The Best Books To Read For Fans Of Westworld
“What are the best books for fans of HBO’s Westworld ?” We looked at 107 of the top books, aggregating and ranking them so we could answer that very question!
Robots. Westerns. Theme Parks. The Future. The Past. Artificial Intelligence. Very Loose Michael Crichton Adaptations. Action. Drama. Mysteries. Excitement. Murder. Sex. Adventure. Additional Descriptions.
Whatever the reason you were hooked by Westworld, there is bound to be a book below that can fill the void for you until the series comes back to HBO with new episodes. The top 18 titles, all appearing on 2 or more lists, are below with images, descriptions, and links to purchase. The remaining titles, as well as the articles we aggregated from, are listed in alphabetical order at the bottom of the page.
Happy Scrolling!
Top 18 Books Similar To Westworld
18 .) Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
Lists It Appears On:
- BookBub
- Paste
“On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest.
Once, she was the Justice of Toren – a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy.
Now, an act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with one fragile human body, unanswered questions, and a burning desire for vengeance.”
17 .) Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Lists It Appears On:
- Inverse
- Pioneers
An epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America’s westward expansion, Blood Meridian brilliantly subverts the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the “wild west.” Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennesseean who stumbles into the nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving.
16 .) Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
Lists It Appears On:
- Library Point
- Bustle
In this hyperkinetic and relentlessly inventive novel, Japan’s most popular (and controversial) fiction writer hurtles into the consciousness of the West. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World draws readers into a narrative particle accelerator in which a split-brained data processor, a deranged scientist, his shockingly undemure granddaughter, Lauren Bacall, Bob Dylan, and various thugs, librarians, and subterranean monsters collide to dazzling effect. What emerges is simultaneously cooler than zero and unaffectedly affecting, a hilariously funny and deeply serious meditation on the nature and uses of the mind.
15 .) Neuromancer by William Gibson
Lists It Appears On:
- BookBub
- Paste
“The Matrix is a world within the world, a global consensus- hallucination, the representation of every byte of data in cyberspace…
Case had been the sharpest data-thief in the business, until vengeful former employees crippled his nervous system. But now a new and very mysterious employer recruits him for a last-chance run. The target: an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence orbiting Earth in service of the sinister Tessier-Ashpool business clan. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case embarks on an adventure that ups the ante on an entire genre of fiction.”
14 .) Our Lady of the Ice by Cassandra Rose Clarke
Lists It Appears On:
- The Portalist
- Barnes & Noble 2
“The Yiddish Policeman’s Union meets The Windup Girl when a female PI goes up against a ruthless gangster—just as both humans and robots agitate for independence in an Argentinian colony in Antarctica.
In Argentine Antarctica, Eliana Gomez is the only female PI in Hope City—a domed colony dependent on electricity (and maintenance robots) for heat, light, and survival in the icy deserts of the continent. At the center is an old amusement park—now home only to the androids once programmed to entertain—but Hope City’s days as a tourist destination are long over. Now the City produces atomic power for the mainland while local factions agitate for independence and a local mobster, Ignacio Cabrera, runs a brisk black-market trade in illegally imported food.”
13 .) R.U.R. by Karel Čapek
Lists It Appears On:
- Bustle
- The Portalist
“Written in 1920, premiered in Prague in 1921, and first performed in New York in 1922—garnered worldwide acclaim for its author and popularized the word robot. Mass-produced as efficient laborers to serve man, Capek’s Robots are an android product—they remember everything but think of nothing new. But the Utopian life they provide ultimately lacks meaning, and the humans they serve stop reproducing. When the Robots revolt, killing all but one of their masters, they must strain to learn the secret of self-duplication. It is not until two Robots fall in love and are christened “Adam” and “Eve” by the last surviving human that Nature emerges triumphant.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.”
12 .) Revenge and The Wild by Michelle Modesto
Lists It Appears On:
- Barnes & Noble
- Epic Reads
“True Grit meets True Blood in this delightfully dark and fantastical Western perfect for fans of Gail Carriger, Cassandra Clare, and Holly Black. This thrilling novel is a remarkable tale of danger and discovery, from debut author Michelle Modesto.
The two-bit town of Rogue City is a lawless place, full of dark magic and saloon brawls, monsters and six-shooters. But it’s just perfect for seventeen-year-old Westie, the notorious adopted daughter of local inventor Nigel Butler.
