LitQueuelitqueue

After

Who Goes There?

John W. Campbell1948

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

1 more ↓

  • The Deep Sky

    Yume Kitasei2023

    Eighty crew members on a mission to save humanity face a lethal explosion. One survivor must find the saboteur before the ship fails.

    Same tense register, still closed circle

    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.

    tense → dreamlike

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak+1

  • 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.

    tense → sardonic

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

  • 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.

    tense → meditative

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

To recover

tense → playful

3 more ↓

  • Every Boy's Got One

    Meg Cabot2004

    Told through emails and travel logs, two adversarial witnesses travel to Italy for their friends' secret elopement.

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

  • The Love Hypothesis

    Ali Hazelwood2021

    A biology PhD candidate enters a fake relationship with a young professor to satisfy a friend. They navigate academic politics and attraction.

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

  • Playing for Keeps

    Kendall Ryan2019

    A hockey player has a one-night stand with his teammate's sister. He attempts to win her over months later despite the social risk to his team.

    tense → warm

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

Faster

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    tense → wry

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

  • 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.

    tense → propulsive

    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.

    tense → playful

    pace+1·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.

    tense → meditative

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak0

  • 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.

    tense → playful

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak-1

  • 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.

    tense → playful

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak0

Heavier

tense → bleak, still cosmic horror

3 more ↓

  • Beyond the Aquila Rift

    Alastair Reynolds2001

    A spaceship crew wakes from cold sleep to find they have overshot their destination by light-years. They must face the reality of their location.

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+2

  • Negative Space

    B.R. Yeager2020

    Four teenagers in a decaying New Hampshire town use a drug made from local parasites. They navigate hallucinations and a string of suicides.

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+2

  • Under the skin

    Michel Faber2000

    A woman picks up hitchhikers in the Scottish Highlands for a corporate harvesting operation. The prose is clinical and detached.

    tense → clinical, still sci-fi horror

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2