Loreful
HomeDiscover
Search series, authors…⌘K
Loreful

Reading orders for SF/F series and shared universes — with your place kept in every one.

Explore

UniversesSeriesWorksAuthorsAtlas

Help

FAQAboutSite map

Account & legal

Sign inCreate accountPrivacyTerms

Data

Built on ISFDB, Wikipedia, Wikidata and Open Library. Curated reading orders carry their reasoning on the page; the rest follow publication order. Data sources & licenses

© Loreful · data: ISFDB · CC BY

More like Assassin

anchored on:thriller & suspenseassassinsorganized crimebritish isleslate 20th centurydark+4 more

but

Mood

The mood the book leaves you in.

  • The reading experience is propelled by journeys, exploration, and physical risk; excitement and forward momentum dominate over dread or introspection.
  • Joy and loss are deliberately mixed; the resolution grants characters something real while taking something else away, leaving warmth and sorrow together.
  • The book demands work from the reader — dense prose, difficult structure, unfamiliar ideas, or morally uncomfortable material — as part of its intended effect.
  • Grim events, cruelty, or despair dominate the atmosphere, and the book does not soften them with comfort or comic relief.
  • The atmosphere is quietly unsettling — wrongness, unease, and the uncanny pervade the book without necessarily escalating into overt horror.
  • The book is built to move the reader; character feeling is foregrounded and major scenes aim at a strong emotional response.
  • Humor is a primary aim and the prose plays for laughs — comic situations, wit, or dialogue produce sustained comedy, not occasional levity.
  • The book insists that things can improve; effort and decency are shown to matter, and the arc bends toward better outcomes even through hardship.
  • The book teaches as it goes — real facts, history, science, or craft are conveyed in enough depth that learning is part of the reading experience.
  • The book is designed to uplift and motivate, presenting perseverance or achievement in a way that invites the reader to aspire or act.
  • The overall register is cheerful and easygoing; stakes are kept gentle and the book avoids dwelling on pain or dread.
  • Withheld information drives the experience; the book sustains enigmas and secrets the reader wants resolved, whatever its genre.
  • The book is contemplative and inward-looking, giving more weight to thought, memory, and meaning than to external events.
  • The book works as comfort reading — low tension, a soothing pace, and an atmosphere the reader can unwind in.
  • Grief, loss, or melancholy set the dominant register, and the book lets sorrow stand rather than resolving it into comfort.
  • Sustained suspense is the point; the book keeps the reader braced for what happens next through danger, pressure, or impending revelation.
  • Playful invention and charm define the register — fanciful conceits, light absurdity, and a narration that delights in its own oddity.

About

What the story runs on.

  • Stories in which extraterrestrial beings are central — as characters, cultures, or the object of the plot.
  • Stories structured as a quest — a journey undertaken to find, deliver, or destroy something of great import.
  • Stories in which staying alive against nature, catastrophe, or scarcity is the central problem.
  • Stories of lovers kept apart by law, family, faith, or station, where the obstacle to love is the plot.
  • Stories of growing up — a young protagonist crossing from childhood into adult knowledge and responsibility.
  • Stories about who a character truly is — self-discovery, doubled lives, and the search for a self.
  • Stories about mental unraveling — descent into madness, delusion, and minds at war with themselves.
  • Stories about mourning — living through the death of a loved one and what loss does to the survivors.
  • Stories in which a buried family truth — hidden parentage, crimes, or shames — surfaces and reorders the present.
  • Stories driven by maneuvering for power — factions, conspiracies, and statecraft conducted in shadow.
  • Stories in which war itself is the subject — combat, occupation, and what warfare does to soldiers and civilians.
  • Stories organized around investigating a killing — the case, the clues, and the pursuit of the killer, in any genre's clothing.

Shelf

Where it sits in the library.

