LitQueuelitqueue

After

Mapping the Interior

Stephen Graham Jones2017

5 of 6 directions open — nothing heavier

More like it

1 more ↓

  • The Haunted

    Bentley Little2012

    A family moves into a historic home where they are targeted by increasingly aggressive and bizarre supernatural occurrences.

    elegiac → tense, still horror

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • Ambergris

    Jeff VanderMeer2020

    This collection follows the history of a city built atop a subterranean race. It uses fake histories, journals, and detective noir.

    elegiac → dreamlike

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak-1

  • Android Karenina

    Лев Толстой2010

    The text of Tolstoy's classic is modified to include robots, cyborgs, and space travel in a 19th-century Russian setting.

    Same elegiac register, still horror

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

  • Gormenghast

    Mervyn Peake1950

    A young heir and a social climber navigate the rigid rituals of a decaying, labyrinthine castle. The prose is dense and descriptive.

    elegiac → dark

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

To recover

3 more ↓

  • To Sir Phillip, With Love

    Julia Quinn2003

    Eloise Bridgerton travels to meet a widowed baronet she has only known through letters. They consider a marriage of convenience.

    elegiac → warm

    pace0·prose-2·bleak-3

  • Everything Beautiful in Its Time

    Jenna Bush Hager2020

    The author reflects on the lives and deaths of her grandparents, including a former President and First Lady. It is a series of personal essays.

    elegiac → warm

    pace-1·prose-2·bleak-3

  • Love Comes Softly

    Janette Oke1979

    A widow on the 19th-century frontier enters a marriage of convenience with a widower to survive the winter and care for his daughter.

    elegiac → tender

    pace-1·prose-2·bleak-3

Faster

3 more ↓

  • Grunge

    Larry Correia2016

    A Marine killed in a bombing is resurrected to hunt supernatural creatures. He joins a private company that kills monsters for government bounties.

    elegiac → sardonic, still horror

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-3

  • Intercepts

    T.J. Payne2020

    A worker at a government facility monitors human test subjects driven insane by sensory deprivation. The experiment enters his private life.

    elegiac → tense, still horror

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak0

  • Infected

    Bobby Adair

    A slow-acting virus turns the population into aggressive predators. The story follows a survivor navigating the initial societal collapse.

    elegiac → propulsive, still horror

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

Slower

3 more ↓

  • 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-2·prose+1·bleak-3

  • 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.

    elegiac → playful

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak-2

  • Black House

    Peter Straub2001

    A retired detective investigates a series of child murders in a Wisconsin town that shares a border with another world.

    elegiac → tense, still horror

    pace-1·prose0·bleak-1