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 Super Human

anchored on:superherocontemporaryidentitynorth americaadventurous

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 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 Super Human (Cipriano)
                  Super Human (Cipriano)

                  series · 1 book · 2018

                  similar byidentitysuperherocontemporarynorth americaadventurous+4 more

                • Cover of The Extraordinaries (TJ Klune)
                  The Extraordinaries (TJ Klune)

                  series · 3 books · 2020

                  similar bysuperheroidentitycontemporarynorth americalighthearted+1 more

                  The Extraordinaries follows Nick Bell, a fanfiction-writing teenager with ADHD who is infatuated with his city's resident superhero, Shadow Star, and decides the only way to get noticed is to become extraordinary himself. TJ Klune's YA trilogy - The Extraordinaries, Flash Fire, and Heat Wave - plays with superhero and fan-fiction tropes as Nick's crush, his friendships, and his sense of who he is collide across the three books.

                • Cover of Captain Underpants
                  Captain Underpants

                  series · 15 books · 1989

                  similar bynorth americasuperherocontemporaryhumorfunny+2 more

                  Captain Underpants is an American illustrated children's novel series and multimedia franchise created by author and illustrator Dav Pilkey. The series revolves around two fourth graders, George Beard and Harold Hutchins, living in Piqua, Ohio, and Captain Underpants, an aptly named superhero from one of the boys' homemade comic books, who accidentally becomes real when George and Harold hypnotize their cruel, bossy, and ill-tempered principal, Mr. Krupp.

                • Cover of Superfolks
                  Superfolks

                  Robert Mayer · standalone novel · 1977

                  similar byidentitysuperherocontemporarynorth america+1 more

                  There is a Superman-like hero named David Brinkley. Various intelligence agencies refer to him as "Indigo" (the color of his mask) and "der Ubermensch" (Overman). He comes from the planet Cronk and is vulnerable to the substance Cronkite. Brinkley gradually lost his superhuman powers due to the influence of an unknown enemy, and all other superheroes have retired, disappeared, or died. Brinkley's powers gradually return, years later, in the midst of a mid-life crisis, as criminals swarm Manhattan. (Based on the Wikipedia article)

                • Cover of Hench
                  Hench

                  Natalie Zina Walschots · standalone novel · 2020

                  similar byidentitysuperherocontemporarynorth america

                  Hench is a 2020 superhero fiction novel by Natalie Zina Walschots.

                • Cover of Playing for Keeps
                  Playing for Keeps

                  Mur Lafferty · standalone novel · 2007

                  similar byidentitycontemporarynorth americasuperheroadventurous

                  Mur Lafferty is an American podcaster and writer based in Durham, North Carolina. She was the editor and host of Escape Pod from 2010, when she took over from Serah Eley, until 2012, when she was replaced by Norm Sherman. She is also the host and creator of the podcast I Should Be Writing. Until July 2007, she was host and co-editor of Pseudopod. She was the editor-in-chief of the Escape Artists short fiction magazine Mothership Zeta until it went on hiatus in 2016.

                • Cover of Heroine Complex
                  Heroine Complex

                  series · 7 books · 2016

                  similar bycontemporarynorth americasuperhero+3 more

                • Cover of Coyote Blue
                  Coyote Blue

                  Christopher Moore · standalone novel · 1994

                  similar byidentitycontemporarynorth americahumorfunny

                  Coyote Blue is a novel by American writer Christopher Moore, published in 1994. It has been widely reviewed.

