LitQueuelitqueue

After

Plain Bad Heroines

Emily M. Danforth2020

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

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  • Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories

    Ambrose Bierce1913

    A collection of short stories involving supernatural disappearances and grim irony. The focus is on the cruelty of fate and the macabre.

    playful → sardonic, still gothic

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • Ambergris

    Jeff VanderMeer2020

    This collection follows the history of a city built atop a subterranean race. It uses fake histories, journals, and detective noir.

    playful → dreamlike

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

  • 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.

    playful → dark, still gothic

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+2

  • Ghost Stories

    Henry James2001

    A collection of Victorian tales where the existence of ghosts is often left to the reader's interpretation.

    playful → meditative

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

To recover

playful → propulsive

3 more ↓

  • This Man

    Jodi Ellen Malpas2013

    An interior designer begins an affair with a wealthy client who demands total control over her life and schedule.

    playful → tense

    pace+1·prose-2·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.

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

  • Love on the Brain

    Ali Hazelwood2022

    A neuroscientist must co-lead a NASA project with a man she believes has hated her since grad school.

    Same playful register

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

Faster

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    playful → tense, still horror

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak+2

  • Infected

    Bobby Adair

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

    playful → propulsive, still horror

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak+1

  • The Undead Day One

    R.R. Haywood

    A supermarket manager attempts to survive the first twenty-four hours of a zombie outbreak in England. The story is told in real-time.

    playful → propulsive, still horror

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak0

Slower

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    playful → dreamlike

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

  • 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.

    Same playful register

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak-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.

    Same playful register

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

Heavier

3 more ↓