After
Crashcourse
Wilhelmina Baird1993
- pace
- prose
- structure
- bleakness
6 of 6 directions open
More like it
Same sardonic register, still cyberpunk
- pace0prose0bleak0
Hardwired
Walter Jon Williams1986
A hovertank pilot and a bodyguard team up to fight the orbital corporations that control Earth's resources.
pace0·prose0·bleak0
- pace0prose0bleak-1
Software
Rudy Rucker1982
An aging man is offered immortality by robots on the moon if he allows them to upload his consciousness. It is a foundational cyberpunk story.
pace0·prose0·bleak-1
- pace0prose0bleak-1
Eastern Standard Tribe
Cory Doctorow2004
A man in a mental institution recounts his life as a corporate saboteur. He belongs to a tribe that coordinates its life around the EST time zone.
pace0·prose0·bleak-1
- pace0prose0bleak0
When Gravity Fails
George Alec Effinger1987
A private investigator in a futuristic Middle Eastern city hunts a serial killer who uses high-tech personality-altering implants.
pace0·prose0·bleak0
1 more ↓ ↑
- pace0prose0bleak0
Rosewater
Tade Thompson2016
A psychic government agent investigates a mysterious alien biodome in Nigeria. The story jumps between his past and a present-day plague.
pace0·prose0·bleak0
Denser prose
- pace-1prose+2bleak0
VAS
Steve Tomasula2002
A man considers a vasectomy while the book uses diagrams and varied typography to explore the history of eugenics and biotechnology.
sardonic → clinical, still cyberpunk
pace-1·prose+2·bleak0
- pace-2prose+2bleak0
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.
sardonic → dreamlike
pace-2·prose+2·bleak0
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace-1prose+2bleak0
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.
Same sardonic register
pace-1·prose+2·bleak0
- pace-1prose+2bleak0
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.
sardonic → meditative
pace-1·prose+2·bleak0
- pace-1prose+2bleak0
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.
sardonic → meditative
pace-1·prose+2·bleak0
To recover
- pace+1prose-1bleak-2
Ten Big Ones
Janet Evanovich2004
Stephanie Plum witnesses a gang hit and becomes a target herself. She balances the threat with her ongoing romantic indecision.
sardonic → playful
pace+1·prose-1·bleak-2
- pace0prose-1bleak-2
Craven Manor
Darcy Coates2018
A man takes a job as a groundskeeper at a decaying estate. He finds a crypt, a strange employer, and evidence that the house is not empty.
sardonic → tense
pace0·prose-1·bleak-2
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace+1prose-1bleak-2
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.
sardonic → propulsive, still cyberpunk
pace+1·prose-1·bleak-2
- pace+1prose-1bleak-2
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.
sardonic → playful, still found family
pace+1·prose-1·bleak-2
- pace+1prose-1bleak-2
The Martian
Andy Weir2011
A man does arithmetic to stay alive on Mars. Problem, attempt, result, repeat.
sardonic → wry
pace+1·prose-1·bleak-2
Faster
sardonic → propulsive, still cyberpunk
- pace+1prose-1bleak-2
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.
pace+1·prose-1·bleak-2
- pace+1prose-1bleak0
Akira, Vol. 1
Katsuhiro Ōtomo1984
In a rebuilt post-WWIII Tokyo, two teenage bikers get caught in a government conspiracy after one develops psychic powers.
pace+1·prose-1·bleak0
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace+1prose+1bleak-1
Accelerando
Charles Stross2005
Three generations of a family navigate the rapid evolution of technology toward a singularity. The pace accelerates as humanity is outpaced by AI.
sardonic → wry, still cyberpunk
pace+1·prose+1·bleak-1
- pace+1prose+1bleak-1
The Stars My Destination
Alfred Bester1956
Gully Foyle is left for dead in space and spends years seeking revenge. He travels a future where humans can teleport using their minds.
pace+1·prose+1·bleak-1
- pace+1prose0bleak-1
Nexus
Ramez Naam2012
A scientist develops a nanotech drug that links minds and is hunted by government agencies. It is a high-speed global conspiracy thriller.
pace+1·prose0·bleak-1
Slower
- pace-2prose+2bleak0
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.
sardonic → dreamlike
pace-2·prose+2·bleak0
- pace-2prose+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.
sardonic → meditative
pace-2·prose+2·bleak-1
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace-2prose+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.
sardonic → meditative
pace-2·prose+2·bleak-1
- pace-2prose+2bleak-2
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.
sardonic → playful
pace-2·prose+2·bleak-2
- pace-2prose+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.
sardonic → playful
pace-2·prose+2·bleak-1
Heavier
- pace0prose0bleak+1
Dr. Adder
K. W. Jeter1984
In a broken future Los Angeles, a surgeon performs extreme genital modifications for a subculture of outcasts.
sardonic → cynical, still cyberpunk
pace0·prose0·bleak+1
- pace0prose0bleak+1
Market Forces
Richard K. Morgan2004
In a future where executives duel in armored cars for promotions, Chris Faulkner joins a firm that profits from civil wars. It is a corporate satire.
Same sardonic register, still cyberpunk
pace0·prose0·bleak+1
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace0prose+1bleak+1
Random Acts of Senseless Violence
Jack Womack1994
A twelve-year-old girl records her life in a diary as New York City collapses into riots and hyperinflation. Her family falls into poverty.
sardonic → bleak, still cyberpunk
pace0·prose+1·bleak+1
- pace+1prose+1bleak+1
Hellspark
Janet Kagan1988
A linguist travels to a new planet to investigate a murder. She must determine if the local species is sentient while navigating a conspiracy.
sardonic → tense, still cyberpunk
pace+1·prose+1·bleak+1
- pace0prose+1bleak+1
Golem100
Alfred Bester1980
In a future city, a group of women accidentally summon a psychic monster that commits acts of extreme violence while investigators track it.
Same sardonic register, still cyberpunk
pace0·prose+1·bleak+1