Books like Orbital by Samantha Harvey

A Little Life follows four college friends in New York as they confront trauma, love and the enduring scars of their pasts, weaving themes of friendship, family, and identity into a profound coming‑of‑age story.

In an elite New England college, a charismatic classics professor lures a group of eccentric students into obsessive study, leading them from intellectual curiosity to corruption, betrayal, and ultimately murder.

Never Let Me Go is a contemplative study of friendship, identity, and the ethical limits of science as it follows the lives of a group of students growing up in a quiet English boarding school.

The Goldfinch chronicles the life of thirteen‑year‑old Theo Decker, who survives a museum attack that kills his mother and carries an art piece that becomes a lifelong obsession, exploring loss, identity, and art in contemporary America.

Middlesex follows a Greek-American family's multigenerational saga, charting the life of its intersex protagonist as they navigate gender identity and the search for belonging.

A sweeping narrative of diverse characters linked by trees, exploring how they learn to see the hidden world of forests and join a fight to preserve the last virgin woodlands.

The fifth book in David Drake’s RCN – Lt. Leary series, Some Golden Harbor continues the space warfare saga featuring Lt. Leary, Adele Mundy, and Daniel Leary.

Exploration stories across the galaxy aboard the high‑speed starship Marathon, featuring planetary adventures with machine civilizations and hypnotic societies.

On the planet Lorca, the USS Enterprise crew adopts the world’s ceremonial masks to negotiate with its ruler, while a rival search led by Riker unwittingly entangles them in a madman’s elaborate trap for the Wisdom Mask.

Spacey adventures on the far side of the stars with Lt. Leary and Adele Mundy.

Winner of the Locus Award: Space-station workers discover a shocking global surveillance plot in this novel from “the master of science-fiction intrigue” (The Washington Post). Popeye Hooker knows that space isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. A former fisherman who takes a job building low orbital stations to escape a failed relationship, he finds that in space, construction work is still a grind. And when they aren’t building the space stations that will usher humanity into the stars, Sam Sloane and the rest of the beamjacks get high, blast the Grateful Dead, and stare through telescopes at the world they left behind. But life in orbit is about to get much more interesting. Nestled among the life support equipment that keeps them alive and the entertainment systems that keep them happy, the beamjacks find something astonishing. Turns out, their home isn’t just a space station—it’s a giant antenna designed to spy on every inhabitant of Earth. It’s the greatest privacy invasion ever perpetrated, and the beamjacks won’t stand for it. They may not be pioneers, but these roughnecks are about to become revolutionaries. Timely—and with Orwellian undertones, Allen Steele’s debut won the Locus Award for Best First Novel

The Way to Glory is a science‑fiction space warfare tale by David Drake that explores interstellar conflict, high‑tech strategy, and the harsh realities of combat in a futuristic universe.

When a derelict Romulan bird‑of‑prey drifts into Federation space, Captain Kirk and crew uncover a deadly threat that endangers the entire Federation, forcing Spock and cadet Saavik to travel to the harsh world of Hellguard for answers.

Captain Kirk negotiates with the ruling Council of Youngers on Boaca Six, but a destroyed Boacan vessel forces the Enterprise to retrieve the stolen Starfleet ship and confront a reclusive genius tied to Kirk's past.

In a future where Earth is ruled by authoritarian regimes, dissidents are recruited for a risky one‑way voyage to Saturn, the planet of rings and mystery, promising freedom amid the dangers of space exploration.