Living Next Door to the God of Love

Hearts, Hands and Voices

Ian McDonald1992

A girl with the power to manipulate biological matter grows up during a civil war. The technology is organic, using living tissue and bone.

Same dreamlike register, still coming of age

pace0·prose0·bleak+1

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

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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

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Love in the Time of Dragons

Katie MacAlister2010

A mother wakes up in a world of dragon-shifters who believe she is a historical figure and sentence her to death for her past crimes.

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

Romancing Mister Bridgerton

Julia Quinn2002

A long-time wallflower and her friend's brother discover each other's secrets in Regency London. The plot centers on the identity of a gossip writer.

dreamlike → warm

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

The Rosie Project

Graeme Simsion2013

A genetics professor uses a detailed questionnaire to find a wife, then meets a woman who fails every criteria. He helps her find her father.

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

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

pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

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+2·prose-2·bleak0

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

pace+2·prose-2·bleak-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.

dreamlike → meditative

pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

Dandelion Wine

Ray Bradbury1946

A twelve-year-old boy experiences a series of vignettes over one summer in 1928 Illinois. The chapters focus on small-town life and aging.

dreamlike → elegiac

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For Us, the Living

Robert A. Heinlein2003

A 1930s pilot wakes up in the year 2086. The book consists of long dialogues explaining the social, economic, and sexual norms of the future.

dreamlike → earnest

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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.

dreamlike → bleak

pace0·prose+1·bleak+2

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.

dreamlike → elegiac

pace0·prose0·bleak+2

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.

dreamlike → bleak

pace+1·prose0·bleak+2