After
About Time: 12 Short Stories
Jack Finney2013
- pace
- prose
- structure
- bleakness
5 of 6 directions open — nothing to recover from
More like it
- pace+1prose0bleak0
The Door into Summer
Robert A. Heinlein1957
An engineer is tricked into a thirty-year cryogenic sleep by his business partner. He wakes up in 2000 and seeks a way to use time travel for revenge.
warm → wry, still time travel
pace+1·prose0·bleak0
- pace+1prose0bleak0
One Last Stop
Casey McQuiston2021
A girl in New York discovers her subway crush is a displaced person from the 1970s. She tries to help her escape the train line.
Same warm register, still time travel
pace+1·prose0·bleak0
- pace0prose0bleak0
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen
Lois McMaster Bujold2016
A 76-year-old vicereine and a high-ranking admiral navigate their grief and a new relationship. It focuses on middle-aged romance and logistics.
Same warm register, still second chance
pace0·prose0·bleak0
- pace+1prose0bleak+1
The Man Who Folded Himself
David Gerrold1973
A college student inherits a belt that allows him to travel through time. He spends his life visiting, and often sleeping with, versions of himself.
warm → meditative, still time travel
pace+1·prose0·bleak+1
1 more ↓ ↑
- pace0prose0bleak+1
Household Gods
Judith Tarr1999
A modern woman travels back in time to live as a tavern owner in the Roman Empire during the reign of Marcus Aurelius.
warm → earnest, still time travel
pace0·prose0·bleak+1
Denser prose
- pace0prose+2bleak+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.
warm → meditative
pace0·prose+2·bleak+2
- pace0prose+2bleak+2
Radiance
Catherynne M. Valente2015
A documentary filmmaker disappears on Venus in an alternate 1980s solar system. The story is told through scripts, interviews, and letters.
warm → dreamlike
pace0·prose+2·bleak+2
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace0prose+2bleak+2
Rakesfall
Vajra Chandrasekera2024
Two souls reincarnate across centuries of Sri Lankan history and a distant future. The narrative shifts through different bodies and realities.
warm → dreamlike
pace0·prose+2·bleak+2
- pace-1prose+2bleak+1
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.
warm → meditative
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1
- pace0prose+2bleak+2
All Those Vanished Engines
Paul Park2014
Three linked stories follow the Park family through an alternate history where the American Civil War ended in a two-nation settlement.
warm → dreamlike
pace0·prose+2·bleak+2
Faster
warm → propulsive, still time travel
- pace+2prose-1bleak+1
Lost in Time
A.G. Riddle2022
A man is exiled to the Triassic period for a murder he didn't commit while his daughter tries to bring him back.
pace+2·prose-1·bleak+1
- pace+2prose0bleak+1
Timeline
Michael Crichton1999
Historians travel to 1357 France using quantum technology to rescue their professor. They must survive the Hundred Years' War to return home.
pace+2·prose0·bleak+1
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace+2prose-1bleak0
The Martian
Andy Weir2011
A man does arithmetic to stay alive on Mars. Problem, attempt, result, repeat.
warm → wry
pace+2·prose-1·bleak0
- pace+2prose-1bleak0
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.
warm → propulsive
pace+2·prose-1·bleak0
- pace+2prose0bleak+2
Recursion
Blake Crouch2019
A detective and a scientist discover a technology that allows people to map and enter memories, causing timelines to rewrite and collapse.
warm → tense, still time travel
pace+2·prose0·bleak+2
Slower
- pace-1prose+2bleak+2
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.
warm → dreamlike
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2
- pace-1prose+2bleak+1
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.
warm → meditative
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace-1prose+2bleak+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.
warm → meditative
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1
- pace-1prose+2bleak0
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.
warm → playful
pace-1·prose+2·bleak0
- pace-1prose+2bleak+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.
warm → playful
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1
Heavier
warm → bleak, still time travel
- pace0prose0bleak+3
Doomsday Book
Connie Willis1992
A student travels to 14th-century England while a virus spreads in the present. She arrives during the Black Death due to a technical error.
pace0·prose0·bleak+3
- pace0prose+1bleak+3
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.
pace0·prose+1·bleak+3
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace0prose0bleak+3
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.
pace0·prose0·bleak+3
- pace+1prose+1bleak+3
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.
pace+1·prose+1·bleak+3
- pace0prose+1bleak+3
The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood1985
In a totalitarian state with a plummeting birth rate, a woman is enslaved as a reproductive vessel. She records her daily life and memories.
warm → cold
pace0·prose+1·bleak+3
