After

The Humans

Matt Haig2001

pace
prose
structure
bleakness

5 of 6 directions open — nothing to recover from

More like it

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If I Never Get Back
Darryl Brock1990
A modern reporter travels back to 1869 and joins the first professional baseball team. He navigates the sport and life in the post-Civil War era.
Same warm register, still fish out of water
pace0·prose0·bleak+1
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Time and Again: Time Was / Times Change
Nora Roberts
Two stories follow men from the 23rd century who travel back to the 20th century and fall in love with women they meet there.
Same warm register, still fish out of water
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The Door into Summer
Robert A. Heinlein1957
An engineer is tricked into a thirty-year cryogenic sleep by his business partner. He wakes up in 2000 and seeks a way to use time travel for revenge.
warm → wry, still fish out of water
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pace0prose0bleak0
The Practice Effect
David Brin1984
A physicist enters a world where objects improve with use rather than wearing out. He uses this law to build tools and fight a warlord.
warm → playful, still fish out of water
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1 more ↓

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The Switch
Beth O'Leary2020
A stressed Londoner and her seventy-nine-year-old grandmother swap lives and apartments for two months.
Same warm register, still fish out of water
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Denser prose

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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.
warm → dreamlike
pace-2·prose+2·bleak+2
pace-1prose+2bleak+2
In Green's Jungles
Gene Wolfe2000
A narrator travels to different worlds while his physical form and memories shift. He recounts past voyages to prove his identity to his companions.
warm → elegiac
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3 more ↓

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VAS
Steve Tomasula2002
A man considers a vasectomy while the book uses diagrams and varied typography to explore the history of eugenics and biotechnology.
warm → clinical
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pace-1prose+2bleak+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.
warm → sardonic
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2
pace-1prose+2bleak+2
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.
warm → meditative
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Faster

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The Martian
Andy Weir2011
A man does arithmetic to stay alive on Mars. Problem, attempt, result, repeat.
warm → wry
pace+1·prose-1·bleak0
pace+1prose-1bleak0
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.
warm → propulsive
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3 more ↓

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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.
warm → wry
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pace+1prose-1bleak+1
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.
warm → propulsive
pace+1·prose-1·bleak+1
pace+1prose-1bleak0
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.
warm → playful
pace+1·prose-1·bleak0

Slower

pace-2prose+2bleak+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.
warm → dreamlike
pace-2·prose+2·bleak+2
pace-2prose+2bleak+1
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.
warm → meditative
pace-2·prose+2·bleak+1

3 more ↓

pace-2prose+2bleak+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.
warm → meditative
pace-2·prose+2·bleak+1
pace-2prose+2bleak0
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.
warm → playful
pace-2·prose+2·bleak0
pace-2prose+2bleak+1
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.
warm → playful
pace-2·prose+2·bleak+1

Heavier

pace-1prose+1bleak+3
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.
warm → cold
pace-1·prose+1·bleak+3
pace-1prose0bleak+3
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.
warm → bleak, still fish out of water
pace-1·prose0·bleak+3

3 more ↓

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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.
warm → bleak
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+3
pace-1prose+1bleak+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.
warm → elegiac
pace-1·prose+1·bleak+3
pace0prose+1bleak+3
Watchmen
Alan Moore1986
Retired masked vigilantes investigate the murder of a former teammate. The story takes place in an alternate 1985 on the brink of nuclear war.
warm → bleak
pace0·prose+1·bleak+3