Recycled In Space / Literature

Taking it literally...

• Across a Star-Swept Sea by Diana Peterfreund is a version of The Scarlet Pimpernel IN A POST-APOCALYPTIC FUTURE!
• The Alexis Carew series is what Honor Harrington would be, if the setting was even more forced to be Horatio Hornblower IN SPACE. Ships have actual sails that are set by hand, darkspace is treated like an ocean with currents and "shoals". In darkspace, ships are navigated by dead reckoning (effectively making guesses) and fire broadsides at one another using hand-loaded cannons. Even the official currency is based on the pre-decimal British system, likely confusing many modern readers. And every single ship part is given an archaic naval name (to the point where a ship's mechanic is called a carpenter despite using a 3D printer instead of wood), causing Alexis to frequently get confused by seemingly made up words like "futtock".
• The Automatic Detective is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) STARRING METALHEAD!
• Ben-Hur is The Count of Monte Cristo IN BIBLE TIMES!
• The novel Billion Dollar Boy is Captains Courageous IN SPACE!
• The Book of the Named is Warrior Cats IN PREHISTORY AND EVEN MORE VIOLENT!
• Captive of the Red Vixen is an Age of Sail Romance IN SPACE with ANTHROPOMORPHIC FOXES!
• Christian Nation is Left Behind WITH CHRISTIAN DOMINIONISTS AS THE VILLAINS AND NON-CHRISTIANS AS THE VICTIMS!
• Chronicles Of The Nephilim is Game of Thrones WITH BIBLE CHARACTERS!
• Ciaphas Cain, Hero of the Imperium!!! is Flashman (with a side order of the same author's McAuslan) IN SPACE.
• Conan and the Treasure of Python by John Maddox Roberts is King Solomon's Mines WITH CONAN!
  • Conan the Rogue by the same writer is Hardboiled Detective fiction (borrowing the story elements from The Maltese Falcon, Red Harvest and The Dain Curse) WITH CONAN!
• David Drake's Cross The Stars is The Odyssey IN SPACE WITH ALIENS INSTEAD OF MONSTERS AND A Manipulative Bastard TRYING TO GAIN CONTROL OF THE HERO'S WORLD INSTEAD OF SUITORS TRYING TO MARRY PENELOPE. AND A MERCENARY COLONEL-turned-MILITARY DICTATOR INSTEAD OF ZEUS
  • Sequel The Voyage is The Argonautica IN SPACE WITH A FEMALE JASON RECOVERING HER CRAZY UNCLE's EXPERIMENTAL FTL DRIVE TO CLAIM OWNERSHIP OF THE FAMILY MEGACORP
• Damned by Chuck Palahniuk has been described as The Breakfast Club IN HELL!
• James Patterson's Daniel X series is James Bond WITH A TEENAGE ALIEN!
• Dead Silence, a salvage crew finds a Ghost Ship— in space! Described as Titanic (1997) meets Event Horizon. Played with in story as the ghost ship Aurora was actually built to resemble a sea going luxury liner to give potential passengers a sense of familiarity.
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid is The Wonder Years AS A BOOK SERIES AND IN THE PRESENT DAY!
• Discworld:
  • Maskerade is The Phantom of the Opera WITH WITCHES!, although there's a bit more Deconstruction than that. In fact, the Witches books in general are typically a twist on a classic story or, in two cases, a Shakespeare play.
  • Unseen Academicals is Romeo and Juliet WITH FOOTBALL!
  • Night Watch Discworld is superficially Les Misérables IN ANKH-MORPORK!... except it's a bit more complicated than that: The Inspector Javert equivalent is an unambiguously heroic character (albeit a shining example of Good Is Not Soft and Good Is Not Dumb) and the fugitive he's doggedly pursuing is a cheerfully psychopathic murderer reminiscent of The Joker, for a start. And there's Time Travel involved.
  • Similarly, The Truth is All the President's Men ALSO IN ANKH-MORPORK!, but with one rather important difference: The shadowy conspiracy is trying to depose Lord Vetinari, not keep him in office.
• Divine Misfortune is American Gods AS A COMEDY!
• Dork Diaries is Diary of a Wimpy Kid FOR GIRLS!
  • Or Mean Girls IN MIDDLE SCHOOL!
• Dune is Lawrence of Arabia IN SPACE!
• S.M. Stirling's Emberverse is King Arthur meets The Lord of the Rings AFTER THE END!
• Emperor Mollusk versus The Sinister Brain is Illuminatus! AS A SATURDAY-MORNING CARTOON!
