I’m an engineer and I love tech uplift stories. I personally classify them as progression but generally refer to them as progression adjacent when recommending them to avoid getting in arguments online.

What is a tech uplift story? Essentially it’s any story where the main character(s) rapidly increase the technology of a town/city/nation/civilization. Usually this involves characters sent through time, space, parallel realities, ect to a world with less technology than the one from which they hail. Or, they are just super smart.

For me, the progress of technological development in a story like this scratches the same itch that progression fantasy does. Tech uplift often has a lot of overlap with kingdom building stories.

I’ll be using my progression scale described here.

We are Legion (We are Bob)

To start, this is one of my favorite series period. This is the first book of the Bobiverse series and is probably the best example of tech development as progression that I’ve read. It follows a software developer turned self replicating space probe as he saves humanity from itself—and other less-sane-self-replicating space probes. How does he do this? By developing technology. The story follows Bob, and the other Bobs he creates, as he creates new technologies to both enhance himself, and protect humanity.

I give Bobiverse a progression score of 4. The majority of the story is about Bob and his experiments. Later books gain more plot threads but at the core, Bob develops technology.

If you liked the Martian or Project Hail Mary you’ll probably enjoy this as well.

Children of Time – Progression Scale 2

So, this one is actually probably progression adjacent but it’s just so good! This book follows a society of sapient spiders as their civilization develops over millennia. It also follows a crew of humans on course to their planet. The author does a great job creating “characters” for the spiders that reapear through history, avoiding a Foundation situation where there are new characters every five minutes.

You follow the spiders as they develop technical solutions to all their problems, and the crew as they work to keep their ship together.

This is a 2 on the progression scale. You get to see all the major technological breakthroughs of the spider people, but that’s only half the book.

The sequels go down a more sci-fi mystey path than tech development, but are definetly worth the read if you enjoyed the first.

Destroyermen

This book follows the crew of a WWII destroyer that travels to a parallel earth where humans never evolved, but other intelligent life did. The world is at a pro-colonial level of tech, and obviously a WWII battleship shakes things up.

Two sapient races, lemur people and crocodile people, are at war, and the US sailors side with the furry folk. Iron ships don’t last forever in salty seas, and the crew use their skills to help uplift the tech of their new allies.

The tech development is slow, but not glacial. Each book has a significant advancement or two, but don’t expect airplanes in book 1.

This book is also something I call a ‘Noble Captain’ book. One where there exists a leader thats just genuinily good, and makes the people around him better. So through the series you come to really like all of the crew. Think Ted Lasso.

If you like long series, this one is on book 13 and still going.

This is a 1 on the progression scale. The tech advances, but not hugely in each book.

1632 (Ring of Fire)

I’m preficing this with a note that I havent read this one in years, so I’m foggy on the details. As amazon so helpfully reminded me:

This series has a random US town from the 90s swapped with a random portion of German wilderness in 1632. Follow the aftermath as thousands of modern humans mess up the political manuevering of a warring Europe.

This follows a LOT of characters, on all sides of the conflict, from a high school olympic sharpshooter hopeful to a a dude who goes and starts a mordern navy and a member of the catholic church who tries to steal elementry school history books to get a glimpse into their future.

Its a 1 on the progression scale, and a lower 1 than Destroyermen, but still deserving of the list. This series has expanded. There are a LOT of books, spin offs and such written by other authors to expand on characters.

Island in the Sea of Time

This is very similar to premise as 1632 but with a small POV cast. The present day island of Nantucket is sent to the bronze age along with a sail and steam powered US navy ship that for some reason is still in operation.

Progression on this is also a 1, but this series concludes with 3 books.

Cast Under an Alien Sun

As of the time of writing this, I’d only read up to book 3, but aparently 5 more came out since then. This book follows a chemistry PhD that finds himself transport by aliens to on another planet full of humans who were also transported there by aliens. That really is not important, but just the isekai mechanism.

The humans on this planet have pre-colonial era tech and the MC finds himself on a island of people who arent prepared for a coming war. Up to book 3, very little war prep occurs. THe progression here happens, but its slow, and largely focuses on chemsitry related things, but I’m sure that will change beyond book 3.

As a heads up, book 3 introduces a harem/polygamy aspect fairly randomly. I don’t know where it goes beyond there. This seems to be ac ommon occurance in tech uplift stories.

This is a 1 on the progression scale.

Portal to Nova Roma

I haven’t read this yet but it’s on my list and is definitely progression fantasy so I’m addingg it. It’s written by JR Mathews, the author Jake’s Magical Market and follows an AI that travels to an alternate dimension filled with monsters and magic.

To find peace, Alexander must first embrace war.

After tragically losing the only person he ever cared about, Alexander, a rogue artificial intelligence, opens a portal to an alternate dimension to escape his grief.

Scanning trillions of different dimensions, Alexander finally finds a world that is reminiscent of the only time he was ever happy, back when he could play virtual reality games with his only friend. He doesn’t know why, or how, such a world exists, but he doesn’t care. All he cares about is finding a place where he can escape the misery of Earth and start over.

Join Alexander as he risks it all by downloading his intelligence into a body made from the best stolen technology and bio-enhancements Earth has to offer and takes the plunge through a portal to another world.

Castle Kingside

Another one I haven’t read, but is on my list. This one follows a doctor who is sent into a medieval world. This story is available for free of Royal Road.

A puzzling encounter leaves Dimitry a beggar with a strange emblem on his wrist. Around him, people suffer as ruthless organizations, opportunistic nobles, and an overly pious church vie for power in a medieval land under constant siege by stone monstrosities rampaging from the coasts.

Can a kindhearted surgeon aid this ailing world with modern knowledge, resourcefulness, and magic? Or will rival powers crush Dimitry first?

A fiction that starts brutally grim and eventually transitions into technology uplift with a focus on science, magitech, and town building.

Warning: Technical terms abound.

March Upcountry

Book 1 in this series is 100% not tech uplift. The story follows a snoody spoiled prince as he is marooned with his bodyguards on an alien planet. This story has one of the best character improvement arcs I’ve ever read, and the end of the series the snoody prince is your favorite character. I

Book 2 is all tech uplift all the time while book 3 is about half tech uplift and half sci fi political spy book.

This series does a lot, but its really good.

Tech Progression for book 2 is a 2.

Character growth progression for this series is a 4.

Dishonorable Mentions

Release the Witch

I can’t not mention Release the Witch. I personally couldn’t get into it when the main character created a steam engine in an afternoon, BUT it definetly fits in this catagory.

It follows an engineer who travels to an alternate medieval world where witches are killed on site. He uses them to develope tech. It’s harem story. The version I read was poorly translated, and that along with the ease of everying working was too much for me to overlook. Apparently its a manga now.

Crosstime Engineer

The tale of two stories. This book is both the best example of legit engineering and technological development I’ve read and the worst example of misogyny I’ve ever read.

This follows an engineer sent back to medieval Poland, 10 years prior to a (fictional) Mongolian invasion. So, what is he to do? Create the infrastructure necesary for Poland to defend itself… and sleep like a lot of people, many of which are underage but “it’s cool cause its the past.”

I read them all in basically a fevor haze, and once I was done looked back and thought “Huh, some of that stuff was pretty messed up.” I was blinded by the sciences! The books out of print, and only second hand copies exist. I read them on a OCR generated word document I found online, which says something about me… I just don’t know what.

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