The Long Tomorrow

Songs from the Stars

Norman Spinrad1980

In a post-nuclear world, a tribe of artists and surfers encounters a high-tech culture from space. It explores the clash of their philosophies.

pace0·prose0·bleak0

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.

earnest → meditative

pace0·prose+2·bleak+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.

earnest → meditative

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Radiance

Catherynne M. Valente2015

A documentary filmmaker disappears on Venus in an alternate 1980s solar system. The story is told through scripts, interviews, and letters.

earnest → dreamlike

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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.

earnest → playful

pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

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.

earnest → propulsive

pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1

Fifty Shades of Grey

E.L. James2000

A college student enters a sexual contract with a wealthy businessman. The story focuses on their power dynamics and BDSM encounters.

Same earnest register

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Damnation Alley

Roger Zelazny1969

A convicted criminal drives an armored vehicle across a post-nuclear American wasteland to deliver a plague vaccine to Boston.

earnest → sardonic, still post-apocalyptic

pace+2·prose0·bleak0

Equations of Life

Simon Morden2011

A Russian physics student in a post-apocalyptic London gets caught between warring factions. It is a fast-paced cyberpunk thriller.

earnest → propulsive, still post-apocalyptic

pace+2·prose0·bleak+1

Plague War

Jeff Carlson1967

A researcher flees the American government to distribute a vaccine for a nanotech plague that has killed most of the population.

earnest → propulsive, still post-apocalyptic

pace+2·prose0·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.

earnest → meditative

pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

After London

Richard Jefferies1885

Nature reclaims England after an unspecified catastrophe destroys civilization. A young man explores the toxic swamps that were once London.

earnest → elegiac, still post-apocalyptic

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.

earnest → playful

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The Walking Dead: Compendium One

Robert Kirkman2009

A sheriff wakes from a coma into a zombie apocalypse. He leads a group of survivors through various temporary shelters over several years.

earnest → bleak, still post-apocalyptic

pace+1·prose-1·bleak+2

One Second After

William R. Forstchen2009

An EMP strike destroys the American power grid. A history professor attempts to manage the starvation and societal collapse of his small town.

earnest → bleak, still post-apocalyptic

pace+1·prose0·bleak+2

The Death of Grass

John Christopher1956

A virus kills the world's grass and grain, causing total societal collapse. A family attempts to flee London for a farm in the north.

earnest → bleak, still post-apocalyptic

pace+1·prose0·bleak+2