What to read next
Books Like The Natural Order: Sci-Fi Thrillers About Immortality and Power
Paul Whitmore's fortune buys him time that his son Max can't get back. Scion follows the people who can pay to live longer, while Never Let Me Go looks at the lives set aside for others. The other four books take the idea in different directions, from a change in one man's DNA to a warning carried across multiple lifetimes.
Read my review of The Natural Order by Matthew Aldrich.
Matthew Aldrich’s books and screenwriting career
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Why each book belongs here
The first two books offer opposite views of a society that can give some people more time at others' expense. Farther down the list, the parallels shift to genetic intervention, foreknowledge, repeated lives and the reach of a powerful company.
1
Scion
- Pace
- Fast
- Darkness
- Dark
- Romance
- Minimal
- Difficulty
- Accessible
- Similar because
- Scion picks up where a business like Paul's might leave off. The rich can already pay to extend their lives, and killing these people, known as lifers, can be legal. Azure, a genetically enhanced contract killer in debt, makes a living from that arrangement.
- Different because
- Aldrich follows the man selling longevity and the son he left behind. Islington tells the story in the voice of a man hired to kill people who buy it. Azure's jokes and a job that asks him to protect someone give the book the feel of a cyberpunk action story.
- Reading note
- This is the opening volume of a series, and Azure's story continues beyond it.
2
Never Let Me Go
- Pace
- Balanced
- Darkness
- Moderate
- Romance
- Minimal
- Difficulty
- Accessible
- Similar because
- Kathy, Ruth and Tommy grow up with only hints of the future the adults have planned for them. Like Aldrich, Ishiguro makes a system that values some lives over others matter through the time people have left together.
- Different because
- Paul has a launch to get through and an immediate threat to face. Kathy tells the story through memories of friendship, jealousy and things left unsaid. Ordinary details from their boarding school at Hailsham slowly change meaning.
- Reading note
- Hailsham makes the most sense when you encounter its rules and omissions in the order Kathy remembers them.
3
Upgrade
- Similar because
- Logan Ramsay starts thinking faster and remembering more after someone alters his genome. As in The Natural Order, changing one person's biology sets a much bigger plan in motion, and the danger comes home through family history.
- Different because
- Paul wants to bring his own breakthrough to market. Logan has to figure out who changed him and whether he can stop that change from being forced on everyone else. The suspense comes from living inside a body that's becoming unfamiliar.
4
The Measure
- Similar because
- Boxes arrive with lengths of string that tell their recipients how long they'll live. Erlick takes the unequal time that separates Paul and Max and makes it a question for a whole society, with consequences for couples, friendships and politics.
- Different because
- Opening a box gives you knowledge of your lifespan. It doesn't add a day to it. Erlick follows eight people, including a couple who thought they had time and a politician whose box has consequences well beyond his own life.
5
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
- Similar because
- Whenever Harry dies, he returns to his childhood with his memories intact. Harry and Paul can both accumulate knowledge across a span that most people never get, and both eventually find that having extra time doesn't make a threat easy to outrun.
- Different because
- Harry starts the same life over instead of staying young in one continuous lifetime. A girl who visits him on his deathbed gives him a message to carry forward. The mystery depends on what can be learned, remembered and passed between lives.
6
The Warehouse
- Similar because
- Cloud gives Paxton a job and a place to live in the same complex. Like Paul's venture, it offers something people have good reason to want, which gives the business power over more than its immediate customers.
- Different because
- Hart follows people inside the company, including Zinnia, who takes a job to investigate it. Surveillance and dependence on an employer supply the danger here. The story takes place on the warehouse floor instead of inside the life of a founder and his family.
Side-by-side
Pace, darkness, romance, and difficulty
| Book | Pace | Darkness | Romance | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scion | Fast | Dark | Minimal | Accessible |
| Never Let Me Go | Balanced | Moderate | Minimal | Accessible |
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