LitQueuelitqueue

After

Soon

Jerry B. Jenkins2003

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

Same earnest register, still dystopian

1 more ↓

  • Paradox

    John Meaney2000

    A young man on a dark, underground planet receives a crystal that allows him to manipulate the physics of space. He joins a rebellion.

    pace0·prose0·bleak0

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • Infinite Jest

    David Foster Wallace1996

    A sprawling narrative centered on a tennis academy, a halfway house, and a lethal film. The text includes hundreds of pages of detailed endnotes.

    earnest → sardonic, still dystopian

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

  • 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.

    earnest → sardonic, still dystopian

    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.

    earnest → dreamlike

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak+1

To recover

Same earnest register

3 more ↓

  • The Da Vinci Code

    Dan Brown2003

    A symbologist and a cryptologist flee the police while solving puzzles hidden in art. They search for a secret regarding the Holy Grail.

    earnest → propulsive, still thriller

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

  • Love Comes Softly

    Janette Oke1979

    A widow on the 19th-century frontier enters a marriage of convenience with a widower to survive the winter and care for his daughter.

    earnest → tender, still christian fiction

    pace-1·prose-1·bleak-1

  • The Chef

    James Patterson2019

    A New Orleans police detective who moonlights as a food truck chef is framed for murder. He must clear his name while uncovering a conspiracy.

    earnest → propulsive, still thriller

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

Faster

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    earnest → 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.

    earnest → 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.

    earnest → propulsive

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak0

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.

    earnest → meditative

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak0

  • Translated Accounts

    James Kelman2001

    Anonymous witnesses describe life under a military regime. The prose uses broken, bureaucratic syntax to mimic a literal translation.

    earnest → bleak, still dystopian

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak+2

  • 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.

    earnest → playful

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak-1

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • A Clockwork Orange

    Anthony Burgess1962

    A teenage gang leader is imprisoned and subjected to state-mandated psychological conditioning. The story is told in a slang called Nadsat.

    earnest → sardonic, still dystopian

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+2

  • The Testament of Jessie Lamb

    Jane Rogers2011

    A teenager decides to volunteer for a medical program that will end her life to save humanity from a biological catastrophe.

    Same earnest register, still dystopian

    pace-1·prose0·bleak+2

  • A Scanner Darkly

    Philip K. Dick1977

    An undercover narcotics agent in a near-future California becomes addicted to the drug he is investigating and begins to spy on himself.

    earnest → bleak, still dystopian

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2