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After

Cadáver exquisito

Agustina Bazterrica2015

5 of 6 directions open — nothing heavier

More like it

Same clinical register, still dystopian

1 more ↓

  • Level 7

    Mordecai Roshwald1959

    A push-button soldier records his life in a bunker 4,000 feet underground. He documents the end of the world through technical logs.

    pace0·prose-1·bleak0

Denser prose

clinical → sardonic, still dystopian

3 more ↓

  • Empty Space

    M. John Harrison2012

    Three interlocking timelines follow a widow in London, a detective in a neon city, and a pilot in deep space. The prose is dense and surreal.

    clinical → dreamlike

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak-1

  • 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.

    clinical → dreamlike

    pace-2·prose+1·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.

    clinical → sardonic

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak-1

To recover

3 more ↓

  • To Sir Phillip, With Love

    Julia Quinn2003

    Eloise Bridgerton travels to meet a widowed baronet she has only known through letters. They consider a marriage of convenience.

    clinical → warm

    pace0·prose-2·bleak-3

  • All Rhodes Lead Here

    Mariana Zapata2021

    A woman moves back to her Colorado hometown after a breakup and rents a garage apartment from a grumpy single father.

    clinical → warm

    pace-1·prose-2·bleak-3

  • Hannah's List

    Debbie Macomber2010

    A widower receives a letter from his late wife suggesting three women he should date. He begins to interact with each woman over the following year.

    clinical → warm

    pace-1·prose-2·bleak-3

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.

    clinical → propulsive

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-3

  • Red Rising

    Pierce Brown2014

    A laborer on Mars discovers his caste is being lied to and undergoes surgery to infiltrate the ruling elite. He joins a brutal war games academy.

    clinical → propulsive, still dystopian

    pace+1·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.

    clinical → wry

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-3

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.

    clinical → meditative

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak-2

  • Translated Accounts

    James Kelman2001

    Anonymous witnesses describe life under a military regime. The prose uses broken, bureaucratic syntax to mimic a literal translation.

    clinical → bleak, still dystopian

    pace-2·prose+1·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.

    clinical → playful

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak-3