Chlorine

The Troika

Stepan Chapman1997

An old woman, a jeep, and a dinosaur cross a desert under three suns. Their identities and memories shift as they try to reach a distant city.

Same dreamlike register, still unreliable narrator

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In Green's Jungles

Gene Wolfe2000

A narrator travels to different worlds while his physical form and memories shift. He recounts past voyages to prove his identity to his companions.

dreamlike → elegiac, still unreliable narrator

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VAS

Steve Tomasula2002

A man considers a vasectomy while the book uses diagrams and varied typography to explore the history of eugenics and biotechnology.

dreamlike → clinical

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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.

dreamlike → sardonic, still unreliable narrator

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The Lost Symbol

Dan Brown2009

Symbologist Robert Langdon follows a trail of Masonic puzzles through Washington D.C. monuments to save his kidnapped mentor.

dreamlike → propulsive

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Walking Disaster

Jamie McGuire2013

This novel retells the events of 'Beautiful Disaster' from the perspective of Travis Maddox. It follows his college years and obsession with Abby.

dreamlike → propulsive

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Mile High

Liz Tomforde2023

A professional hockey player and a flight attendant clash on the team's private plane during a season-long road trip.

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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.

dreamlike → wry

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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.

dreamlike → propulsive

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

The Kaiju Preservation Society

John Scalzi2022

A food delivery driver joins a secret organization that travels to an alternate Earth to care for massive, dinosaur-like creatures.

dreamlike → playful

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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.

dreamlike → meditative

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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.

dreamlike → playful

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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.

dreamlike → playful

pace-2·prose+1·bleak-1

The Deep

Nick Cutter2015

A veterinarian travels to a research station at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean to help his brother find a cure for a global plague.

dreamlike → bleak, still body horror

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Negative Space

B.R. Yeager2020

Four teenagers in a decaying New Hampshire town use a drug made from local parasites. They navigate hallucinations and a string of suicides.

dreamlike → bleak, still psychological horror

pace0·prose0·bleak+1

Nod

Adrian Barnes2012

A global epidemic of insomnia causes society to collapse in six days. A writer who can still sleep observes the descent into psychosis.

dreamlike → bleak, still psychological horror

pace0·prose-1·bleak+1