
After
Alle verhalen van Edgar Allan Poe [36 stories]
Edgar Allan Poe2007
- pace
- prose
- structure
- bleakness
6 of 6 directions open
More like it
Same tense register, still gothic
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The Yellow Wall-Paper
Charlotte Perkins Gilman1995
A woman is confined to a bedroom for a rest cure. She becomes obsessed with the patterns in the room's wallpaper as her mental state declines.
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The Birds and Other Stories
Daphne du Maurier1963
A collection of stories where nature and the psyche turn hostile. In the title story, birds begin a coordinated, lethal attack on a coastal farm.
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El Gato Negro y Otros Cuentos de Horror (Black Cat / Cask of Amontillado / Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar / Fall of the House of Usher / Hop-Frog / Masque of the Red Death / Pit and the Pendulum / Tell Tale Heart)
Edgar Allan Poe2000
A collection of short stories featuring murderers, decaying estates, and psychological collapse. The narrators are often unstable or dying.
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The Turn of the Screw
Henry James1898
A governess at a remote estate becomes convinced that two ghosts are haunting the children in her care. The prose is dense and ambiguous.
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1 more ↓ ↑
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Rouge
Mona Awad2023
A woman obsessed with skincare returns home after her mother's death and enters a surreal, cult-like spa. The narrative is dreamlike and gothic.
tense → dreamlike, still gothic
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Denser prose
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House of Leaves
Mark Z. Danielewski1998
A man finds a door in his house that should not exist. The story is told through layers of academic footnotes and a decaying manuscript.
tense → dreamlike, still psychological horror
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Edgar Allen Poe (Black Cat / Cask of Amontillado / Fall of the House of Usher / Gold Bug / Metzengerstein / Murders in the Rue Morgue / Narrative of Arthur Gordn Pym / Never Bet the Devil Your Head / Pit and the Pendulum / Purloined Letter / Tell-Tale Heart)
Edgar Allan Poe2005
A collection of gothic stories and a novel. Narrators deal with psychological collapse, premature burial, and macabre crimes.
tense → bleak, still unreliable narrator
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3 more ↓ ↑
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Ghost Stories
Henry James2001
A collection of Victorian tales where the existence of ghosts is often left to the reader's interpretation.
tense → meditative, still psychological horror
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Ambergris
Jeff VanderMeer2020
This collection follows the history of a city built atop a subterranean race. It uses fake histories, journals, and detective noir.
tense → dreamlike, still unreliable narrator
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Gormenghast
Mervyn Peake1950
A young heir and a social climber navigate the rigid rituals of a decaying, labyrinthine castle. The prose is dense and descriptive.
tense → dark, still gothic
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To recover
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On a Pale Horse
Piers Anthony1983
After accidentally killing the personification of Death, a man must take over the office. He navigates the bureaucracy of the afterlife.
tense → playful
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Tuesdays with Morrie
Mitch Albom1994
A journalist reconnects with his dying college professor for weekly lessons on life. They discuss aging, regret, and love as the professor declines.
tense → tender
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3 more ↓ ↑
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The Last Question
Isaac Asimov2007
A short story told in seven vignettes spanning billions of years. Humanity asks a supercomputer if the heat death of the universe can be avoided.
tense → meditative
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Thoughtful
S.C. Stephens2015
Kellan Kyle falls for his best friend's girlfriend, Anna. The story retells the events of Thoughtless from Kellan's perspective.
tense → earnest
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Grunge
Larry Correia2016
A Marine killed in a bombing is resurrected to hunt supernatural creatures. He joins a private company that kills monsters for government bounties.
tense → sardonic, still horror
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Faster
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Shattered
Dean Koontz1973
A man and his future stepson drive across America while being stalked by the woman's vengeful ex-husband.
Same tense register, still horror
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Grunge
Larry Correia2016
A Marine killed in a bombing is resurrected to hunt supernatural creatures. He joins a private company that kills monsters for government bounties.
tense → sardonic, still horror
pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2

3 more ↓ ↑
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Intercepts
T.J. Payne2020
A worker at a government facility monitors human test subjects driven insane by sensory deprivation. The experiment enters his private life.
Same tense register, still horror
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Infected
Bobby Adair
A slow-acting virus turns the population into aggressive predators. The story follows a survivor navigating the initial societal collapse.
tense → propulsive, still horror
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The Undead Day One
R.R. Haywood
A supermarket manager attempts to survive the first twenty-four hours of a zombie outbreak in England. The story is told in real-time.
tense → propulsive, still horror
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Slower
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Lady Audley's Secret
Mary Elizabeth Braddon1862
A man returns from Australia to find his friend's wife is a governess with a hidden past. He investigates her identity after his friend disappears.
tense → mysterious, still horror
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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.
tense → dreamlike, still unreliable narrator
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3 more ↓ ↑
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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.
tense → playful
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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.
tense → playful
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Absalom, Absalom!
William Faulkner1936
The rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen is recounted through multiple, conflicting memories. The prose uses extremely long, complex sentences.
tense → elegiac, still unreliable narrator
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Heavier
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The Lottery
Shirley Jackson1983
Villagers gather for an annual ritual in a small town. The story follows the procedural steps of a lottery that ends in a public execution.
tense → cold, still gothic
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The Fall of the House of Usher
Edgar Allan Poe
A narrator visits a childhood friend in a decaying mansion. The house and the family's health decline simultaneously toward a collapse.
tense → dreamlike, still gothic
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3 more ↓ ↑
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The Monk
Matthew Gregory Lewis
A celebrated monk is seduced by a woman in disguise and descends into a cycle of rape, murder, and sorcery. He eventually makes a pact with Satan.
tense → bleak, still gothic
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The House Next Door
Anne Rivers Siddons1978
A couple watches as a newly built house next door causes a series of tragedies for its occupants. The house preys on the flaws of those inside.
tense → dread, still gothic
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The Elementals
Michael McDowell1981
Two families vacation at a coastal estate where one of three houses is slowly being buried by sand and inhabited by a malevolent presence.
tense → dread, still gothic
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