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After

The Three-Body Problem

Liu Cixin2006

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

Same clinical register, still hard sci-fi

1 more ↓

  • Earthbound

    Joe Haldeman2011

    The third book in a trilogy follows humanity's struggle after mysterious aliens disable all technology on Earth. It focuses on survival and loss.

    clinical → elegiac, still hard sci-fi

    pace-1·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.

    clinical → sardonic

    pace-1·prose+2·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.

    clinical → meditative

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

  • 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.

    clinical → meditative

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

To recover

3 more ↓

  • Project Hail Mary

    Andy Weir2021

    A man wakes up on a spaceship with amnesia and two dead crewmates. He must use scientific experiments to remember his mission and save the sun.

    clinical → propulsive, still hard sci-fi

    pace+1·prose0·bleak-2

  • Time Enough for Love

    Robert A. Heinlein1973

    Lazarus Long, a man over two thousand years old, recounts his various lives and philosophies to his descendants. It is a series of nested stories.

    clinical → meditative, still hard sci-fi

    pace-1·prose0·bleak-2

  • Omnilingual

    H. Beam Piper2007

    Scientists on a Mars expedition attempt to decipher the language of a long-dead civilization using a periodic table as a Rosetta Stone.

    clinical → earnest, still hard sci-fi

    pace-1·prose0·bleak-2

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.

    clinical → propulsive

    pace+1·prose-1·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.

    clinical → wry

    pace+1·prose-1·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.

    clinical → propulsive

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

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.

    clinical → meditative

    pace-2·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.

    clinical → meditative

    pace-2·prose+2·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.

    clinical → elegiac

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak-2

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • Echopraxia

    Peter Watts2014

    A biologist is caught on a mission toward the sun alongside a pilot and a group of transhuman monks. It explores consciousness and evolution.

    clinical → bleak, still hard sci-fi

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

  • Beyond the Aquila Rift

    Alastair Reynolds2001

    A spaceship crew wakes from cold sleep to find they have overshot their destination by light-years. They must face the reality of their location.

    clinical → bleak, still hard sci-fi

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

  • The Killing Star

    Charles R. Pellegrino1995

    Relativistic missiles destroy Earth without warning. The few human survivors in the solar system are hunted by an alien species using logic.

    clinical → bleak, still hard sci-fi

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1