The Bones Beneath My Skin

Five-Twelfths of Heaven

Melissa Scott1985

A pilot uses music-based mathematics to navigate a starship through purgatory. She gathers a crew to escape a repressive solar empire.

tender → earnest, still found family

pace0·prose0·bleak0

In Green's Jungles

Gene Wolfe2000

A narrator travels to different worlds while his physical form and memories shift. He recounts past voyages to prove his identity to his companions.

tender → elegiac

pace-1·prose+2·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.

tender → clinical

pace-1·prose+2·bleak+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.

tender → sardonic

pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

Lauren's Barbarian

Ruby Dixon2017

A woman is abducted by aliens and abandoned on an ice planet, where she is found by a blue-skinned hunter who believes she is his mate.

tender → playful, still sci-fi romance

pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

Vampires Are Forever

Lynsay Sands2008

A woman suspects her business partner is a vampire after he attempts to bite her. He tries to convince her they are fated mates.

pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

The Mane Event

Shelly Laurenston2007

A female cop reunites with a childhood friend who is now a lion-shifter. They navigate a romantic attraction while he pursues her in New York.

pace0·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.

tender → wry, still found family

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.

tender → propulsive

pace+1·prose-1·bleak0

The Kaiju Preservation Society

John Scalzi2022

A food delivery driver joins a secret organization that travels to an alternate Earth to care for massive, dinosaur-like creatures.

tender → playful, still found family

pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

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.

tender → meditative

pace-2·prose+2·bleak0

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.

tender → playful

pace-2·prose+2·bleak-1

Ulysses

James Joyce1914

Three characters wander through Dublin on a single day in 1904. Each chapter uses a different literary style to mimic thoughts and sensations.

tender → playful

pace-2·prose+2·bleak0

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.

tender → bleak

pace-1·prose+2·bleak+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.

tender → elegiac

pace-1·prose+1·bleak+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.

tender → bleak

pace0·prose+1·bleak+2