Red Side Story

The Cyberiad

Stanisław Lem1965

Two rival robotic 'constructors' travel the universe competing to build the most elaborate and often disastrous machines.

Same wry register, still satire

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A Clockwork Orange

Anthony Burgess1962

A teenage gang leader is imprisoned and subjected to state-mandated psychological conditioning. The story is told in a slang called Nadsat.

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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.

wry → dreamlike

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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.

wry → sardonic

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The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek

Rhett McLaughlin2019

Two friends investigate a reform school in 1990s North Carolina after a classmate disappears. It is a mystery involving local conspiracies.

wry → playful

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Rich People Problems

Kevin Kwan2017

An extended family gathers in Singapore as their matriarch lies dying. They scheme against one another to inherit a massive estate.

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Wielding a Red Sword

Piers Anthony1986

An Indian prince avoids an arranged marriage by accepting the supernatural office of War. He wields a sword that draws him into a conflict in Hell.

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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.

wry → propulsive

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Red Rising

Pierce Brown2014

A laborer on Mars discovers his caste is being lied to and undergoes surgery to infiltrate the ruling elite. He joins a brutal war games academy.

wry → propulsive, still dystopian

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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.

Same wry register

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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.

wry → meditative

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Naked Lunch: The Restored Text

William S. Burroughs

A series of nonlinear vignettes follow a drug addict's hallucinations and travels. The prose is fragmented and satirical.

wry → sardonic, still dystopian

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Translated Accounts

James Kelman2001

Anonymous witnesses describe life under a military regime. The prose uses broken, bureaucratic syntax to mimic a literal translation.

wry → bleak, still dystopian

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HARM

Brian Aldiss2007

A British Muslim man is detained and tortured in a secret prison. He hallucinates a second life on a distant planet to escape the pain.

wry → bleak, still dystopian

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Naked Lunch: The Restored Text

William S. Burroughs

A series of nonlinear vignettes follow a drug addict's hallucinations and travels. The prose is fragmented and satirical.

wry → sardonic, still dystopian

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The Testament of Jessie Lamb

Jane Rogers2011

A teenager decides to volunteer for a medical program that will end her life to save humanity from a biological catastrophe.

wry → earnest, still dystopian

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