                • Cover of We Could Be Heroes
                  We Could Be Heroes

                  Mike Chen · standalone novel · 2021

                  similar byidentitysuperherocontemporary+2 more

                  "An extraordinary and emotional adventure about unlikely friends and the power of choosing who you want to be... Jamie woke up in an empty apartment with no memory and only a few clues to his identity, but with the ability to read and erase other people's memories - a power he uses to hold up banks to buy coffee, cat food and books. Zoe is also searching for her past, and using her abilities of speed and strength... to deliver fast food. And she'll occasionally put on a cool suit and beat up bad guys, if she feels like it. When the archrivals meet in a memory-loss support group, they realize the only way to reveal their hidden pasts might be through each other. As they uncover an ongoing threat, suddenly much more is at stake than their fragile friendship. With countless people at risk, Zoe and Jamie will have to recognize that sometimes being a hero starts with trusting someone else - and yourself."--Publisher.

                • Cover of Flowers for Algernon
                  Flowers for Algernon

                  Daniel Keyes · standalone novel · 1966

                  similar byidentitycontemporarynorth america

                  A man with a low IQ becomes the subject of an experimental medical procedure which raises his IQ well over genius level.

                • Cover of All Our Wrong Todays
                  All Our Wrong Todays

                  Elan Mastai · standalone novel · 2017

                  similar byidentitycontemporarynorth america+2 more

                  All Our Wrong Todays is a 2017 science fiction novel by Canadian screenwriter Elan Mastai. It is Mastai's debut novel and was first published in February 2017 in the United States by Dutton, in Canada by Doubleday Canada, and in the United Kingdom in March 2017 by Michael Joseph. The novel is about a man from a utopia in an alternate reality who finds himself stuck in our reality after a time travel accident.

                • Cover of Breakfast of Champions
                  Breakfast of Champions

                  Kurt Vonnegut & Jr. · standalone novel · 1973

                  similar byidentitycontemporarynorth americafunny

                  The author decides to liberate the characters he created, including an author who decides to try to help a mentally ill reader who was driven over the edge by the book's assertion that he was the only creature with free will in a universe of preprogrammed automatons.

                • Cover of The Sidekick Squad
                  The Sidekick Squad

                  series · 3 books · 2016

                  similar bysuperheroidentitynorth americaadventurouscontemporary+1 more

                • Cover of Prepare to Die!
                  Prepare to Die!

                  Paul Tobin · standalone novel · 2012

                  similar byidentitysuperherocontemporarynorth america+1 more

                  "Nine years ago, Steve Clarke was just a teenage boy in love with the girl of his dreams. Then a freak chemical spill transformed him into Reaver, the man whose super-powerful fists can literally take a year off a bad guy's life. Days ago, he found himself at the mercy of his arch-nemesis Octagon and a whole crew of fiendish super-villains, who gave him two weeks to settle his affairs--and prepare to die. Now, after years of extraordinary adventures and crushing tragedies, the world's greatest hero is returning to where it all began in search of the boy he once was... and the girl he never forgot."--Dust jacket.

                • Cover of Airhead
                  Airhead

                  series · 3 books · 2008

                  similar byidentitycontemporarynorth america+1 more

                • Cover of Melvin Beederman Superhero
                  Melvin Beederman Superhero

                  series · 8 books · 2006

                  similar bysuperherocontemporaryhumorfunny+2 more

                • Cover of Parallelities
                  Parallelities

                  Alan Dean Foster · standalone novel · 1998

                  similar byidentitycontemporaryadventurous+2 more

                  "It seems you have acquired about you a field that affects the links between multiple parallel worlds, causing objects and individuals from these worlds to slip into yours . . . or you to slip into theirs . . ." It was just an average day for tabloid reporter Max Parker when he arrived in Malibu for a demonstration of a brand new parallel-universe machine. But everything changed in an instant when inventor Barrington Boles succeeded in making Max the human gate to numerous parallelities.Now Max was lost in a virtual sea of collateral worlds, confronting man-eating aliens, dinosaurs, talking frogs, dead Maxes, girl Maxes, old Maxes, even ghost Maxes. His only chance to escape the space-time continuum was to find Boles and hope the loony genius could rescue him. But how could he be sure which world was real, which Max was Max, and which Boles was the Boles who could stop the madness--or trap Max in the wrong world forever. . . ?From the Paperback edition.

