Books like The Song of Achilles, according to Reddit

The read-alike list

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

#1

Circe

Madeline Miller

An exiled witch on a deserted island turns men into pigs and spends three thousand years deciding what she actually wants.

6 shared threads · praised

#2

Uprooted

Naomi Novik

A village girl handed over to a reclusive wizard as tribute turns out to be the only one who can fight the corrupted Wood eating her valley.

3 shared threads · praised

#3

The Goblin Emperor

Katherine Addison

An exiled half-goblin prince inherits a throne he never wanted after an airship 'accident' kills his father and half-brothers.

3 shared threads · mixed

#4

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.

6 shared threads · panned

#5

Station Eleven

Emily St. John Mandel

A pandemic collapses civilization and a traveling troupe keeps performing Shakespeare in the wreckage twenty years later.

3 shared threads · praised

#6

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.

5 shared threads · praised

#7

Gardens of the Moon

Steven Erikson

An empire quietly marks its own soldiers for death, and the gods are already choosing sides before the Bridgeburners find out.

3 shared threads · mixed

#8

A Wizard of Earthsea

Ursula K. Le Guin

A prideful young mage summons a nameless shadow to prove his power, then spends years learning to face it instead of running.

3 shared threads · mixed

#9

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.

6 shared threads · praised

#10

Snow Crash

Neal Stephenson

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

4 shared threads · mixed

#11

The Lord of the Rings

J. R. R. Tolkien

A gardener, a burglar's heir, and seven others walk a piece of jewelry to a volcano because destroying it is the only way to stop a war.

3 shared threads · mixed

#12

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.

5 shared threads · mixed

The overlap, in numbers

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

1. #1 Circe by Madeline Miller — 6 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
2. #2 Uprooted by Naomi Novik — 3 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
3. #3 The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison — 3 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
4. #4 The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin — 6 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
5. #5 Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel — 3 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
6. #6 Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir — 5 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
7. #7 Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson — 3 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
8. #8 A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin — 3 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
9. #9 Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky — 6 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
10. #10 Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson — 4 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
11. #11 The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien — 3 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
12. #12 All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries) by Martha Wells — 5 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF