LitQueuelitqueue

After

The Embedding

Ian Watson1973

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

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  • Contact

    Carl Sagan1985

    A radio astronomer detects a signal from Vega containing blueprints for a machine. Scientists work to decode the message and build the device.

    clinical → earnest, still hard sci-fi

    pace-1·prose0·bleak-2

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • Rakesfall

    Vajra Chandrasekera2024

    Two souls reincarnate across centuries of Sri Lankan history and a distant future. The narrative shifts through different bodies and realities.

    clinical → dreamlike

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

  • All Those Vanished Engines

    Paul Park2014

    Three linked stories follow the Park family through an alternate history where the American Civil War ended in a two-nation settlement.

    clinical → dreamlike

    pace-1·prose+1·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.

    clinical → dreamlike

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak0

To recover

3 more ↓

  • Stardance

    Jeanne Robinson1979

    A dancer who cannot find work on Earth travels to a zero-gravity space station. She develops a new art form and encounters aliens.

    clinical → earnest, still hard sci-fi

    pace-1·prose-1·bleak-2

  • Stardance

    Spider Robinson1979

    A frustrated dancer goes to a zero-gravity space station to develop a new form of movement. She eventually communicates with visiting aliens.

    clinical → earnest, still hard sci-fi

    pace-1·prose-1·bleak-2

  • Project Hail Mary

    Andy Weir2021

    A man wakes up on a spaceship with amnesia and two dead crewmates. He must use scientific experiments to remember his mission and save the sun.

    clinical → propulsive, still hard sci-fi

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-2

Faster

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    clinical → wry

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

  • 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.

    clinical → propulsive

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

  • 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.

    clinical → playful

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

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.

    clinical → meditative

    pace-2·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.

    clinical → meditative

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak-1

  • 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.

    clinical → elegiac

    pace-2·prose0·bleak-2

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • Echopraxia

    Peter Watts2014

    A biologist is caught on a mission toward the sun alongside a pilot and a group of transhuman monks. It explores consciousness and evolution.

    clinical → bleak, still hard sci-fi

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

  • Beyond the Aquila Rift

    Alastair Reynolds2001

    A spaceship crew wakes from cold sleep to find they have overshot their destination by light-years. They must face the reality of their location.

    clinical → bleak, still hard sci-fi

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1

  • The Killing Star

    Charles R. Pellegrino1995

    Relativistic missiles destroy Earth without warning. The few human survivors in the solar system are hunted by an alien species using logic.

    clinical → bleak, still hard sci-fi

    pace0·prose-1·bleak+1