    • Fiction built on magic or other supernatural elements that have no scientific explanation.
    • Secondary-world fantasy at large scale, where the fate of nations or the world turns on the protagonists' struggle.
    • Fantasy set in a recognizably modern city or contemporary world where the supernatural intrudes on everyday life.
    • Fantasy that blends in horror's atmosphere and imagery, keeping a fantastical frame around grim or frightening material.
    • Action-driven fantasy following warriors or rogues with personal stakes against sorcerous threats, rather than world-spanning conflicts.
    • Fantasy set in a real historical period or a close analogue of one, with magic woven into the era.
    • Fantasy in which protagonists cross from the ordinary world into another world through a portal or similar passage.
    • Fiction that retells or reworks a traditional fairy tale in a new form or setting.
    • Fantasy drawing directly on myths, legends, and folklore, retelling them or building on their figures and logic.
    • Fantasy of ghosts, vampires, shapeshifters, psychics, and similar phenomena, usually set in an otherwise ordinary world.
    • Fiction mixing science-fictional trappings with overtly magical or impossible elements in one setting.
    • Low-stakes fantasy emphasizing comfort, community, and everyday pleasures over conflict and peril.
    • Speculative fiction of pervasive moral ambiguity, violence, and cynicism that rejects heroic conventions — fantasy and SF alike.
      • Fiction that extrapolates from science and technology — future societies, space travel, or speculative inventions — within at least nominally natural laws.
      • Science fiction of interstellar scope — starships, galactic polities, and adventure across star systems.
      • Science fiction committed to scientific rigor, where technical plausibility constrains the story.
      • Science fiction centered on armed forces and warfare, told largely from a military point of view.
      • Science fiction of networked, corporate-dominated near futures, pairing high technology with social decay.
      • Science fiction styled on nineteenth-century steam-powered technology, often in a Victorian or pseudo-Victorian setting.
      • Fiction depicting an oppressive or catastrophic society, presented as a warning.
      • Fiction set after civilization's collapse, following survivors in the ruins of the old world.
      • Fiction in which characters move between past and future, and the mechanics or consequences of that travel drive the plot.
      • Fiction exploring a world where a historical event went differently and history diverged from ours.
      • Science fiction about humanity's first encounter and communication with an alien intelligence.
      • Science fiction in which extraterrestrial forces attack or occupy Earth and humanity resists.
      • Fiction whose primary aim is to frighten or unsettle the reader through dread, menace, or the monstrous.
      • Horror of vast, indifferent, incomprehensible entities before which humanity is insignificant, in the Lovecraft tradition.
      • Horror of decaying houses, buried family secrets, and oppressive atmosphere in the Gothic literary tradition.
      • Horror centered on hauntings and the returning dead.
      • Horror located in the mind — paranoia, obsession, and unreliable perception rather than external monsters.
      • Horror built around the reanimated dead and survival amid their outbreaks.
      • Horror defined by explicit, transgressive gore that refuses to cut away from violence.
      • Speculative fiction of the strange and uncanny that resists both natural explanation and standard genre categories.
      • Fiction organized around solving a crime or puzzle, typically following an investigator toward the identification of a culprit.
      • A puzzle-first mystery that lays out clues so the culprit's identity can be deduced before the reveal.
      • Crime fiction of moral ambiguity, fatalism, and hard-edged style, set among the corrupt and the doomed.
      • A mystery following the realistic routines of police work — forensics, interviews, and case-building.
      • A gentle mystery with an amateur sleuth, a small community, and violence kept off the page.
      • A mystery set in a past era, where the investigation works within that period's methods and society.
      • Fast-paced fiction driven by imminent danger, pursuit, or high-stakes conspiracy, built to sustain tension.
      • A thriller of espionage — agents, tradecraft, and intelligence services in conflict.
      • A thriller centered on lawyers and the courtroom, where litigation carries the suspense.
      • A thriller driven by detailed contemporary or near-future technology, often military or scientific.
      • A thriller whose tension comes from mental states and manipulation between characters rather than external action.
      • Fiction whose central plot is a romantic relationship and its development toward an emotionally satisfying resolution.
      • Romance in which one or both partners are supernatural beings, blending fantasy elements into the love story.
      • A fantasy-romance hybrid in which the romantic arc and the fantasy plot carry equal weight.
      • Romance set in a past era, with courtship shaped by the period's society and manners.
      • Romance set in the present day, without supernatural or historical elements.
      • Fiction set in a real past period, where the historical setting materially shapes characters and events.
        • General and literary fiction emphasizing prose style, character interiority, or formal ambition over genre plot conventions.
        • Fiction in a realistic world where magical events occur and are treated as ordinary, in the tradition of Latin American literature.
        • Fiction that ridicules people, institutions, or society in order to criticize them.
        • Fiction of dreamlike, irrational imagery and logic that breaks from realistic representation.
        • Fiction that plays with narrative convention through metafiction, fragmentation, and self-reference.
        • Fiction propelled by journeys, exploration, and physical peril, where action and survival carry the plot.
        • Adventure fiction of ships and seafaring — naval engagements, voyages, and life at sea.
        • Fiction of the American frontier West — gunmen, ranchers, and lawmen, typically in the late nineteenth century.
        • Fiction centered on soldiers, campaigns, and the experience of warfare, historical or imagined.
          • Fiction written primarily to amuse, using comedic situations, wit, or parody as its organizing principle.
            • Multi-generational fiction following a family or dynasty across decades, with inheritance and kinship as the through-line.
              • Fiction whose world runs on explicit game mechanics — levels, stats, and skills that characters can see and exploit.
                • Fiction about costumed or superpowered heroes and their conflicts with comparable villains.

