LitQueuelitqueue

After

Moon of the Turning Leaves

Waubgeshig Rice2024

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

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  • Earth abides

    George Rippey Stewart1949

    A man survives a global plague and observes the slow decay of infrastructure and the rise of a new, simpler society over several decades.

    Same meditative register, still post-apocalyptic

    pace0·prose0·bleak0

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    meditative → sardonic, still dystopian

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+2

  • 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.

    meditative → dreamlike, still post-apocalyptic

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+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.

    meditative → dreamlike

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

To recover

meditative → playful

3 more ↓

  • Secondhand Spirits

    Juliet Blackwell2009

    A vintage shop owner who can feel the history of clothes uses her magic to solve a murder. She must find a killer while hiding her identity.

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

  • Alpine for you

    Maddy Hunter2003

    A woman leads a group of senior citizens on a tour of the Swiss Alps. When a passenger dies, she must investigate her fellow travelers.

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

  • 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.

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1

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.

    meditative → sardonic, still dystopian

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak0

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    meditative → wry

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1

  • 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.

    meditative → propulsive, still quest

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1

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.

    Same meditative register

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

  • Translated Accounts

    James Kelman2001

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

    meditative → bleak, still dystopian

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2

  • 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.

    meditative → playful

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak-1

Heavier

meditative → bleak, still post-apocalyptic

3 more ↓

  • Yol

    Cormac McCarthy

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+2

  • 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·prose+1·bleak+2

  • 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.

    meditative → elegiac, still post-apocalyptic

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+2