LitQueuelitqueue

After

Dust

Hugh Howey2013

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

Same tense register, still dystopian

1 more ↓

  • A Stranger in the Citadel

    Tobias S. Buckell2021

    In a city where books are forbidden, the daughter of a librarian encounters a stranger who challenges the local authority. They flee into the wilds.

    pace0·prose0·bleak-1

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • Infinite Jest

    David Foster Wallace1996

    A sprawling narrative centered on a tennis academy, a halfway house, and a lethal film. The text includes hundreds of pages of detailed endnotes.

    tense → sardonic, still dystopian

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

  • Naked Lunch: The Restored Text

    William S. Burroughs

    A series of nonlinear vignettes follow a drug addict's hallucinations and travels. The prose is fragmented and satirical.

    tense → sardonic, still dystopian

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

  • Winterlong

    Elizabeth Hand1990

    In a decaying, post-apocalyptic Washington D.C., a girl with empathic powers is drawn into the plots of a decadent ruling class.

    tense → dreamlike, still dystopian

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

To recover

tense → playful

3 more ↓

  • The 4-Hour Workweek

    Timothy Ferriss2006

    A guide to lifestyle design that explains how to automate a business and outsource life tasks to achieve a four-hour workweek.

    tense → wry

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-2

  • The Da Vinci Code

    Dan Brown2003

    A symbologist and a cryptologist flee the police while solving puzzles hidden in art. They search for a secret regarding the Holy Grail.

    tense → propulsive

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-2

  • Smokin' Seventeen

    Janet Evanovich2011

    A bounty hunter investigates bodies found in her boss's lot while choosing between three suitors. The story follows her daily mishaps in New Jersey.

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-2

Faster

3 more ↓

  • Get Jiro!

    Anthony Bourdain2012

    In a future Los Angeles, master chefs rule as warlords. A sushi chef who kills rude customers is caught between two warring food factions.

    tense → sardonic, still dystopian

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

    A man does arithmetic to stay alive on Mars. Problem, attempt, result, repeat.

    tense → wry

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-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.

    tense → propulsive

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-2

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.

    tense → meditative

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak-1

  • Translated Accounts

    James Kelman2001

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

    tense → bleak, still dystopian

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak+1

  • Riddley Walker

    Russell Hoban1980

    A twelve-year-old boy travels across a primitive, post-nuclear England. The story is written entirely in a broken, phonetic future dialect.

    tense → meditative, still dystopian

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

Heavier

tense → bleak, still dystopian

3 more ↓

  • Yol

    Cormac McCarthy

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

  • Wolves

    Simon Ings2014

    Two friends navigate a near-future Britain collapsing under environmental decay and augmented reality addiction. It is a study of memory.

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

  • The People of the Ruins

    Edward Shanks1920

    A man wakes up in a future England that has regressed into a primitive, feudal society. He navigates the ruins of a collapsed civilization.

    tense → elegiac, still dystopian

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1