Triton

At the Mountains of Madness

Howard Phillips Lovecraft2015

A 1930s Antarctic expedition discovers a prehistoric city in the mountains. The story is told through a detailed, clinical scientific report.

Same clinical register

pace0·prose0·bleak0

In Green's Jungles

Gene Wolfe2000

A narrator travels to different worlds while his physical form and memories shift. He recounts past voyages to prove his identity to his companions.

clinical → elegiac, still unreliable narrator

pace0·prose+1·bleak0

VAS

Steve Tomasula2002

A man considers a vasectomy while the book uses diagrams and varied typography to explore the history of eugenics and biotechnology.

Same clinical register

pace0·prose+1·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, still unreliable narrator

pace0·prose+1·bleak0

Mile High

Liz Tomforde2023

A professional hockey player and a flight attendant clash on the team's private plane during a season-long road trip.

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

Behind the Net

Stephanie Archer2024

A former musician becomes the live-in assistant for a professional hockey goalie she knew in high school.

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

She Went All the Way

Meg Cabot2002

A screenwriter and an actor survive a helicopter crash in the Alaskan wilderness and must hike to safety while being pursued by a killer.

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

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-2·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+2·prose-2·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+2·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.

clinical → earnest, still sci-fi

pace-1·prose0·bleak-2

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-1·prose+1·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-1·prose+1·bleak-1

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.

clinical → dreamlike, still sci-fi

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.

clinical → cold, still unreliable narrator

pace0·prose0·bleak+1

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.

clinical → bleak

pace0·prose-1·bleak+1