LitQueuelitqueue

After

Shoeless Joe

W.P. Kinsella1982

5 of 6 directions open — nothing to recover from

More like it

1 more ↓

  • Unquenchable Fire

    Rachel Pollack1988

    In a modern America ruled by living myths, a woman becomes pregnant through a dream. She must navigate a world where miracles are bureaucratic.

    tender → dreamlike, still magical realism

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • Sometimes a Great Notion

    Ken Kesey1964

    A family of independent loggers in Oregon refuses to join a local strike. The perspective shifts rapidly between characters, often mid-paragraph.

    tender → elegiac

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+2

  • 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.

    tender → dreamlike

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2

  • 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.

    tender → sardonic

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+2

Faster

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    tender → wry

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak0

  • Skin Game

    Jim Butcher2014

    Wizard Harry Dresden joins a team of villains to rob a vault in the Underworld. It is a fast-paced heist set in a modern fantasy Chicago.

    tender → propulsive

    pace+2·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.

    tender → playful

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak0

Slower

3 more ↓

  • Love & Sleep

    John Crowley1994

    Pierce Moffett researches the history of magic while living in a small town. The narrative shifts between his life and the Renaissance.

    tender → meditative, still magical realism

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

  • Among Others

    Jo Walton2011

    A teenage girl at a 1970s boarding school copes with her twin's death through books and subtle magic. It is written as a series of diary entries.

    Same tender register, still magical realism

    pace-1·prose-1·bleak+1

  • 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.

    tender → meditative

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • Doomsday Book

    Connie Willis1992

    A student travels to 14th-century England while a virus spreads in the present. She arrives during the Black Death due to a technical error.

    tender → bleak

    pace0·prose-1·bleak+3

  • Perdido Street Station

    China Miéville2000

    A scientist in a sprawling, industrial city agrees to help a winged refugee fly again. His research accidentally unleashes a psychic predator.

    tender → bleak

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+3

  • The Sparrow

    Mary Doria Russell1996

    A Jesuit priest joins a mission to a newly discovered planet. The story is told in flashbacks after he returns as the sole, traumatized survivor.

    tender → elegiac

    pace0·prose0·bleak+3