Books like Spinning Silver, according to Reddit

The read-alike list

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

#1

Uprooted

Naomi Novik

A village girl is taken by an ancient wizard as tribute every ten years, until the year his choice turns out to be a mistake he can't undo.

27 shared threads

#2

The Goblin Emperor

Katherine Addison

An airship explosion kills every relative ahead of him in line, and the half-goblin son nobody wanted becomes emperor overnight.

9 shared threads

#3

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.

10 shared threads

#4

Circe

Madeline Miller

Exiled to an empty island for turning a rival into a monster, a minor goddess spends immortality perfecting the one power the gods never bothered to master.

3 shared threads

#5

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.

17 shared threads

#6

Piranesi

Susanna Clarke

A man alone in an endless house of statues and tides slowly realizes he used to have a different name.

11 shared threads

#7

The Poppy War

R. F. Kuang

A dark-skinned war orphan tests into an elite military academy, discovers she can channel a fire god, and burns her way toward genocide.

4 shared threads

#8

A Wizard of Earthsea

Ursula K. Le Guin

A proud boy on a poor island learns real magic, casts one spell out of arrogance, and spends the rest of the book hunted by what it let loose.

11 shared threads

#9

The Once and Future King

T. H. White

Arthur grows up not knowing he's a king, tutored by a shapeshifting wizard who turns him into a fish, a hawk, and an ant before he ever holds a sword.

3 shared threads

#10

The Master and Margarita

Mikhail Bulgakov

The devil arrives in 1930s Moscow with a talking cat and a magic show, and the story keeps detouring into Pontius Pilate's Jerusalem.

3 shared threads

#11

American Gods

Neil Gaiman

Gods who crossed the ocean with their immigrant worshippers are going extinct in modern America, replaced by whatever people actually worship now.

5 shared threads

#12

All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries)

Martha Wells

A security android with no interest in gender, romance, or heroics just wants to watch its shows, and ends up saving its clients from a conspiracy anyway.

17 shared threads

The overlap, in numbers

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

1. #1 Uprooted by Naomi Novik — 27 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
2. #2 The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison — 9 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
3. #3 Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke — 10 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
4. #4 Circe by Madeline Miller — 3 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
5. #5 The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin — 17 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
6. #6 Piranesi by Susanna Clarke — 11 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
7. #7 The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang — 4 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
8. #8 A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin — 11 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
9. #9 The Once and Future King by T. H. White — 3 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
10. #10 The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov — 3 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
11. #11 American Gods by Neil Gaiman — 5 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
12. #12 All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries) by Martha Wells — 17 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF