Books like 'The Pickle Index: A Novel'
Readers who enjoyed The Pickle Index: A Novel by Eli Horowitz also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
sc-fi humor dark literary-fiction dystopia
-
![ಕರ್ವಾಲೋ [Karvalo] by K.P. Poornachandra Tejaswi](https://48f-1.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/books/small/6240df60a911d2c3cdd95271.jpg)
ಕರ್ವಾಲೋ [Karvalo] by K.P. Poornachandra Tejaswi
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn Karvalo, the protagonist is a well educated farmer, who is also the narrator of the story. In spite of his great interest in rural lifestyle, his unsuccessful agricultural work makes him consider ending his life as a farmer to move to the city.[citation needed] During this time he meets Karvalo, a middle aged scientist in search of a rare lizard... -
![Novels & Stories 1950–1962: Player Piano / The Sirens of Titan / Mother Night / Stories by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.]()
Novels & Stories 1950–1962: Player Piano / The Sirens of Titan / Mother Night / Stories by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsKurt Vonnegut’s signature qualities as a writer—what John Updike called “his free flow of invention, the surreal beauty of his imagery, and a colloquial American style justly ranked with Mark Twain’s”—are everywhere on display in this authoritative collection of his early fiction...Categorized as:
dystopia humor literary-fiction adult alternate-universe anthologies classics fiction -
![System Restored by Adam Eccles]()
System Restored by Adam Eccles
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsDerek Cooper is a retro gamer.His small flat is crammed with old consoles, controllers, accessories and shelves brimming full of old games. Quite an amazing collection, but there's always room for one more, isn't there?1981. The world of arcade games is just coming into its own... -
![The Essential Ellison by Harlan Ellison]()
The Essential Ellison by Harlan Ellison
Rated: 4.46 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn April of 1949, Harlan Ellison was a lonely little kid living in Painesville, Ohio. A time traveler, observing him from within an invisible bubble, would not have marked him as anything more interesting than an undersized fourteen-year-old, seemingly always in hot water. Lively blue eyes, but basically just another kid... -
-
![Geometry for Ocelots by Exurb1a]()
Geometry for Ocelots by Exurb1a
Rated: 4.48 of 5 stars · 11 ratingsIt is the end of history and all is known, or will be soon. Humanity long ago transitioned to the era of holy technology. Now humans present as saintly animals, spending their days in meditation and drug-induced euphoria, far from the dark secrets their paradise is founded upon... -
![The Road Is A River by Nick Cole]()
The Road Is A River by Nick Cole
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsPart Hemingway, part Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. The Road is a River is a suspenseful odyssey into the dark heart of the Post-Apocalyptic American Southwest. The Road is a River concludes Nick Cole’s fantastic Wasteland Saga...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction action-adventure adult apocalyptic book fiction post-apocalyptic -
![The Magic of Shirley Jackson by Shirley Jackson]()
The Magic of Shirley Jackson by Shirley Jackson
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsExperience The Magic of Shirley Jackson with this generous selection of the author's greatest work.This collection consists of three complete books:The Bird's NestLife Among the SavagesRaising Demonsand eleven short stories--including the world-famous "The Lottery... -
![The Brothers by Katie French]()
The Brothers by Katie French
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratings“They tell me it’s for the good of humanity. That I’m saving our way of life with my body. They lie.” Book Four in the award-winning, best-selling Breeders series.Riley has survived madmen, deranged doctors, and false prophets. Her next task is uniting her family, which has been ripped apart by Nessa Vandewater, the Breeders’ enforcer. Her boyfriend Clay and brother Ethan are still missing... -
![Blindness / Seeing by José Saramago]()
Blindness / Seeing by José Saramago
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIn Blindness, a city is overcome by an epidemic of blindness that spares only one woman. She becomes a guide for a group of seven strangers and serves as the eyes and ears for the reader in this profound parable of loss and disorientation. We return to the city years later in Saramago’s Seeing, a satirical commentary on government in general and democracy in particular... -
![Exhalation by Ted Chiang]()
Exhalation by Ted Chiang
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsNight Shade Books PresentsFor your 2009 Hugo Award"Best Short Story" considerationTed Chiang’s "Exhalation"As Published inEclipse Two:New Science Fiction and FantasyEdited by Jonathan... -
![Torture the Artist by Joey Goebel]()
Torture the Artist by Joey Goebel
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsVincent Spinetti is an archetypal tortured artist ? a sensitive young writer who falls victim to alienation, parental neglect, poverty, depression, alcoholism, illness, nervous breakdowns, and unrequited love... -
![The Barriers by Katie French]()
The Barriers by Katie French
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsBook Five in the best-selling young adult dystopian series, The Breeders Riley hasn't seen her boyfriend Clay or her nine-year-old brother Ethan for two months. Between violent road gangs and ongoing clashes between the Breeders and the Free Colonies, are they even still alive? But Riley will never stop looking... -
![Splinters In Time by Jason Ayres]()
Splinters In Time by Jason Ayres
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsGetting lost in the wrong time was bad enough. But things get far worse for Josh Gardner when he can't even find his way back to his own universe. When his ex-girlfriend, Lauren, starts having recurring nightmares about a strange alternate reality in which she was murdered, Josh becomes interested in proving the existence of other universes...Categorized as:
dystopia humor action-adventure alternate-history book fiction time-travel young-adult -
![Sabbat Worlds: Of Their Lives in the Ruins of Their Cities by Dan Abnett]()
Sabbat Worlds: Of Their Lives in the Ruins of Their Cities by Dan Abnett
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsDan Abnett takes the Tanith First back to the beginning. On Voltemand, long before they gain fame and glory as Gaunt’s Ghosts, the Tanith are a broken unit. Crippled by doubt and hating their commander for his part in the death of their world, they are fractious and undisciplined. Leading a patrol into no-man’s-land, Gaunt is ambushed... -
-
![The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell by Brian Evenson]()
The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell by Brian Evenson
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratings"Here is how monstrous humans are."A sentient, murderous prosthetic leg; shadowy creatures lurking behind a shimmering wall; brutal barrow men: of all the terrors that populate The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell, perhaps the most alarming are the beings who decimated the habitable Earth: humans... -
![Czarne oceany by Jacek Dukaj]()
Czarne oceany by Jacek Dukaj
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsDukaj od nowa skonfigurował klasyczną twardą fantastykę naukową.Mroczna, sugestywna, boleśnie realistyczna wizja społeczeństwa posthumanistycznego.Czarne oceany – przerażająca otchłań myśli ludzkiej.Nicolas Hunt kieruje tajnym projektem rządowym, badającym komercyjne zastosowania telepatii. Rezultaty tych badań zmienią nieodwracalnie nie tylko jego życie, ale także losy całego świata... -
![Skullcrack City by Jeremy Robert Johnson]()
Skullcrack City by Jeremy Robert Johnson
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsLife as a corporate drone was killing S.P. Doyle, so he decided to bring down the whole corrupt system from the inside. But after discovering something monstrous in the bank's files, he was framed for murder and trapped inside a conspiracy beyond reason... -
![Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley by Robert Sheckley]()
Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley by Robert Sheckley
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsRobert Sheckley was an eccentric master of the American short story, and his tales, whether set in dystopic cityscapes, ultramodern advertising agencies, or aboard spaceships lighting out for hostile planets, are among the most startlingly original of the twentieth century...Categorized as:
dystopia humor literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies classics -
![When the Power Is Gone by P.A. Glaspy]()
When the Power Is Gone by P.A. Glaspy
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsRuss and Anne Mathews live in a rural suburb in Tennessee. Regular people, with regular jobs, living a normal life - except for one thing. They are what many people call "preppers." They have stocked up on supplies to survive any kind of event they can think of that may occur to disrupt life as they know it. When that event comes, they start preparing for the new way of life they will face...Categorized as:
dystopia humor literary-fiction action-adventure adult apocalyptic book contemporary -
![Palm Sunday/Welcome to the Monkeyhouse by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.]()
Palm Sunday/Welcome to the Monkeyhouse by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 11 ratingsA diabolical government asserts control by eliminating orgasms from sex in the title story of Welcome to the Monkey House - setting the tone for a collection shot through with Vonnegut's acrid wit, and his bewilderment at the corruption of humanity... -
![How to Buy a Planet by D.A. Holdsworth]()
How to Buy a Planet by D.A. Holdsworth
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe Earth has been sold to aliens. What could possibly go wrong?It’s the Year 2024. Drowning in debt following the pandemic and facing ruin, the world's leaders have taken the only logical decision.They’ve sold the planet... -
![It All Started by R.S. Merritt]()
It All Started by R.S. Merritt
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsAlternative cover edition of ASIN B06XC1W26SSteve wakes up after a horrible couple of weeks in which he has lost his girlfriend, his job, his savings and the majority of his self-respect with a serious hangover. Dragging himself out of bed and meandering over to the window he looks out into a courtyard full of bodies and burning shrubbery. He opts to go back to sleep and see if it all goes away... -
![Delirium by Myra Danvers]()
Delirium by Myra Danvers
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratings“We’ll never be done, you and I.” He pushed off her desk. Closed the distance between them with prowling steps, clenched fists, and oh, so much determination. “Too much unfinished business to ever call it over.” He stopped a few steps away from uncomfortably close. Braced his palm on the wall behind her head, forearm brushing the side of her throat... -
![La Ballade de Lila K by Blandine Le Callet]()
La Ballade de Lila K by Blandine Le Callet
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsLa Ballade de Lila K, c'est d'abord une voix : celle d'une jeune femme sensible et caustique, fragile et volontaire, qui raconte son histoire depuis le jour où des hommes en noir font brutalement arrachée a sa mère, et conduite dans un Centre, mi-pensionnat mi-prison, où on l'a prise en charge.Surdouée, asociale, polytraumatisée, Lila a tout oublié de sa vie antérieure... -
-
![The Universe in Miniature in Miniature by Patrick Somerville]()
The Universe in Miniature in Miniature by Patrick Somerville
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIn this genre-busting book from award-winning novelist Patrick Somerville characters, stories, and stray thoughts revolve around the "The Machine of Understanding Other People," the story of a Chicago man who is bequeathed a supernatural helmet that allows him to experience the inner worlds of those around him... -
![The Minority Report and Other Classic Stories By Philip K. Dick by Philip K. Dick]()
The Minority Report and Other Classic Stories By Philip K. Dick by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWith an Introduction by James Tiptree, Jr."More than anyone else in the field, Mr. Dick really puts you inside people's minds." --Wall Street JournalMany thousands of readers consider Philip K. Dick to have been the greatest science fiction writer on any planet... -
![Let's Put the Future Behind Us by Jack Womack]()
Let's Put the Future Behind Us by Jack Womack
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFormer bureaucrat Max Borodin is one of Moscow's most successful businessmen. He strolls through the wreckage of today's Russia with ease - convincing people to do his bidding, providing its citizens (both friends and clients) with the luxury goods they covet, and generally leading a prosperous and satisfying existence... -
![Paradox Lost, And Twelve Other Great Science Fiction Stories by Fredric Brown]()
Paradox Lost, And Twelve Other Great Science Fiction Stories by Fredric Brown
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA collection of thirteen short stories. Includes a three-page introduction by Elizabeth Brown, the author's widow... -
![Vacation by Jeremy C. Shipp]()
Vacation by Jeremy C. Shipp
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIt's time for blueblood Bernard Johnson to leave his boring life behind and go on The Vacation, a yearlong corporate-sponsored odyssey. But instead of seeing the world, Bernard is captured by terrorists, becomes a key figure in secret drug wars, and, worse, doesn't once miss his secure American Dream... -
![Changeling Winds by Angela White]()
Changeling Winds by Angela White
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratings500 Years into the future, nine of every ten babies conceived are female. Men have been enslaved for their own protection and the only way to get a mate is to enter the Network Games and fight for one. The catch? It's a live battle to the death and the competition is fierce.Who's ready to play? Are ya? Are ya really?Let's meet the players...“…Angelica Eve Pruett...Categorized as:
dark dystopia literary-fiction action-adventure apocalyptic book fiction genetic-engineering -
![I Am a Zombie Filled With Love by Isaac Marion]()
