Snapshot

Quarter Share

Nathan Lowell2010

An eighteen-year-old joins a commercial space freighter to avoid deportation. He learns the trade and the social hierarchy of the ship.

pace0·prose0·bleak0

Nova Express

William S. Burroughs1964

An experimental narrative uses the cut-up technique to depict a war between intergalactic criminals and the police. It is a collage of imagery.

tense → sardonic, still science fiction

pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

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.

tense → dreamlike

pace-2·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.

tense → meditative

pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

Ghost Ship

Clive Cussler2014

Kurt Austin survives a yacht sinking but suffers from conflicting memories. He investigates a global cybercrime conspiracy to find the truth.

tense → propulsive

pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

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.

tense → playful

pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

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.

tense → playful, still science fiction

pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

The Martian

Andy Weir2011

A man does arithmetic to stay alive on Mars. Problem, attempt, result, repeat.

tense → wry

pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

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.

tense → propulsive

pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

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.

tense → wry

pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

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.

tense → meditative

pace-2·prose+2·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.

tense → playful

pace-2·prose+2·bleak-1

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+2·bleak0

Hellspark

Janet Kagan1988

A linguist travels to a new planet to investigate a murder. She must determine if the local species is sentient while navigating a conspiracy.

Same tense register, still science fiction

pace+1·prose+1·bleak+2

The Running Man

Richard Bachman

A man enters a deadly reality show to fund medical care for his daughter. He must survive thirty days while the entire world hunts him for money.

tense → propulsive, still science fiction

pace+1·prose0·bleak+2

Strangers

Gardner Dozois1978

An artist living among the alien Cian on a distant planet falls in love with a local woman and attempts to navigate their incompatible biology.

tense → elegiac, still science fiction

pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2