After
Interesting Facts about Space
Emily Austin2024
- pace
- prose
- structure
- bleakness
5 of 6 directions open — nothing to recover from
More like it
- pace0prose0bleak+1
Anybody Out There? CD
Marian Keyes2006
A woman recovers from a car accident in Dublin while sending emails to her husband in New York, who has stopped responding to her.
Same wry register, still unreliable narrator
pace0·prose0·bleak+1
- pace0prose-1bleak0
Starter Villain
John Scalzi2023
A substitute teacher inherits his uncle's secret supervillain business, including a volcano lair and talking cats.
Same wry register, still humor
pace0·prose-1·bleak0
- pace0prose0bleak0
The Door into Summer
Robert A. Heinlein1957
An engineer is tricked into a thirty-year cryogenic sleep by his business partner. He wakes up in 2000 and seeks a way to use time travel for revenge.
Same wry register
pace0·prose0·bleak0
- pace0prose0bleak+1
Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect
Benjamin Stevenson2024
A mystery writer on a train with other authors must solve a murder. The narrator frequently breaks the fourth wall to discuss mystery tropes.
Same wry register, still unreliable narrator
pace0·prose0·bleak+1
1 more ↓ ↑
- pace0prose0bleak0
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Douglas Adams1980
Arthur Dent and his companions escape the destruction of Earth and travel through time to eat at a restaurant that overlooks the end of the universe.
Same wry register
pace0·prose0·bleak0
Denser prose
- pace-1prose+2bleak+2
Rakesfall
Vajra Chandrasekera2024
Two souls reincarnate across centuries of Sri Lankan history and a distant future. The narrative shifts through different bodies and realities.
wry → dreamlike
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2
- pace-2prose+2bleak+2
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.
wry → dreamlike, still unreliable narrator
pace-2·prose+2·bleak+2
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace-1prose+2bleak+2
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+2
- pace-1prose+2bleak+2
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+2
- pace-1prose+2bleak+2
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+2
Faster
- pace+1prose-1bleak+2
- pace+1prose-1bleak0
The Martian
Andy Weir2011
A man does arithmetic to stay alive on Mars. Problem, attempt, result, repeat.
Same wry register
pace+1·prose-1·bleak0
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace+1prose-1bleak0
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.
wry → propulsive
pace+1·prose-1·bleak0
- pace+1prose-1bleak0
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·bleak0
- pace+1prose-1bleak+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·bleak+1
Slower
- pace-2prose+2bleak+2
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.
wry → dreamlike, still unreliable narrator
pace-2·prose+2·bleak+2
- pace-2prose+2bleak+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.
wry → meditative
pace-2·prose+2·bleak+1
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace-2prose+2bleak+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·bleak+1
- pace-2prose+2bleak0
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.
wry → playful
pace-2·prose+2·bleak0
- pace-2prose+2bleak+1
Ulysses
James Joyce1914
Three characters wander through Dublin on a single day in 1904. Each chapter uses a different literary style to mimic thoughts and sensations.
wry → playful
pace-2·prose+2·bleak+1
Heavier
- pace-1prose+1bleak+3
The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood1985
In a totalitarian state with a plummeting birth rate, a woman is enslaved as a reproductive vessel. She records her daily life and memories.
wry → cold, still unreliable narrator
pace-1·prose+1·bleak+3
- pace-1prose0bleak+3
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+3
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace-1prose+2bleak+3
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+3
- pace-1prose+1bleak+3
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+3
- pace0prose+1bleak+3
Watchmen
Alan Moore1986
Retired masked vigilantes investigate the murder of a former teammate. The story takes place in an alternate 1985 on the brink of nuclear war.
wry → bleak
pace0·prose+1·bleak+3
