If you were fascinated by the way Nightfall explores how an entire world’s worldview is upended by a rare astronomical event, you’ll be drawn to The Left Hand of Darkness. Le Guin masterfully unpacks the collision between an outsider’s science and a planet’s entrenched culture and beliefs, as Genly Ai struggles to bridge understanding with the people of Gethen. The novel probes the tension between rationality and faith in the face of the unknown.

If you loved Nightfall’s grand sweep as a whole society teeters on the brink of collapse, Foundation will captivate you. Seldon’s psychohistory, the rise and fall of empires, and the far-reaching consequences of knowledge (or its absence) create a saga where individuals and cultures wrestle with fate and uncertainty in a vast universe.

If the intricate worldbuilding and the starkly different cultures in Nightfall drew you in, you’ll be enthralled by The Dispossessed. Le Guin painstakingly builds two contrasting worlds—Anarres and Urras—and immerses you in their social, political, and scientific complexities as Shevek seeks to bridge them.

If you appreciated the rigorous scientific underpinnings and speculative astronomy in Nightfall, Blindsight will scratch that same itch. Watts plunges a team of scientists into contact with a truly alien intelligence, forcing them to use every tool of science to survive—and to question the very nature of consciousness.

If you were captivated by following multiple perspectives as society faces an existential crisis in Nightfall, you’ll be riveted by Children of Time. Tchaikovsky tells the rise and fall of civilizations—both human and non-human—across centuries, all intertwined by a looming threat, with shifting points of view that show how different minds grapple with survival, faith, and legacy.