• The Doctor Who Expanded Universe novel The Eternity Casket is Treasure Island IN SPACE! WITH ADDED DOCTOR WHO WEIRDNESS!
• A Fall of Moondust is the sinking of the submarine K13 and the rescue of the crew ON THE MOON. (The novel was written in 1961, before the successful landings of the Surveyor and Luna probes put an end to the "deep Moondust" theory.)
• Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk is The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for the post-modern era.
• Joe Hill has referred to The Fireman as being "The Stand soaked in gasoline".
• Isaac Asimov
  • The Foundation Trilogy: Dr Asimov was open about his efforts to write a Science Fiction saga that was effectively The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire IN SPACE! Trantor is the capital of Rome, and the primary perspective is from a planet at the outer edges of the empire, watching as they grow to supplant Trantor as the capital of a galactic empire. Several aspects of the collapse are recycled to fit the new setting, such as the Byzantine Empire (Cleon II is Justinian I and Bel Riose is Belisarius) and the sacking of Rome (Trantor's City Planet is torn apart and the capital is moved to Neotrantor).
  • Words of Science and the History Behind Them: The entry for "Echinodermata" explains a medieval theory that aquatic life was a mirror to terrestrial life. Thus, many living things from the oceans are named "sea _____", as in "____, but from the sea". A list that includes sea lions, sea hogs, sea cucumbers, and sea urchins.
• The Game of Empire by Poul Anderson is Kim IN THE TECHNIC HISTORY UNIVERSE! WITH THE DAUGHTER OF DOMINIC FLANDRY!
• The children's book series Get Ready for Gabi! is Dora the Explorer IN THIRD GRADE!
• Godspeed by Charles Sheffield is Treasure Island IN SPACE!
• Good Omens is The Omen BUT FUNNY!
• The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu is the Chu-Han Contention ON AN ARCHIPELAGO WITH AIRSHIPS! Xiang Yu is replaced by Mata Zyndu while Liu Bang is replaced by Kuni Garu.
• The Graveyard Book is The Jungle Book WITH GHOSTS!
• Now that The Great Gatsby has entered the public domain in the United States, there are many retellings WITH OPENLY LGBTQ CHARACTERS!
• The Grey Bastards by Jonathan French is Sons of Anarchy WITH HALF-ORCS RIDING PIGS!
• Guardians of Ga'Hoole is essentially World War II WITH OWLS!
  • Alternatively, it's Warrior Cats WITH OWLS!
• Robert A. Heinlein makes a lot of use of this trope:
  • Double Star is The Prisoner of Zenda IN SPACE!
  • Citizen of the Galaxy is Rudyard Kipling's Kim IN SPACE!
  • Among The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Red Planet, and Between Planets, it's obvious the American Revolution IN SPACE! was a big thing with Heinlein.
  • Rocket Ship Galileo is Nazis IN SPACE!
  • Starman Jones is Horatio Alger IN SPACE!
  • Starship Troopers is The Sands Of Iwo Jima IN SPACE!
  • Etc. You get the picture. To his credit, Heinlein never pretended to make stuff up out of whole cloth, as he had several characters in several books explain at length. (e.g., Hazel Meade Stone explaining that she was going to do an episode of her radio serial as Shakespeare IN SPACE.)
• The Hermux Tantamoq Adventures is Redwall IN A RETRO UNIVERSE WITH DETECTIVES!
• The Heroes of Olympus: The Argo II In-Universe.
• Honor Harrington started out as Horatio Hornblower... IN SPACE!, with the series physics specifically designed to create a futuristic version of Wooden Ships and Iron Men. Later, it made a major hard turn away from this. "Echoes of Honor" was The Great Escape IN SPACE, as well the Hornblower novel Flying Colours IN SPACE.
• The Hunger Games: Panem is, for all intents and purposes, the Roman Empire IN THE FUTURE!
• The novel Inferno (Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle) by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, is The Divine Comedy with Dead to Begin With, sci-fi Genre Savvy protagonist instead of Dante who tries (unsuccessfully) to explain Hell as Lost Technology or an "Infernoland" created by aliens. His guide isn't Virgil, but Benito Mussolini. Additions to the original include a Hellish version of a Celestial Bureaucracy in which damned souls as well as demons work, new torments for both extreme environmentalists and wanton environment-destroyers, and the theologically questionable revelation that anyone can escape Hell through redemption and sincere effort.