                • Cover of Soon I Will Be Invincible
                  Soon I Will Be Invincible

                  Austin Grossman · standalone novel · 2007

                  similar byidentitysuperherocontemporaryfunny

                  Soon I Will Be Invincible is a novel by Austin Grossman, published by Pantheon Books and released on June 5, 2007. The novel uses two alternating first person narratives—the first told from the point of view of Fatale, a female cyborg recruited by the superhero group The New Champions as they investigate the disappearance of a superhero named CoreFire. The other narrative is told from the point of view of Dr. Impossible, a supervillain possessing super-human strength and intellect who suffers from Malign Hypercognition Disorder. The plot follows Impossible's thirteenth attempt to take over the world after escaping from prison.

                • Cover of Be More Chill
                  Be More Chill

                  Ned Vizzini · standalone novel · 2004

                  similar byidentitycontemporarynorth americahumorfunny

                  Be More Chill is a novel written by American author Ned Vizzini and published on June 1, 2004. It follows unpopular high school student and social outcast Jeremy Heere, who is considered a loser by his peers. Deeply unsatisfied with his poor reputation and lack of romantic and sexual progress with his crush Christine, Jeremy obtains a SQUIP, a supercomputer in the form of a pill that travels to his brain upon ingestion and radically transforms Jeremy’s behavior and social status by giving him advice on how to be cool. The book was received positively for its amusing premise, plot, and humor. It has been adapted into a popular stage musical and a graphic novel.

                • Cover of Renegades (Marissa Meyer)
                  Renegades (Marissa Meyer)

                  series · 3 books · 2017

                  similar byidentitysuperhero+3 more

                  Renegades is set in Gatlon City after a civil war between the superheroic Renegades and the villainous Anarchists, and follows Nova, a young woman with the power to put people to sleep by touch, as she infiltrates the Renegades as a spy for her uncle's Anarchists and falls for Adrian, the adopted son of the Renegades' leaders. Marissa Meyer's trilogy, continuing through Archenemies and Supernova, plays the two factions' history against the leads' divided loyalties; Meyer has said she doesn't plan to extend the series further.

                • Cover of Dhalgren
                  Dhalgren

                  Samuel R. Delany · standalone novel · 1975

                  similar byidentitycontemporarynorth america

                  Dhalgren is a 1975 science fiction novel by American writer Samuel R. Delany. It features an extended trip to and through Bellona, a fictional city in the American Midwest cut off from the rest of the world by an unknown catastrophe. It is number 33 on the 20th Century's Greatest Hits: 100 English-Language Books of Fiction list.

                • Cover of The Gum Thief
                  The Gum Thief

                  Douglas Coupland · standalone novel · 2007

                  similar byidentitycontemporarynorth america+1 more

                  The Gum Thief is Canadian author Douglas Coupland's twelfth novel. It was published on September 25, 2007 , by Random House Canada in Canada and Bloomsbury Publishing in the United States.

                • Cover of Dying Inside
                  Dying Inside

                  Robert Silverberg · standalone novel · 1972

                  similar byidentitycontemporarynorth america

                  Dying Inside is a 1972 science fiction novel by American writer Robert Silverberg. It was first serialized in Galaxy in 1972 and published in book form by Charles Scribner's Sons later that year. The novel follows David Selig, a middle-aged telepath in contemporary New York City, as the mind-reading ability that has shaped his life begins to disappear.

                • Cover of Only Begotten Daughter
                  Only Begotten Daughter

                  James Morrow · standalone novel · 1990

                  similar byidentitycontemporarynorth americafunny

                  Only Begotten Daughter is a 1990 fantasy novel by American writer James K. Morrow, setting the stage for his later Godhead Trilogy. The book shared the 1991 World Fantasy Award with Ellen Kushner's Thomas the Rhymer. It was also nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1990, and both the Locus and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards in 1991.