Eternity Road

Visitors

Orson Scott Card2014

Time-travelers split up to prevent Earth from destroying their colony planet. One travels across his world while his double heads for Earth.

Same meditative register, still science fiction

pace0·prose0·bleak0

The crystal world

Richard Aldington1937

A collection of prose poems and lyrics documenting the end of a love affair. The narrator uses crystalline imagery to track emotional decay.

meditative → elegiac, still post-apocalyptic

pace0·prose+2·bleak+1

Nova Express

William S. Burroughs1964

An experimental narrative uses the cut-up technique to depict a war between intergalactic criminals and the police. It is a collage of imagery.

meditative → sardonic, still science fiction

pace0·prose+2·bleak+1

Riddley Walker

Russell Hoban1980

A twelve-year-old boy travels across a primitive, post-nuclear England. The story is written entirely in a broken, phonetic future dialect.

Same meditative register, still post-apocalyptic

pace0·prose+2·bleak+1

The Lost Symbol

Dan Brown2009

Symbologist Robert Langdon follows a trail of Masonic puzzles through Washington D.C. monuments to save his kidnapped mentor.

meditative → propulsive

pace+2·prose-1·bleak-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.

meditative → playful

pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

The Martian

Andy Weir2011

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

meditative → wry

pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1

Akira, Vol. 1

Katsuhiro Ōtomo1984

In a rebuilt post-WWIII Tokyo, two teenage bikers get caught in a government conspiracy after one develops psychic powers.

meditative → propulsive, still post-apocalyptic

pace+2·prose-1·bleak+1

The Lake House

James Patterson

A veterinarian and an FBI agent protect six genetically engineered children who can fly. They are pursued by a global conspiracy.

meditative → propulsive, still science fiction

pace+2·prose-1·bleak0

The Martian

Andy Weir2011

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

meditative → wry

pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1

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.

Same meditative register

pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

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.

meditative → playful

pace-1·prose+2·bleak-1

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.

meditative → playful

pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

Hard to be a god

Аркадий Стругацкий2014

An observer from a technologically advanced Earth lives undercover on a planet stuck in a medieval state. He must watch atrocities without helping.

meditative → bleak, still science fiction

pace0·prose+1·bleak+2

Zone One

Colson Whitehead2011

A sweeper squad clears Manhattan of lingering zombies and catatonic 'stragglers.' The focus is on the protagonist's memories and the city's decay.

pace0·prose+2·bleak+2

On the Beach

Nevil Shute1957

Survivors in Australia wait for a lethal radiation cloud to arrive after a nuclear war. They spend their final months in quiet, domestic routines.

pace0·prose0·bleak+2