Recently I’ve read The Martian by Andy Weir (as well as his other books) & the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. I also plan on reading Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. What are some other books with a similar feel: lighthearted, optimistic and/or funny?
by toadpaws-
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Try The Stainless Steel Rat series . Came out in the 80’s.
Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi has quite a few laughs
The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. Hilarious and wise.
John Scalzi’s **Redshirts** is more satirical than comical. A look at space opera from the point-of-view of the ‘expendable’ crew.
Yahtzee Croshaw’s **Will Save The Galaxy For Food** is a satirical look at space pilot heroes put out of work by technology advances.
Year Zero by Rob Reid. Not hard sci-fi, but it has aliens.
This answer gets downvoted a lot probably due to the Scientology connection with the author but the Mission Earth books are very funny and a great deal of fun. There’s no mad Scientology shite to deal with either. Author is L Ron Hubbard.
Lois McMaster Bujold writes this sort of stuff, always entertaining.
The [Wayfarers](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/47260618-eb7b-4664-b3ae-814c1c36eded) books by Becky Chambers!
**Interstellar Caveman**
Interstellar Caveman, Book 1
By: Karl Beecher
# Publisher’s summary
You think you’re struggling to find your place in the universe?
Consider poor old Colin Douglass, a terminally ill insurance agent who awakens from centuries in cryogenic freeze to find Earth is a devastated wasteland. Now, he’s being pursued by a homicidal interstellar tourist board, and calculating insurance dividends is as outdated as making stone axes.
Sci-fi-hating technophobe Colin embarks on a desperate struggle to find a cure for his illness, as well as a place for himself in this strange new galaxy where toilets talk back, and door handles are a long-forgotten relic. Only by teaming up with his rescuer, hard-boiled, space-traveling archaeologist Tyresa Jak (that’s Doctor Jak to you), can Colin hope to succeed before time runs out.
Along the way, this galactic odd-couple must evade the Erd Tourist Board – a powerful mega-corporation which will do anything to ensure the mythical Earth stays mythical – and deal with a crackpot religious cult who not only possess a cure for Colin’s illness, but who also believe there is more to this caveman from Earth than meets the eye….
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**Space Team**
By: Barry J. Hutchison
Publisher’s Summary
Cal Carver is having a bad day. Imprisoned and forced to share a cell with a cannibalistic serial killer, Cal thinks things can’t possibly get any worse.
He is wrong.
It’s not until two-thirds of the human race is wiped out and Cal is abducted by aliens that his day *really* starts to go downhill.
Whisked across the galaxy, Cal is thrown into a team of some of the sector’s most notorious villains and scumbags. Their mission should be simple enough, but as one screw-up leads to another, they find themselves in a frantic battle to save an entire alien civilization – and its god – from total annihilation.
Bobiverse, the Culture Series by Iain M. Banks