Books like The Three-Body Problem, according to Reddit

The read-alike list

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

#1

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.

506 shared threads · praised

#2

Blindsight

Peter Watts

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

490 shared threads · praised

#3

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.

470 shared threads · mixed

#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.

429 shared threads · mixed

#5

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.

221 shared threads · panned

#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.

230 shared threads · praised

#7

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.

254 shared threads · praised

#8

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.

237 shared threads · praised

#9

The Martian

Andy Weir

A botanist gets left for dead on Mars and has to grow food on a planet that wants him gone, one duct-taped fix at a time.

243 shared threads · mixed

#10

The Fifth Season

N. K. Jemisin

A woman searches a dying continent for the daughter her husband stole, while the world ends again on schedule.

191 shared threads · praised

#11

Snow Crash

Neal Stephenson

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

219 shared threads · mixed

#12

Neuromancer

William Gibson

A burned-out hacker banned from cyberspace takes one last job to breach the AI that might already own a piece of him.

231 shared threads · praised

The overlap, in numbers

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

1. #1 Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky — 506 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
2. #2 Blindsight by Peter Watts — 490 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
3. #3 Hyperion by Dan Simmons — 470 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
4. #4 Dune by Frank Herbert — 429 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
5. #5 Foundation by Isaac Asimov — 221 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
6. #6 Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir — 230 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
7. #7 The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin — 254 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
8. #8 Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card — 237 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
9. #9 The Martian by Andy Weir — 243 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
10. #10 The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin — 191 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
11. #11 Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson — 219 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
12. #12 Neuromancer by William Gibson — 231 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF