Theory of Bastards

World Made by Hand

James Howard Kunstler2008

Residents of a small New York town navigate a summer without electricity or global trade. They rely on manual labor and local bartering.

Same meditative register, still speculative fiction

pace0·prose0·bleak0

The Story of General Dann and Mara's daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog

Doris Lessing2005

In a cooling, flooded world, a man travels north with a child-soldier and a dog to find knowledge for his struggling civilization.

Same meditative register, still speculative fiction

pace0·prose0·bleak0

Zero K

Don DeLillo2010

A man visits a secret desert compound where his billionaire father and stepmother prepare to cryogenically freeze their bodies.

Same meditative register, still speculative fiction

pace0·prose0·bleak0

Malevil

Robert Merle1972

Survivors in a medieval French castle rebuild their lives after a nuclear explosion. They focus on agriculture and social organization.

Same meditative register, still post-apocalyptic

pace0·prose0·bleak0

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.

meditative → dreamlike

pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

Star Maker

Olaf Stapledon1937

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

meditative → elegiac, still speculative fiction

pace+1·prose+1·bleak0

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.

pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2

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.

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

Hell Divers

Nicholas Sansbury Smith2016

Skydivers jump from massive airships to a ruined Earth to scavenge parts for humanity's survival. One team is stranded in a hostile zone.

meditative → tense, still post-apocalyptic

pace+2·prose-2·bleak0

Akira, Vol. 1

Katsuhiro Ōtomo1984

In a rebuilt post-WWIII Tokyo, two teenage bikers get caught in a government conspiracy after one develops psychic powers.

meditative → propulsive, still post-apocalyptic

pace+2·prose-2·bleak0

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.

meditative → dreamlike

pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

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.

Same meditative register

pace-1·prose+1·bleak-1

The Birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica

John Batchelor1983

A man born in Sweden travels south as Europe collapses into war. He eventually leads a group of refugees to found a new society in Antarctica.

meditative → bleak, still speculative fiction

pace0·prose0·bleak+1

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.

meditative → cold, still speculative fiction

pace0·prose0·bleak+1