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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 Falling Sideways

anchored on:fantasyour worldcontemporaryfunnysatirehumor+1 more

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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 in which a friendship — its making, testing, or loss — is the emotional center.
  • 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 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 The Management Style of the Supreme Beings
                  The Management Style of the Supreme Beings

                  Tom Holt · standalone novel · 2017

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                  When the Supreme Being and his son decide that being supreme isn't for them any more, it's inevitable that things get a bit of a shake-up.It soon becomes apparent that our new owners, the Venturi brothers, have a very different perspective on all sorts of things. Take Good and Evil, for example. For them, it's an outdated concept that never worked particularly well in the first place. Unfortunately, the sudden disappearance of right and wrong, while welcomed by some, raises certain concerns amongst those still attached to the previous team's management style.In particular, there's one of the old gods who didn't move out with the others. A reclusive chap, he lives somewhere up north, and only a handful even believe in him.But he's watching. And he really does need to know if you've been naughty or nice.

                • Cover of The Napoleon of Notting Hill
                  The Napoleon of Notting Hill

                  G. K. Chesterton · standalone novel · 1904

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                  The Napoleon of Notting Hill is a novel written by G. K. Chesterton in 1904, set in a nearly unchanged London in 1984.

                • Cover of Prophets for the End of Time
                  Prophets for the End of Time

                  Marcos Donnelly · standalone novel · 1998

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                  From the back cover of the Baen first edition: "An end to suit our meanies... In a place no man's eyes can see, a decision has been made, and the countdown has begun: Apocalypse. The close of civilization and the end of the world. Which, of course, call for major re-org, process improvement, and quality control throughout the infrastructure of the Heavenly Hosts. Big jobs take big planning. Unfortunately, ancient prophecies have put a hitch in the plans - the end of time must be declared by two human prophets who speak for all mankind. • Clayton Pinkes: A powerful charismatic religious leader haunted by bizarre visions, taunted by angels who call him Pinhead, and obsessed by his upside-down fears that maybe God doesn't believe in him. • Henri Elobert: Culturally engineered to be brilliant, sociopathic to a degree that makes even the Prince of Angels jittery, and practitioner of the world's most dangerous profession... Management Consulting. All in all, not the most fitting candidates for prophethood, but rules are rules. Or are they? As Clayton and Henri's intrigues unravel on a global scale, it seems not everyone in heaven and earth has the same agenda - and only a mid-list comedienne named Elizabeth Gadded and a brooding, mysterious schoolboy named Paolo Diosana stand between our world and an Improper Apocalypse..."

                • Cover of The Constant Rabbit
                  The Constant Rabbit

                  Jasper Fforde · standalone novel · 2020

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                  The Constant Rabbit is a 2020 science fantasy allegorical novel by Jasper Fforde. It was published by Hodder & Stoughton.

                • Cover of Magids
                  Magids

                  series · 2 books · 1997

                  completed

                  similar bycontemporarywhimsicalfantasy+2 more

                  Deep Secret follows Rupert Venables, a junior Magid — one of a hidden order of magical agents who quietly steer worlds toward or away from magic — tasked with finding Earth's replacement senior Magid at, of all places, a science-fiction convention, while also trying to restore an assassinated emperor's rightful heir in another world entirely. Diana Wynne Jones's Magids series continues with The Merlin Conspiracy, following a different young magic-user into the same multiverse of worlds under the Magids' watch.

                • Cover of Flying Dutch
                  Flying Dutch

                  Tom Holt · standalone novel · 1991

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                  Flying Dutch (ISBN 0-356-20111-2) is the third humorous-fantasy novel by popular British author Tom Holt. First published in the UK in 1991 by Orbit Books.

                • Cover of Atlas (Olivie Blake)
                  Atlas (Olivie Blake)

                  series · 3 books · 2020

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                  Olivie Blake's Atlas trilogy follows six magical scholars recruited into a secretive society that grants near-limitless magical resources in exchange for a mortal cost only revealed after they've already committed. The Atlas Paradox and The Atlas Complex escalate the group's rivalries and the price of the power they've been given. The series began as a self-published web serial before its traditional re-release.

                • Cover of Charlie (Roald Dahl)
                  Charlie (Roald Dahl)

                  series · 6 books · 1964

                  completed

                  similar bycontemporaryour worldfunnywhimsicalfantasy

                • Cover of The Mouse That Roared
                  The Mouse That Roared

                  series · 6 books · 1955

                  completed

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                  The Mouse That Roared launches Leonard Wibberley's satirical series about the tiny fictional Duchy of Grand Fenwick, a European microstate whose leaders declare war on the United States purely to lose quickly and collect the postwar reconstruction aid given to defeated nations. The 1955 novel uses Fenwick's mismatched ambitions to poke fun at Cold War politics and the nuclear arms race, and Wibberley kept the joke going across four more novels into the 1970s. Later entries send the duchy into further absurd confrontations with the wider world, including a race to the Moon and a scheme on Wall Street.

                • Cover of The Green Gene
                  The Green Gene

                  Peter Dickinson · standalone novel · 1973

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                  Green is the color of my true love's skin. The Irish were having green-skinned babies, until they all were "wearing of the green" permanently! The Scots kept right up with them and turned green too! And the Welsh, being fellow Celtics, also became grass-colored! In all the world only one meek little Indian genius had tracked down the wild gene that was doing it. So they called him to the British Isles - and thereby upset the whole delicately balanced green-apple cart! (from the back cover of the DAW Books first printing)

                • Cover of Nothing But Blue Skies
                  Nothing But Blue Skies

                  Tom Holt · standalone novel · 2001

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                  Nothing But Blue Skies is a humorous fantasy novel by English author Tom Holt. It was first published in the UK by Orbit Books in 2001.

