Yours for the Taking

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Philip K. Dick1968

A bounty hunter in a radioactive San Francisco tracks six escaped androids. He uses an empathy test to distinguish them from humans.

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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

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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.

bleak → sardonic

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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.

bleak → meditative

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The Martian

Andy Weir2011

A man does arithmetic to stay alive on Mars. Problem, attempt, result, repeat.

bleak → wry

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The Comfort Book

Matt Haig2021

A collection of short reflections, lists, and anecdotes intended to provide mental support. It is a non-linear book of philosophy and memoir.

bleak → warm

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Odessa Sea

Clive Cussler2016

Dirk Pitt investigates a ghost ship in the Black Sea and discovers a conspiracy involving a lost Romanov secret. It is a high-speed adventure.

bleak → propulsive

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Logan's run

William F. Nolan1967

In a future where everyone is executed at age 21, an enforcer becomes a fugitive. He attempts to reach a rumored sanctuary.

bleak → tense, still dystopian

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The Running Man

Richard Bachman

A man enters a deadly reality show to fund medical care for his daughter. He must survive thirty days while the entire world hunts him for money.

bleak → propulsive, still dystopian

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The Long Run

Daniel Keys Moran1989

A genetically engineered outlaw with the ability to interface with computers runs from a global police force. He attempts a final heist.

bleak → propulsive, still dystopian

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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

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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

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Dandelion Wine

Ray Bradbury1946

A twelve-year-old boy experiences a series of vignettes over one summer in 1928 Illinois. The chapters focus on small-town life and aging.

bleak → elegiac

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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.

Same bleak register, still dystopian

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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.

bleak → sardonic, still dystopian

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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.

Same bleak register, still dystopian

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