After

Lexicon

Max Barry2013

pace
prose
structure
bleakness

5 of 6 directions open — nothing faster

More like it

Same propulsive register, still techno-thriller

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Timeline
Michael Crichton1999
Historians travel to 1357 France using quantum technology to rescue their professor. They must survive the Hundred Years' War to return home.
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Nexus
Ramez Naam2012
A scientist develops a nanotech drug that links minds and is hunted by government agencies. It is a high-speed global conspiracy thriller.
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Freedom™
Daniel Suarez2010
An autonomous computer program reorganizes global society into a decentralized network. A group of rebels fights to maintain human agency.
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Map of bones
James Rollins2004
Sigma Force agents track stolen magi relics through a series of puzzles and global locations. It combines Vatican history with high-tech weaponry.
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1 more ↓

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Upgrade
Blake Crouch2022
A government agent is infected with a virus that begins rewriting his DNA to increase his intelligence and physical capabilities.
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Denser prose

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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.
propulsive → dreamlike
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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.
propulsive → sardonic, still secret society
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3 more ↓

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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.
propulsive → meditative
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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.
propulsive → sardonic
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VAS
Steve Tomasula2002
A man considers a vasectomy while the book uses diagrams and varied typography to explore the history of eugenics and biotechnology.
propulsive → clinical
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To recover

propulsive → playful, still urban fantasy

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How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire
Kerrelyn Sparks2005
A vampire who broke a fang kidnaps a dentist who is afraid of blood. She is hiding from the mafia while he needs his smile repaired.
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Undead and Unwed
MaryJanice Davidson2004
After dying in a car crash, a fashion-obsessed woman wakes up as a vampire. She resists the local undead community's claim that she is their queen.
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3 more ↓

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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.
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Digital Fortress
Dan Brown1998
The NSA's code-breaking supercomputer encounters an unbreakable algorithm. A cryptographer and a professor race to find the kill code.
Same propulsive register, still techno-thriller
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Bitten & Smitten
Michelle Rowen2006
Sarah is accidentally turned into a vampire and must rely on a grumpy, centuries-old vampire to teach her how to survive.
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Slower

pace-3prose+2bleak+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.
propulsive → dreamlike
pace-3·prose+2·bleak+1
pace-3prose+2bleak0
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.
propulsive → meditative
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3 more ↓

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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.
propulsive → meditative
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Dandelion Wine
Ray Bradbury1946
A twelve-year-old boy experiences a series of vignettes over one summer in 1928 Illinois. The chapters focus on small-town life and aging.
propulsive → elegiac
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For Us, the Living
Robert A. Heinlein2003
A 1930s pilot wakes up in the year 2086. The book consists of long dialogues explaining the social, economic, and sexual norms of the future.
propulsive → earnest
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Heavier

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Down to a Sunless Sea
David Graham1979
A commercial pilot flies a plane full of passengers while nuclear war destroys the world below. They search for a place to land and survive.
propulsive → tense, still techno-thriller
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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.
propulsive → bleak, still urban fantasy
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3 more ↓

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The White Plague
Frank Herbert1982
A molecular biologist creates a gender-targeted plague to kill every woman on Earth after his family dies in a bombing.
propulsive → bleak, still techno-thriller
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Fail-safe
Eugene Burdick1962
A mechanical failure sends American bombers to nuke Moscow, forcing the President to negotiate a desperate solution to avoid total war.
propulsive → tense, still techno-thriller
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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.
propulsive → cold
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