If you loved how Arcot, Morey, and Wade tackle problems with inventive superscience in The Black Star Passes, you'll relish the way Charles Lackland partners with the Mesklinite trader Barlennan to retrieve a probe on the ultra–high-gravity world Mesklin. Clement builds every challenge—navigation, communication, even weather—out of real physics, so each solution feels like the same kind of heady, idea-driven victory you enjoyed when Campbell’s trio engineered their way through cosmic threats.

Campbell’s sweeping wonders—those first interstellar leaps and startling discoveries—find a perfect echo in Clarke’s exploration of the vast alien cylinder Rama. As Commander Norton and the crew of the Endeavour trek across interior cities, seas, and baffling ‘biots,’ you get that same exhilarating jolt of discovery you felt when Arcot’s team pushed into the deep unknown and confronted mind-bending vistas beyond the Solar System.

If the camaraderie and complementary talents of Arcot, Morey, and Wade grabbed you, you’ll enjoy how Captain Roderick Blaine, anthropologist Sally Fowler, and scientist Paul Whitman pool expertise aboard the MacArthur to understand the enigmatic ‘Moties.’ Their coordinated investigations—and the ethical puzzles they debate—mirror the collaborative, brains-first problem solving that powered Campbell’s trio through crises.

Campbell’s narratives race forward on concrete goals—build the breakthrough ship, avert catastrophe, outthink the next cosmic problem. In The Martian, Mark Watney’s objective is razor-sharp: survive long enough for rescue. From hacking Pathfinder to turning a Hab into a potato farm and plotting orbital rendezvous with Hermes, the page-by-page engineering ingenuity delivers the same mission-driven rush you had following Arcot’s team through their do-or-die challenges.

If the audacious starship builds and galaxy-spanning stakes of The Black Star Passes thrilled you, Smith’s classic delivers in spades. Chemist Richard Seaton’s discovery of the X-metal fuels the Skylark’s interstellar leaps, sparking duels with the ruthless DuQuesne and battles on alien worlds like Osnomia. It’s the same exuberant, big-idea superscience and dashing adventure that made Arcot, Morey, and Wade’s exploits so fun.