Finity

Unholy Land

Lavie Tidhar2018

A pulp writer visits an alternate-history Jewish state in East Africa. He becomes a murder suspect while navigating shifting realities.

cold → sardonic, still alternate history

pace0·prose0·bleak0

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.

cold → meditative

pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

City of Saints and Madmen

Jeff Vandermeer2001

A collection of stories, histories, and pamphlets about the city of Ambergris. It uses found documents to build a surreal urban history.

cold → dreamlike

pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

Empty Space

M. John Harrison2012

Three interlocking timelines follow a widow in London, a detective in a neon city, and a pilot in deep space. The prose is dense and surreal.

cold → dreamlike

pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

This Man

Jodi Ellen Malpas2013

An interior designer begins an affair with a wealthy client who demands total control over her life and schedule.

cold → tense

pace0·prose-2·bleak-2

Ready Player One

Ernest Cline2008

A teenager in a dystopian future hunts for a digital easter egg inside a massive simulation. The quest relies on 1980s pop culture trivia.

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

Real Murders

Charlaine Harris1990

A librarian in a small Georgia town belongs to a club that studies famous crimes. A real murder occurs that mimics a historical case.

cold → wry

pace0·prose-2·bleak-2

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.

cold → wry

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

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.

cold → propulsive

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

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.

cold → playful

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

Hav

Jan Morris2006

A travel writer describes the culture and history of a fictional Mediterranean city-state before and after a massive political upheaval.

cold → elegiac, still alternate history

pace-2·prose0·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.

cold → meditative

pace-2·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.

cold → meditative

pace-2·prose+1·bleak-1

Echopraxia

Peter Watts2014

A biologist is caught on a mission toward the sun alongside a pilot and a group of transhuman monks. It explores consciousness and evolution.

cold → bleak, still hard sci-fi

pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

Beyond the Aquila Rift

Alastair Reynolds2001

A spaceship crew wakes from cold sleep to find they have overshot their destination by light-years. They must face the reality of their location.

cold → bleak, still hard sci-fi

pace0·prose0·bleak+1

The Killing Star

Charles R. Pellegrino1995

Relativistic missiles destroy Earth without warning. The few human survivors in the solar system are hunted by an alien species using logic.

cold → bleak, still hard sci-fi

pace0·prose-1·bleak+1