If you loved how Sam and the Old Man drive Section’s relentless campaign—from sting operations to the nationwide “strip” policy to expose back-riding slugs—then Crichton’s lab-to-field race will hit the same nerve. In The Andromeda Strain, the Wildfire team scrambles to contain an extraterrestrial pathogen, parsing clues under crushing deadlines, much like Sam’s high-stakes push to outpace the parasites before they entrench in government corridors.

Remember how quickly the slug crisis in The Puppet Masters explodes—from a quiet Iowa landing to a full-blown national emergency that even Mary can’t outrun? Leviathan Wakes moves with that same throttle-open urgency. Holden’s crew and Detective Miller chase a mysterious bio-threat that spreads like Sam’s parasites, each chapter ratcheting tension from a single ship’s disaster to system-wide catastrophe.

If the scenes where Sam realizes neighbors and officials are ‘ridden’—and the desperate tests to prove who’s clean—gave you chills, Finney’s classic will feel eerily familiar. In The Body Snatchers, Dr. Miles Bennell uncovers a quiet town’s secret replacement by alien doubles, echoing the same creeping dread and clue-by-clue sleuthing that drives Section’s hunt for hosts.

The moment The Puppet Masters pivots to compromised power—parasites riding officials, Section forced into extreme measures—you’re in Condon territory. The Manchurian Candidate swaps slugs for brainwashing, but the chill is the same: hidden control at the highest levels, operatives like Sam trying to parse loyalties, and a ticking-clock conspiracy that could topple the state from within.

If you connected with Sam’s first-person, boots-on-the-ground vantage—being infested, fighting beside Mary, and reporting to the Old Man—Wells’s narrator delivers that same intimate immediacy. The War of the Worlds places you right in the streets as Martian tripods level towns, mirroring the personal, moment-to-moment perspective that made Sam’s encounters with the slugs so visceral.