After
The Exile: An Outlander Graphic Novel
Diana Gabaldon2010
- pace
- prose
- structure
- bleakness
6 of 6 directions open
More like it
- pace0prose0bleak+1
Of Monsters and Mainframes
Barbara Truelove2025
A sentient spaceship teams up with a werewolf and a reanimated engineer to stop a vampire killing passengers. It is a paranormal space opera.
Same tense register, still time travel
pace0·prose0·bleak+1
- pace0prose0bleak-1
Off to Be the Wizard
Scott Meyer2013
A hacker discovers reality is a computer program and flees to the Middle Ages to pose as a wizard. He joins a group of other time-traveling men.
tense → playful, still time travel
pace0·prose0·bleak-1
- pace0prose+1bleak0
Janissaries
Jerry Pournelle1979
A group of mercenaries is rescued from a failed mission by aliens and transported to a planet where humans from different eras coexist.
Same tense register, still fish out of water
pace0·prose+1·bleak0
- pace0prose+1bleak0
Quarter Share
Nathan Lowell2010
An eighteen-year-old joins a commercial space freighter to avoid deportation. He learns the trade and the social hierarchy of the ship.
Same tense register, still romance
pace0·prose+1·bleak0
1 more ↓ ↑
- pace0prose+1bleak0
Ironskin
Tina Connolly2012
A woman with a magical facial scar becomes a governess for a cursed child in a post-war fantasy world. She struggles to hide her deformity.
Same tense register, still historical fantasy
pace0·prose+1·bleak0
Denser prose
- pace-2prose+3bleak+1
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.
tense → dreamlike
pace-2·prose+3·bleak+1
- pace-1prose+3bleak+1
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.
tense → sardonic
pace-1·prose+3·bleak+1
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace-1prose+3bleak+1
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.
tense → meditative
pace-1·prose+3·bleak+1
- pace-1prose+3bleak+1
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.
tense → meditative
pace-1·prose+3·bleak+1
- pace-1prose+3bleak+1
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.
tense → dreamlike
pace-1·prose+3·bleak+1
To recover
- pace0prose+1bleak-1
His Majesty's Dragon
Naomi Novik2006
A British naval captain captures a dragon egg and becomes its handler during the Napoleonic Wars. The story follows their bond and aerial training.
tense → earnest, still historical fantasy
pace0·prose+1·bleak-1
- pace-1prose+2bleak-1
Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands
Heather Fawcett2024
A grumpy professor travels to the Austrian Alps to find a missing colleague and map a new faerie realm. The story is told through her journals.
tense → wry, still historical fantasy
pace-1·prose+2·bleak-1
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace0prose+1bleak-1
The Native Star
M. K. Hobson2010
A small-town witch and a city warlock flee across 1876 America to protect a magical artifact. Their journey involves steampunk tech and romance.
tense → playful, still historical fantasy
pace0·prose+1·bleak-1
- pace0prose+1bleak-1
Domes of Fire
David Eddings1992
The knight Sparhawk travels to a distant empire to investigate a series of supernatural threats. He is accompanied by a group of diverse warriors.
tense → playful
pace0·prose+1·bleak-1
- pace-1prose+1bleak-1
Shades of Milk and Honey
Mary Robinette Kowal2010
In a Regency England where magic is a social grace, Jane Ellsworth uses her skill with glamour to navigate the marriage market alongside her sister.
tense → earnest, still historical fantasy
pace-1·prose+1·bleak-1
Faster
- pace+1prose0bleak0
Warbound
Larry Correia2013
In an alternate 1930s, people with magical abilities fight a war against a trans-dimensional threat. It is the final book in a trilogy.
tense → propulsive, still historical fantasy
pace+1·prose0·bleak0
- pace+1prose+1bleak-1
Project Hail Mary
Andy Weir2021
A man wakes up on a spaceship with amnesia and two dead crewmates. He must use scientific experiments to remember his mission and save the sun.
tense → propulsive
pace+1·prose+1·bleak-1
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace+1prose0bleak-1
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.
tense → propulsive
pace+1·prose0·bleak-1
- pace+1prose+1bleak+1
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.
tense → propulsive
pace+1·prose+1·bleak+1
- pace+1prose+1bleak+1
Recursion
Blake Crouch2019
A detective and a scientist discover a technology that allows people to map and enter memories, causing timelines to rewrite and collapse.
Same tense register
pace+1·prose+1·bleak+1
Slower
- pace-2prose+3bleak+1
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.
tense → dreamlike
pace-2·prose+3·bleak+1
- pace-2prose+3bleak0
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.
tense → meditative
pace-2·prose+3·bleak0
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace-2prose+3bleak0
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.
tense → meditative
pace-2·prose+3·bleak0
- pace-2prose+3bleak0
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.
tense → meditative, still historical fantasy
pace-2·prose+3·bleak0
- pace-2prose+3bleak0
The Habitation of the Blessed
Catherynne M. Valente2010
A priest finds the lost kingdom of Prester John. The story is told through three nested layers of journals, myths, and historical accounts.
tense → dreamlike, still historical fantasy
pace-2·prose+3·bleak0
Heavier
- pace-1prose+2bleak+2
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.
tense → elegiac, still romance
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2
- pace-1prose+2bleak+2
The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood1985
In a totalitarian state with a plummeting birth rate, a woman is enslaved as a reproductive vessel. She records her daily life and memories.
tense → cold
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace-1prose+1bleak+2
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.
tense → bleak, still fish out of water
pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2
- pace-1prose+3bleak+2
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.
tense → bleak
pace-1·prose+3·bleak+2
- pace-1prose+2bleak+2
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.
tense → elegiac
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2
