LitQueuelitqueue

After

A Choice of Gods

Clifford D. Simak1972

5 of 6 directions open — nothing to recover from

More like it

1 more ↓

  • Moon of the Turning Leaves

    Waubgeshig Rice2024

    Twelve years after a global blackout, an Anishinaabe community leaves their sanctuary to find a new home. It is a slow-paced survival quest.

    Same meditative register, still post-apocalyptic

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    meditative → sardonic

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+2

  • 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.

    Same meditative register

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+2

  • 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.

    Same meditative register

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+2

Faster

3 more ↓

  • Damnation Alley

    Roger Zelazny1969

    A convicted criminal drives an armored vehicle across a post-nuclear American wasteland to deliver a plague vaccine to Boston.

    meditative → sardonic, still post-apocalyptic

    pace+2·prose0·bleak+1

  • Equations of Life

    Simon Morden2011

    A Russian physics student in a post-apocalyptic London gets caught between warring factions. It is a fast-paced cyberpunk thriller.

    meditative → propulsive, still post-apocalyptic

    pace+2·prose0·bleak+2

  • Plague War

    Jeff Carlson1967

    A researcher flees the American government to distribute a vaccine for a nanotech plague that has killed most of the population.

    meditative → propulsive, still post-apocalyptic

    pace+2·prose0·bleak+2

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.

    Same meditative register

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

  • After London

    Richard Jefferies1885

    Nature reclaims England after an unspecified catastrophe destroys civilization. A young man explores the toxic swamps that were once London.

    meditative → elegiac, still post-apocalyptic

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2

  • 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.

    meditative → playful

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

Heavier

meditative → elegiac, still post-apocalyptic

3 more ↓

  • The Walking Dead: Compendium One

    Robert Kirkman2009

    A sheriff wakes from a coma into a zombie apocalypse. He leads a group of survivors through various temporary shelters over several years.

    meditative → bleak, still post-apocalyptic

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak+3

  • One Second After

    William R. Forstchen2009

    An EMP strike destroys the American power grid. A history professor attempts to manage the starvation and societal collapse of his small town.

    meditative → bleak, still post-apocalyptic

    pace+1·prose0·bleak+3

  • 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.

    meditative → bleak, still post-apocalyptic

    pace+1·prose0·bleak+3