• Inheritance Cycle is Star Wars IN MIDDLE-EARTH! (though it diverges from the plot in the last two books)
• At its core, Into the Drowning Deep is Aliens but on the ocean. It is a sequel to a story where a shipload of people were lost, where a more heavy armed ship is sent to the area by a powerful corporation that is interested in capturing one of the dangerous creatures that caused the loss of the first ship. The sirens are similar to xenomorphs in a number of ways such as having vaguely humanoid but monstrous and slimy forms, predatory instincts, the capacity for strategic thought, deadly blood and the ability to climb sheer walls. Ultimately, the climax comes when the characters encounter the much larger female of the species.
• The Jeremiah School is Harry Potter WITH CHRISTIAN CHILDREN BEING PROPHETS GOING TO A SPECIAL BOARDING SCHOOL IN AMERICA!
• Leviathan '99 by Ray Bradbury is Moby-Dick IN SPACE!
• The Lord of the Rings is The Pilgrim's Progress IN MIDDLE-EARTH!
• Lord Of The World is Left Behind BUT CATHOLIC! Except it came first, so actually Left Behind is Lord Of The World BUT EVANGELICAL!
• The Lost Fleet series is a loose retelling of Xenophon's Anabasis AS SPACEOPERA! One could also make a case for the protagonist being Captain America IN A SPACENAVY!
• The Lunar Chronicles is a Fairy Tale Free-for-All IN THE SCI-FI FUTURE! Which means that it's often IN SPACE!, but not always. As the title suggests, the "Snow White" kingdom, which the Big Bad rules, is ON THE MOON!
• According to Word of God, the setting of The Machineries of Empire began as Legend of the Five Rings IN SPACE!
• Several reviewers have referred to The Martian as MacGyver (1985) ON MARS!
• Ben Bova's Mercury is The Count of Monte Cristo IN SPACE! to the point that he's lucky that work is in the public domain.
• The teen horror novel "Mirror, Mirror" is The Picture of Dorian Gray set IN A HIGH SCHOOL, with a female protagonist and as indicated by the title, a mirror that represents how much uglier the girl's personality is becoming. In the Cruel Twist Ending, she doesn't die like her book counterpart, but is horribly disfigured in an accident. Her reflection, like Dorian's painting, is now flawless.
• Musketeer Space is The Three Musketeers GENDER-FLIPPED (except Athos) IN SPACE!
• My Weird School is Horrid Henry IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL!
• Nightside City by Lawrence Watt-Evans is a Hardboiled Detective mystery, with all the typical attributes of the genre—set on a faraway planet of a future interstellar civilization—and with first-person narrator being Calisle Hsing, a woman detective.
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians is Harry Potter WITH GREEK MYTHOLOGY!
  • Alternatively, it's Classical Mythology IN AMERICA!
• S.M. Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers is Rudyard Kipling AFTER THE END! involving a noble family founded by Flashman — who could, it is true, successfully survive and escape post-apocalyptic Victorian England though sheer cowardice and get a knighthood from the deal.
• The Prince Roger series is Xenophon's Anabasis In SPACE, at least for the first three books.
• Donald Kingsbury's Psychohistorical Crisis: This novel lampshades Isaac Asimov's efforts to write The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire IN SPACE by having the protagonist find a copy of the original work in an antique shop. He's excited to discover a genuine Earth document, but his mentor declares it a clumsy fake that's based on the much more recent history covered by Dr Asimov.
• David Drake 's RCN series is, according to Word of God, Aubrey-Maturin literally IN SPACE!
• Reborn as a Space Mercenary: I Woke Up Piloting the Strongest Starship! is a Harem Genre isekai IN SPACE!! Or alternatively, Elite Dangerous AS A HAREM ISEKAI! Could go either way with this one, really.
• Redwall is Game of Thrones WITH FURRIES!
  • Alternatively, Lucky Seven DX describes the series as being "like Lord of the Rings, but WITH MICE."
• Larry Niven, after writing his famous science fiction novel Ringworld, later realized that he had ended up writing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz IN SPACE!, with the plot and characters mirroring those in the story.
• The Rise of the Saxons is The Turner Diaries IN ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND!
• Rook by Sharon Cameron is a version of The Scarlet Pimpernel IN A POST-APOCALYPTIC FUTURE!
• The Selection is The Hunger Games WITH PRINCESSES!
• Silverwing is Watership Down WITH BATS!
• A Song of Ice and Fire is The Accursed Kings IN A MEDIEVAL AGE FANTASY WORLD!
• The Space Trilogy by C. S. Lewis has been called The Chronicles of Narnia IN SPACE!
• Stephen King's The Stand is The Lord of the Rings IN POST-APOCALYPTIC AMERICA!
