LitQueuelitqueue

After

River of Teeth

Sarah Gailey2017

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

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  • The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack

    Mark Hodder2010

    Explorer Richard Burton and poet Algernon Swinburne investigate a supernatural attacker in a steampunk 1860s London. Time travel alters history.

    Same playful register, still alternate history

    pace0·prose0·bleak0

Denser prose

playful → dreamlike, still alternate history

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    playful → dreamlike

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak+1

  • 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.

    playful → sardonic

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

  • Valis

    Philip K. Dick1981

    A man experiences a beam of pink light that imparts vast information. The narrative explores his mental breakdown and search for God in California.

    playful → meditative

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

To recover

playful → propulsive

3 more ↓

  • Killer Blonde

    Laura Levine2004

    A freelance writer investigates a murder in the Hamptons after a socialite is killed. She balances the case with her work for a demanding boss.

    Same playful register

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

  • Two for the dough

    Janet Evanovich1996

    An inexperienced bounty hunter tracks a man who jumped bail for shooting his friend. She competes with a vice cop to find him first.

    Same playful register

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

  • Death by Darjeeling

    Laura Childs2001

    Theodosia Browning hosts a tea party where a guest is poisoned. She must find the killer among the local socialites of Charleston.

    playful → warm

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

Faster

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    playful → wry

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

  • Skin Game

    Jim Butcher2014

    Wizard Harry Dresden joins a team of villains to rob a vault in the Underworld. It is a fast-paced heist set in a modern fantasy Chicago.

    playful → propulsive

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak0

  • The Kaiju Preservation Society

    John Scalzi2022

    A food delivery driver joins a secret organization that travels to an alternate Earth to care for massive, dinosaur-like creatures.

    Same playful register

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

Slower

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    playful → meditative

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak0

  • Hav

    Jan Morris2006

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

    playful → elegiac, still alternate history

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak0

  • 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.

    Same playful register

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak-1

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • Doomsday Book

    Connie Willis1992

    A student travels to 14th-century England while a virus spreads in the present. She arrives during the Black Death due to a technical error.

    playful → bleak

    pace-1·prose0·bleak+2

  • 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.

    playful → bleak

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2

  • The Sparrow

    Mary Doria Russell1996

    A Jesuit priest joins a mission to a newly discovered planet. The story is told in flashbacks after he returns as the sole, traumatized survivor.

    playful → elegiac

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2