After
Upright Women Wanted
Sarah Gailey2020
- pace
- prose
- structure
- bleakness
6 of 6 directions open
More like it
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Five-Twelfths of Heaven
Melissa Scott1985
A pilot uses music-based mathematics to navigate a starship through purgatory. She gathers a crew to escape a repressive solar empire.
Same earnest register, still found family
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The Postman
David Brin1985
A drifter in a collapsed America finds a mail carrier's uniform and starts delivering old letters. The lie inspires a new social order.
Same earnest register, still dystopian
pace0·prose0·bleak0
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Makers
Cory Doctorow2009
Two inventors create low-cost 3D printing and open-source business models. The book follows the economic and social shifts across America.
Same earnest register, still found family
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Oath of Fealty
Larry Niven1981
Residents of a high-tech, self-contained arcology in Los Angeles defend their surveillance-heavy utopia against outside activists.
Same earnest register, still dystopian
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1 more ↓ ↑
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The Measure
Nikki Erlick2022
Every person on Earth receives a box containing a string that reveals their lifespan. The story follows an ensemble dealing with the fallout.
Same earnest register, still dystopian
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Denser prose
- pace-2prose+2bleak+1
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-2·prose+2·bleak+1
- pace-1prose+2bleak+1
Infinite Jest
David Foster Wallace1996
A sprawling narrative centered on a tennis academy, a halfway house, and a lethal film. The text includes hundreds of pages of detailed endnotes.
earnest → sardonic, still dystopian
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1
3 more ↓ ↑
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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.
earnest → elegiac
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1
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Naked Lunch: The Restored Text
William S. Burroughs
A series of nonlinear vignettes follow a drug addict's hallucinations and travels. The prose is fragmented and satirical.
earnest → sardonic, still dystopian
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2
- pace-1prose+2bleak+1
VAS
Steve Tomasula2002
A man considers a vasectomy while the book uses diagrams and varied typography to explore the history of eugenics and biotechnology.
earnest → clinical
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1
To recover
- pace0prose-1bleak-1
Split Infinity
Piers Anthony1980
A man travels between a high-tech world of games and a parallel world of magic. He must master both systems to avoid being assassinated.
earnest → playful
pace0·prose-1·bleak-1
- pace-1prose-1bleak-1
The Four Agreements
Don Miguel Ruiz1997
A guide to personal conduct based on four principles derived from Toltec traditions. It focuses on changing internal dialogue to reduce suffering.
earnest → warm
pace-1·prose-1·bleak-1
3 more ↓ ↑
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Untamed
Glennon Doyle2020
A woman recounts leaving her marriage and rebuilding her life after falling in love with another woman. It is a series of personal manifestos.
Same earnest register
pace0·prose-1·bleak-1
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Searching for Beautiful
Jennifer Probst2015
After fleeing her wedding through a window, a surgeon hides out in a cabin with her long-time male best friend.
earnest → warm
pace0·prose-1·bleak-1
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Going Cowboy Crazy
Katie Lane2011
A woman travels to a small Texas town to find her secret twin sister and is mistaken for her by the local residents and her sister's ex-flame.
earnest → playful, still western
pace0·prose-1·bleak-1
Faster
- pace+1prose-1bleak0
Get Jiro!
Anthony Bourdain2012
In a future Los Angeles, master chefs rule as warlords. A sushi chef who kills rude customers is caught between two warring food factions.
earnest → sardonic, still dystopian
pace+1·prose-1·bleak0
- pace+1prose-1bleak-1
The Martian
Andy Weir2011
A man does arithmetic to stay alive on Mars. Problem, attempt, result, repeat.
earnest → wry
pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1
3 more ↓ ↑
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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+1·prose-1·bleak-1
- pace+1prose-1bleak-1
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, still found family
pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1
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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+1·prose-1·bleak0
Slower
- pace-2prose+2bleak+1
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-2·prose+2·bleak+1
- pace-2prose+2bleak0
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.
earnest → meditative
pace-2·prose+2·bleak0
3 more ↓ ↑
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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-2·prose+2·bleak0
- pace-2prose+2bleak+2
Translated Accounts
James Kelman2001
Anonymous witnesses describe life under a military regime. The prose uses broken, bureaucratic syntax to mimic a literal translation.
earnest → bleak, still dystopian
pace-2·prose+2·bleak+2
- pace-2prose+2bleak-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-2·prose+2·bleak-1
Heavier
- pace-1prose+1bleak+2
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.
earnest → cold, still dystopian
pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2
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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.
earnest → bleak, still dystopian
pace0·prose+1·bleak+2
3 more ↓ ↑
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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.
earnest → sardonic, still dystopian
pace0·prose+2·bleak+2
- pace-1prose0bleak+2
The Testament of Jessie Lamb
Jane Rogers2011
A teenager decides to volunteer for a medical program that will end her life to save humanity from a biological catastrophe.
Same earnest register, still dystopian
pace-1·prose0·bleak+2
- pace-1prose+1bleak+2
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.
earnest → bleak, still dystopian
pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2