                Practical

                How long a commitment, whether it stands alone, and whether it has finished.

                Tap a chip to ask for it · tap again to rule it out · once more to clear. Numbers show what would be left.

                • Cover of Cold in July
                  Cold in July

                  Joe R. Lansdale · standalone novel · 1989

                  similar bylate 20th centurynoirthriller & suspensedarktenserevenge

                  Cold in July is a 1989 American crime novel written by Joe R. Lansdale.

                • Cover of Felicia
                  Felicia

                  George Alec Effinger · standalone novel · 1976

                  similar bylate 20th centurythriller & suspensenoirdarktense+1 more

                  Someone's about to rip off a sleepy little Louisiana town! Chuck's gang of truckers are geared for looting. When Tom masterminds a false hurricane alert...When sheriff Boshardt orders an evacuation of the town...When Chuck moves in to strip the town clean...Their cool caper escalates into a devastating triple-cross that rips the rooftops off everything from Miami to New Orleans-and nothing-no one will ever be the same!

                • Cover of The Shining Girls
                  The Shining Girls

                  Lauren Beukes · standalone novel · 2013

                  similar bylate 20th centurythriller & suspensedarktenserevenge

                  The Shining Girls is a science fiction thriller novel by South African author Lauren Beukes. The book centers on a mysterious drifter who murders the titular "shining girls" and one victim's attempts to expose him.

                • Cover of Nicholas Linnear
                  Nicholas Linnear

                  series · 2 books · 1994

                  similar bythriller & suspenseorganized crimedarktenserevengebig city+1 more

                • Cover of Ghost Story
                  Ghost Story

                  Peter Straub · standalone novel · 1979

                  similar bylate 20th centurydarktenserevenge

                  Four prominent citizens of a small town in upstate New York who share guilt over something that happened in their youth are revisited late in life by a destructive evil force which uses their guilt as an opportunity to destroy them as well as the entire town.

                • Cover of London Fields
                  London Fields

                  Martin Amis · standalone novel · 1989

                  similar bylate 20th centurydarktensebritish islesbig city

                  London Fields is a black comedy murder mystery novel by the British writer Martin Amis, published in 1989. The tone gradually shifts from high comedy, interspersed with deep personal introspections, to a dark sense of foreboding and eventually panic at the approach of the deadline, or "horrorday", the climactic scene alluded to on the very first page.

                • Cover of Night and the City
                  Night and the City

                  Gerald Kersh · standalone novel · 1938

                  similar bydarknoirthriller & suspensetensebritish islesorganized crimebig city

                  Night and the City is the third novel by British author Gerald Kersh, published in 1938. It is a crime thriller set in 1930s London but also deals with social realism themes in the aftermath of the Great Depression.

                • Cover of Joe Kurtz
                  Joe Kurtz

                  series · 3 books · 2001

                  completed

                  similar bydarknoirtenserevengeorganized crimebig city

                • Cover of Dark Places
                  Dark Places

                  Gillian Flynn · standalone novel · 2009

                  similar bylate 20th centurydarkthriller & suspensetense

                  Dark Places is a mystery novel by Gillian Flynn published in 2009. The novel deals with class issues in rural America, intense poverty and the Satanic cult hysteria that swept the United States in the 1980s. Dark Places was shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and won Dark Scribe Magazine's Black Quill Award for Dark Genre Novel of the Year. It was also listed on The New York Times Best Seller list for hardcover fiction for two consecutive weeks. A film adaptation of the novel starring Charlize Theron was released on August 7, 2015.

