I Will Fear No Evil

One Word Kill

Mark Lawrence2019

A teenage boy with cancer is visited by a man from the future while playing Dungeons & Dragons. He must save a friend from a coming threat.

pace+1·prose0·bleak0

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.

earnest → dreamlike

pace-1·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.

earnest → sardonic, still science fiction

pace0·prose+2·bleak+1

In Green's Jungles

Gene Wolfe2000

A narrator travels to different worlds while his physical form and memories shift. He recounts past voyages to prove his identity to his companions.

earnest → elegiac

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Fugitive Telemetry

Martha Wells2021

A security android discovers a dead body on a space station and must work with human authorities to solve the murder without being blamed.

earnest → sardonic, still science fiction

pace+1·prose0·bleak-1

The Stainless Steel Rat

Harry Harrison1961

A futuristic con man is caught by the Special Corps and forced to use his criminal skills to catch other lawbreakers.

earnest → playful, still science fiction

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Vampires Are Forever

Lynsay Sands2008

A woman suspects her business partner is a vampire after he attempts to bite her. He tries to convince her they are fated mates.

earnest → playful

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Logan's run

William F. Nolan1967

In a future where everyone is executed at age 21, an enforcer becomes a fugitive. He attempts to reach a rumored sanctuary.

earnest → tense, still science fiction

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Influx

Daniel Suarez2014

A physicist invents a gravity-reflecting device and is imprisoned by a secret agency that suppresses technology. He plots a high-tech escape.

earnest → propulsive, still science fiction

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Star Wars Episode VII - The Force Awakens

Alan Dean Foster2001

A scavenger and a defecting soldier join the fight against a new galactic power. They search for a missing hero from the previous generation.

earnest → propulsive, still science fiction

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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.

earnest → meditative

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Looking Backward, 2000-1887

Edward Bellamy1888

A man falls into a hypnotic sleep in 1887 and wakes up in the year 2000 to find the United States transformed into a socialist utopia.

Same earnest register, still science fiction

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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.

earnest → playful

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Hellspark

Janet Kagan1988

A linguist travels to a new planet to investigate a murder. She must determine if the local species is sentient while navigating a conspiracy.

earnest → tense, still science fiction

pace+2·prose+1·bleak+2

The Running Man

Richard Bachman

A man enters a deadly reality show to fund medical care for his daughter. He must survive thirty days while the entire world hunts him for money.

earnest → propulsive, still science fiction

pace+2·prose0·bleak+2

Strangers

Gardner Dozois1978

An artist living among the alien Cian on a distant planet falls in love with a local woman and attempts to navigate their incompatible biology.

earnest → elegiac, still science fiction

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