18 books like The Useless

What to read after The Useless — books similar to it, matched on shared themes.

The Midnight Factory Russell Luyt · 2025 Shimmer makes you forget—until it takes everything. In the near-future and rain-soaked New Albion, shimmer is both escape and enslavement—and the Bureau for Virtue, always watching, ensures the world stays hooked. Anouk Walker only wanted to survive until her next fix. But when a Bureau raid tears her closest friend away, she’s pulled into a Resistance whose ideals are as compromised as its… Shares: Surveillance, Dystopian, Science Fiction

Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell · 1949 · ★ 4.2 · 244p · ≈ 8h · Challenging Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, often referred to as 1984, is a dystopian social science fiction novel by the English novelist George Orwell (the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair). It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final book completed in his lifetime. Thematically, Nineteen Eighty-Four centres on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and… Shares: Surveillance, Science Fiction

The Islander Charles Whittlesey · 2007 · 476p · ≈ 15h · Moderate In 2155 there are two Americas. Half the nation lives comfortably in the technology of the 22nd century; the other half lives trapped on pre-industrial Islands: the remains of America's collapsed cities. The two cultures collide when Galen Fairchild, an Islander, falls in love with the daughter of a wealthy family in the modern city of Stratis. But Galen's dreams fall apart when a startling event… Shares: Dystopian, Science Fiction

Underwater Robots Gianluca Antonelli · 2003 · 273p · ≈ 9h · Moderate A classic in underwater robotics. One of the first volumes in the “Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics” series, it has been a bestseller through the previous three editions. Fifteen years after the publication of the first edition, the fourth edition comes to print. The book addresses the main control aspects in underwater manipulation tasks. With respect to the third edition, it has been… Shares: Automation, Artificial Intelligence

Hive Jeremiah Ukponrefe · 2020 · 233p · ≈ 7h · Moderate In the aftermath of the Hives invasion of earth, the society of the old world was shattered, and in response to the possibility of the aliens return, the authoritative Collective took hold of the sphere. Alexander King a loyal soldier of the Collective discovers that on a mission that the Hive's presence is stronger then commonly believed, and that its secrets may be far too powerful for any… Shares: Dystopian

A nova ordem Bernardo Kucinski · 2019 · 178p · ≈ 5h · Moderate Assim como na sua obra maior "K", B. Kucinski poderia iniciar "A Nova Ordem" repetindo "tudo neste livro é invenção, mas quase tudo aconteceu" ou "está acontecendo". A narrativa aterradora e envolvente sobre a "nova ordem" no Brasil da ficção nos lembra aquilo que Hanna Arendt nomeou de "banalidade do mal" referindo-se aos criminosos nazistas e a… Shares: Dystopian

Mending Bodies Lai-Chu Hon · 2025 "In dystopian Hong Kong, a new government program incentivizes physical conjoinment between individuals through a painful and disruptive surgery, providing personal fulfillment and a reduced cost of living"-- Provided by publisher Shares: Dystopian

Actualized Jenetta Penner · 2018 · ★ 4.1 · 346p · ≈ 11h · Moderate Shares: Dystopian, Science Fiction

Immersed Jenetta Penner · 2017 · 316p · ≈ 10h · Moderate Shares: Dystopian, Science Fiction

The Adjustment (Program Book 5) Suzanne Young · 2017 · 417p · ≈ 13h · Moderate The first book in Suzanne Young’s New York Times bestselling series is a “gripping tale for lovers of dystopian romance” (Kirkus Reviews) about two teens in a world where true feelings are forbidden, teen suicide is an epidemic, and the only solution is The Program—now with a freshly reimagined look.Sloane knows better than to cry in front of anyone. With suicide now an international epidemic,… Shares: Dystopian, Science Fiction

Configured:Book One of the Configured Trilogy Jenetta Penner · 2016 · 366p · ≈ 12h · Moderate Shares: Dystopian, Science Fiction

Generation Heather Hildenbrand · 2015 Four generations of one family: a baby boy, his mother, his maternal grandmother, and his maternal great-grandmother. (2008) Shares: Dystopian, Science Fiction

Great sky river Gregory Benford · 1984 · ★ 3.6 · 326p · ≈ 10h · Moderate From back cover Warner paperback August 2004: Nearly 100,000 years after first contact with the machines that dominate the universe, only a few hundred humans survive. Trapped on Snowglade, a barren world near the center of the galaxy, Killeen and his child Toby of the Bishop Tribe are primitive scavengers, homeless and hunted by the ruling "mechs." Then suddenly, a strange cosmic entity --… Shares: Artificial Intelligence, Science Fiction

The Turing option Harry Harrison · 1992 · ★ 3.7 · 409p · ≈ 13h · Moderate Classic SF Harry Harrison enthralls with the discovery, loss and re-discovery of AI. Quaint but fairly accurate predictions of modern computing power. 24 style presentation. Shares: Artificial Intelligence, Science Fiction

Dust (The Silo Trilogy) Hugh Howey · 2016 · 480p · ≈ 16h · Moderate THE BASIS FOR SILO, NOW A #1 STREAMING SHOW ON APPLE TV“The final book secures the status of the Wool trilogy as a modern masterpiece.”—Sunday ExpressThe final book in the New York Times bestselling Silo trilogy, featuring an original short story from Hugh Howey set in the Silo universe!Wool introduced the world of the silo. Shift told the story of its creation. Dust will describe its downfall.… Shares: Dystopian, Science Fiction

Informatics In Control Automation And Robotics Oleg Gusikhin · 2012 · 570p · ≈ 19h · Moderate This book focuses on the latest endeavors relating researches and developments conducted in fields of control, robotics and automation. Through more than ten revised and extended articles, the present book aims to provide the most up-to-date state of the art of the aforementioned fields allowing researcher, Ph.D. students and engineers not only updating their knowledge but also benefiting from… Shares: Automation, Artificial Intelligence

Exalta Zhiar Ali · 2026 The city doesn’t kill you. It processes you. In the fog-choked Sprawl beneath the corporate tower called Exalta, the Runner survives by staying uncounted. He carries packages he doesn’t open, follows routes he doesn’t question, and renews his identity in shrinking access windows. His existence is a suffix on a form. When the suffix expires, so does he. Liam Kestrel is a Security & Containment… Shares: Dystopian

After James Michael Helm · 2016 · ★ 2.9 · 388p · ≈ 12h · Moderate A neuroscientist walks out of her life and isolates herself in the woods, intending to blow the whistle on a pharmaceutical company and its creativity drug gone wrong. A recently orphaned graduate school dropout is hired as a “literary detective” to decode the work of a mysterious Internet poet who writes about disappearances and murders with an inexplicably precise knowledge of private details.… Shares: Dystopian, Science Fiction

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