Into Everywhere

Pandora's Star

Peter F. Hamilton2004

In 2380, humanity uses wormholes to settle hundreds of planets. An astronomer spots a star disappearing, prompting a mission to investigate.

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All Those Vanished Engines

Paul Park2014

Three linked stories follow the Park family through an alternate history where the American Civil War ended in a two-nation settlement.

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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.

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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.

meditative → sardonic

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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.

meditative → wry, still mystery

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Walking Disaster

Jamie McGuire2013

This novel retells the events of 'Beautiful Disaster' from the perspective of Travis Maddox. It follows his college years and obsession with Abby.

meditative → propulsive

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This Man

Jodi Ellen Malpas2013

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

meditative → tense

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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.

meditative → wry

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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.

meditative → propulsive

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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.

meditative → playful

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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.

Same meditative register

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White Mars, or, The mind set free

Brian W. Aldiss1999

A group of scientists and thinkers attempts to establish a utopian society on Mars after Earth is cut off by a global catastrophe.

meditative → earnest, still hard sci-fi

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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.

meditative → playful, still mystery

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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.

meditative → bleak, still hard sci-fi

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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.

meditative → bleak, still hard sci-fi

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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.

meditative → bleak, still hard sci-fi

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