LitQueuelitqueue

After

Europe at Dawn

Dave Hutchinson2018

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

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  • Artificial Things

    Karen Joy Fowler1986

    A debut collection of short stories focusing on social structures and human-alien interactions. The tone is observational and ironic.

    Same wry register, still speculative fiction

    pace-1·prose0·bleak0

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • Star Maker

    Olaf Stapledon1937

    A narrator travels through space and time to observe the birth and death of civilizations across the universe.

    wry → elegiac, still speculative fiction

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

  • VAS

    Steve Tomasula2002

    A man considers a vasectomy while the book uses diagrams and varied typography to explore the history of eugenics and biotechnology.

    wry → clinical

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+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.

    wry → sardonic

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

To recover

wry → playful

3 more ↓

  • Mile High

    Liz Tomforde2023

    A professional hockey player and a flight attendant clash on the team's private plane during a season-long road trip.

    pace0·prose-2·bleak-1

  • Behind the Net

    Stephanie Archer2024

    A former musician becomes the live-in assistant for a professional hockey goalie she knew in high school.

    pace0·prose-2·bleak-1

  • She Went All the Way

    Meg Cabot2002

    A screenwriter and an actor survive a helicopter crash in the Alaskan wilderness and must hike to safety while being pursued by a killer.

    pace0·prose-2·bleak-1

Faster

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    Same wry register

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

  • 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.

    wry → propulsive

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak0

  • 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.

    wry → playful

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

Slower

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    wry → meditative

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak0

  • After London

    Richard Jefferies1885

    Nature reclaims England after an unspecified catastrophe destroys civilization. A young man explores the toxic swamps that were once London.

    wry → elegiac, still speculative fiction

    pace-2·prose0·bleak+1

  • News from nowhere, or, An epoch of rest, being some chapters from a utopian romance

    William Morris1890

    A Victorian man wakes up in the year 2102. He explores a socialist agrarian society where private property and money have been abolished.

    wry → meditative, still speculative fiction

    pace-2·prose0·bleak-1

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • The Birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica

    John Batchelor1983

    A man born in Sweden travels south as Europe collapses into war. He eventually leads a group of refugees to found a new society in Antarctica.

    wry → bleak, still speculative fiction

    pace-1·prose0·bleak+2

  • The Blood of Angels

    Johanna Sinisalo2011

    A father grieving his son discovers a portal to another world while bees disappear globally. It explores ecological collapse and grief.

    wry → elegiac, still speculative fiction

    pace-1·prose0·bleak+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.

    wry → bleak

    pace-1·prose-1·bleak+2