                • Cover of Nightwing
                  Nightwing

                  Martin Cruz Smith · standalone novel · 1977

                  similar bylate 20th centurythriller & suspensedarktense

                  Nightwing is a 1977 thriller novel by American author Martin Cruz Smith, who adapted it for a 1979 film with the same title directed by Arthur Hiller.

                • Cover of The Fourth K
                  The Fourth K

                  Mario Puzo · standalone novel · 1990

                  similar bylate 20th centurythriller & suspensedarktensebig city

                  President Francis Xavier Kennedy, in the wake of an assassination of the Pope and a terrorist attack on Manhattan, takes harsh authoritarian measures in the interest of the United States.

                • Cover of Compound Fracture
                  Compound Fracture

                  Andrew Joseph White · standalone novel · 2024

                  similar bylate 20th centurythriller & suspensedarktense+1 more

                  Compound Fracture is a 2024 thriller young adult novel by Andrew Joseph White published by Peachtree Teen. Set in West Virginia in 2017, the story follows Miles Abernathy, a trans, autistic teen, whose family is part of an ongoing feud with the sheriff over the exploitation of the locals. He releases photographic evidence of the sheriff staging an accident that injured his father and killed others and is beaten close to death by the sheriff's son in retaliation. After recovering he becomes haunted by the spirit of Saint Abernathy, an executed relative.

                • Cover of Shrine
                  Shrine

                  James Herbert · standalone novel · 1983

                  similar bylate 20th centurydarktensebritish isles

                  Shrine is a 1983 horror novel by English writer James Herbert, exploring themes of religious ecstasy, mass hysteria, demonic possession, faith healing and Catholicism.

                • Cover of The Brigade
                  The Brigade

                  John Shirley · standalone novel · 1981

                  similar bylate 20th centurythriller & suspensedarktenserevenge+1 more

                  In the shadows the Saturday Night Killer is waiting. He's struck thirteen times, each knife murder sicker than the last. The Brigade was formed to clean up the town of Salton and run the killer off the streets. But the vigilantes' drunken shotgun rule is hiding something. It's Saturday night and the lights are going out one by one. Out there in the dark the killer is ready..........

                • Cover of A Serpent Uncoiled
                  A Serpent Uncoiled

                  Simon Spurrier · standalone novel · 2011

                  similar bydarknoirtensebritish islesorganized crimebig city

                  Working as an enforcer in London's criminal underworld brought Dan Shaper to the edge of a breakdown. Now he's a private investigator, kept perilously afloat by a growing cocktail of drugs. He needs to straighten up and rebuild his life, but instead he gets the attention of his old gangland masters and a job offer from Mr. George Glass. The elderly eccentric claims to be a New Age Messiah, but now needs a savior of his own: he's been marked for murder. Adrift amidst liars and thugs, Shaper must push his capsizing mind to its limits, as he is stalked not only by a unique and terrifying killer, but by the ghosts of his own brutal past.

                • Cover of Sliver
                  Sliver

                  Ira Levin · standalone novel · 1991

                  similar bylate 20th centurythriller & suspensetensebig city+1 more

                  Sliver is an erotic novel by the American writer Ira Levin, first published in 1991. The story follows a group of mysterious people in a privately owned high-rise apartment building in New York City after an attractive young woman moves in. The novel was adapted into a film of the same name in 1993. Directed by Phillip Noyce and written by Joe Eszterhas, it starred Sharon Stone, William Baldwin, Polly Walker and Tom Berenger.

                • Cover of Headstone City
                  Headstone City

                  Tom Piccirilli · standalone novel · 2006

                  similar bydarknoirtenserevengeorganized crimebig city

                  The night Johnny Danetello drove a dying girl through the streets of Brooklyn in his cab, he was trying to save her life. Instead he ran down a cop and lost her and his freedom. Every day in prison, Johnny knew that Angie Monticelli's family blamed him for her death, and that going home would be suicide. But Johnny has unfinished business with his former friend turned mob boss, Vinny Monticelli.Now Johnny has returned to converse with the doomed and the dead--and wait for Vinny to make his move. Survivors of a long-ago freak accident, the two men share access to alternate realities no one else can know--and to a past and present that will all become the same in a city only one of them can leave alive. . . .From the Paperback edition.

