Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect

Polaris

Jack McDevitt2004

An antiquities dealer investigates the sixty-year-old disappearance of a luxury space yacht's crew and passengers.

pace0·prose0·bleak0

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, still unreliable narrator

pace-1·prose+2·bleak+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.

wry → meditative, still unreliable narrator

pace-1·prose+2·bleak+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.

wry → meditative, still unreliable narrator

pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

Hot mahogany

Stuart Woods2008

A lawyer guards a former spy with amnesia who restores antique furniture. They uncover a conspiracy linked to the man's service in Vietnam.

Same wry register, still mystery

pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

Two for the dough

Janet Evanovich1996

An inexperienced bounty hunter tracks a man who jumped bail for shooting his friend. She competes with a vice cop to find him first.

wry → playful, still mystery

pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

Catering to Nobody

Diane Mott Davidson1990

A Colorado caterer is accused of poisoning a guest at a wake. She investigates the murder to save her business and includes recipes in the text.

wry → warm, still mystery

pace0·prose-1·bleak-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.

Same wry register

pace+1·prose-1·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-1·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-1·bleak-1

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+2·bleak0

Blood on the dining-room floor

Gertrude Stein1948

A repetitive, circular narrative about a death in a country house. It uses experimental prose to obscure the facts of a traditional mystery.

wry → playful, still mystery

pace-2·prose+2·bleak0

Dandelion Wine

Ray Bradbury1946

A twelve-year-old boy experiences a series of vignettes over one summer in 1928 Illinois. The chapters focus on small-town life and aging.

wry → elegiac

pace-2·prose+1·bleak-1

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·prose0·bleak+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.

wry → bleak

pace-1·prose+2·bleak+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.

wry → elegiac

pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2