LitQueuelitqueue

After

Alien Proliferation

Gini Koch2012

5 of 6 directions open — nothing to recover from

More like it

Same playful register, still science fiction

1 more ↓

  • Off to Be the Wizard

    Scott Meyer2013

    A hacker discovers reality is a computer program and flees to the Middle Ages to pose as a wizard. He joins a group of other time-traveling men.

    Same playful register

    pace0·prose0·bleak0

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • Sometimes a Great Notion

    Ken Kesey1964

    A family of independent loggers in Oregon refuses to join a local strike. The perspective shifts rapidly between characters, often mid-paragraph.

    playful → elegiac

    pace-1·prose+3·bleak+2

  • Nova Express

    William S. Burroughs1964

    An experimental narrative uses the cut-up technique to depict a war between intergalactic criminals and the police. It is a collage of imagery.

    playful → sardonic, still science fiction

    pace-1·prose+3·bleak+2

  • Dhalgren

    Samuel R. Delany1975

    An amnesiac wanderer enters Bellona, a city cut off from the world where time and geography shift. He joins a gang and writes poetry.

    playful → dreamlike

    pace-2·prose+3·bleak+2

Faster

3 more ↓

  • Influx

    Daniel Suarez2014

    A physicist invents a gravity-reflecting device and is imprisoned by a secret agency that suppresses technology. He plots a high-tech escape.

    playful → propulsive, still science fiction

    pace+1·prose+1·bleak+1

  • Star Wars Episode VII - The Force Awakens

    Alan Dean Foster2001

    A scavenger and a defecting soldier join the fight against a new galactic power. They search for a missing hero from the previous generation.

    playful → propulsive, still science fiction

    pace+1·prose+1·bleak+1

  • The Rookie

    Scott Sigler2012

    A talented but prejudiced quarterback joins a professional team of diverse alien species. He must lead them to win in a violent interstellar league.

    playful → propulsive, still science fiction

    pace+1·prose+1·bleak+1

Slower

3 more ↓

  • Invisible Cities

    Italo Calvino1972

    Marco Polo describes fifty-five imaginary cities to Kublai Khan. The book is a series of short, prose-poem meditations on urban existence.

    playful → meditative

    pace-2·prose+3·bleak+1

  • Gödel, Escher, Bach

    Douglas R. Hofstadter1979

    An exploration of how cognition emerges from hidden neurological patterns. It uses math, art, and music to explain self-referential systems.

    Same playful register

    pace-2·prose+3·bleak0

  • Ulysses

    James Joyce1914

    Three characters wander through Dublin on a single day in 1904. Each chapter uses a different literary style to mimic thoughts and sensations.

    Same playful register

    pace-2·prose+3·bleak+1

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • Hellspark

    Janet Kagan1988

    A linguist travels to a new planet to investigate a murder. She must determine if the local species is sentient while navigating a conspiracy.

    playful → tense, still science fiction

    pace+1·prose+2·bleak+3

  • The Genocides

    Thomas M. Disch1965

    Alien invaders treat Earth as a farm, planting giant crops that smother the ecosystem. Humans are treated as garden pests to be exterminated.

    playful → bleak, still alien invasion

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+3

  • The Running Man

    Richard Bachman

    A man enters a deadly reality show to fund medical care for his daughter. He must survive thirty days while the entire world hunts him for money.

    playful → propulsive, still science fiction

    pace+1·prose+1·bleak+3