If The Martian and Project Hail Mary made you fall in love with competent heroes solving impossible problems with real science and a sense of humor, these 13 authors like Andy Weir deliver the same satisfying mix.
Andy Weir was a software engineer who self-published The Martian on his website chapter by chapter, posting each installment for free while his readers checked his orbital mechanics math. When he put it on Amazon for 99 cents, it became the top-selling sci-fi title on the platform within months. The novel — about astronaut Mark Watney stranded on Mars and engineering his survival — became a blockbuster film starring Matt Damon and established Weir as the face of a new wave of accessible, scientifically rigorous science fiction.
Artemis (2017) was a heist novel set on a lunar colony, and while it divided critics, it proved Weir could build worlds beyond Mars. Then Project Hail Mary (2021) delivered what many consider his masterpiece — a lone astronaut with amnesia trying to save Earth from an extinction-level threat, aided by an alien who communicates through musical tones. What makes Weir special isn’t just the science (though it’s impeccable) — it’s the warmth. His protagonists are likeable nerds who solve problems with creativity, humor, and an engineer’s stubborn refusal to give up.
For more recommendations, explore our guides to best science fiction authors, best science fiction books, and authors like Michael Crichton.
Authors Like Andy Weir
1. Blake Crouch
Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter takes the multiverse concept and turns it into a kidnapping thriller — a physicist is abducted and wakes up in a version of his life where he made different choices. The science is real (many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics), the pacing is relentless, and the emotional core is genuinely moving.
Crouch followed it with Recursion (a novel about false memories and the nature of reality) and Upgrade (about genetic enhancement). Like Weir, he takes a single scientific concept and explores every implication with thriller-level pacing. If you like your science fiction with the momentum of a page-turner and protagonists who think their way out of impossible situations, Crouch is essential.
“Are you happy with your life? Those five words cut through everything.”
Blake Crouch, Dark Matter
2. Dennis E. Taylor
Dennis E. Taylor’s We Are Legion (We Are Bob) is the book most frequently recommended to people who loved The Martian. A software engineer dies and wakes up as an AI controlling a Von Neumann probe — a self-replicating spacecraft — sent to find habitable planets. The Bobiverse series that follows is funny, scientifically detailed, and surprisingly philosophical about identity and consciousness.
Taylor shares Weir’s ability to make hard science fiction accessible through humor and a first-person voice that feels like talking to a smart friend. The Bobiverse books are lighter in tone than Project Hail Mary, but the problem-solving structure is identical: here’s an impossible situation, here’s a nerd figuring it out step by step. The series has developed a devoted fanbase.
“Being a replicant is actually kind of awesome. I’m going to live forever. I’m just not sure I’ll like it.”
Dennis E. Taylor, We Are Legion (We Are Bob)
3. Martha Wells
Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries, starting with All Systems Red, follows a security robot who has hacked its own governor module and just wants to watch soap operas. Instead, it keeps getting dragged into saving the humans it’s supposed to protect. The series has won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards.
Murderbot is one of the best narrator voices in modern science fiction — anxious, sarcastic, and deeply reluctant to have feelings. Like Weir’s Mark Watney, Murderbot is a problem-solver who deals with catastrophic situations through competence and dark humor. The novellas are short, sharp, and addictive. If you’re writing your own sci-fi and want to match this level of voice, Grammarly can help tighten your prose.
“I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined media libraries of two worlds.”
Martha Wells, All Systems Red
4. John Scalzi
John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War takes a Heinlein-esque military sci-fi premise — elderly people get young bodies in exchange for military service in an interstellar war — and executes it with wit, warmth, and enough scientific grounding to satisfy hard sci-fi fans. Scalzi has since become one of the most prolific and popular sci-fi authors in America.
Scalzi shares Weir’s accessible writing style and sense of humor. His novels are the kind you can hand to someone who doesn’t usually read science fiction and know they’ll enjoy it. The Kaiju Preservation Society is a lighter, pandemic-era palate cleanser, while The Interdependency trilogy is more politically ambitious. All share Weir’s fundamental optimism about human ingenuity.
“I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. I visited my wife’s grave. Then I joined the army.”
John Scalzi, Old Man’s War
5. Becky Chambers
Becky Chambers’ The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is a space opera about the crew of a tunnelling ship that builds hyperspace lanes. The plot is almost secondary to the characters — a beautifully diverse crew learning to live and work together in the cramped confines of a spaceship.
Chambers shares Weir’s warmth and optimism, which is rare in science fiction. While Weir’s optimism comes from human problem-solving, Chambers’ comes from human connection. Her Wayfarers series and Monk & Robot novellas imagine futures worth living in, without ignoring the difficulties that remain. If Project Hail Mary’s friendship between Ryland and Rocky moved you, Chambers’ work hits similar emotional notes.
“We cannot blame ourselves for the wars our parents started. Sometimes the very best thing we can do is walk away.”
Becky Chambers, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
6. Adrian Tchaikovsky
Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time is about the last humans searching for a new home and finding a planet that’s already been claimed — by hyper-evolved spiders. The novel alternates between human colonists and spider civilization across thousands of years, and somehow Tchaikovsky makes you root for the spiders.
