Transcendent

Greybeard

Brian W. Aldiss1964

Global sterility has left Earth with no children. An aging couple travels down the Thames as humanity's youngest members enter their fifties.

pace0·prose0·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

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.

elegiac → meditative

pace0·prose+1·bleak0

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.

elegiac → meditative

pace0·prose+1·bleak0

Fifty Shades of Grey

E.L. James2000

A college student enters a sexual contract with a wealthy businessman. The story focuses on their power dynamics and BDSM encounters.

elegiac → earnest

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

The Martian

Andy Weir2011

A man does arithmetic to stay alive on Mars. Problem, attempt, result, repeat.

elegiac → wry

pace+2·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.

elegiac → propulsive

pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2

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.

elegiac → propulsive, still hard sci-fi

pace+2·prose-1·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.

elegiac → propulsive

pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2

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

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.

elegiac → meditative

pace-1·prose+1·bleak-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.

elegiac → meditative

pace-1·prose+1·bleak-1

After London

Richard Jefferies1885

Nature reclaims England after an unspecified catastrophe destroys civilization. A young man explores the toxic swamps that were once London.

Same elegiac register, still post-apocalyptic

pace-1·prose0·bleak0

The Walking Dead: Compendium One

Robert Kirkman2009

A sheriff wakes from a coma into a zombie apocalypse. He leads a group of survivors through various temporary shelters over several years.

elegiac → bleak, still post-apocalyptic

pace+1·prose-2·bleak+1

The Forge of God

Greg Bear1987

Scientists and government officials realize Earth is being systematically dismantled by an alien presence.

Same elegiac register, still hard sci-fi

pace+1·prose-1·bleak+1

One Second After

William R. Forstchen2009

An EMP strike destroys the American power grid. A history professor attempts to manage the starvation and societal collapse of his small town.

elegiac → bleak, still post-apocalyptic

pace+1·prose-1·bleak+1