1632

Timelike Infinity

Stephen Baxter1992

Humanity uses a wormhole to travel into the future, only to find the solar system occupied by an alien race. It follows a pilot across centuries.

pace0·prose0·bleak0

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·bleak0

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·bleak0

Shadow & Claw

Gene Wolfe1983

A torturer travels across a far-future Earth where technology is indistinguishable from magic. He recounts his exile in dense, archaic prose.

tense → meditative

pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

The Da Vinci Code

Dan Brown2003

A symbologist and a cryptologist flee the police while solving puzzles hidden in art. They search for a secret regarding the Holy Grail.

tense → propulsive

pace+1·prose-1·bleak-2

Fifty Shades of Grey

E.L. James2000

A college student enters a sexual contract with a wealthy businessman. The story focuses on their power dynamics and BDSM encounters.

tense → earnest

pace0·prose-1·bleak-2

The Martian

Andy Weir2011

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

tense → wry

pace+1·prose-1·bleak-2

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.

tense → propulsive

pace+1·prose-1·bleak-2

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-2

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·bleak-1

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·bleak-1

Absalom, Absalom!

William Faulkner1936

The rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen is recounted through multiple, conflicting memories. The prose uses extremely long, complex sentences.

tense → elegiac, still historical fiction

pace-2·prose+2·bleak+1

Kolyma tales

Varlam SHALAMOV1980

Short stories documenting daily life and survival in a Soviet labor camp. The prose is detached and focuses on the physical reality of starvation.

tense → clinical, still historical fiction

pace-2·prose+2·bleak+1

Behold the Man

Michael Moorcock1968

A man uses a time machine to travel to 28 AD to meet Jesus. Finding only a disabled man who cannot fulfill the gospels, he takes the role himself.

tense → bleak, still time travel

pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

The Year of the Quiet Sun

Wilson Tucker1970

A social scientist travels forward in time to document the collapse of the United States through racial conflict and nuclear war.

tense → bleak, still time travel

pace-1·prose0·bleak+1

The Gone World

Tom Sweterlitsch2018

An investigator travels to possible futures to solve a murder and stop an approaching apocalypse. The timeline changes based on her observations.

tense → bleak, still time travel

pace0·prose+1·bleak+1