Mechanique: a Tale of the Circus Tresaulti

Mississippi Blues

Kathleen Ann Goonan1997

A girl travels the Mississippi in a boat through an America reshaped by self-replicating nanotechnology. The journey includes a pirate attack.

Same dreamlike register, still steampunk

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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.

dreamlike → sardonic, still dystopian

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City of Saints and Madmen

Jeff Vandermeer2001

A collection of stories, histories, and pamphlets about the city of Ambergris. It uses found documents to build a surreal urban history.

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Rakesfall

Vajra Chandrasekera2024

Two souls reincarnate across centuries of Sri Lankan history and a distant future. The narrative shifts through different bodies and realities.

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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.

dreamlike → playful

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The Martian

Andy Weir2011

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

dreamlike → wry

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The Duke and I

Julia Quinn2000

A duke and a debutante enter a fake courtship to avoid social pressure. They navigate Regency London's marriage market while hiding their deal.

dreamlike → playful

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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.

dreamlike → propulsive

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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.

dreamlike → propulsive, still dystopian

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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

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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

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Translated Accounts

James Kelman2001

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

dreamlike → bleak, still dystopian

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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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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, still dystopian

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A Clockwork Orange

Anthony Burgess1962

A teenage gang leader is imprisoned and subjected to state-mandated psychological conditioning. The story is told in a slang called Nadsat.

dreamlike → sardonic, still dystopian

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A Scanner Darkly

Philip K. Dick1977

An undercover narcotics agent in a near-future California becomes addicted to the drug he is investigating and begins to spy on himself.

dreamlike → bleak, still dystopian

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