After
Danger! and Other Stories
Arthur Conan Doyle1918
- pace
- prose
- structure
- bleakness
6 of 6 directions open
More like it
- pace0prose0bleak0
L'Île mystérieuse
Jules Verne1870
Five men escape a Civil War prison by balloon and crash on a Pacific island. They use chemistry and engineering to build a colony from scratch.
Same earnest register, still adventure
pace0·prose0·bleak0
- pace+1prose0bleak0
Marsbound
Joe Haldeman2008
A teenager living in a Mars colony discovers an alien species living underground. The story follows the diplomatic fallout of her discovery.
Same earnest register, still adventure
pace+1·prose0·bleak0
- pace0prose0bleak0
Speaker for the Dead
Orson Scott Card1986
Decades after a galactic war, a man travels to a colony to investigate the death of a scientist killed by a local alien species.
Same earnest register
pace0·prose0·bleak0
- pace0prose0bleak0
All Clear
Connie Willis2010
Time-traveling historians are stranded in London during the Blitz. They must find work and survive the bombings while waiting for rescue.
Same earnest register
pace0·prose0·bleak0
1 more ↓ ↑
- pace0prose0bleak0
Seeker
Jack McDevitt2005
Two antiquities dealers trace a 9,000-year-old cup to find a legendary lost colony ship. The story follows their research and travel.
Same earnest register
pace0·prose0·bleak0
Denser prose
- pace-1prose+2bleak+1
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.
earnest → dreamlike
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1
- pace0prose+2bleak+1
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.
earnest → sardonic
pace0·prose+2·bleak+1
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace0prose+2bleak+1
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.
earnest → meditative
pace0·prose+2·bleak+1
- pace0prose+2bleak+1
Shadow & Claw
Gene Wolfe1983
A torturer travels across a far-future Earth where technology is indistinguishable from magic. He recounts his exile in dense, archaic prose.
earnest → meditative
pace0·prose+2·bleak+1
- pace0prose+2bleak+1
Radiance
Catherynne M. Valente2015
A documentary filmmaker disappears on Venus in an alternate 1980s solar system. The story is told through scripts, interviews, and letters.
earnest → dreamlike
pace0·prose+2·bleak+1
To recover
- pace+1prose-1bleak-1
Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron
Julia Quinn2022
A graphic novel adaptation of a fictional melodrama where an orphan flees a cruel aunt and encounters a man in a remote castle.
earnest → playful
pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1
- pace+2prose-1bleak-1
Odessa Sea
Clive Cussler2016
Dirk Pitt investigates a ghost ship in the Black Sea and discovers a conspiracy involving a lost Romanov secret. It is a high-speed adventure.
earnest → propulsive, still adventure
pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace+2prose-1bleak-1
The Kaiju Preservation Society
John Scalzi2022
A food delivery driver joins a secret organization that travels to an alternate Earth to care for massive, dinosaur-like creatures.
earnest → playful
pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1
- pace+1prose-1bleak-1
Smokin' Seventeen
Janet Evanovich2011
A bounty hunter investigates bodies found in her boss's lot while choosing between three suitors. The story follows her daily mishaps in New Jersey.
earnest → playful
pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1
- pace0prose0bleak-1
The Book of Hope
Jane Goodall2021
A dialogue-based book where Jane Goodall discusses her life's work and her reasons for remaining optimistic about the environment.
Same earnest register
pace0·prose0·bleak-1
Faster
- pace+2prose0bleak0
The Beasts of Tarzan (Classic Ace SF, F-203)
Edgar Rice Burroughs1914
After his son is kidnapped, Tarzan is stranded on a desert island. He recruits a panther and a tribe of apes to help him hunt his enemies.
earnest → propulsive, still adventure
pace+2·prose0·bleak0
- pace+2prose-1bleak-1
The Martian
Andy Weir2011
A man does arithmetic to stay alive on Mars. Problem, attempt, result, repeat.
earnest → wry
pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace+2prose-1bleak-1
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.
earnest → propulsive
pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1
- pace+2prose-1bleak-1
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.
earnest → wry
pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1
- pace+2prose-1bleak0
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.
earnest → propulsive
pace+2·prose-1·bleak0
Slower
- pace-1prose+2bleak+1
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.
earnest → dreamlike
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1
- pace-1prose+2bleak0
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.
earnest → meditative
pace-1·prose+2·bleak0
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace-1prose+2bleak0
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.
earnest → meditative
pace-1·prose+2·bleak0
- pace-1prose+2bleak+1
Moby Dick
Herman Melville1851
A sailor joins a whaling voyage led by a captain seeking revenge on a specific whale. Large sections digress into the mechanics of 1850s whaling.
earnest → meditative, still adventure
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1
- pace-1prose+2bleak-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.
earnest → playful
pace-1·prose+2·bleak-1
Heavier
- pace0prose+1bleak+2
The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood1985
In a totalitarian state with a plummeting birth rate, a woman is enslaved as a reproductive vessel. She records her daily life and memories.
earnest → cold
pace0·prose+1·bleak+2
- pace0prose0bleak+2
Doomsday Book
Connie Willis1992
A student travels to 14th-century England while a virus spreads in the present. She arrives during the Black Death due to a technical error.
earnest → bleak
pace0·prose0·bleak+2
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace0prose+2bleak+2
Perdido Street Station
China Miéville2000
A scientist in a sprawling, industrial city agrees to help a winged refugee fly again. His research accidentally unleashes a psychic predator.
earnest → bleak
pace0·prose+2·bleak+2
- pace0prose+1bleak+2
The Sparrow
Mary Doria Russell1996
A Jesuit priest joins a mission to a newly discovered planet. The story is told in flashbacks after he returns as the sole, traumatized survivor.
earnest → elegiac
pace0·prose+1·bleak+2
- pace+1prose+1bleak+2
Watchmen
Alan Moore1986
Retired masked vigilantes investigate the murder of a former teammate. The story takes place in an alternate 1985 on the brink of nuclear war.
earnest → bleak
pace+1·prose+1·bleak+2
