Nymphomation

Vurt

Jeff Noon1993

A man searches for his sister in a hallucinogenic Manchester by using illegal feathers to enter shared dreams. The prose is rhythmic and surreal.

Same dreamlike register, still cyberpunk

pace0·prose0·bleak0

Annihilation

Jeff VanderMeer2014

Four women explore a coastal zone where nature has mutated into strange forms. The biologist narrator records her growing detachment.

Same dreamlike register, still weird fiction

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The Troika

Stepan Chapman1997

An old woman, a jeep, and a dinosaur cross a desert under three suns. Their identities and memories shift as they try to reach a distant city.

Same dreamlike register, still cyberpunk

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Necroville

Ian McDonald1994

In a future where the dead are resurrected via nanotechnology to serve as a legal underclass, five people navigate a night of celebration.

Same dreamlike register, still cyberpunk

pace0·prose0·bleak0

City of Saints and Madmen

Jeff Vandermeer2001

A collection of stories, histories, and pamphlets about the city of Ambergris. It uses found documents to build a surreal urban history.

pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

Empty Space

M. John Harrison2012

Three interlocking timelines follow a widow in London, a detective in a neon city, and a pilot in deep space. The prose is dense and surreal.

pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

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.

dreamlike → propulsive, still cyberpunk

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

The Lost Symbol

Dan Brown2009

Symbologist Robert Langdon follows a trail of Masonic puzzles through Washington D.C. monuments to save his kidnapped mentor.

dreamlike → propulsive, still secret society

pace+1·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.

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

Akira, Vol. 1

Katsuhiro Ōtomo1984

In a rebuilt post-WWIII Tokyo, two teenage bikers get caught in a government conspiracy after one develops psychic powers.

pace+1·prose-2·bleak0

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.

Same dreamlike register

pace-2·prose+1·bleak0

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.

dreamlike → meditative

pace-2·prose+1·bleak-1

Dr. Adder

K. W. Jeter1984

In a broken future Los Angeles, a surgeon performs extreme genital modifications for a subculture of outcasts.

dreamlike → cynical, still cyberpunk

pace0·prose-1·bleak+1

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.

dreamlike → bleak, still weird fiction

pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1