The Carls Books in Order

The Carls books start with a very modern science fiction question: what if first contact began on a city street and inside a viral video. In An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, April May, a young designer in New York, stumbles across a huge robot-like sculpture she nicknames Carl. Her friend Andy films it, the clip explodes online, and by morning matching Carls have appeared around the world.

That setup gives the series its mystery, but the deeper hook is what sudden fame does to ordinary people. April becomes the public face of an event no one understands, and that role changes her relationships, her sense of self, and the way strangers use her story for their own arguments. These books care about the alien puzzle, but they care just as much about the machinery of attention.

The alien mystery is only half the story.

April is the center of the first novel, but the people around her matter a lot, especially Andy, Maya, and Miranda. In A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor, the story widens on purpose, following more of the group as they deal with grief, unanswered questions, and new clues. That shift gives the series a bigger emotional range. It is no longer just about one accidental celebrity. It becomes a team story.

Setting matters here. New York gives the first book its late-night, ambitious, slightly messy energy, but the real setting is global and online at the same time. The story moves through labs, conventions, message threads, social feeds, and private conversations that can turn public in seconds. Hank Green writes the internet as both a real social space and a pressure machine, one that can flatten people into symbols almost overnight.

Nothing stays private for long.

The tone is fast, funny, and uneasy in a good way. There is real suspense, but there is also the sense that people can be every bit as unpredictable as whatever brought the Carls to Earth. Across both books, the long-running tension comes from two linked questions: what are the Carls, and what will humans build around them. The answers lead toward bigger issues about influence, technology, control, and the stories people tell when they are scared. If you like science fiction that stays close to present-day life, this series is an easy recommendation. The books are full of big ideas, but the stakes stay personal: friendship, reputation, responsibility, grief, and the effort to stay human when the whole world is watching. Expect first-contact mystery, social media chaos, smart banter, and a story that keeps asking whether people can do better, even when attention itself has become part of the problem.