Westie was only a child when she lost her arm and her family to cannibals on the wagon trail. Seven years later, Westie may seem fearsome with her foul-mouthed tough exterior and the powerful mechanical arm built for her by Nigel, but the memory of her past still haunts her. She’s determined to make the killers pay for their crimes—and there’s nothing to stop her except her own reckless ways.”
11 .) Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross
Lists It Appears On:
- Unbound Worlds
- BookBub
Freya Nakamichi-47 is a femmebot, one of the last of her kind still functioning. With no humans left to pay for the pleasures she provides, she agrees to transport a mysterious package from Mercury to Mars-only to become hunted by some very powerful humanoids who will stop at nothing to possess the contents of the package.
10 .) The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
Lists It Appears On:
- Library Point
- Bustle
In The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury, America’s preeminent storyteller, imagines a place of hope, dreams, and metaphor— of crystal pillars and fossil seas—where a fine dust settles on the great empty cities of a vanished, devastated civilization. Earthmen conquer Mars and then are conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race. In this classic work of fiction, Bradbury exposes our ambitions, weaknesses, and ignorance in a strange and breathtaking world where man does not belong.
9 .) The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt
Lists It Appears On:
- Off The Shelf
- Pioneers
Patrick deWitt, a young writer whose “stop-you-in-your-tracks writing has snuck up on the world” (Los Angeles Times), brings us The Sisters Brothers, a darkly comic, outrageously inventive novel that offers readers a decidedly off-center view of the Wild, Wild West. Set against the back-drop of the great California Gold Rush, this odd and wonderful tour de force at once honors and reshapes the traditional western while chronicling the picaresque misadventures of two hired guns, the fabled Sisters brothers.
8 .) The Soul of a Robot by Barrington J. Bayley
Lists It Appears On:
- Bustle
- The Portalist
“He was unique. Alone in a world that did not understand him, he tested the super powers of his mind and body. More than a machine, but less than a man, he searched restlessly for the truth. Before his quest was done, he had died and been reborn, had fought his way from a grim dungeon to a royal throne.
Jasperodus, the only super-robot to have been granted consciousness, must decide whether to share his soul-possessing secrets with the other robots or to betray them to save mankind.”
7 .) Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Lists It Appears On:
- Barnes & Noble
- Library Point
- Bustle
“Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . .
Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.”
6 .) Dream Park by Larry Niven
Lists It Appears On:
- Library Point
- Unbound Worlds
- BookBub
“A group of pretend adventurers suit up for a campaign called “”The South Seas Treasure Game.”” As in the early Role Playing Games, there are Dungeon Masters, warriors, magicians, and thieves. The difference? At Dream Park, a futuristic fantasy theme park full of holographic attractions and the latest in VR technology, they play in an artificial enclosure that has been enhanced with special effects, holograms, actors, and a clever storyline. The players get as close as possible to truly living their adventure.
All’s fun and games until a Park security guard is murdered, a valuable research property is stolen, and all evidence points to someone inside the game. The park’s head of security, Alex Griffin, joins the game to find the killer, but finds new meaning in the games he helps keep alive.”
5 .) Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
Lists It Appears On:
- Bayou Library
- Off The Shelf
- BookBub
“An astonishing technique for recovering and cloning dinosaur DNA has been discovered. Now humankind’s most thrilling fantasies have come true. Creatures extinct for eons roam Jurassic Park with their awesome presence and profound mystery, and all the world can visit them—for a price.
Until something goes wrong. . . .”
4 .) Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Lists It Appears On:
- Off The Shelf
- The Portalist
- Inverse 2
“From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day comes a devastating new novel of innocence, knowledge, and loss. As children Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were.
Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life. And for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special–and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together. Suspenseful, moving, beautifully atmospheric, Never Let Me Go is another classic by the author of The Remains of the Day.”
3 .) The Gunslinger by Stephen King
Lists It Appears On:
- Barnes & Noble 2
- BookBub
- The Portalist
A #1 national bestseller, The Gunslinger introduces readers to one of Stephen King’s most powerful creations, Roland of Gilead: The Last Gunslinger. He is a haunting figure, a loner on a spellbinding journey into good and evil. In his desolate world, which mirrors our own in frightening ways, Roland tracks The Man in Black, encounters an enticing woman named Alice, and begins a friendship with the boy from New York named Jake.
