LitQueuelitqueue

After

The Number of the Beast

Robert A. Heinlein1980

5 of 6 directions open — nothing to recover from

More like it

1 more ↓

  • Twelve Fair Kingdoms

    Suzette Haden Elgin1981

    Responsible Brightwater travels through a world governed by magic and social ritual to stop a conspiracy. It is the first of the Ozark trilogy.

    Same playful register

    pace0·prose0·bleak0

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • Too Like the Lightning

    Ada Palmer2016

    In a 25th-century utopia, a convict narrates the discovery of a boy who can perform miracles. The prose uses 18th-century styles and gender terms.

    playful → sardonic

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+2

  • 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.

    playful → meditative

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+2

  • 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.

    playful → meditative

    pace0·prose+2·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.

    playful → wry

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak0

  • 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.

    playful → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-1·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.

    Same playful register

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak0

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.

    playful → meditative

    pace-1·prose+2·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.

    playful → meditative

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

  • Looking Backward

    Edward Bellamy2007

    A 19th-century man falls into a deep sleep and wakes up in the year 2000. He discovers a socialist utopia where all industry is nationalized.

    playful → earnest, still sci-fi

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

Heavier

playful → bleak, still sci-fi

3 more ↓

  • Coelestis

    Paul Park1993

    A human diplomat and a surgically altered native woman navigate a colonized planet. The story focuses on identity and forced biological change.

    playful → dreamlike, still sci-fi

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+3

  • The Handmaid's Tale

    Margaret Atwood1985

    In a totalitarian state with a plummeting birth rate, a woman is enslaved as a reproductive vessel. She records her daily life and memories.

    playful → cold

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+3

  • 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.

    playful → bleak

    pace0·prose0·bleak+3