Bitten

The Barrow Will Send What It May

Margaret Killjoy2018

A group of traveling anarchists encounters a town with an occult library and residents who have been resurrected. They face a necromancer.

propulsive → earnest, still urban fantasy

pace0·prose0·bleak0

Android Karenina

Лев Толстой2010

The text of Tolstoy's classic is modified to include robots, cyborgs, and space travel in a 19th-century Russian setting.

propulsive → elegiac, still horror

pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2

Racconti [55 stories]

Edgar Allan Poe2011

A collection of 55 stories featuring unreliable narrators and gothic settings. Themes include obsession, premature burial, and the macabre.

propulsive → dreamlike, still horror

pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

Gormenghast

Mervyn Peake1950

A young heir and a social climber navigate the rigid rituals of a decaying, labyrinthine castle. The prose is dense and descriptive.

propulsive → dark

pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2

A Spell for Chameleon

Piers Anthony1977

In a land where everyone has a unique magical talent, a man with no apparent power goes on a quest to avoid exile.

propulsive → playful

pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

My Roommate Is a Vampire

Jenna Levine2023

An artist moves in with a man who sleeps all day and speaks in an archaic style. She eventually discovers he is a vampire from the 1800s.

propulsive → playful

pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

Sex and the single vampire

Katie MacAlister2004

A woman who accidentally summons a vampire while trying to contact her dead mother navigates a supernatural romance in London.

pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

Shattered

Dean Koontz1973

A man and his future stepson drive across America while being stalked by the woman's vengeful ex-husband.

propulsive → tense, still horror

pace+1·prose-1·bleak0

Intercepts

T.J. Payne2020

A worker at a government facility monitors human test subjects driven insane by sensory deprivation. The experiment enters his private life.

propulsive → tense, still horror

pace+1·prose-1·bleak+2

Infected

Bobby Adair

A slow-acting virus turns the population into aggressive predators. The story follows a survivor navigating the initial societal collapse.

Same propulsive register, still horror

pace+1·prose-1·bleak+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.

propulsive → playful

pace-2·prose+2·bleak0

Absalom, Absalom!

William Faulkner1936

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

propulsive → elegiac

pace-2·prose+2·bleak+2

Either/Or

Søren Kierkegaard1992

A collection of papers presents two life philosophies: the aesthetic pursuit of pleasure and the ethical commitment to duty.

propulsive → meditative

pace-2·prose+2·bleak0

Mapping the Interior

Stephen Graham Jones2017

A teenager follows a figure resembling his dead father into the hidden spaces of his home. He maps a shifting, dangerous interior.

propulsive → elegiac, still horror

pace0·prose+1·bleak+2

Flowers in the Attic

V.C. Andrews1979

Four children are hidden in an attic for years by their mother and grandmother to secure an inheritance. They face gradual poisoning and abuse.

propulsive → elegiac, still horror

pace0·prose0·bleak+2

The Lottery

Shirley Jackson1983

Villagers gather for an annual ritual in a small town. The story follows the procedural steps of a lottery that ends in a public execution.

propulsive → cold, still horror

pace0·prose0·bleak+2