Tchaikovsky shares Weir’s love of big scientific ideas explored with rigour and imagination. He’s absurdly prolific (he publishes multiple books per year), and his range spans space opera, epic fantasy, and far-future speculation. Children of Time won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and its sequels continue to push the boundaries of evolutionary science fiction.
“We are the creators. We are the shapers. We are the weavers of the world.”
Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Time
7. Michael Crichton
Michael Crichton was the original techno-thriller master. Jurassic Park remains the gold standard for “what if science went wrong?” fiction, and his ability to explain complex scientific concepts through narrative was unmatched in his era. The Andromeda Strain, Sphere, and Timeline all follow the same formula: real science, escalating danger, smart people under pressure.
Crichton died in 2008, but his influence on writers like Weir is direct. Both take real scientific research and extrapolate it into thriller plots. The key difference is tone — Crichton is a cautionary voice warning about scientific hubris, while Weir celebrates scientific ingenuity. But the structural DNA is identical: pose a scientific problem, then watch brilliant people try to solve it.
“Life finds a way.”
Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park
8. Hugh Howey
Hugh Howey self-published Wool as a series of novellas that became a publishing phenomenon, later collected as the Silo trilogy. The story follows inhabitants of an underground silo who are told the outside world is toxic, and the slow reveal of what’s actually happening is brilliantly executed. The Apple TV+ adaptation brought it to a massive new audience.
Howey shares Weir’s self-publishing origin story and his ability to build tension through a protagonist systematically uncovering the truth. Both writers create enclosed, claustrophobic settings (Mars, a silo) where survival depends on understanding the science of your environment. Sand and Half Way Home show Howey’s range, but the Silo trilogy is his landmark work.
“The truth is, we don’t know what’s out there. We’ve just been told.”
Hugh Howey, Wool
9. Ernest Cline
Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One is a love letter to 1980s pop culture wrapped in a dystopian VR treasure hunt. A teenager competes to find Easter eggs hidden in a virtual world by its deceased creator, and the puzzles require encyclopedic knowledge of retro games, movies, and music.
Cline shares Weir’s enthusiastic nerd energy and his ability to make specialized knowledge entertaining for general audiences. Both writers create protagonists who solve problems through deep knowledge — Watney uses engineering and botany, Cline’s characters use pop culture expertise. The tone is lighter than Weir’s, but the “smart person figures things out” structure is the same.
“Going outside is highly overrated.”
Ernest Cline, Ready Player One
10. Kim Stanley Robinson
Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy — Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars — is the definitive hard science fiction treatment of Mars colonization. Written in the 1990s, the trilogy tracks the terraforming of Mars across centuries, combining engineering detail, political philosophy, and character drama.
Robinson is the serious, literary counterpart to Weir’s populist approach. His Mars is messier, more political, and more scientifically detailed than Watney’s. The Ministry for the Future applies the same rigour to climate change. If you loved the Mars setting of The Martian and want to see it explored at much greater length and depth, Robinson’s trilogy is where to go.
“We are the consciousness of the universe, looking back at itself.”
Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars
11. Neal Stephenson
Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves opens with the moon exploding and humanity having two years to get as many people as possible into orbit before the debris renders Earth uninhabitable. The first two-thirds is hard science fiction at its finest — orbital mechanics, genetics, social dynamics under extreme pressure.
Stephenson shares Weir’s love of technical detail, but his books are longer and more ambitious in scope. Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, and The Diamond Age are all cornerstones of modern science fiction. His writing demands more patience than Weir’s, but the payoff for readers who enjoy engineering-level detail in their fiction is enormous.
“The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason.”
Neal Stephenson, Seveneves
12. Peter Watts
Peter Watts’ Blindsight is a first-contact novel about a crew of posthuman specialists sent to investigate an alien object at the edge of the solar system. The hard science is impeccable (Watts is a marine biologist), and the novel’s exploration of consciousness and intelligence is genuinely disturbing.
Watts is the dark mirror of Weir. Where Weir is optimistic about human ingenuity, Watts questions whether human consciousness is even useful. Blindsight argues that intelligence and self-awareness might be evolutionary dead ends. It’s one of the most intellectually challenging science fiction novels of the century, and it’s available for free on Watts’ website under a Creative Commons license.
“Imagine you are Siri Keeton. You wake in an agony of resurrection.”
Peter Watts, Blindsight
13. Mary Robinette Kowal
Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Calculating Stars won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. It’s set in an alternate 1950s where a meteorite strike forces humanity to accelerate the space program, and a female mathematician fights to be included in the astronaut corps despite the era’s sexism.
Kowal shares Weir’s love of space exploration and scientific accuracy — she works closely with NASA consultants. The Lady Astronaut series combines hard science fiction with historical drama, and the protagonist’s problem-solving under pressure echoes Mark Watney’s resourcefulness. Kowal also shares Weir’s talent for making specialized knowledge accessible and engaging.
“Do the math. Then do the impossible.”
Mary Robinette Kowal, The Calculating Stars