LitQueuelitqueue

After

The Golden Spruce

John Vaillant2004

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

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  • Dragonfly in Amber

    Diana Gabaldon1992

    A woman returns to Scotland with her daughter and recalls her 18th-century life with a Highland warrior. It spans two different centuries.

    Same elegiac register

    pace0·prose0·bleak0

Denser prose

elegiac → dreamlike

3 more ↓

  • All Those Vanished Engines

    Paul Park2014

    Three linked stories follow the Park family through an alternate history where the American Civil War ended in a two-nation settlement.

    pace0·prose+1·bleak0

  • 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.

    pace-1·prose+1·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.

    elegiac → sardonic

    pace0·prose+1·bleak0

To recover

elegiac → propulsive

3 more ↓

  • This Man

    Jodi Ellen Malpas2013

    An interior designer begins an affair with a wealthy client who demands total control over her life and schedule.

    elegiac → tense

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

  • 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.

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2

  • Real Murders

    Charlaine Harris1990

    A librarian in a small Georgia town belongs to a club that studies famous crimes. A real murder occurs that mimics a historical case.

    elegiac → wry

    pace+1·prose-2·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.

    elegiac → wry

    pace+2·prose-2·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.

    elegiac → 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.

    elegiac → playful

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2

Slower

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    elegiac → meditative

    pace-1·prose+1·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.

    elegiac → playful

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak-2

  • Ulysses

    James Joyce1914

    Three characters wander through Dublin on a single day in 1904. Each chapter uses a different literary style to mimic thoughts and sensations.

    elegiac → playful

    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.

    elegiac → bleak

    pace0·prose-1·bleak+1

  • 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.

    elegiac → bleak

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

  • 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.

    Same elegiac register

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1