LitQueuelitqueue

After

Suicide club

Rachel Heng2018

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

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  • When She Woke

    Hillary Jordan2011

    In a theocratic future, a woman's skin is surgically dyed red to mark her as an adventuress after she has an abortion.

    meditative → tense, still dystopian

    pace+1·prose0·bleak0

Denser prose

meditative → sardonic, still dystopian

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.

    Same meditative register

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak-1

  • Star Maker

    Olaf Stapledon1937

    A narrator travels through space and time to observe the birth and death of civilizations across the universe.

    meditative → elegiac, still speculative fiction

    pace+1·prose+2·bleak0

  • 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+2·bleak0

To recover

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.

    Same meditative register

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-2

  • Redshirts

    John Scalzi2012

    Low-ranking crew members on a starship realize they are disposable characters in a sci-fi television show. They attempt to escape their fate.

    meditative → playful

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-2

  • 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.

    meditative → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-2

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.

    meditative → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-2

  • Red Rising

    Pierce Brown2014

    A laborer on Mars discovers his caste is being lied to and undergoes surgery to infiltrate the ruling elite. He joins a brutal war games academy.

    meditative → propulsive, still dystopian

    pace+2·prose0·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.

    meditative → wry

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-2

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.

    Same meditative register

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak-1

  • Translated Accounts

    James Kelman2001

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

    meditative → bleak, still dystopian

    pace-1·prose+2·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+2·bleak-2

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    meditative → earnest, still dystopian

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1

  • Watchmen

    Alan Moore1986

    Retired masked vigilantes investigate the murder of a former teammate. The story takes place in an alternate 1985 on the brink of nuclear war.

    meditative → bleak, still dystopian

    pace+1·prose+1·bleak+1

  • 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.

    meditative → sardonic, still dystopian

    pace+1·prose+2·bleak+1