LitQueuelitqueue

After

The Pickup Artist

Terry Bisson2001

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

1 more ↓

  • Player Piano

    Kurt Vonnegut1952

    In a future where machines have replaced manual labor, an engineer joins a group of displaced workers planning a revolution against the system.

    wry → sardonic, still satire

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • Infinite Jest

    David Foster Wallace1996

    A sprawling narrative centered on a tennis academy, a halfway house, and a lethal film. The text includes hundreds of pages of detailed endnotes.

    wry → sardonic, still satire

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+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.

    wry → dreamlike

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+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.

    wry → meditative

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+1

To recover

wry → playful, still satire

3 more ↓

  • Confessions of a Shopaholic

    Sophie Kinsella2001

    A financial journalist hides her mounting debt while continuing to shop compulsively. She eventually writes a career-defining expose.

    wry → playful

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

  • Steal Like an Artist

    Austin Kleon2012

    A series of short, illustrated principles for creative work. It focuses on remixing existing ideas and establishing productive daily habits.

    wry → playful

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1

  • Big Magic

    Elizabeth Gilbert2015

    The author shares her philosophy on the creative process through personal anecdotes. It focuses on overcoming fear and pursuing curiosity.

    wry → warm

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

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.

    wry → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-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.

    wry → propulsive, still dystopian

    pace+2·prose0·bleak+1

  • 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.

    Same wry register

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1

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.

    wry → meditative

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

  • Translated Accounts

    James Kelman2001

    Anonymous witnesses describe life under a military regime. The prose uses broken, bureaucratic syntax to mimic a literal translation.

    wry → bleak, still dystopian

    pace-1·prose+2·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.

    wry → playful

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak-1

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • HARM

    Brian Aldiss2007

    A British Muslim man is detained and tortured in a secret prison. He hallucinates a second life on a distant planet to escape the pain.

    wry → bleak, still satire

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+2

  • Naked Lunch: The Restored Text

    William S. Burroughs

    A series of nonlinear vignettes follow a drug addict's hallucinations and travels. The prose is fragmented and satirical.

    wry → sardonic, still satire

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+2

  • The Testament of Jessie Lamb

    Jane Rogers2011

    A teenager decides to volunteer for a medical program that will end her life to save humanity from a biological catastrophe.

    wry → earnest, still dystopian

    pace0·prose0·bleak+2