Bookdriftopen the map →

Books like The Caves of Steel

Isaac Asimov · 1954 · US · science fiction
Book 2 of 5 in Robot
★ 4.19 Goodreads · 116,465 ratings

On a future Earth where people live in vast enclosed cities and robots are resented, New York detective Elijah Baley is made to partner with a humanoid robot, R. Daneel Olivaw, to solve the murder of a Spacer scientist.

Explore books like this on the map

12 books for readers of The Caves of Steel

Foundation

Isaac Asimov · 1951 · US 96% match ★ 4.17 Goodreads · 618,039 ratings
Book 1 of 7 in Foundation
shares: dialogue heavy, cerebral · plain prose, low-key

As the Galactic Empire decays, mathematician Hari Seldon plants a colony of scholars on a remote planet to shorten the coming dark age, and his successors survive crisis after crisis his equations foresaw.

Cinder

Marissa Meyer · 2012 · US 94% match ★ 4.12 Goodreads · 1,038,926 ratings
Book 1 of 4 in The Lunar Chronicles
shares: futuristic, robot, robots · easy read, plain prose

Cinder, a cyborg mechanic in New Beijing, works under her stepmother's rule while a deadly plague spreads, and a visit from Prince Kai to her market stall pulls her into a conflict with the moon's ruthless queen.

The Tainted Cup

Robert Jackson Bennett · 2024 · US 94% match ★ 4.29 Goodreads · 115,089 ratings
Book 1 of 2 in Shadow of the Leviathan
shares: buddy, procedural, whodunit, detective · speculative, easy read

A detective with an extraordinary sense of taste investigates a murder in a walled city besieged by monsters.

The Demolished Man

Alfred Bester · 1953 · US 93% match ★ 3.96 Goodreads · 34,663 ratings
shares: futuristic, cerebral, detective · easy read, low-key

In a future where telepaths are monitored by law, a corporate mogul commits the ultimate crime: premeditated murder.

Lock In

John Scalzi · 2014 · US 92% match ★ 3.92 Goodreads · 73,915 ratings
Book 1 of 2 in Lock In
shares: procedural, detective · plain prose, easy read

Twenty-five years after a virus left millions locked inside their bodies and walking the world in robot bodies, Chris Shane, a locked-in FBI rookie, and his partner investigate a murder whose suspect may have been carrying someone else's mind.

The End of Eternity

Isaac Asimov · 1955 · US 91% match ★ 4.24 Goodreads · 65,327 ratings
shares: cerebral · plain prose, speculative

A technician in a time-altering organisation makes unauthorised changes to history to save a woman he loves, threatening the existence of eternity itself.

Autonomous

Annalee Newitz · 2017 · US 88% match ★ 3.57 Goodreads · 18,732 ratings
shares: robot, cerebral, robots · easy read, plain prose

A biotech pirate, a military robot, and a runaway slave converge in a near-future thriller about pharmaceutical freedom and corporate control.

Sleeping Giants

Sylvain Neuvel · 2016 · Canada 86% match ★ 3.82 Goodreads · 100,154 ratings
Book 1 of 3 in The Themis Files
shares: robot · easy read, plain prose

A girl riding her bike in South Dakota falls through the ground into a giant metal hand, and years later, as a physicist, Rose Franklin leads a secret project to find the rest of the body, told through interviews by an unnamed man.

The Big Time

Fritz Leiber · 1958 · US 86% match ★ 3.25 Goodreads · 4,826 ratings
shares: dialogue heavy, cerebral · speculative, low-key

In the Place, a rest station outside time for soldiers of the Change War, the hostess Greta Forzane tells of the night the station was cut off and someone brought in an atomic bomb.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Philip K. Dick · 1968 · US 85% match ★ 4.09 Goodreads · 537,562 ratings
shares: robot, robots · easy read, plain prose

In a radioactive, half-abandoned San Francisco, bounty hunter Rick Deckard hunts escaped androids who are almost indistinguishable from humans, while dreaming of owning a real animal.

In the Lives of Puppets

TJ Klune · 2023 · US 85% match ★ 3.89 Goodreads · 107,159 ratings
shares: robot, robots · easy read, plain prose

In a forest far from the cities the machines rule, Victor Lawson lives with the android who raised him, a sardonic nurse robot and an anxious vacuum, until he repairs a decommissioned android called Hap and draws the attention of the machines who come looking for it.

Rendezvous with Rama

Arthur C. Clarke · 1973 · UK 83% match ★ 4.12 Goodreads · 191,407 ratings
Book 1 of 4 in Rama
shares: cerebral · low-key, speculative

A massive, empty alien spacecraft enters the solar system, and a crew of explorers boards it to discover its purpose.