If you were hooked by John Murdoch waking up with no memory, framed for murder, and piecing himself back together while the Strangers swap identities at will, you’ll vibe with Takeshi Kovacs being re-sleeved into a new body to solve a killing he might not want solved. Like Murdoch’s search for Shell Beach and the truth Dr. Schreber keeps hiding, Kovacs keeps uncovering planted memories and altered selves in Bay City’s neon-stained underbelly. It’s the same blend of existential whodunit and moody, rain-slicked streets—just with cortical stacks instead of tuning.

If Inspector Bumstead’s dogged pursuit through a city that isn’t what it seems pulled you in—the way alleys shift, places are concealed, and authority figures obscure the truth—then you’ll love Inspector Tyador Borlú’s case across the twinned cities of Besžel and Ul Qoma. The investigation depends on perceiving what you’re trained not to see, much like spotting the Strangers’ manipulations behind Dark City’s perpetual night. It’s a cerebral noir where the city’s rules are the biggest clue.

If the revelation that Murdoch’s world is a constructed stage and that memories can be injected—courtesy of Dr. Schreber—kept you thinking long after the credits, Permutation City dives straight into that abyss. Egan’s uploaded minds debate whether simulated worlds are less real, echoing Murdoch’s challenge to the Strangers’ experiment. As the characters build universes of their own, you’ll get the same jolt you felt when Shell Beach turned from postcard to portal: what counts as reality when it can be edited?

If the dreamlike logic of Dark City—streets morphing at midnight, identities rewritten, and Murdoch’s tuning warping space—gave you goosebumps, Ubik delivers that same uncanny slide. Joe Chip’s world regresses in time; objects and people might be alive, dead, or something in between, and a mysterious product called Ubik may be the only anchor. It’s the kind of reality slippage you felt when the Strangers froze the city to rearrange lives, only stranger and wonderfully unsettling.

If Dr. Schreber’s syringes and the Strangers’ tuning fascinated you—the way a single injection could overwrite who Emma is or who Murdoch remembers being—Recursion takes that idea global. Scientist Helena Smith builds a device that lets people relive and alter memories, triggering world-scale resets. As timelines snap and reform, the stakes feel like Murdoch’s final showdown on the pier to reach Shell Beach: can you hold onto the truth when reality itself keeps getting edited?