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After

The Mercy Journals

Claudia Casper2016

6 of 6 directions open

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  • Moon of the Turning Leaves

    Waubgeshig Rice2024

    Twelve years after a global blackout, an Anishinaabe community leaves their sanctuary to find a new home. It is a slow-paced survival quest.

    Same meditative register, still dystopian

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

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.

    meditative → dreamlike

    pace0·prose+1·bleak0

  • Naked Lunch: The Restored Text

    William S. Burroughs

    A series of nonlinear vignettes follow a drug addict's hallucinations and travels. The prose is fragmented and satirical.

    meditative → sardonic, still dystopian

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

  • Winterlong

    Elizabeth Hand1990

    In a decaying, post-apocalyptic Washington D.C., a girl with empathic powers is drawn into the plots of a decadent ruling class.

    meditative → dreamlike, still dystopian

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

To recover

3 more ↓

  • Smokin' Seventeen

    Janet Evanovich2011

    A bounty hunter investigates bodies found in her boss's lot while choosing between three suitors. The story follows her daily mishaps in New Jersey.

    meditative → playful

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

    A man does arithmetic to stay alive on Mars. Problem, attempt, result, repeat.

    meditative → wry, still epistolary

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2

  • The Duke and I

    Julia Quinn2000

    A duke and a debutante enter a fake courtship to avoid social pressure. They navigate Regency London's marriage market while hiding their deal.

    meditative → playful

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

Faster

3 more ↓

  • Get Jiro!

    Anthony Bourdain2012

    In a future Los Angeles, master chefs rule as warlords. A sushi chef who kills rude customers is caught between two warring food factions.

    meditative → sardonic, still dystopian

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

    A man does arithmetic to stay alive on Mars. Problem, attempt, result, repeat.

    meditative → wry, still epistolary

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2

  • Ready Player One

    Ernest Cline2008

    A teenager in a dystopian future hunts for a digital easter egg inside a massive simulation. The quest relies on 1980s pop culture trivia.

    meditative → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2

Slower

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    Same meditative register

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak-1

  • Translated Accounts

    James Kelman2001

    Anonymous witnesses describe life under a military regime. The prose uses broken, bureaucratic syntax to mimic a literal translation.

    meditative → bleak, still dystopian

    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.

    meditative → playful

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak-2

Heavier

meditative → bleak, still dystopian

3 more ↓

  • Yol

    Cormac McCarthy

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1

  • Wolves

    Simon Ings2014

    Two friends navigate a near-future Britain collapsing under environmental decay and augmented reality addiction. It is a study of memory.

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1

  • The People of the Ruins

    Edward Shanks1920

    A man wakes up in a future England that has regressed into a primitive, feudal society. He navigates the ruins of a collapsed civilization.

    meditative → elegiac, still dystopian

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1