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After

The Enemy Stars

Poul Anderson1958

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

1 more ↓

  • The Fountains of Paradise

    Arthur C. Clarke1979

    An engineer in the 22nd century attempts to build a 36,000-kilometer space elevator. He must overcome technical, political, and religious hurdles.

    bleak → meditative, still hard sci-fi

    pace0·prose0·bleak-1

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    bleak → dreamlike

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

  • 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.

    bleak → sardonic

    pace0·prose+2·bleak0

  • Valis

    Philip K. Dick1981

    A man experiences a beam of pink light that imparts vast information. The narrative explores his mental breakdown and search for God in California.

    bleak → meditative

    pace0·prose+2·bleak0

To recover

3 more ↓

  • Contact

    Carl Sagan1985

    A radio astronomer detects a signal from Vega containing blueprints for a machine. Scientists work to decode the message and build the device.

    bleak → earnest, still hard sci-fi

    pace0·prose+1·bleak-2

  • The long earth

    Terry Pratchett2012

    Humans discover they can 'step' into an infinite series of parallel Earths. The story follows a pioneer and an AI exploring these empty worlds.

    bleak → meditative, still hard sci-fi

    pace0·prose0·bleak-2

  • Time Enough for Love

    Robert A. Heinlein1973

    Lazarus Long, a man over two thousand years old, recounts his various lives and philosophies to his descendants. It is a series of nested stories.

    bleak → meditative, still hard sci-fi

    pace0·prose0·bleak-2

Faster

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    bleak → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-2

  • 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.

    bleak → wry

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-2

  • 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.

    bleak → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-1·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.

    bleak → meditative

    pace-1·prose+2·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.

    bleak → meditative

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak-1

  • 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.

    bleak → playful

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak-2

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • Echopraxia

    Peter Watts2014

    A biologist is caught on a mission toward the sun alongside a pilot and a group of transhuman monks. It explores consciousness and evolution.

    Same bleak register, still hard sci-fi

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+1

  • Beyond the Aquila Rift

    Alastair Reynolds2001

    A spaceship crew wakes from cold sleep to find they have overshot their destination by light-years. They must face the reality of their location.

    Same bleak register, still hard sci-fi

    pace+1·prose+1·bleak+1

  • The Killing Star

    Charles R. Pellegrino1995

    Relativistic missiles destroy Earth without warning. The few human survivors in the solar system are hunted by an alien species using logic.

    Same bleak register, still hard sci-fi

    pace+1·prose0·bleak+1