LitQueuelitqueue

After

True believer

Nicholas Sparks2005

5 of 6 directions open — nothing to recover from

More like it

1 more ↓

  • Catch Of The Day

    Kristan Higgins2007

    A diner owner in a small Maine town looks for love with the help of a local priest. She eventually pursues a relationship with a lobsterman.

    earnest → warm, still contemporary romance

    pace0·prose-1·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.

    earnest → dreamlike

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2

  • 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.

    earnest → sardonic

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+2

  • Radiance

    Catherynne M. Valente2015

    A documentary filmmaker disappears on Venus in an alternate 1980s solar system. The story is told through scripts, interviews, and letters.

    earnest → dreamlike

    pace0·prose+2·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.

    earnest → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-1·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.

    earnest → wry

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak0

  • 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.

    earnest → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak+1

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.

    earnest → meditative

    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.

    earnest → playful

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

  • Ulysses

    James Joyce1914

    Three characters wander through Dublin on a single day in 1904. Each chapter uses a different literary style to mimic thoughts and sensations.

    earnest → playful

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    earnest → bleak

    pace0·prose0·bleak+3

  • Perdido Street Station

    China Miéville2000

    A scientist in a sprawling, industrial city agrees to help a winged refugee fly again. His research accidentally unleashes a psychic predator.

    earnest → bleak

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+3

  • The Sparrow

    Mary Doria Russell1996

    A Jesuit priest joins a mission to a newly discovered planet. The story is told in flashbacks after he returns as the sole, traumatized survivor.

    earnest → elegiac

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+3