LitQueuelitqueue

After

Queer

William S. Burroughs1985

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

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  • Gutshot

    Amelia Gray2015

    A collection of short stories focusing on physical transformations, bodily intrusions, and surreal domestic isolation.

    Same sardonic register, still literary fiction

    pace+1·prose0·bleak0

Denser prose

sardonic → dreamlike

3 more ↓

  • Ghost Stories

    Henry James2001

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

    sardonic → meditative

    pace0·prose+1·bleak0

  • The Dream Cycle of H. P. Lovecraft

    H.P. Lovecraft2003

    A collection of stories following characters who travel into a shared dream world. It focuses on strange geography and cosmic entities.

    pace0·prose+1·bleak0

  • 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.

    pace0·prose+1·bleak0

To recover

sardonic → 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.

    sardonic → tense

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

  • 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-2

  • Real Murders

    Charlaine Harris1990

    A librarian in a small Georgia town belongs to a club that studies famous crimes. A real murder occurs that mimics a historical case.

    sardonic → wry

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

Faster

3 more ↓

  • The Rising

    Brian Keene2003

    A father travels across an apocalypse where the dead are possessed by malevolent, intelligent demons. The world is ending permanently.

    sardonic → bleak

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak+1

  • Shattered

    Dean Koontz1973

    A man and his future stepson drive across America while being stalked by the woman's vengeful ex-husband.

    sardonic → tense

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

  • The Executioner

    Chris Carter2010

    A Los Angeles detective hunts a serial killer who murders victims using their specific phobias. Each crime scene features a blood-scrawled number.

    sardonic → tense

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak0

Slower

3 more ↓

  • The English Patient

    Michael Ondaatje1992

    Four people shelter in a ruined Italian villa at the end of WWII. They care for a burned, anonymous man who recounts his past in the desert.

    sardonic → elegiac, still literary fiction

    pace-1·prose0·bleak0

  • 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.

    sardonic → dreamlike

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

  • Moby Dick

    Herman Melville1851

    A sailor joins a whaling voyage led by a captain seeking revenge on a specific whale. Large sections digress into the mechanics of 1850s whaling.

    sardonic → meditative, still literary fiction

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    sardonic → elegiac

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak+1

  • Hamlet

    William Shakespeare

    A prince of Denmark is told by a ghost that his uncle killed his father. He feigns madness while deciding whether to take revenge.

    sardonic → meditative

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

  • The Terror

    Dan Simmons2007

    Two British ships searching for the Northwest Passage in 1845 become trapped in ice and are hunted by a creature.

    sardonic → bleak

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1