                • Cover of Knight Life
                  Knight Life

                  series · 3 books · 1987

                  completed

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                • Cover of Deception Point
                  Deception Point

                  Dan Brown · standalone novel · 2001

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                  Deception Point is a 2001 mystery-thriller novel by American author Dan Brown. It is Brown's third novel. It was published by Simon & Schuster.

                • Cover of The Regional Office Is Under Attack!
                  The Regional Office Is Under Attack!

                  Manuel Gonzales · standalone novel · 2016

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                  The Regional Office is Under Attack! is a 2016 debut novel by Manuel Gonzales. It is his second book. Like his 2014 story collection The Miniature Wife, the novel was published by Riverhead/Penguin Random House.

                • Cover of Godshome
                  Godshome

                  Robert Sheckley · standalone novel · 1999

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                  From the front flap of the Tor first edition: "Arthur Fenn is an ordinary young professor with an esoteric specialty, Comparative Mythology. He is in financial trouble and suddenly finds himself in possession of a magical spell that allows him access to the realm of the gods. He may be a professor, but he's got no common sense - so when he goes there, he makes the mistake of inviting a con-man god and his companions back to Earth. What develops is a fantastic mess full of rich opportunities for humor, satire, and surprise. Arthur's mistake unbalances his own life, life on Earth, and the lives of the gods in their realm... and universal darkness threatens to cover all. Chaos spreads on a greater and greater scale until all creation is threatened. It's a good thing that Arthur is able to find the courage and self-confidence to save the day, even if the universe has to die and be reborn."

                • Cover of Meredith Gentry
                  Meredith Gentry

                  series · 10 books · 2000

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                  The Merry Gentry series is a series of urban fantasy novels by New York Times bestselling author Laurell K. Hamilton. The series is told through the lens of the titular character Meredith "Merry" Gentry, a faerie princess turned private investigator in a world where faeries exist and are known to the general public. The first book in the series, A Kiss of Shadows, was released by Del Rey on October 3, 2000. There are currently nine books in the series.

                • Cover of Digital Fortress
                  Digital Fortress

                  Dan Brown · standalone novel · 1998

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                  Digital Fortress is a techno-thriller novel written by American author Dan Brown and published in 1998 by St. Martin's Press. The book explores the theme of government surveillance of electronically stored information on the private lives of citizens, and the possible civil liberties and ethical implications of using such technology.

                • Cover of Paint Your Dragon
                  Paint Your Dragon

                  Tom Holt · standalone novel · 1996

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                  Paint Your Dragon is a humorous novel by Tom Holt first published in the UK in 1996 by Orbit and in paper back a year later by St. Martin's Press. It was also made available in electronic format by Hachette Digital in 2009. This was the author's twelfth humorous book and his eighteenth overall. It has been republished as part of Tom Holt's Omnibus No'7: Saints and Sinners. Inspired by the legend of St. George and the Dragon, the book tells the story of a sculptor, Bianca Wilson, who creates statues of St. George and the Dragon. These statues come to life and carry on their battle where they left off. The story is intertwined with other minor plots that supplement the main theme and ultimately aid it to its conclusion.

                • Cover of Little People
                  Little People

                  Tom Holt · standalone novel · 2002

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                  Brilliant and outrageously funny comic fantasy'I was eight years old when I saw my first elf'… And for unlikely hero Michael it wasn't his last. Michael's unfortunately (but accurately) named girlfriend Cruella, doesn't approve of his obsession with the little people, but the problem is that they won't leave him alone. And who can blame them when it is his own stepfather who is responsible for causing them so much misery. Oh yes. Daddy George knows that elves can do so much more than the gardening.LITTLE PEOPLE is the hilarious new comic novel from Tom Holt.

                • Cover of Little Green Men
                  Little Green Men

                  Christopher Buckley · standalone novel · 1999

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                  Little Green Men is a satirical novel by Christopher Buckley, first published in 1999. The novel follows a fictional "Inside the Beltway" talk-show host whose career and life is altered forever when he is abducted by aliens.

                • Cover of Chasing the Moon
                  Chasing the Moon

                  A. Lee Martinez · standalone novel · 2011

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                  When Diana moves into a great new apartment, it seems like she's finally having some good luck. Until she finds out about Vom the Hungering, the monster in the closet who eats everything and everyone, and her duty to guard him for eternity, and her inability to leave the apartment because the door has suddenly disappeared--then it seems like she's having her same old bad luck.

                • Cover of Wish You Were Here
                  Wish You Were Here

                  Tom Holt · standalone novel · 1998

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                  Wish You Were Here is a humorous fantasy novel by English author Tom Holt. It was first published in the U.K by Orbit Books in 1998.

                • Cover of D. O. D. O. (Department of Diachronic Operations)
                  D. O. D. O. (Department of Diachronic Operations)

                  series · 2 books · 2017

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                  Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland's D.O.D.O. novels center on the Department of Diachronic Operations, a covert U.S. government agency that discovers magic vanished from the world in the nineteenth century and sets out to use time travel to bring it back. The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. (2017) is followed by Master of the Revels, continuing the pair's earlier collaboration on The Mongoliad.

                • Cover of State of Fear
                  State of Fear

                  Michael Crichton · standalone novel · 2004

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                  State of Fear is a 2004 techno-thriller novel by Michael Crichton, his fourteenth under his own name and twenty-fourth overall, in which eco-terrorists plot mass murder to publicize the danger of global warming.