The Lost Book of Adana Moreau

The dream of perpetual motion

Dexter Clarence Palmer2010

A greeting-card writer imprisoned on a zeppelin records his life story. He recounts his history with a mad inventor and a mechanical city.

pace0·prose0·bleak0

Rakesfall

Vajra Chandrasekera2024

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

elegiac → dreamlike

pace0·prose+1·bleak0

Empty Space

M. John Harrison2012

Three interlocking timelines follow a widow in London, a detective in a neon city, and a pilot in deep space. The prose is dense and surreal.

elegiac → dreamlike

pace0·prose+1·bleak0

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.

elegiac → meditative

pace-1·prose+1·bleak-1

To Sir Phillip, With Love

Julia Quinn2003

Eloise Bridgerton travels to meet a widowed baronet she has only known through letters. They consider a marriage of convenience.

elegiac → warm

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

All Rhodes Lead Here

Mariana Zapata2021

A woman moves back to her Colorado hometown after a breakup and rents a garage apartment from a grumpy single father.

elegiac → warm

pace0·prose-2·bleak-2

Hannah's List

Debbie Macomber2010

A widower receives a letter from his late wife suggesting three women he should date. He begins to interact with each woman over the following year.

elegiac → warm

pace0·prose-2·bleak-2

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.

elegiac → wry

pace+2·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.

elegiac → propulsive

pace+2·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.

elegiac → playful

pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2

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.

elegiac → meditative

pace-1·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.

Same elegiac register

pace-1·prose0·bleak-2

For Us, the Living

Robert A. Heinlein2003

A 1930s pilot wakes up in the year 2086. The book consists of long dialogues explaining the social, economic, and sexual norms of the future.

elegiac → earnest

pace-1·prose-1·bleak-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.

elegiac → bleak

pace0·prose-1·bleak+1

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.

elegiac → bleak

pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

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.

Same elegiac register

pace0·prose0·bleak+1