Phantoms

The Exorcist

William Peter Blatty1971

A famous actress seeks help when her daughter displays violent behavior. Two priests perform a ritual to remove a demonic presence.

pace0·prose0·bleak0

Android Karenina

Лев Толстой2010

The text of Tolstoy's classic is modified to include robots, cyborgs, and space travel in a 19th-century Russian setting.

tense → elegiac, still horror

pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

Racconti [55 stories]

Edgar Allan Poe2011

A collection of 55 stories featuring unreliable narrators and gothic settings. Themes include obsession, premature burial, and the macabre.

tense → dreamlike, still horror

pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

Gormenghast

Mervyn Peake1950

A young heir and a social climber navigate the rigid rituals of a decaying, labyrinthine castle. The prose is dense and descriptive.

tense → dark

pace-1·prose+2·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.

tense → playful

pace+1·prose-1·bleak-2

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.

tense → playful

pace0·prose-1·bleak-2

Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron

Julia Quinn2022

A graphic novel adaptation of a fictional melodrama where an orphan flees a cruel aunt and encounters a man in a remote castle.

tense → playful

pace0·prose-1·bleak-2

Intercepts

T.J. Payne2020

A worker at a government facility monitors human test subjects driven insane by sensory deprivation. The experiment enters his private life.

Same tense register, still horror

pace+1·prose-1·bleak+1

Extinction Machine

Jonathan Maberry2013

Joe Ledger investigates a series of global incidents involving UFOs and missing government officials. It is a high-speed military techno-thriller.

tense → propulsive, still techno-thriller

pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

Infected

Bobby Adair

A slow-acting virus turns the population into aggressive predators. The story follows a survivor navigating the initial societal collapse.

tense → propulsive, still horror

pace+1·prose-1·bleak0

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.

tense → playful

pace-2·prose+2·bleak-2

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.

tense → playful

pace-2·prose+2·bleak-1

Absalom, Absalom!

William Faulkner1936

The rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen is recounted through multiple, conflicting memories. The prose uses extremely long, complex sentences.

tense → elegiac

pace-2·prose+2·bleak+1

Mapping the Interior

Stephen Graham Jones2017

A teenager follows a figure resembling his dead father into the hidden spaces of his home. He maps a shifting, dangerous interior.

tense → elegiac, still horror

pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

Flowers in the Attic

V.C. Andrews1979

Four children are hidden in an attic for years by their mother and grandmother to secure an inheritance. They face gradual poisoning and abuse.

tense → elegiac, still horror

pace0·prose0·bleak+1

The Lottery

Shirley Jackson1983

Villagers gather for an annual ritual in a small town. The story follows the procedural steps of a lottery that ends in a public execution.

tense → cold, still horror

pace0·prose0·bleak+1