LitQueuelitqueue

After

City of Death

James Goss2012

5 of 6 directions open — nothing to recover from

More like it

1 more ↓

  • Mammoth

    John Varley2005

    The discovery of a frozen mammoth and a prehistoric man wearing a modern wristwatch triggers a time-travel investigation.

    Same playful register, still time travel

    pace0·prose0·bleak0

Denser prose

playful → dreamlike

3 more ↓

  • City of Saints and Madmen

    Jeff Vandermeer2001

    A collection of stories, histories, and pamphlets about the city of Ambergris. It uses found documents to build a surreal urban history.

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2

  • Too Like the Lightning

    Ada Palmer2016

    In a 25th-century utopia, a convict narrates the discovery of a boy who can perform miracles. The prose uses 18th-century styles and gender terms.

    playful → sardonic

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2

  • Valis

    Philip K. Dick1981

    A man experiences a beam of pink light that imparts vast information. The narrative explores his mental breakdown and search for God in California.

    playful → meditative

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2

Faster

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    playful → propulsive

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak0

  • All Systems Red

    Martha Wells2017

    A self-aware security android hacks its own governor module to watch soap operas while protecting a team of scientists on a distant planet.

    playful → wry

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak0

  • Skin Game

    Jim Butcher2014

    Wizard Harry Dresden joins a team of villains to rob a vault in the Underworld. It is a fast-paced heist set in a modern fantasy Chicago.

    playful → propulsive

    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+2·bleak+1

  • Beelzebub's tales to his grandson

    Georges Ivanovitch Gurdjieff1950

    An extraterrestrial being explains the history and strange behaviors of humanity to his grandson during a long space voyage.

    playful → meditative

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak+1

  • Looking Backward

    Edward Bellamy2007

    A 19th-century man falls into a deep sleep and wakes up in the year 2000. He discovers a socialist utopia where all industry is nationalized.

    playful → earnest, still sci-fi

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak0

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • Behold the Man

    Michael Moorcock1968

    A man uses a time machine to travel to 28 AD to meet Jesus. Finding only a disabled man who cannot fulfill the gospels, he takes the role himself.

    playful → bleak, still time travel

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+3

  • The Year of the Quiet Sun

    Wilson Tucker1970

    A social scientist travels forward in time to document the collapse of the United States through racial conflict and nuclear war.

    playful → bleak, still time travel

    pace-1·prose0·bleak+3

  • Guernica Night

    Barry N. Malzberg1975

    In a future where suicide is a social norm, a man navigates a society obsessed with death. The prose is dense and repetitive.

    playful → bleak, still sci-fi

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+3