Books like The Martian, according to Reddit

The read-alike list

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

#1

Project Hail Mary

Andy Weir

A high-school teacher wakes up alone on a spaceship with no memory of how he got there and one job left: save Earth.

404 shared threads · praised

#2

All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries)

Martha Wells

A security robot hacks its own governor module, gains free will, and spends its days streaming soap operas instead of killing anyone.

373 shared threads · mixed

#3

Children of Time

Adrian Tchaikovsky

A terraforming experiment goes wrong, a nanovirus lands on spiders instead of monkeys, and evolution builds a civilization nobody planned for.

360 shared threads · praised

#4

Dune

Frank Herbert

A duke's son survives his family's betrayal on a desert planet and becomes the prophet who leads its people to war.

342 shared threads · mixed

#5

Hyperion

Dan Simmons

Seven pilgrims journey toward a monster that grants one wish and kills everyone else, and each tells the story of why they came.

353 shared threads · mixed

#6

Ender's Game

Orson Scott Card

A six-year-old is drafted into a war academy that trains him to command a fleet, and he doesn't find out what he actually did until it's over.

225 shared threads · praised

#7

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams

Earth gets demolished for a hyperspace bypass minutes after a man's house is demolished for a road, and his best friend turns out to be an alien with a towel.

168 shared threads · praised

#8

Snow Crash

Neal Stephenson

A pizza-delivery samurai and a skateboard courier chase a mind-hacking virus through a franchised, corporate America.

218 shared threads · mixed

#9

The Three-Body Problem

Liu Cixin

A Chinese radio astronomer's decades-old reply to an alien signal puts Earth on a collision course with an invasion fleet centuries out.

243 shared threads · panned

#10

Blindsight

Peter Watts

A crew of post-human specialists meets first contact and reports back that consciousness might be what's holding humanity back.

296 shared threads · praised

#11

The Left Hand of Darkness

Ursula K. Le Guin

An envoy is sent alone to a planet where everyone is genderless most of the month, and he has to unlearn who he assumes is in charge.

218 shared threads · praised

#12

Foundation

Isaac Asimov

A mathematician predicts the fall of a galactic empire and hides the fix inside an encyclopedia nobody will read for a thousand years.

187 shared threads · panned

The overlap, in numbers

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

1. #1 Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir — 404 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
2. #2 All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries) by Martha Wells — 373 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
3. #3 Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky — 360 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
4. #4 Dune by Frank Herbert — 342 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
5. #5 Hyperion by Dan Simmons — 353 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
6. #6 Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card — 225 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
7. #7 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams — 168 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
8. #8 Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson — 218 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
9. #9 The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin — 243 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
10. #10 Blindsight by Peter Watts — 296 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
11. #11 The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin — 218 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
12. #12 Foundation by Isaac Asimov — 187 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF