After
Wolves
Simon Ings2014
- pace
- prose
- structure
- bleakness
5 of 6 directions open — nothing heavier
More like it
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American War
Omar El Akkad2017
A girl grows up in a displaced persons camp during a second American Civil War fought over fossil fuels.
Same bleak register, still dystopian
pace+1·prose0·bleak0
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The People of the Ruins
Edward Shanks1920
A man wakes up in a future England that has regressed into a primitive, feudal society. He navigates the ruins of a collapsed civilization.
bleak → elegiac, still dystopian
pace0·prose0·bleak0
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The Death of Grass
John Christopher1956
A virus kills the world's grass and grain, causing total societal collapse. A family attempts to flee London for a farm in the north.
Same bleak register, still dystopian
pace+1·prose-1·bleak0
1 more ↓ ↑
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The Year of the Flood
Margaret Atwood2009
Two women survive a man-made plague within the confines of a religious cult. The story moves between their past and the empty present.
bleak → sardonic, still dystopian
pace0·prose0·bleak-1
Denser prose
- pace0prose+1bleak-1
Riddley Walker
Russell Hoban1980
A twelve-year-old boy travels across a primitive, post-nuclear England. The story is written entirely in a broken, phonetic future dialect.
bleak → meditative, still dystopian
pace0·prose+1·bleak-1
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Winterlong
Elizabeth Hand1990
In a decaying, post-apocalyptic Washington D.C., a girl with empathic powers is drawn into the plots of a decadent ruling class.
bleak → dreamlike, still dystopian
pace0·prose+1·bleak0
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace0prose+1bleak-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.
bleak → sardonic, still dystopian
pace0·prose+1·bleak-1
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City of Saints and Madmen
Jeff Vandermeer2001
A collection of stories, histories, and pamphlets about the city of Ambergris. It uses found documents to build a surreal urban history.
bleak → dreamlike
pace0·prose+1·bleak-1
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Nova Express
William S. Burroughs1964
An experimental narrative uses the cut-up technique to depict a war between intergalactic criminals and the police. It is a collage of imagery.
bleak → sardonic
pace0·prose+1·bleak-1
To recover
- pace0prose-2bleak-3
This Girl
Colleen Hoover2013
A husband retells the story of his early relationship to his wife. It uses dual timelines to revisit events from the first book in the series.
bleak → earnest
pace0·prose-2·bleak-3
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The Score
Elle Kennedy2016
A college senior has a one-night stand with a hockey player to get over a breakup. They continue the arrangement as graduation approaches.
bleak → playful
pace+1·prose-2·bleak-3
3 more ↓ ↑
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To Sir Phillip, With Love
Julia Quinn2003
Eloise Bridgerton travels to meet a widowed baronet she has only known through letters. They consider a marriage of convenience.
bleak → warm
pace+1·prose-2·bleak-3
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All Rhodes Lead Here
Mariana Zapata2021
A woman moves back to her Colorado hometown after a breakup and rents a garage apartment from a grumpy single father.
bleak → warm
pace0·prose-2·bleak-3
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Hannah's List
Debbie Macomber2010
A widower receives a letter from his late wife suggesting three women he should date. He begins to interact with each woman over the following year.
bleak → warm
pace0·prose-2·bleak-3
Faster
- pace+2prose-2bleak-1
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.
bleak → tense, still post-apocalyptic
pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1
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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.
bleak → propulsive, still post-apocalyptic
pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1
3 more ↓ ↑
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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.
bleak → sardonic, still dystopian
pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2
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The Martian
Andy Weir2011
A man does arithmetic to stay alive on Mars. Problem, attempt, result, repeat.
bleak → wry
pace+2·prose-2·bleak-3
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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.
bleak → propulsive
pace+2·prose-2·bleak-3
Slower
- pace-1prose+1bleak-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.
bleak → dreamlike
pace-1·prose+1·bleak-1
- pace-1prose+1bleak-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.
bleak → meditative
pace-1·prose+1·bleak-2
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.
bleak → meditative
pace-1·prose+1·bleak-2
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After London
Richard Jefferies1885
Nature reclaims England after an unspecified catastrophe destroys civilization. A young man explores the toxic swamps that were once London.
bleak → elegiac, still post-apocalyptic
pace-1·prose0·bleak-1
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Translated Accounts
James Kelman2001
Anonymous witnesses describe life under a military regime. The prose uses broken, bureaucratic syntax to mimic a literal translation.
Same bleak register, still dystopian
pace-1·prose+1·bleak0
