LitQueuelitqueue

After

The world inside

Robert Silverberg1971

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

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  • The Circle

    Dave Eggers2013

    A young woman gets a job at a dominant social media corporation that demands total transparency. She gradually gives up her privacy to the firm.

    Same clinical register, still dystopian

    pace0·prose0·bleak0

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    clinical → dreamlike

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

  • 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

    pace0·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

    pace0·prose+2·bleak0

To recover

clinical → playful

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    clinical → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-2

  • Fifty Shades of Grey

    E.L. James2000

    A college student enters a sexual contract with a wealthy businessman. The story focuses on their power dynamics and BDSM encounters.

    clinical → earnest

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-2

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    clinical → wry

    pace+2·prose-1·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+2·prose-1·bleak-2

  • 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.

    clinical → propulsive, still dystopian

    pace+2·prose0·bleak0

  • 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+2·prose-1·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.

    clinical → meditative

    pace-1·prose+2·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.

    clinical → bleak, still dystopian

    pace-1·prose+2·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.

    clinical → playful

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak-2

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • Watchmen

    Alan Moore1986

    Retired masked vigilantes investigate the murder of a former teammate. The story takes place in an alternate 1985 on the brink of nuclear war.

    clinical → bleak, still dystopian

    pace+1·prose+1·bleak+1

  • A Clockwork Orange

    Anthony Burgess1962

    A teenage gang leader is imprisoned and subjected to state-mandated psychological conditioning. The story is told in a slang called Nadsat.

    clinical → sardonic, still dystopian

    pace+1·prose+2·bleak+1

  • A Scanner Darkly

    Philip K. Dick1977

    An undercover narcotics agent in a near-future California becomes addicted to the drug he is investigating and begins to spy on himself.

    clinical → bleak, still dystopian

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+1