to Earth from Alpha Centauri, differences between alien and human psychology result in an unprovoked invasion, and the resulting resistance results in the aliens' use of a devastating weapon.
- Contact
Carl Saganstandalone novel1985
similar byaliensscience fictionour world
From the front flap of the Simon and Schuster first edition: For centuries humanity has dreamed of life and intelligence beyond the Earth; for decades scientists have searched for it in every corner of the sky; for years Project Argus, a vast, sophisticated complex of radio telescopes, has listened for a signal indicating the existence, somewhere in the universe, of extraterrestrial intelligence. Then, one afternoon, the course of human history is changed, abruptly and forever. The Message, awaited for so long, its very possibility doubted by so many, arrives. Contact has been made. Life, intelligence, someone, something beyond Earth, 26 light-years away, in the vicinity of the star Vega, is calling, beaming across space a wholly unexpected message to say that we are not - have never been - alone. In Contact, Carl Sagan, whose Cosmos enthralled millions of readers and television viewers, has brilliantly employed the freedom of fiction to imagine the greatest adventure of all - humanity's first encounter with other intelligent beings. But the novel is not only about contact between humans and extraterrestrials; it is also about contact, down here on Earth, with each other and ourselves. At its center is a brilliant scientist, Eleanor Arroway, director of Project Argos, who is the first to realize that chapter one of human history is over. It is she who is instrumental in decoding the Message - and in persuading world leaders not to treat it as a threat - she who finds her own life changed by the immense challenge of responding to the Message; she who finally journeys out to experience, in circumstances at once profoundly religious and scientific, the most fateful encounter in human history.
- Pax / Astra
series2 books1954
completed
similar byscience fiction+2 more
Andre Norton's The Stars Are Ours! (1954) and its sequel Star Born (1957) follow a group of scientists and their families who flee a repressive future Earth to colonize a distant world they name Astra, and then the next generation, who must contend with that world's original inhabitants. Star Flight appears to be a later omnibus or reissue rather than a third original novel.
