LitQueuelitqueue

After

Red Hill

Jamie McGuire2013

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

1 more ↓

  • Thicker Than Blood

    Madeline Sheehan2015

    Two survivors navigate a world overrun by the undead. They are forced together by circumstance and must manage a volatile relationship.

    tense → bleak, still post-apocalyptic

    pace0·prose+1·bleak0

Denser prose

tense → dreamlike

3 more ↓

  • 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+3·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+3·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+3·bleak+1

To recover

tense → playful

3 more ↓

  • Margo's Got Money Troubles

    Rufi Thorpe2024

    A young mother starts an OnlyFans to avoid eviction. She uses her father's professional wrestling advice to build a persona and manage her life.

    tense → wry

    pace0·prose+1·bleak-2

  • Grunge

    Larry Correia2016

    A Marine killed in a bombing is resurrected to hunt supernatural creatures. He joins a private company that kills monsters for government bounties.

    tense → sardonic, still horror

    pace+1·prose0·bleak-2

  • Ten Things I Love About You

    Julia Quinn2010

    To save her family from poverty, Annabel Winslow must choose between a wealthy, elderly earl and his charming, penniless nephew.

    pace0·prose+1·bleak-2

Faster

3 more ↓

  • The Burning Side

    Sarah Damoff

    Same tense register, still horror

    pace+1·prose+2·bleak+1

  • The Rats

    James Herbert1974

    Giant, man-eating rats overrun London, attacking citizens in homes and subways. The story follows the escalating biological disaster.

    tense → propulsive, still horror

    pace+1·prose+1·bleak0

  • Shattered

    Dean Koontz1973

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

    Same tense register, still horror

    pace+1·prose0·bleak-1

Slower

3 more ↓

  • The City of Mirrors

    Justin Cronin2015

    The survivors of a vampire apocalypse face a final confrontation with the original source of the infection.

    tense → elegiac, still post-apocalyptic

    pace-1·prose+2·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+3·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+3·bleak-1

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • The Burning Side

    Sarah Damoff

    Same tense register, still horror

    pace+1·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+2·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·prose+1·bleak+1