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After

Kiteworld

Keith Roberts1985

6 of 6 directions open

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  • The Mercy Journals

    Claudia Casper2016

    A veteran suffering from PTSD keeps a journal in a post-war world before traveling into the wilderness to find his brother's children.

    elegiac → meditative, still dystopian

    pace0·prose0·bleak0

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.

    elegiac → sardonic, still dystopian

    pace0·prose+1·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.

    elegiac → sardonic, still dystopian

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

  • Return to the Whorl

    Gene Wolfe2001

    A man returns to his home planet on a small spacecraft to find his family. The story is told through his complex, often confusing journals.

    Same elegiac register

    pace0·prose+1·bleak0

To recover

3 more ↓

  • The perfect Christmas

    Debbie Macomber2009

    A woman hires a grumpy matchmaker to find a husband. He assigns her three tasks to complete before he will introduce her to his chosen candidate.

    elegiac → warm

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

  • Danger in the Shadows

    Dee Henderson2002

    A woman in witness protection hides from a kidnapper while a FBI agent works to keep her safe. The story incorporates elements of Christian faith.

    elegiac → earnest

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

  • The Princess

    Lori Wick2006

    In the fictional land of Pendaran, a prince enters an arranged marriage with a commoner who must learn the ways of the royal court.

    elegiac → warm

    pace0·prose-2·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.

    elegiac → sardonic, still dystopian

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    elegiac → wry

    pace+2·prose-2·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.

    elegiac → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-2·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.

    elegiac → meditative

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak-1

  • After London

    Richard Jefferies1885

    Nature reclaims England after an unspecified catastrophe destroys civilization. A young man explores the toxic swamps that were once London.

    Same elegiac register, still post-apocalyptic

    pace-1·prose0·bleak0

  • Translated Accounts

    James Kelman2001

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

    elegiac → bleak, still dystopian

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

Heavier

elegiac → bleak, still dystopian

3 more ↓

  • Yol

    Cormac McCarthy

    pace0·prose0·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.

    pace0·prose0·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.

    Same elegiac register, still dystopian

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1