Earthly Powers

The Siege of Krishnapur

J. G. Farrell1973

British residents in a 19th-century Indian outpost face a violent uprising. The story tracks the physical and social decay of the community.

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Gravity's Rainbow

Thomas Pynchon1973

During the end of WWII, an American lieutenant's sexual encounters seem to predict where German V-2 rockets will fall. The narrative is fragmented.

Same sardonic register, still historical fiction

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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.

sardonic → playful

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Briefing for a Descent into Hell

Doris Lessing1971

A man is found wandering London and placed in a psychiatric ward. The narrative shifts between the hospital and his internal cosmic hallucinations.

sardonic → dreamlike

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The Da Vinci Code

Dan Brown2003

A symbologist and a cryptologist flee the police while solving puzzles hidden in art. They search for a secret regarding the Holy Grail.

sardonic → propulsive

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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.

sardonic → playful

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Love Comes Softly

Janette Oke1979

A widow on the 19th-century frontier enters a marriage of convenience with a widower to survive the winter and care for his daughter.

sardonic → tender

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Candide

Voltaire

A naive young man travels the world while his tutor insists that everything is for the best. He encounters a series of global catastrophes.

Same sardonic register

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The Da Vinci Code

Dan Brown2003

A symbologist and a cryptologist flee the police while solving puzzles hidden in art. They search for a secret regarding the Holy Grail.

sardonic → propulsive

pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2

The Martian

Andy Weir2011

A man does arithmetic to stay alive on Mars. Problem, attempt, result, repeat.

sardonic → wry

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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.

sardonic → playful

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Umbrella

Will Self2013

A psychiatrist in 1971 treats a woman who has been catatonic for decades. The prose shifts between eras and consciousnesses without paragraph breaks.

sardonic → clinical

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Translated Accounts

James Kelman2001

Anonymous witnesses describe life under a military regime. The prose uses broken, bureaucratic syntax to mimic a literal translation.

sardonic → bleak

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The Known World

Edward P. Jones2003

A black man who was once a slave becomes a slave owner in antebellum Virginia. The story follows the fallout on the plantation after his death.

sardonic → meditative, still historical fiction

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A Long Long Way

Sebastian Barry2005

A young Irishman joins the British Army to fight in the trenches of World War I while his home country moves toward rebellion.

sardonic → elegiac, still historical fiction

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Brotherless Night

V. V. Ganeshananthan2023

A young woman in Sri Lanka tries to study medicine while her brothers join militant groups during the civil war. It covers a decade of conflict.

sardonic → elegiac, still historical fiction

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