Star-begotten

Riders of the storm

Julie E. Czerneda2008

Exiled from their people, Aryl and her clan attempt to rebuild a village while discovering the history of their world's three races.

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.

meditative → sardonic, still science fiction

pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

VAS

Steve Tomasula2002

A man considers a vasectomy while the book uses diagrams and varied typography to explore the history of eugenics and biotechnology.

meditative → clinical

pace0·prose+1·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.

meditative → dreamlike

pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

The Last Question

Isaac Asimov2007

A short story told in seven vignettes spanning billions of years. Humanity asks a supercomputer if the heat death of the universe can be avoided.

Same meditative register, still science fiction

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

Dream Park

Steven Barnes1981

A security chief investigates a real death during a high-stakes holographic role-playing game. The story tracks the game mechanics and the murder.

meditative → propulsive, still science fiction

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

Fugitive Telemetry

Martha Wells2021

A security android discovers a dead body on a space station and must work with human authorities to solve the murder without being blamed.

meditative → sardonic, still science fiction

pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

Logan's run

William F. Nolan1967

In a future where everyone is executed at age 21, an enforcer becomes a fugitive. He attempts to reach a rumored sanctuary.

meditative → tense, still science fiction

pace+2·prose-1·bleak+1

Influx

Daniel Suarez2014

A physicist invents a gravity-reflecting device and is imprisoned by a secret agency that suppresses technology. He plots a high-tech escape.

meditative → propulsive, still science fiction

pace+2·prose-1·bleak0

Star Wars Episode VII - The Force Awakens

Alan Dean Foster2001

A scavenger and a defecting soldier join the fight against a new galactic power. They search for a missing hero from the previous generation.

meditative → propulsive, still science fiction

pace+2·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.

Same meditative register

pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

Looking Backward, 2000-1887

Edward Bellamy1888

A man falls into a hypnotic sleep in 1887 and wakes up in the year 2000 to find the United States transformed into a socialist utopia.

meditative → earnest, still science fiction

pace-1·prose-1·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.

meditative → playful

pace-1·prose+1·bleak-1

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.

meditative → tense, still science fiction

pace+2·prose0·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.

meditative → propulsive, still science fiction

pace+2·prose-1·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.

meditative → elegiac, still science fiction

pace0·prose0·bleak+2