LitQueuelitqueue

After

Breed

Chase Novak2012

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

Same tense register, still horror

1 more ↓

  • The Sentinel

    Jeffrey Konvitz1974

    A model moves into a Brooklyn brownstone where she discovers the blind priest on the top floor is guarding a gateway to hell.

    pace0·prose0·bleak0

Denser prose

tense → dreamlike

3 more ↓

  • Racconti [55 stories]

    Edgar Allan Poe2011

    A collection of 55 stories featuring unreliable narrators and gothic settings. Themes include obsession, premature burial, and the macabre.

    tense → dreamlike, still horror

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

  • Ghost Stories

    Henry James2001

    A collection of Victorian tales where the existence of ghosts is often left to the reader's interpretation.

    tense → meditative

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

  • Android Karenina

    Лев Толстой2010

    The text of Tolstoy's classic is modified to include robots, cyborgs, and space travel in a 19th-century Russian setting.

    tense → elegiac, still horror

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

To recover

tense → propulsive

3 more ↓

  • This Man

    Jodi Ellen Malpas2013

    An interior designer begins an affair with a wealthy client who demands total control over her life and schedule.

    Same tense register

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-2

  • Ready Player One

    Ernest Cline2008

    A teenager in a dystopian future hunts for a digital easter egg inside a massive simulation. The quest relies on 1980s pop culture trivia.

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-2

  • Real Murders

    Charlaine Harris1990

    A librarian in a small Georgia town belongs to a club that studies famous crimes. A real murder occurs that mimics a historical case.

    tense → wry

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-2

Faster

3 more ↓

  • 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+1·prose-1·bleak-2

  • 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

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak+1

  • 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

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak0

Slower

3 more ↓

  • 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

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak-2

  • 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

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak-1

  • 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

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak+1

Heavier

tense → bleak, still horror

3 more ↓

  • The Burning Side

    Sarah Damoff

    Same tense register, still horror

    pace+1·prose+1·bleak+1

  • Mapping the Interior

    Stephen Graham Jones2017

    A teenager follows a figure resembling his dead father into the hidden spaces of his home. He maps a shifting, dangerous interior.

    tense → elegiac, still horror

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

  • Flowers in the Attic

    V.C. Andrews1979

    Four children are hidden in an attic for years by their mother and grandmother to secure an inheritance. They face gradual poisoning and abuse.

    tense → elegiac, still horror

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1