Golem100

Plague Birds

Jason Sanford2021

A woman with a sentient AI in her blood travels a far-future Earth to hunt down killers in a world ruled by artificial intelligences.

sardonic → tense, still science fantasy

pace0·prose0·bleak-1

Heathern

Jack Womack1990

A corporation in a dystopian New York finds a man who can perform miracles and markets him as a messiah. Two employees witness the consequences.

Same sardonic register, still cyberpunk

pace0·prose0·bleak0

Noir

K. W. Jeter1998

An investigator navigates a corporate-owned city where people trade in simulated experiences and legal technicalities.

Same sardonic register, still cyberpunk

pace0·prose0·bleak0

Rule 34

Charles Stross2011

A detective in near-future Edinburgh tracks a killer who mimics bizarre internet memes. The narrative uses a second-person perspective.

Same sardonic register, still cyberpunk

pace0·prose0·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.

sardonic → meditative, still science fantasy

pace-1·prose+1·bleak-1

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.

sardonic → dreamlike

pace-1·prose+1·bleak-1

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.

sardonic → propulsive, still cyberpunk

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-3

The Lost Symbol

Dan Brown2009

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

sardonic → propulsive

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-3

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-3

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.

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

Dhalgren

Samuel R. Delany1975

An amnesiac wanderer enters Bellona, a city cut off from the world where time and geography shift. He joins a gang and writes poetry.

sardonic → dreamlike

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.

sardonic → meditative

pace-2·prose+1·bleak-2