After
Time and Again: Time Was / Times Change
Nora Roberts
- pace
- prose
- structure
- bleakness
5 of 6 directions open — nothing to recover from
More like it
- pace0prose0bleak0
The Humans
Matt Haig2001
An alien occupies the body of a Cambridge professor to prevent a mathematical discovery. He must navigate human customs and his new family.
Same warm register, still fish out of water
pace0·prose0·bleak0
- pace0prose0bleak0
The Highlander's Touch
Karen Marie Moning2000
A modern woman is transported 700 years back in time to medieval Scotland, where she encounters a warrior who has sworn to destroy her.
warm → playful, still fish out of water
pace0·prose0·bleak0
- pace0prose0bleak+1
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
- pace0prose0bleak0
One Last Stop
Casey McQuiston2021
A girl in New York discovers her subway crush is a displaced person from the 1970s. She tries to help her escape the train line.
Same warm register
pace0·prose0·bleak0
1 more ↓ ↑
- pace0prose0bleak0
The Giver of Stars
Jojo Moyes2019
Five women deliver books on horseback in rural Kentucky during the Great Depression. They face local prejudice and harsh terrain to run the library.
Same warm register, still romance
pace0·prose0·bleak0
Denser prose
- 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-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
3 more ↓ ↑
- 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
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2
- pace-1prose+2bleak+2
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.
warm → meditative
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2
- pace-1prose+2bleak+2
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.
warm → dreamlike
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2
Faster
- pace+1prose-1bleak0
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
pace+1·prose-1·bleak0
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace+1prose-1bleak0
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
pace+1·prose-1·bleak0
- 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+2bleak+2
Moby Dick
Herman Melville1851
A sailor joins a whaling voyage led by a captain seeking revenge on a specific whale. Large sections digress into the mechanics of 1850s whaling.
warm → meditative, still adventure
pace-2·prose+2·bleak+2
- 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
Heavier
- pace-1prose+1bleak+3
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.
warm → elegiac, still romance
pace-1·prose+1·bleak+3
- 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
3 more ↓ ↑
- 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
- pace-1prose+2bleak+3
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
