Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America

Greybeard

Brian W. Aldiss1964

Global sterility has left Earth with no children. An aging couple travels down the Thames as humanity's youngest members enter their fifties.

pace0·prose0·bleak0

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.

elegiac → dreamlike, still alternate history

pace0·prose+1·bleak0

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.

elegiac → meditative

pace0·prose+1·bleak0

Naked Lunch: The Restored Text

William S. Burroughs

A series of nonlinear vignettes follow a drug addict's hallucinations and travels. The prose is fragmented and satirical.

elegiac → sardonic

pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

Neon Gods

Katee Robert2021

In a modern city-state, Persephone flees an arranged marriage to Zeus by entering the underworld. She strikes a deal with Hades to stay there.

elegiac → tense

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

Starter Villain

John Scalzi2023

A substitute teacher inherits his uncle's secret supervillain business, including a volcano lair and talking cats.

elegiac → wry

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

Playing with Fire

Gena Showalter2006

A barista gains elemental superpowers after being poisoned and must flee from a government agent. They eventually work together to escape.

elegiac → playful

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

The Martian

Andy Weir2011

A man does arithmetic to stay alive on Mars. Problem, attempt, result, repeat.

elegiac → wry

pace+2·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.

elegiac → propulsive

pace+2·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.

elegiac → wry

pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2

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.

elegiac → meditative

pace-1·prose+1·bleak-1

Hav

Jan Morris2006

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

Same elegiac register, still alternate history

pace-1·prose0·bleak-1

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.

elegiac → playful

pace-1·prose+1·bleak-2

The Walking Dead: Compendium One

Robert Kirkman2009

A sheriff wakes from a coma into a zombie apocalypse. He leads a group of survivors through various temporary shelters over several years.

elegiac → bleak, still post-apocalyptic

pace+1·prose-2·bleak+1

One Second After

William R. Forstchen2009

An EMP strike destroys the American power grid. A history professor attempts to manage the starvation and societal collapse of his small town.

elegiac → bleak, still post-apocalyptic

pace+1·prose-1·bleak+1

The Death of Grass

John Christopher1956

A virus kills the world's grass and grain, causing total societal collapse. A family attempts to flee London for a farm in the north.

elegiac → bleak, still post-apocalyptic

pace+1·prose-1·bleak+1