After
The Beasts of Tarzan (Classic Ace SF, F-203)
Edgar Rice Burroughs1914
- pace
- prose
- structure
- bleakness
5 of 6 directions open — nothing faster
More like it
Same propulsive register, still adventure
- pace0prose0bleak0
Tyrannosaur Canyon
Douglas Preston2005
A veterinarian finds a dying man in the desert and becomes the target of a government agency hunting for a prehistoric secret.
pace0·prose0·bleak0
- pace0prose0bleak0
At the Earth's Core
Edgar Rice Burroughs1914
Two men use a mechanical drill to burrow through the crust and discover a prehistoric world. They are captured by inhuman soldiers and enslaved.
pace0·prose0·bleak0
- pace-1prose0bleak0
Time Patrol (Time Patrol #1-4 + 6 omnibus)
Poul Anderson
Agents of a secret organization travel through history to prevent changes to the timeline that would erase the future.
pace-1·prose0·bleak0
- pace-1prose0bleak0
Ante la bandera (Face au drapeau)
Jules Verne1897
A pirate kidnaps a mad scientist and his attendant to secure a powerful explosive. The attendant attempts to alert the world from a secret island.
pace-1·prose0·bleak0
1 more ↓ ↑
- pace-1prose0bleak0
Conquistador
S. M. Stirling2003
In 1946, a soldier discovers a portal to a parallel North America where Europeans never arrived and begins to colonize it in secret.
pace-1·prose0·bleak0
Denser prose
- pace-2prose+2bleak+1
Sometimes a Great Notion
Ken Kesey1964
A family of independent loggers in Oregon refuses to join a local strike. The perspective shifts rapidly between characters, often mid-paragraph.
propulsive → elegiac
pace-2·prose+2·bleak+1
- pace-3prose+2bleak+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.
propulsive → dreamlike
pace-3·prose+2·bleak+1
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace-2prose+2bleak+1
Too Like the Lightning
Ada Palmer2016
In a 25th-century utopia, a convict narrates the discovery of a boy who can perform miracles. The prose uses 18th-century styles and gender terms.
propulsive → sardonic
pace-2·prose+2·bleak+1
- pace-2prose+2bleak+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.
propulsive → meditative
pace-2·prose+2·bleak+1
- pace-2prose+2bleak+1
Shadow & Claw
Gene Wolfe1983
A torturer travels across a far-future Earth where technology is indistinguishable from magic. He recounts his exile in dense, archaic prose.
propulsive → meditative
pace-2·prose+2·bleak+1
To recover
propulsive → playful
- pace-1prose-1bleak-1
Smokin' Seventeen
Janet Evanovich2011
A bounty hunter investigates bodies found in her boss's lot while choosing between three suitors. The story follows her daily mishaps in New Jersey.
pace-1·prose-1·bleak-1
- pace-1prose-1bleak-1
Body Movers
Stephanie Bond2006
A department store employee joins a body-transport service for a trip to Florida that involves a missing socialite and a loan shark.
pace-1·prose-1·bleak-1
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace0prose-1bleak-1
Odessa Sea
Clive Cussler2016
Dirk Pitt investigates a ghost ship in the Black Sea and discovers a conspiracy involving a lost Romanov secret. It is a high-speed adventure.
Same propulsive register, still adventure
pace0·prose-1·bleak-1
- pace-2prose-1bleak-1
A Veiled Deception
Annette Blair2009
A vintage shop owner investigates a murder during her sister's wedding preparations to clear her family's name.
pace-2·prose-1·bleak-1
- pace-2prose-1bleak-1
Orchard Valley Grooms
Debbie Macomber2010
Three sisters return to their Oregon hometown after their father's heart attack. The first story follows Valerie and her father's surgeon.
propulsive → warm
pace-2·prose-1·bleak-1
Slower
- pace-3prose+2bleak+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.
propulsive → dreamlike
pace-3·prose+2·bleak+1
- pace-3prose+2bleak0
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.
propulsive → meditative
pace-3·prose+2·bleak0
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace-3prose+2bleak0
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.
propulsive → meditative
pace-3·prose+2·bleak0
- pace-3prose+2bleak+1
Moby Dick
Herman Melville1851
A sailor joins a whaling voyage led by a captain seeking revenge on a specific whale. Large sections digress into the mechanics of 1850s whaling.
propulsive → meditative, still adventure
pace-3·prose+2·bleak+1
- pace-3prose+2bleak-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.
propulsive → playful
pace-3·prose+2·bleak-1
Heavier
- pace-2prose+1bleak+2
The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood1985
In a totalitarian state with a plummeting birth rate, a woman is enslaved as a reproductive vessel. She records her daily life and memories.
propulsive → cold
pace-2·prose+1·bleak+2
- pace-2prose0bleak+2
Doomsday Book
Connie Willis1992
A student travels to 14th-century England while a virus spreads in the present. She arrives during the Black Death due to a technical error.
propulsive → bleak
pace-2·prose0·bleak+2
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace-2prose+2bleak+2
Perdido Street Station
China Miéville2000
A scientist in a sprawling, industrial city agrees to help a winged refugee fly again. His research accidentally unleashes a psychic predator.
propulsive → bleak
pace-2·prose+2·bleak+2
- pace-2prose+1bleak+2
The Sparrow
Mary Doria Russell1996
A Jesuit priest joins a mission to a newly discovered planet. The story is told in flashbacks after he returns as the sole, traumatized survivor.
propulsive → elegiac
pace-2·prose+1·bleak+2
- pace-1prose+1bleak+2
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.
propulsive → bleak
pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2
