Poe (Assignation / Black Cat / Cask of Amontillado / Fall of the House of Usher / Gold-Bug / Ligeia / Ms Found in a Bottle)

The Only Good Indians

Stephen Graham Jones2020

Four Blackfeet men are pursued by a vengeful entity ten years after an illegal elk hunt. The entity targets them and their families one by one.

Same tense register, still horror

pace0·prose0·bleak0

Ligeia

Edgar Allan Poe2004

A narrator mourns his first wife, Ligeia, then marries another who falls ill. He watches as the second wife's body appears to transform.

tense → dreamlike, still gothic

pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

Ambergris

Jeff VanderMeer2020

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

tense → dreamlike, still unreliable narrator

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.

tense → dark, still gothic

pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

This Man

Jodi Ellen Malpas2013

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

Same tense register

pace0·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

Better Off Dead

Lee Child2021

Jack Reacher investigates a staged car crash in Arizona and infiltrates a dangerous local crew to find a missing woman.

pace0·prose-2·bleak-2

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.

Same tense register, still horror

pace+1·prose-2·bleak+1

Infected

Bobby Adair

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

tense → propulsive, still horror

pace+1·prose-2·bleak0

The Undead Day One

R.R. Haywood

A supermarket manager attempts to survive the first twenty-four hours of a zombie outbreak in England. The story is told in real-time.

tense → propulsive, still horror

pace+1·prose-2·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.

tense → playful

pace-2·prose+1·bleak-2

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.

tense → playful

pace-2·prose+1·bleak-1

Absalom, Absalom!

William Faulkner1936

The rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen is recounted through multiple, conflicting memories. The prose uses extremely long, complex sentences.

tense → elegiac, still unreliable narrator

pace-2·prose+1·bleak+1

The Monk

Matthew Gregory Lewis

A celebrated monk is seduced by a woman in disguise and descends into a cycle of rape, murder, and sorcery. He eventually makes a pact with Satan.

tense → bleak, still gothic

pace0·prose0·bleak+1

The House Next Door

Anne Rivers Siddons1978

A couple watches as a newly built house next door causes a series of tragedies for its occupants. The house preys on the flaws of those inside.

tense → dread, still gothic

pace-1·prose0·bleak+1

The Elementals

Michael McDowell1981

Two families vacation at a coastal estate where one of three houses is slowly being buried by sand and inhabited by a malevolent presence.

tense → dread, still gothic

pace-1·prose0·bleak+1