If what hooked you in Dichronauts was following Seth and Theo as their sideways-only vision and lethal shadow zones dictated how they could move, scout, and even talk, you’ll love how Blindsight builds its entire first-contact mission around perception itself. Aboard the starship Theseus, linguist-observer Siri Keeton and the resurrected predator Jukka Sarasti lead a crew to the enigmatic object Rorschach, where every encounter turns on what minds can and can’t sense. Like the survey team’s careful mapping in Egan’s world, Watts makes strategy hinge on biology and physics—culminating in a blisteringly smart debate over consciousness vs. intelligence.

If the heart of Dichronauts for you was the trust and constant, literal interdependence between Seth and Theo—two beings with different senses and needs functioning as one—you’ll be drawn to Binti. After a disastrous first contact, Binti forges a fragile, then profound connection with Okwu of the Meduse. Their partnership, like Seth and Theo’s symbiosis on the survey team, demands negotiation of biology, language, and trauma, and it blossoms into a bridge between communities. It’s short, intimate, and emotionally resonant while still delivering sharp speculative ideas.

If you enjoyed the clear, forward drive of the survey expedition in Dichronauts—charting routes around deadly shadow geometry to secure a future for others—Reynolds’ Pushing Ice delivers that same propulsion at colossal scale. When the moon Janus suddenly accelerates out of orbit, Captain Bella Lind’s mining ship Rockhopper is ordered to pursue. Like Seth and Theo’s team, they’re forced into hard choices under changing physical constraints, improvising with finite resources while chasing an enigma that keeps shifting the rules of survival.

If the delight of Dichronauts was seeing how every step Seth and Theo took had to respect their world’s warped light cones and hazardous shadows, Mission of Gravity is the classic blueprint. On the ultra-high-gravity world Mesklin, native trader Barlennan undertakes a daring trek to retrieve a human probe, with every route and tool constrained by centrifugal force and crushing gravity. As in the survey mapping you enjoyed, the adventure unfolds as a sequence of elegant, physically rigorous solutions to unforgiving terrain.

If the intellectual kick of Dichronauts—where geometry itself becomes story, from navigation tactics to the fate of whole communities—was your favorite part, The Three-Body Problem channels that same thrill. Wang Miao’s investigation of the Three Body game and Ye Wenjie’s past spiral into revelations about the Trisolaran system’s chaotic orbital mechanics and the terrifying power of sophons. Like Egan’s careful extrapolations of perception and motion, Liu’s big ideas aren’t window dressing; they drive every mystery and turning point.