2 .) I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
Lists It Appears On:
- Library Point
- Unbound Worlds
- Vulture
- BookBub
- Bustle
- Paste
“The three laws of Robotics:
1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm
2) A robot must obey orders givein to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.With these three, simple directives, Isaac Asimov changed our perception of robots forever when he formulated the laws governing their behavior. In I, Robot, Asimov chronicles the development of the robot through a series of interlinked stories: from its primitive origins in the present to its ultimate perfection in the not-so-distant future–a future in which humanity itself may be rendered obsolete.
Here are stories of robots gone mad, of mind-read robots, and robots with a sense of humor. Of robot politicians, and robots who secretly run the world–all told with the dramatic blend of science fact and science fiction that has become Asmiov’s trademark.”
1 .) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick
Lists It Appears On:
- Bayou Library
- Barnes & Noble 2
- Library Point
- Unbound Worlds
- Vulture
- BookBub
- Paste
- Pioneers
By 2021, the World War has killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remain covet any living creature, and for people who can’t afford one, companies built incredibly realistic simulacra: horses, birds, cats, sheep. They’ve even built humans. Immigrants to Mars receive androids so sophisticated they are indistinguishable from true men or women. Fearful of the havoc these artificial humans can wreak, the government bans them from Earth. Driven into hiding, unauthorized androids live among human beings, undetected. Rick Deckard, an officially sanctioned bounty hunter, is commissioned to find rogue androids and “retire” them. But when cornered, androids fight back—with lethal force.
The Additional Best Books For Fans Of Westworld
# | Book | Author | Lists |
(Appear On 1 List Each) | |||
19 | 2001: A Space Odyssey | Arthur C. Clarke | BookBub |
20 | An occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and other stories | Ambrose Bierce | Pioneers |
21 | Anything Goes | Richard S. Wheeler | Library Point |
22 | Austenland | Shannon Hale | BookBub |
23 | Blood Red Road | Moira Young | Epic Reads |
24 | Caraval | Stephanie Garber | Barnes & Noble |
25 | Child of Fortune | Norman Spinrad | Goodreads |
26 | City of Thieves | David Benioff | Inverse 3 |
27 | Cloud Atlas | David Mitchell | Off The Shelf |
28 | Daemon | Daniel Suarez | BookBub |
29 | Dealing, or The Berkeley-To-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues | Michael Douglas | Goodreads |
30 | Death at Charity’s Point (Brady Coyne, #1) | William G. Tapply | Goodreads |
31 | Descender | Geek | |
32 | Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom | Cory Doctorow | BookBub |
33 | Drug of Choice | John Lange | Goodreads |
34 | Flaming Zeppelins: The Adventures of Ned the Seal, | Joe R. Lansdale | Barnes & Noble 2 |
35 | Full Metal Jacket Diary | Matthew Modine | Goodreads |
36 | Full Tilt | Neal Schusterman | Barnes & Noble |
37 | Futurama: The Time Bender Trilogy | Ian Boothby | Goodreads |
38 | Genesis | Bernard Beckett | Library Point |
39 | Ghost Rider | Greg Cox | Goodreads |
40 | Girl Parts | John Cusick | Barnes & Noble |
41 | Glorious | Jeff Guinn | Library Point |
42 | Gödel, Escher, Bach : an eternal golden braid | Douglas Hofstadter | Pioneers |
43 | Head On (Lock In, #2) | John Scalzi | Goodreads |
44 | How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe | Charles Yu | Bustle |
45 | Hunger Games | Suzanne Collins | Bayou Library |
46 | Hyperion | Dan Simmons | Paste |
47 | Karen Memory, | Elizabeth Bear | Barnes & Noble 2 |
48 | Kindred | Octavia Butler | Inverse |
49 | Lethal Velocity | Lincoln Child | Unbound Worlds |
50 | Lone Star Planet | H. Beam Piper | Bustle |
51 | Lonesome Dove | Larry McMurtry | Off The Shelf |
52 | Machines of Loving Grace | John Markoff | Paste |
53 | Measure for Measure | William Shakespeare | Inverse 3 |
