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Sublimia Syndrome

Exurb1a2025

5 of 6 directions open — nothing heavier

More like it

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  • Lies, Inc.

    Philip K. Dick1984

    A businessman flies a spaceship to a colony planet to investigate if the one-way teleportation used by millions is a trap.

    mysterious → dreamlike, still science fiction

    pace0·prose0·bleak-1

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    mysterious → sardonic, still science fiction

    pace-1·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.

    mysterious → dreamlike

    pace-2·prose+1·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.

    mysterious → meditative

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak-1

To recover

mysterious → playful, still science fiction

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    mysterious → meditative, still science fiction

    pace0·prose-2·bleak-3

  • 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.

    mysterious → propulsive, still science fiction

    pace0·prose-2·bleak-3

  • The Butterfly Kid

    Chester Anderson1967

    Hippie protagonists in Greenwich Village discover that a new drug allows them to manifest hallucinations into reality to fight an alien invasion.

    pace0·prose-2·bleak-3

Faster

3 more ↓

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    mysterious → wry

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-3

  • 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.

    mysterious → propulsive

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-3

  • 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.

    mysterious → wry

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-3

Slower

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    mysterious → meditative

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak-2

  • 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.

    mysterious → earnest, still science fiction

    pace-2·prose-1·bleak-3

  • Dandelion Wine

    Ray Bradbury1946

    A twelve-year-old boy experiences a series of vignettes over one summer in 1928 Illinois. The chapters focus on small-town life and aging.

    mysterious → elegiac

    pace-2·prose0·bleak-3