• The Stars My Destination is The Count of Monte Cristo IN SPACE!
• The Star Wars Legends give us plenty of examples:
  • Agent of the Empire is James Bond IN SPACE!
  • Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter is The Terminator IN SPACE
  • Death Troopers is a Zombie Apocalypse IN SPACE!
    • Specifically, it's Left 4 Dead IN SPACE!
  • Fate of the Jedi is the Cthulhu Mythos IN SPACE!
  • Galaxy of Fear is Goosebumps IN SPACE and with multi-book plots!
    • Spore is The Thing (1982) PG-rated and IN SPACE!
  • The Glove of Darth Vader is Captain Planet IN SPACE!
  • The Hand of Judgment duology (Allegiance and Choices of One) are The A-Team IN SPACE!
  • The Hand of Thrawn Duology is a Fix Fic IN CANON! (And also in space.)
  • I, Jedi is Film Noir IN SPACE!
  • The Jedi Academy Trilogy (at least the dynamic between Luke and Kyp) is X-Men IN SPACE!
  • Junie B. Jones is Ramona [-AS A SPOILED BRAT]!
  • The Literature Med Star Duology is M*A*S*H IN SPACE!
  • New Jedi Order is an alien invasion movie IN SPACE! and Darker and Edgier.
  • Scoundrels is Ocean's Eleven IN SPACE! In fact, the intended title was Solo's Eleven, but Lucasfilm's lawyers decided that it was too close to the copyright.
  • Shatterpoint is Apocalypse Now WITH JEDI, according to the author.
• A Symphony of Eternity is Ken Burns Civil War, IN SPACE!, using Magitek combined with Flashman, The Thrawn Trilogy with elements of Discworld thrown in.
• The ‘’System Divine’’ (‘’Sky Without Stars’’, “Between Burning Worlds” and “Suns Will Rise”) series is ‘’Les Misérables’’ IN SPACE!
• "The Tea Master and the Detective" by Aliette de Bodard is about a wounded veteran struggling to make ends meet whose life is changed when she meets a consulting detective with astonishing powers of observation and an equally astonishing lack of social graces — in other words, they're Dr Watson and Sherlock Holmes, only on a space station in the far future (and also 'Holmes' is a woman and 'Watson' is a female-identifying space ship). The author acknowledges the inspiration in the afterword.
• Pat Murphy's There and Back Again is, unabashedly and transparently, The Hobbit IN SPACE! Space Pirates, good and bad tend to fill in many of the groups in the novels (i.e. the Bilbo equivalent journeys with an all-female group of adventurers, and standing in for Orcs are the Resurrectionists, a Reaver-like bunch who capture people and harvest their organs.
• Timeline-191 is World War I and World War II IF THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA STILL EXISTED!
• Stephen Baxter and Arthur C. Clarke's Time Odyssey trilogy is Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann WITH SCIENCE!
• Nick O'Donohoe's Too, Too Solid Flesh is literally Hamlet WITH ROBOTS.
• The Trigan Empire is The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ON ANOTHER PLANET!
• Vorkosigan Saga:
  • A Civil Campaign is Georgette Heyer IN SPACE!, as confirmed by Word of God.
  • Barrayar is Ruritania IN SPACE!
• The War of the Worlds is a meta-example. The book is part of the forgotten genre of "Invasion Novels," wherein an alien (read: foreign) power would conquer England. Wells decided to make the aliens SPACE! aliens this time around. And thus was the Alien Invasion trope as we know it codified.
• Warrior Cats is Watership Down WITH CATS!. Alternatively, it's Tailchaser's Song BUT IN A SERIES!. Or Cat Pack BUT Darker and Edgier!. After it's success, the Erin Hunter team (and sometimes individual members of it) tried to replicate it with other xenofiction works:
  • Survivor Dogs is Warrior Cats WITH DOGS!
  • Seeker Bears is Warrior Cats WITH BEARS!
  • Bravelands is Warrior Cats IN AFRICA!
  • Wings of Fire is Warrior Cats WITH DRAGONS!
  • The Tygrine Cat is Warrior Cats WITH MORE FANTASY ELEMENTS!
• Watership Down is Journey to the West WITH RABBITS!
• Wolf Breed is Elfenlied in The Middle Ages WITH WEREWOLVES!
• Stephen King's novel Wolves of the Calla: The Dark Tower V is The Magnificent Seven WITH ROBOTS! And openly admits to this, as the characters begin to realize that they're characters in a Stephen King novel!

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