                • Cover of The Bad Place
                  The Bad Place

                  Dean R. Koontz · standalone novel · 1990

                  similar bylate 20th centurythriller & suspensedarktense

                  The Bad Place is a horror novel by American writer Dean Koontz, released in 1990. It includes elements of horror, suspense, and mystery, and is presented partially as a twist on the private eye drama. The story follows Frank Pollard, a man who wakes up each night with no memory of where he has been or what he has done, only to find himself covered in injuries or in possession of strange items. As his condition worsens, private investigators Bobby and Julie Dakota are hired to track him and uncover the truth behind his blackouts. Their investigation leads them into a disturbing web of genetic experimentation, family secrets, and a hidden force manipulating human lives from the shadows. As the plot unfolds, the novel reveals that Frank and others are being pursued by powerful, almost inhuman figures connected to a twisted experiment involving selective breeding and enhanced abilities. The Dakotas become entangled in a struggle not only to save Frank but also to survive against forces that seem to operate beyond normal human limits. Themes in the novel include identity, memory loss, the abuse of science, and the nature of evil. Koontz blends psychological horror with fast-paced action, creating a narrative that shifts between detective fiction and supernatural thriller. The book received generally positive reception from readers who enjoyed Koontz’s signature suspense style, though some critics noted its complex and sometimes chaotic plot structure. Over time, it has remained one of his more memorable early-1990s works due to its unusual blend of genres and its dark, unsettling tone.

                • Cover of Carrie
                  Carrie

                  Stephen King · standalone novel · 1974

                  similar bytenselate 20th centurydarkrevenge

                  In one way or another, everybody abused Carrie. This sixteen-year-old misfit was forbidden everything that was young and fun by her fanatical mother. She was teased and taunted by her classmates, misunderstood by her teachers, and given up as hopeless by almost everyone. But Carrie had a secret: She possessed terrifying telekinetic powers that could make inanimate objects move, a lighted candle fall, or a door lock. Carrie could make all kinds of startling bizarre, and malevolent things happen. (WorldCat)

                • Cover of Roadwork
                  Roadwork

                  Stephen King · standalone novel · 1981

                  similar bylate 20th centurythriller & suspensedarkbig city+2 more

                  Roadwork is a thriller novel by American writer Stephen King, published in 1981 under the pseudonym Richard Bachman as a paperback original. It was collected in 1985 in the hardcover omnibus The Bachman Books. The story takes place in an unnamed city of the Midwestern United States in 1972–1974. Grieving over the death of his son and the disintegration of his marriage, a man is driven to mental instability when he learns that both his home and his workplace will be demolished to make way for an extension to an interstate highway.

                • Cover of Bad Dreams
                  Bad Dreams

                  Kim Newman · standalone novel · 1990

                  similar bylate 20th centurynoirdarkbritish islesbig city

                  Anne Nielson, an American journalist, comes to London to investigate the strange death of her sister. Soon, she becomes sucked into a netherworld of corruption and perversion and is hurtled toward a final confrontation where she has only the dead as allies.

                • Cover of Offshore
                  Offshore

                  Gary Brandner · standalone novel · 1978

                  similar bylate 20th centurythriller & suspensedarktense+1 more

                  ● "In the small California town of Santa Marta, oil and water become an explosive mixture when the human elements of lust and greed are thrown into the crucible. When news of a major oil well discovery in its channel leaks out, the quiet town is rocked by murder and terrorism...and naked desires are unleashed on every level." ― quoted from this book's Amazon product page as of 2022-04-30.

                • Cover of City of Bohane
                  City of Bohane

                  Kevin Barry · standalone novel · 2011

                  similar bydarktensebritish islesorganized crimebig city

                  City of Bohane is the debut novel by Ireland's Kevin Barry. The book is set in the year 2053, in a world with minimal technology. It received largely positive reviews and won the 2013 International Dublin Literary Award.

                • Cover of Gimme a Kiss
                  Gimme a Kiss

                  Christopher Pike · standalone novel · 1988

                  similar bylate 20th centurythriller & suspensedarktenserevenge

                  Jane Retton would never let anyone read her diary filled with her wildest secrets. Then somehow her diary ended up at school. And soon, everyone was reading her final, shocking entry. Some girls would simply die. Other girls would kill. But Jane Retton--she would do both.