If you liked
Books like The Saint of Bright Doors
Loved The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera? Here are 10 books with a similar appeal — drawn mostly from science fiction, ranked by how confidently we'd recommend them next.
10 books · ranked
-
1
System Collapse
Murderbot and its allies must prevent a corporate hostile takeover of a newly contacted human colony — while Murderbot deals with the psychological aftermath of trauma from the previous book, in ways its companions notice before it's willing to admit. Wells's Locus Award-winning novel continues the series' blend of action, humour and one of science fiction's most quietly moving explorations of mental health and recovery.
-
2
The Kaiju Preservation Society
Jamie Gray, laid off at the start of the pandemic, takes an unusual job that turns out to involve travelling to an alternate dimension where enormous kaiju — Godzilla-scale creatures — live in a vast wilderness that needs protecting from both the kaiju and the humans who'd exploit them. Scalzi's Locus Award-winning novel is fast, funny science fiction adventure, written partly as what he's called 'a pop song' after a difficult creative period.
-
3
The Mercy of Gods
Humanity, having spread to a distant world, is conquered by the Carryx — an ancient, incomprehensible alien empire that absorbs species into its vast collection of subject civilisations. The Mercy of Gods, by the writing team behind The Expanse, begins a new space opera series about survival under genuinely alien, indifferent conquest — won the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel.
-
4
The Last Cuentista
Petra Peña, one of the children chosen to journey to a new world after Earth's destruction, wakes from cryosleep to find her memories have been erased by the ship's new ruling order — except for the stories her grandmother told her, which become the only thing she has left of where she came from. Higuera's Newbery Medal-winning novel uses science fiction to explore cultural erasure, memory and the power of storytelling to preserve identity.
-
5
A Master of Djinn
In an alternate 1912 Cairo transformed by the return of magic and djinn forty years earlier, Agent Fatma el-Sha'arawi of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities investigates the murder of a secret brotherhood by a man claiming to be al-Jahiz, the mystic whose actions unleashed magic on the world. Clark's Nebula Award-winning novel combines steampunk Cairo, Egyptian mythology and a confident, glamorous detective heroine.
-
6
Network Effect
Murderbot — the anxious, TV-obsessed security AI who would rather be left alone — returns in the first full-length Murderbot novel, drawn into a crisis involving a kidnapped friend, a hijacked ship and a conspiracy that forces Murderbot to confront its feelings about the humans it protects. Wells's Hugo and Nebula-winning novel combines thriller pacing with one of science fiction's most beloved unconventional narrators.
-
7
The City We Became
New York City is about to be born as a living entity — and each of its boroughs manifests as a human avatar who must fight an ancient enemy trying to prevent the city's birth. Jemisin's Locus Award-winning novel is urban fantasy as both celebration of New York's diversity and confrontation with the forces — including a very particular kind of cosmic racism — that resist cities becoming what they could be.
-
8
A Memory Called Empire
Mahit Dzmare arrives as ambassador to the vast Teixcalaanli Empire carrying the memories of her predecessor — who has died under suspicious circumstances — implanted in her brain. Martine's Hugo Award-winning novel is space opera built on questions of cultural assimilation, imperial seduction and what it means to love the empire that is erasing your home.
-
9
A Song for a New Day
In a near-future America where mass gatherings have been banned after a wave of attacks and a pandemic, a touring musician who refuses to stop performing live encounters a young scout for a tech company that has built an empire on virtual concerts. Pinsker's Nebula Award-winning novel — written before COVID-19 but eerily predictive — is about live music, isolation and what gets lost when everything moves online.
-
10
The City in the Middle of the Night
On a tidally locked planet where one side burns and the other freezes, two cities cling to survival in the narrow habitable zone — and a young woman exiled from one of them encounters the planet's indigenous, possibly sentient inhabitants. Anders's Locus Award-finalist novel is about colonialism, communication across genuinely alien difference, and what survival costs a society over generations.