Sleeping Giants

Children of Time

Adrian Tchaikovsky2015

A generation ship of humans flees a dying Earth to claim a terraformed planet now occupied by a civilization of evolved, intelligent spiders.

pace0·prose0·bleak0

Incandescence

Greg Egan2008

Two parallel stories follow a galactic traveler and a primitive society living inside a rock. They use physics to understand their environment.

propulsive → meditative, still hard sci-fi

pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

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

pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2

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-2·prose+2·bleak+1

The Hating Game

Sally Thorne2016

Two executive assistants at a publishing house compete for a single promotion through a series of psychological games and mutual sabotage.

pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

The Score

Elle Kennedy2016

A college senior has a one-night stand with a hockey player to get over a breakup. They continue the arrangement as graduation approaches.

pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

The Spanish Love Deception

Elena Armas2021

A woman convinces a colleague she dislikes to fly to Spain and pose as her boyfriend for a wedding. They have four weeks to prepare the ruse.

pace-1·prose-1·bleak-1

Accelerando

Charles Stross2005

Three generations of a family navigate the rapid evolution of technology toward a singularity. The pace accelerates as humanity is outpaced by AI.

propulsive → wry, still hard sci-fi

pace+1·prose+1·bleak0

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.

propulsive → 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.

Same propulsive register

pace+1·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.

propulsive → meditative

pace-2·prose+2·bleak0

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

pace-2·prose+2·bleak0

Gilead

Marilynne Robinson2004

An elderly preacher in 1950s Iowa writes a letter to his young son about their family history. He reflects on his father and grandfather.

propulsive → meditative, still epistolary

pace-2·prose+1·bleak0

Echopraxia

Peter Watts2014

A biologist is caught on a mission toward the sun alongside a pilot and a group of transhuman monks. It explores consciousness and evolution.

propulsive → bleak, still hard sci-fi

pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2

Beyond the Aquila Rift

Alastair Reynolds2001

A spaceship crew wakes from cold sleep to find they have overshot their destination by light-years. They must face the reality of their location.

propulsive → bleak, still hard sci-fi

pace0·prose+1·bleak+2

The Killing Star

Charles R. Pellegrino1995

Relativistic missiles destroy Earth without warning. The few human survivors in the solar system are hunted by an alien species using logic.

propulsive → bleak, still hard sci-fi

pace0·prose0·bleak+2