The Hollows

Blood Like Mine

Stuart Neville2024

A mother and daughter flee across the country to hide a violent secret. An FBI agent tracks a serial killer who drains victims of blood.

pace0·prose0·bleak+1

Android Karenina

Лев Толстой2010

The text of Tolstoy's classic is modified to include robots, cyborgs, and space travel in a 19th-century Russian setting.

tense → elegiac, still horror

pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2

Edgar Allen Poe (Black Cat / Cask of Amontillado / Fall of the House of Usher / Gold Bug / Metzengerstein / Murders in the Rue Morgue / Narrative of Arthur Gordn Pym / Never Bet the Devil Your Head / Pit and the Pendulum / Purloined Letter / Tell-Tale Heart)

Edgar Allan Poe2005

A collection of gothic stories and a novel. Narrators deal with psychological collapse, premature burial, and macabre crimes.

tense → bleak

pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2

Gormenghast

Mervyn Peake1950

A young heir and a social climber navigate the rigid rituals of a decaying, labyrinthine castle. The prose is dense and descriptive.

tense → dark

pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2

Murder Past Due

Miranda James2010

A librarian and his Maine Coon cat investigate the murder of a former classmate in a small Mississippi town.

tense → warm

pace-1·prose-1·bleak-1

Wish you were here

Rita Mae Brown1990

A small-town postmistress investigates a series of murders linked by mysterious postcards. Her cat and dog provide their own perspective.

tense → warm

pace-1·prose-1·bleak-1

The Trouble With Magic

Madelyn Alt2006

A shop clerk in a small town discovers she has heritage in witchcraft while investigating a local murder.

tense → playful

pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

Shattered

Dean Koontz1973

A man and his future stepson drive across America while being stalked by the woman's vengeful ex-husband.

Same tense register, still horror

pace+1·prose-1·bleak0

The Executioner

Chris Carter2010

A Los Angeles detective hunts a serial killer who murders victims using their specific phobias. Each crime scene features a blood-scrawled number.

Same tense register, still thriller

pace+1·prose-1·bleak+1

Grunge

Larry Correia2016

A Marine killed in a bombing is resurrected to hunt supernatural creatures. He joins a private company that kills monsters for government bounties.

tense → sardonic, still horror

pace+1·prose-1·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.

tense → 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.

tense → playful

pace-2·prose+2·bleak0

Absalom, Absalom!

William Faulkner1936

The rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen is recounted through multiple, conflicting memories. The prose uses extremely long, complex sentences.

tense → elegiac

pace-2·prose+2·bleak+2

Mapping the Interior

Stephen Graham Jones2017

A teenager follows a figure resembling his dead father into the hidden spaces of his home. He maps a shifting, dangerous interior.

tense → elegiac, still horror

pace0·prose+1·bleak+2

Flowers in the Attic

V.C. Andrews1979

Four children are hidden in an attic for years by their mother and grandmother to secure an inheritance. They face gradual poisoning and abuse.

tense → elegiac, still horror

pace0·prose0·bleak+2

The Lottery

Shirley Jackson1983

Villagers gather for an annual ritual in a small town. The story follows the procedural steps of a lottery that ends in a public execution.

tense → cold, still horror

pace0·prose0·bleak+2