Books like A Wizard of Earthsea, according to Reddit

The read-alike list

Ranked by co-mention strength — how often each book shares a thread with A Wizard of Earthsea, normalized so ubiquitous books don't dominate.

#1

The Left Hand of Darkness

Ursula K. Le Guin

A human envoy crosses a glacier on foot with the one alien on the planet capable of ambisexuality, and neither of them trusts the other yet.

193 shared threads

#2

The Dispossessed

Ursula K. Le Guin

A physicist from an anarchist moon travels to the capitalist planet his people fled, carrying a theory of time that could unite both worlds or arm one of them.

175 shared threads

#3

Dune

Frank Herbert

Paul Atreides survives his family's massacre on a desert planet and becomes the messiah the empire engineered him to be, then has to live with it.

181 shared threads

#4

The Fifth Season

N. K. Jemisin

An orogene comes home to find her son beaten to death and her daughter gone, the same day a continent starts splitting apart.

91 shared threads

#5

Assassin's Apprentice

Robin Hobb

A royal bastard trains as the king's poisoner and assassin, and readers fifteen books later still call the ending emotionally devastating.

35 shared threads

#6

Hyperion

Dan Simmons

Seven pilgrims travel together to a planet that kills, each one carrying the private story of why they volunteered to go.

156 shared threads

#7

The Lord of the Rings

J. R. R. Tolkien

A gardener and three friends carry a cursed ring across a continent at war, because the only way to destroy it is to walk it into the volcano that forged it.

76 shared threads

#8

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Susanna Clarke

England forgets it ever had real magic, until one book-obsessed magician brings the practical kind back from decades of theory-only study.

39 shared threads

#9

The Hobbit

J. R. R. Tolkien

A hobbit who has never left his own pantry gets recruited by thirteen dwarves and a wizard to steal treasure back from a dragon.

38 shared threads

#10

The Blade Itself

Joe Abercrombie

A crippled torturer, a vain swordsman, and a berserker haunted by his own alter ego get pulled into a war none of them understand yet.

45 shared threads

#11

Ender's Game

Orson Scott Card

A child prodigy recruited into Battle School at six ends up commanding real war fleets, believing until the end that it's all just a simulation.

91 shared threads

#12

Neuromancer

William Gibson

A washed-up hacker gets his nervous system rebuilt for one last job, in a world Gibson invented before the internet existed to copy it.

92 shared threads

The overlap, in numbers

Where each pairing actually shows up. Click through for the full Reddit verdict on each book.

1. #1 The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin — 193 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
2. #2 The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin — 175 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
3. #3 Dune by Frank Herbert — 181 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
4. #4 The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin — 91 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
5. #5 Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb — 35 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
6. #6 Hyperion by Dan Simmons — 156 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
7. #7 The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien — 76 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
8. #8 Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke — 39 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
9. #9 The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien — 38 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
10. #10 The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie — 45 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
11. #11 Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card — 91 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
12. #12 Neuromancer by William Gibson — 92 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF