LitQueuelitqueue

After

The Postmortal

Drew Magary2011

5 of 6 directions open — nothing heavier

More like it

1 more ↓

  • The Blueprint

    Rae Giana Rashad2024

    In an alternate Texas, a Black woman is forced into a concubine system. She joins a secret resistance to navigate a state built on slavery.

    sardonic → tense, still dystopian

    pace0·prose0·bleak-1

Denser prose

Same sardonic register, still dystopian

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.

    sardonic → meditative

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak-2

  • Star Maker

    Olaf Stapledon1937

    A narrator travels through space and time to observe the birth and death of civilizations across the universe.

    sardonic → elegiac, still speculative fiction

    pace0·prose+2·bleak-1

  • Dhalgren

    Samuel R. Delany1975

    An amnesiac wanderer enters Bellona, a city cut off from the world where time and geography shift. He joins a gang and writes poetry.

    sardonic → dreamlike

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak-1

To recover

3 more ↓

  • The Last Question

    Isaac Asimov2007

    A short story told in seven vignettes spanning billions of years. Humanity asks a supercomputer if the heat death of the universe can be avoided.

    sardonic → meditative

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-3

  • 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.

    sardonic → playful

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-3

  • 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.

    sardonic → propulsive

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-3

Faster

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    sardonic → propulsive

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-3

  • Red Rising

    Pierce Brown2014

    A laborer on Mars discovers his caste is being lied to and undergoes surgery to infiltrate the ruling elite. He joins a brutal war games academy.

    sardonic → propulsive, still dystopian

    pace+1·prose0·bleak-1

  • 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.

    sardonic → wry

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-3

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.

    sardonic → meditative

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak-2

  • Translated Accounts

    James Kelman2001

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

    sardonic → bleak, still dystopian

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak0

  • The Other Valley

    Scott Alexander Howard2024

    A girl lives in a valley flanked by identical valleys that are twenty years in the past and future. She must decide whether to intervene in time.

    sardonic → elegiac, still dystopian

    pace-1·prose0·bleak-1