If Alvin’s escape from Diaspar into the deep past of humanity — from the legends of Shalmirane to the revelation of the Mad Mind’s prison — thrilled you, you’ll love how Vinge scales that sense of wonder to the whole galaxy. In A Fire Upon the Deep, humanity stumbles into the domain of vast “Powers,” with rescue missions racing between star systems, the enigmatic archive at Relay, and the mind-bending “Zones of Thought.” It’s that same heady rush of uncovering truths older and larger than civilization itself.

If the billion-year vista of The City and the Stars — from insulated Diaspar to the pastoral telepaths of Lys and the long memory of the species — captivated you, Stapledon’s Star Maker takes the scope even farther. One traveler’s journey surveys entire civilizations and composite minds across galaxies and ages, tracing creation, extinction, and transcendence with the same audacious reach that Clarke hints at when Alvin pushes past humanity’s forgotten boundaries.

If you were intrigued by Diaspar’s ritualized stasis and Lys’s contemplative culture — and by how Alvin’s questions break those confines — Anathem puts you inside a world of sequestered scholars. Following Fraa Erasmas from monastery debates to first contact, the book blends lively philosophical inquiry with a sweeping mystery about cosmology and consciousness, echoing the way The City and the Stars turns forbidden knowledge into a world-opening revelation.

If the Memory Banks of Diaspar, Alvin’s unique origin, and the city’s control of history fascinated you, The Quantum Thief plays dazzlingly with the same levers. Master thief Jean le Flambeur awakens in a solar-system future where the Martian city of Oubliette runs on time as currency and privacy protocols (gevulot) gate what anyone can remember or share. As layer after layer of identity and past deeds are revealed, you’ll get that same thrill of peeling back a city’s beautiful lies.

If you loved Alvin’s hunt for the truth behind Shalmirane and the Mad Mind — and how ancient conflicts still bind the future — Revelation Space digs into similar ruins with harder edges. Dan Sylveste’s excavation of the Amarantin on Resurgam uncovers a catastrophe that echoes across space, while the starship Nostalgia for Infinity and the shadow of the Inhibitors add baroque, meticulously engineered worldbuilding. It’s that same meticulous uncovering of the past to save the future.