After
One Last Stop
Casey McQuiston2021
- pace
- prose
- structure
- bleakness
5 of 6 directions open — nothing to recover from
More like it
- pace0prose0bleak0
Sea Swept
Nora Roberts1968
A champion racer returns to his family home on the Maryland coast to care for his brothers and an adopted boy after his father's death.
Same warm register, still contemporary romance
pace0·prose0·bleak0
- pace-1prose0bleak0
About Time: 12 Short Stories
Jack Finney2013
A collection of stories where ordinary people find ways to travel through time, often to return to a simpler past.
Same warm register, still time travel
pace-1·prose0·bleak0
- pace0prose0bleak0
Someone Else's Shoes
Jojo Moyes2023
Two women accidentally swap gym bags, leading one to walk in expensive heels while the other loses her lifestyle. They eventually cross paths.
Same warm register, still contemporary romance
pace0·prose0·bleak0
- pace0prose0bleak0
Hero
Lauren Rowe2018
A firefighter and a woman meet during a rescue and quickly develop an intense romantic connection.
Same warm register, still contemporary romance
pace0·prose0·bleak0
1 more ↓ ↑
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The Door into Summer
Robert A. Heinlein1957
An engineer is tricked into a thirty-year cryogenic sleep by his business partner. He wakes up in 2000 and seeks a way to use time travel for revenge.
warm → wry, still time travel
pace0·prose0·bleak0
Denser prose
- pace-2prose+2bleak+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-2·prose+2·bleak+2
- pace-1prose+2bleak+2
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.
warm → elegiac
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2
3 more ↓ ↑
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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.
warm → clinical
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2
- pace-1prose+2bleak+2
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
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2
- pace-1prose+2bleak+2
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
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2
Faster
- pace+1prose-1bleak+1
Lost in Time
A.G. Riddle2022
A man is exiled to the Triassic period for a murder he didn't commit while his daughter tries to bring him back.
warm → propulsive, still time travel
pace+1·prose-1·bleak+1
- pace+1prose-1bleak0
The Martian
Andy Weir2011
A man does arithmetic to stay alive on Mars. Problem, attempt, result, repeat.
warm → wry
pace+1·prose-1·bleak0
3 more ↓ ↑
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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.
warm → propulsive
pace+1·prose-1·bleak0
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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.
warm → wry, still found family
pace+1·prose-1·bleak0
- pace+1prose-1bleak+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.
warm → propulsive
pace+1·prose-1·bleak+1
Slower
- pace-2prose+2bleak+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-2·prose+2·bleak+2
- pace-2prose+2bleak+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-2·prose+2·bleak+1
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace-2prose+2bleak+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-2·prose+2·bleak+1
- pace-2prose+2bleak0
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-2·prose+2·bleak0
- pace-2prose+2bleak+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-2·prose+2·bleak+1
Heavier
warm → bleak, still time travel
- pace-1prose0bleak+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.
pace-1·prose0·bleak+3
- pace-1prose+1bleak+3
Behold the Man
Michael Moorcock1968
A man uses a time machine to travel to 28 AD to meet Jesus. Finding only a disabled man who cannot fulfill the gospels, he takes the role himself.
pace-1·prose+1·bleak+3
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace-1prose0bleak+3
The Year of the Quiet Sun
Wilson Tucker1970
A social scientist travels forward in time to document the collapse of the United States through racial conflict and nuclear war.
pace-1·prose0·bleak+3
- pace0prose+1bleak+3
The Gone World
Tom Sweterlitsch2018
An investigator travels to possible futures to solve a murder and stop an approaching apocalypse. The timeline changes based on her observations.
pace0·prose+1·bleak+3
- pace-1prose+1bleak+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
pace-1·prose+1·bleak+3
