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After

The Chronoliths

Robert Charles Wilson2001

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

Same meditative register, still science fiction

1 more ↓

  • Visitors

    Orson Scott Card2014

    Time-travelers split up to prevent Earth from destroying their colony planet. One travels across his world while his double heads for Earth.

    pace0·prose0·bleak-1

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • Nova Express

    William S. Burroughs1964

    An experimental narrative uses the cut-up technique to depict a war between intergalactic criminals and the police. It is a collage of imagery.

    meditative → sardonic, still science fiction

    pace0·prose+2·bleak0

  • Shadow & Claw

    Gene Wolfe1983

    A torturer travels across a far-future Earth where technology is indistinguishable from magic. He recounts his exile in dense, archaic prose.

    Same meditative register

    pace0·prose+2·bleak0

  • Radiance

    Catherynne M. Valente2015

    A documentary filmmaker disappears on Venus in an alternate 1980s solar system. The story is told through scripts, interviews, and letters.

    meditative → dreamlike

    pace0·prose+2·bleak0

To recover

3 more ↓

  • The Stainless Steel Rat

    Harry Harrison1961

    A futuristic con man is caught by the Special Corps and forced to use his criminal skills to catch other lawbreakers.

    meditative → playful, still science fiction

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-2

  • Dream Park

    Steven Barnes1981

    A security chief investigates a real death during a high-stakes holographic role-playing game. The story tracks the game mechanics and the murder.

    meditative → propulsive, still science fiction

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-2

  • Fugitive Telemetry

    Martha Wells2021

    A security android discovers a dead body on a space station and must work with human authorities to solve the murder without being blamed.

    meditative → sardonic, still science fiction

    pace+1·prose0·bleak-2

Faster

3 more ↓

  • Logan's run

    William F. Nolan1967

    In a future where everyone is executed at age 21, an enforcer becomes a fugitive. He attempts to reach a rumored sanctuary.

    meditative → tense, still science fiction

    pace+2·prose0·bleak0

  • Influx

    Daniel Suarez2014

    A physicist invents a gravity-reflecting device and is imprisoned by a secret agency that suppresses technology. He plots a high-tech escape.

    meditative → propulsive, still science fiction

    pace+2·prose0·bleak-1

  • Star Wars Episode VII - The Force Awakens

    Alan Dean Foster2001

    A scavenger and a defecting soldier join the fight against a new galactic power. They search for a missing hero from the previous generation.

    meditative → propulsive, still science fiction

    pace+2·prose0·bleak-1

Slower

3 more ↓

  • Invisible Cities

    Italo Calvino1972

    Marco Polo describes fifty-five imaginary cities to Kublai Khan. The book is a series of short, prose-poem meditations on urban existence.

    Same meditative register

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak-1

  • Looking Backward, 2000-1887

    Edward Bellamy1888

    A man falls into a hypnotic sleep in 1887 and wakes up in the year 2000 to find the United States transformed into a socialist utopia.

    meditative → earnest, still science fiction

    pace-1·prose0·bleak-2

  • 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.

    meditative → playful

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak-2

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • Hellspark

    Janet Kagan1988

    A linguist travels to a new planet to investigate a murder. She must determine if the local species is sentient while navigating a conspiracy.

    meditative → tense, still science fiction

    pace+2·prose+1·bleak+1

  • The Running Man

    Richard Bachman

    A man enters a deadly reality show to fund medical care for his daughter. He must survive thirty days while the entire world hunts him for money.

    meditative → propulsive, still science fiction

    pace+2·prose0·bleak+1

  • Strangers

    Gardner Dozois1978

    An artist living among the alien Cian on a distant planet falls in love with a local woman and attempts to navigate their incompatible biology.

    meditative → elegiac, still science fiction

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+1