LitQueuelitqueue

After

Ella Minnow Pea

Mark Dunn2001

5 of 6 directions open — nothing to recover from

More like it

Same playful register

1 more ↓

  • Valour And Vanity

    Mary Robinette Kowal2014

    Magicians Jane and Vincent travel to Italy to study glassmaking but are robbed by pirates. They must use illusions to pull off a heist in Venice.

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1

Denser prose

playful → dreamlike

3 more ↓

  • The Light and the Dark

    Mikhail Shishkin2013

    Two lovers exchange letters that transcend time and space. One writes from a domestic life while the other writes from the front lines of a war.

    playful → elegiac, still epistolary

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2

  • Ficciones

    Jorge Luis Borges1945

    A collection of short stories exploring philosophical paradoxes, infinite libraries, and imaginary encyclopedias.

    playful → meditative

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

  • At Swim-Two-Birds

    Flann O'Brien1939

    A student writes a story about a man whose own characters rebel and plot against him. It incorporates Irish myth and multiple layers of fiction.

    Same playful register

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

Faster

3 more ↓

  • Mind's Eye

    Douglas E. Richards2014

    A man discovers he has the ability to access the internet and process data directly with his mind. He is hunted by a secret organization.

    playful → propulsive

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak+1

  • The Atlantis Gene

    A.G. Riddle2013

    A geneticist and a counter-terrorism agent uncover a global conspiracy involving human evolution and an ancient Antarctic discovery.

    playful → propulsive

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak+1

  • Monster Hunter International

    Larry Correia2007

    An accountant kills his boss, who has become a werewolf, and is recruited by a private company that hunts monsters for government bounties.

    playful → propulsive

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak+1

Slower

3 more ↓

  • The Habitation of the Blessed

    Catherynne M. Valente2010

    A priest finds the lost kingdom of Prester John. The story is told through three nested layers of journals, myths, and historical accounts.

    playful → dreamlike

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak+1

  • Unfinished Tales

    J.R.R. Tolkien1980

    A collection of incomplete narratives and essays that expand the history, geography, and lore of Middle-earth.

    playful → meditative

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak+1

  • Translated Accounts

    James Kelman2001

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

    playful → bleak, still dystopian

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak+3

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • Doctor Rat

    William Kotzwinkle1976

    A laboratory rat loyal to his human captors defends the practice of vivisection while animals worldwide begin a bloody revolt.

    playful → sardonic, still dystopian

    pace0·prose0·bleak+3

  • The Gradual

    Christopher Priest2016

    A composer travels between islands where time passes at different rates. He observes how these temporal shifts isolate him from his family.

    playful → melancholy, still dystopian

    pace-1·prose0·bleak+3

  • The Memory Police

    Yoko Ogawa1994

    Objects vanish from an island and from the residents' memories. A novelist hides her editor from the police who enforce the disappearances.

    playful → elegiac, still dystopian

    pace-1·prose0·bleak+3