After

Legends & Lattes

Travis Baldree2022

pace
prose
structure
bleakness

5 of 6 directions open — nothing to recover from

More like it

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Lady Slings the Booze
Spider Robinson1992
A private investigator visits a high-tech brothel to solve a mystery. The story features a cast of regulars in a futuristic bar setting.
warm → playful, still cozy
pace0·prose+1·bleak0
pace0prose+1bleak0
A Closed and Common Orbit
Becky Chambers2016
An artificial intelligence is transferred into a synthetic human body. She learns to navigate physical existence with the help of an engineer.
Same warm register, still cozy
pace0·prose+1·bleak0
pace0prose+1bleak0
In the Lives of Puppets
T.J. Klune2023
A human and his three robots live in hiding until an old android's past brings a hunt to their door. They travel to rescue their captured creator.
Same warm register, still cozy
pace0·prose+1·bleak0
pace0prose0bleak0
Blueberry Muffin Murder
Joanne Fluke2001
A bakery owner investigates the murder of a celebrity chef during a small-town winter festival. Includes dessert recipes.
Same warm register, still cozy
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1 more ↓

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Knit One, Kill Two
Maggie Sefton2005
An accountant returns to Colorado to investigate her aunt's suspicious death. She spends her time at a local knitting shop gathering clues.
Same warm register, still cozy
pace0·prose0·bleak0

Denser prose

pace-1prose+3bleak+2
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.
warm → dreamlike
pace-1·prose+3·bleak+2
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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.
warm → sardonic
pace0·prose+3·bleak+2

3 more ↓

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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.
warm → meditative
pace0·prose+3·bleak+2
pace0prose+3bleak+2
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.
warm → meditative
pace0·prose+3·bleak+2
pace0prose+3bleak+2
Radiance
Catherynne M. Valente2015
A documentary filmmaker disappears on Venus in an alternate 1980s solar system. The story is told through scripts, interviews, and letters.
warm → dreamlike
pace0·prose+3·bleak+2

Faster

warm → propulsive

pace+2prose+1bleak0
Project Hail Mary
Andy Weir2021
A man wakes up on a spaceship with amnesia and two dead crewmates. He must use scientific experiments to remember his mission and save the sun.
pace+2·prose+1·bleak0
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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.
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3 more ↓

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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.
pace+2·prose+1·bleak+2
pace+2prose+1bleak+2
Recursion
Blake Crouch2019
A detective and a scientist discover a technology that allows people to map and enter memories, causing timelines to rewrite and collapse.
warm → tense
pace+2·prose+1·bleak+2
pace+2prose+2bleak+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.
warm → wry
pace+2·prose+2·bleak+1

Slower

pace-1prose+3bleak+2
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.
warm → dreamlike
pace-1·prose+3·bleak+2
pace-1prose+3bleak+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.
warm → meditative
pace-1·prose+3·bleak+1

3 more ↓

pace-1prose+3bleak+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.
warm → meditative
pace-1·prose+3·bleak+1
pace-1prose+3bleak0
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.
warm → playful
pace-1·prose+3·bleak0
pace-1prose+3bleak+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.
warm → playful
pace-1·prose+3·bleak+1

Heavier

pace0prose+2bleak+3
The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood1985
In a totalitarian state with a plummeting birth rate, a woman is enslaved as a reproductive vessel. She records her daily life and memories.
warm → cold
pace0·prose+2·bleak+3
pace0prose+1bleak+3
Doomsday Book
Connie Willis1992
A student travels to 14th-century England while a virus spreads in the present. She arrives during the Black Death due to a technical error.
warm → bleak
pace0·prose+1·bleak+3

3 more ↓

pace0prose+3bleak+3
Perdido Street Station
China Miéville2000
A scientist in a sprawling, industrial city agrees to help a winged refugee fly again. His research accidentally unleashes a psychic predator.
warm → bleak
pace0·prose+3·bleak+3
pace0prose+2bleak+3
The Sparrow
Mary Doria Russell1996
A Jesuit priest joins a mission to a newly discovered planet. The story is told in flashbacks after he returns as the sole, traumatized survivor.
warm → elegiac
pace0·prose+2·bleak+3
pace+1prose+2bleak+3
Watchmen
Alan Moore1986
Retired masked vigilantes investigate the murder of a former teammate. The story takes place in an alternate 1985 on the brink of nuclear war.
warm → bleak
pace+1·prose+2·bleak+3