LitQueuelitqueue

After

Axis

Robert Charles Wilson2007

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

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  • The Children Star

    Joan Slonczewski1998

    Colonists on a planet with lethal biochemistry try to find a sentient species to save their world. The focus is on microbiology and evolution.

    Same meditative register, still hard sci-fi

    pace0·prose+1·bleak0

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    meditative → dreamlike

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

  • 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+1

  • 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+1

To recover

meditative → propulsive

3 more ↓

  • This Man

    Jodi Ellen Malpas2013

    An interior designer begins an affair with a wealthy client who demands total control over her life and schedule.

    meditative → tense

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

  • Real Murders

    Charlaine Harris1990

    A librarian in a small Georgia town belongs to a club that studies famous crimes. A real murder occurs that mimics a historical case.

    meditative → wry

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

  • Orbiter

    Warren Ellis2003

    A shuttle returns to Earth after ten years with a catatonic pilot and an empty crew. Three specialists investigate the ship's physical alterations.

    meditative → earnest, still hard sci-fi

    pace+1·prose0·bleak-1

Faster

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    meditative → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1

  • 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.

    meditative → wry

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1

  • 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.

    meditative → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak0

Slower

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    Same meditative register

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

  • 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·bleak0

  • 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·bleak-1

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • Echopraxia

    Peter Watts2014

    A biologist is caught on a mission toward the sun alongside a pilot and a group of transhuman monks. It explores consciousness and evolution.

    meditative → bleak, still hard sci-fi

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+2

  • Beyond the Aquila Rift

    Alastair Reynolds2001

    A spaceship crew wakes from cold sleep to find they have overshot their destination by light-years. They must face the reality of their location.

    meditative → bleak, still hard sci-fi

    pace+1·prose+1·bleak+2

  • The Killing Star

    Charles R. Pellegrino1995

    Relativistic missiles destroy Earth without warning. The few human survivors in the solar system are hunted by an alien species using logic.

    meditative → bleak, still hard sci-fi

    pace+1·prose0·bleak+2