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Wasp by Eric Frank Russell
"One operative, one planet, and a war tilted by whispers. Armed with disguises, nerve, and a knack for mischief, a lone saboteur sparks unrest behind enemy lines—turning fear and rumor into weapons more potent than bombs. Wasp is a razor-sharp, darkly witty tale of psychological warfare and audacious deception that keeps you grinning even as the tension climbs."
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In Wasp, did you enjoy ...
... a lone operative’s step-by-step campaign of infiltration, sabotage, and psychological warfare?
The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison
If you loved how James Mowry executes a mission with escalating stunts and nimble improvisation in Wasp, you’ll click with Slippery Jim diGriz in The Stainless Steel Rat. Jim slips into enemy organizations, runs daring grifts, and outwits law enforcement with gadgets, disguises, and audacious timing—much like Mowry’s street-posters, false leads, and timed scares. Watching Jim pivot mid-job to take down the ruthless Angelina scratches the same itch as Mowry’s meticulous, goal-driven sabotage in hostile territory.
... sharp, satirical takedowns of propaganda and mass manipulation?
The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth
Enjoyed the cheeky posters, rumor-seeding, and mass-psych ops Mowry unleashes across a police state in Wasp? In The Space Merchants, ad man Mitch Courtenay weaponizes copy and campaigns to sell colonization of Venus, only to be chewed up by the very propaganda machine he helps run. The corporate wars, consumerist cults, and spin-doctoring echo Mowry’s memetic tricks—only here the target isn’t an alien empire but our own appetites.
... subverting an empire through calculated gamesmanship and covert influence?
The Player Of Games by Iain Banks
If the clandestine maneuvering and pressure-point hits on an alien regime in Wasp grabbed you, The Player of Games turns that into grand, surgical intrigue. Jernau Morat Gurgeh is nudged by Special Circumstances to infiltrate the Empire of Azad via its all-defining game; as he advances through the tournament, Culture operatives (and the wily drone Flere-Imsaho) exploit politics, optics, and psychology—just as Mowry did—until the empire’s own rules become its undoing.
... a brilliant but ethically gray strategist winning by deceit, terror, and betrayal?
The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson
If you were compelled by Mowry’s willingness in Wasp to plant false flags, sow panic, and sacrifice pawns, you’ll be riveted by Baru Cormorant. She embeds within the Masquerade, uses accounting and policy as weapons, and engineers purges and betrayals to destabilize Aurdwynn—choices as chilling and effective as Mowry’s phantom cells and orchestrated scares. It delivers that same moral whiplash: victory at a cost that’s hard to look in the eye.
... espionage where language, perception, and culture are the deadliest weapons?
Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany
If the soft-science edge of Wasp—propaganda, rumor, and psychology as tools—was your hook, Babel-17 takes it further. Poet-linguist Rydra Wong hunts an enemy code that’s actually a weaponized language, assembling a crew and chasing sabotage trails through space. The way she turns semantics and perception into battlefield tools mirrors Mowry’s memetic warfare—only here the message itself can rewire a mind mid-mission.
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