54 | Mermaids In Paradise | Lydia Millet | Inverse 2 |
55 | Neptune’s Brood: A Space Opera | Charles Stross | Library Point |
56 | New Stories From the Twilight Zone | Rod Serling | Goodreads |
57 | Not a Drop to Drink | Mindy McGinnis | Epic Reads |
58 | Prey | Michael Crichton | BookBub |
59 | Rebel of the Sands | Alwyn Hamilton | Epic Reads |
60 | Robopocalypse | Daniel H. Wilson | Paste |
61 | Robot ethics : the ethical and social implications of robotics | Pioneers | |
62 | Sailing to Byzantium, | Robert Silverberg | Barnes & Noble 2 |
63 | Showdown at Guyamas | Paul Lederer | The Portalist |
64 | Shutter Island | Dennis Lehane | Inverse 2 |
65 | Speak | Louisa Hall | Paste |
66 | Storming Intrepid | Payne Harrison | Goodreads |
67 | The 10th Victim | Robert Sheckley | The Portalist |
68 | The Alchemy Wars, | Ian Tregillis | Barnes & Noble 2 |
69 | The Big Showdown: A Caleb York Western | Mickey Spillane | Library Point |
70 | The Blind Assassin | Margaret Atwood | Inverse 3 |
71 | The Changeling Plague | Syne Mitchell | Goodreads |
72 | The Circle | Dave Eggers | Off The Shelf |
73 | The complete stories of J.G. Ballard | J.G. Ballard | Pioneers |
74 | The Heart Goes Last | Margaret Atwood | Inverse |
75 | The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy | Douglas Adams | Paste |
76 | The island of Dr. Moreau | H.G. Wells | Pioneers |
77 | The Keep | Jennifer Egan | Inverse 3 |
78 | The Lifecycle of Software Objects, | Ted Chiang | Barnes & Noble 2 |
79 | The Lost Worlds of 2001 | Arthur C. Clarke | Goodreads |
80 | The Making of Star Trek | Stephen E. Whitfield | Goodreads |
81 | The Mechanical | Ian Tregillis | Inverse |
82 | The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress | Robert A. Heinlein | BookBub |
83 | The Night Mayor | Kim Newman | Goodreads |
84 | The Night Sessions | Ken MacLeod | Paste |
85 | The Ox-bow Incident | Walter Van Tilburg Clark | Pioneers |
86 | The Private Eye | Geek | |
87 | The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge | Michael Punke | Pioneers |
88 | The Road | Cormac McCarthy | Inverse 3 |
89 | The Sand-Man | E.T.A | Inverse 2 |
90 | The Shadow of a Gunman | Seán O’Casey | Goodreads |
91 | The Thorn Birds | Colleen McCullough | Off The Shelf |
92 | The Twilight Zone: The After Hours | Mark Kneece | Goodreads |
93 | The Two Faces of Tomorrow | James P. Hogan | BookBub |
94 | The Unwritten | Geek | |
95 | The View from the Bridge: Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood | Nicholas Meyer | Goodreads |
96 | The Windup Girl | Paolo Bacigalupi | Off The Shelf |
97 | This Census-Taker | China Miéville | Inverse 2 |
98 | Tower of Glass | Robert Silverberg | The Portalist |
99 | Uglies | Scott Westerfeld | Inverse |
100 | Under A Painted Sky | Stacey Lee | Epic Reads |
101 | Utopia | Lincoln Child | BookBub |
102 | Vengeance Road | Erin Bowman | Epic Reads |
103 | Vision | Geek | |
104 | Walk on Earth a Stranger | Rae Carson | Epic Reads |
105 | Westerns: Making the Man in Fiction and Film | Lee Clark Mitchell | Pioneers |
106 | What to think about machines that think : today’s leading thinkers on the age of machine intelligence | Pioneers | |
107 | Zero | Geek |
18 Best Westworld Book Sources/Lists
Source | Article |
All The Presidents Books | One Through Forty-Two or Forty-Three |
At Times Dull | Janet’s Presidential Biography Project & Blog |
Best Presidential Bios | The Best Presidential Biographies |
Huffington Post | Presidents’ Day History: The Must-Reads Of Presidential Biographies |
Library of Congress | Selected Bibliography |
Mandi Lindner | 44 Presidents and Their Definitive Biographies |
Mashable | Why I’m spending a year reading about every U.S. president |
Presidential History | Presidential Resources |
Presidential History (Again) | Pulitzer Prize Winning Books About Presidents |
Presidents USA | FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT CHESTER ARTHUR |
The Tailored Man | The 44 Best Presidential Biographies |
The Washington Post | The Fix’s list of best presidential biographies |