If Ky Vatta’s ice-cave triage, rationing heat, and fixing gear with whatever survived the sabotaged shuttle made your heart race, you’ll love how Mark Watney survives on Mars in The Martian. It’s the same nail-biting, problem-by-problem ingenuity—patching habitats, hacking life-support, and planning rescues—told with clear, practical detail that mirrors Ky’s relentless, technical leadership after the crash.

In Cold Welcome, Ky comes home to Slotter Key and finds the sabotage tied to deep political currents and old secrets buried under the ice and in government offices. In Ann Leckie’s Provenance, Ingray navigates adoption politics, forged artifacts, and interplanetary diplomacy—another web of public image and private leverage where the wrong revelation can topple careers. If you enjoyed Ky picking through cover-ups and power plays at home, this will scratch that same itch.

Ky’s investigation into who blew her shuttle and why keeps expanding—from a crash site to a hidden under-ice complex to the halls of Slotter Key power. In Leviathan Wakes, a missing-person case spirals into a solar-system–spanning conspiracy, blending shipboard tension with forensic sleuthing. If the mix of survival stakes and digging through lies in Cold Welcome hooked you, Holden and Miller’s dogged chase will feel right at home.

Ky Vatta’s cool-headed command—keeping survivors alive in the freezing ocean, organizing search teams in the ice tunnels, and making the hard calls—echoes through Valor’s Choice. Staff Sergeant Torin Kerr juggles diplomacy and battlefield chaos with the same competence-under-fire energy. If Ky’s decisive leadership and no-nonsense problem-solving were your favorite parts, Torin’s blend of courage and practicality will be a perfect match.

Part of what makes Cold Welcome memorable is how Slotter Key’s polar environment and buried history drive both survival and state secrets—the under-ice facility, the cold itself as an adversary, and the cultural stakes of exposing the truth. In The Left Hand of Darkness, Genly Ai must cross a lethal winter landscape on Gethen while navigating intricate local politics and custom. If the frozen setting and the way place and power interlock drew you in, this classic will resonate deeply.