I Am a Zombie Filled With Love by Isaac Marion
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThis very short story was the spore that eventually grew into WARM BODIES. Presented here for historical value... -
![Antitype by M.D. Waters]()
Antitype by M.D. Waters
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAntitype is the prequel to acclaimed novels, Archetype and Prototype. Before Emma appears in their lives, two men face four months that will change their lives forever. One has dreams outside Richmond and away from his family business. The other wants to make the business his only focus... -
![Dark Star by Lara Morgan]()
Dark Star by Lara Morgan
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsTo protect Pip and fulfil her deal with Sulawayo, Rosie Black has joined Helios. But trouble is brewing within the ranks - a rebellion is rising. Who is part of the rebellion? Who is trying to take full control of Helios? How does the mysterious Dark Star fit into these plans? The stakes are high for Rosie. The survival of Pip and the world as she knows it depends on her... -
![The After Days by Amy Ginsburg]()
The After Days by Amy Ginsburg
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn a world without power, you need the power of friendship and love to survive."This is far and away the most compelling read I’ve experienced in a long time. No lie. This is seriously good. It’s fresh, entertaining, and thought-provoking...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction humor fiction post-apocalyptic sci-fi apocalyptic female-mc -
-
![Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson, W Morgan Sheppard]()
Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson, W Morgan Sheppard
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsIn six masterly stories, Johnson delves deep into love and loss, natural disasters, the influence of technology, and how the political shapes the personal. “Nirvana" portrays a programmer, whose wife has a rare disease, finding solace in a digital simulacrum of the president of the United States... -
![Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits by David Wong, Jason Pargin]()
Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits by David Wong, Jason Pargin
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsNew York Times bestselling author Jason Pargin takes readers to a whole new level with his darkly comic sci-fi thriller. A Winner of the 2016 Alex AwardsNightmarish villains with superhuman enhancements. An all-seeing social network that tracks your every move. Mysterious, smooth-talking power players who lurk behind the scenes. A young woman from the trailer park. And her very smelly cat... -
![You Bright and Risen Angels by William T. Vollmann]()
You Bright and Risen Angels by William T. Vollmann
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsIn the jungles of South America, on the ice fields of Alaska, the plains of the Midwest, and the streets of San Francisco, a fearsome battle rages. The insects are vying for world domination; the inventors of electricity stand in evil opposition. Bug , a young man, rebels against his own kind and joins forces with the insects... -
![A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar]()
A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsOPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD“Wondering if there’s a novel out there that gives Cormac McCarthy’s The Road a run for its money? Here you go. [A Guardian and a Thief is] an indelible piece of writing, in equal parts dazzling and devastating...Categorized as:
literary-fiction dystopia fiction sci-fi contemporary historical-fiction mystery book -
![Why Visit America by Matthew Baker]()
Why Visit America by Matthew Baker
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 11 ratingsEqual parts speculative and satirical, the stories in Why Visit America form an exegesis of our current political predicament, while offering an eloquent plea for connection and hope.The citizens of Plainfield, Texas, have had it with the broke-down United States... -
![Pilgrimage to Earth by Robert Sheckley]()
Pilgrimage to Earth by Robert Sheckley
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsPilgrimage to Earth is a collection of science fiction short stories by Robert Sheckley. It was first published in October 1957 by Bantam Books (catalogue number A1672) and already reprinted a month later... -
![Even Greater Mistakes: Stories by Charlie Jane Anders]()
Even Greater Mistakes: Stories by Charlie Jane Anders
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn her short story collection, Even Greater Mistakes, Charlie Jane Anders upends genre cliches and revitalizes classic tropes with heartfelt and pants-wettingly funny social commentary.The woman who can see all possible futures is dating the man who can see the one and only foreordained future... -
![Dog Logic by Tom Strelich]()
Dog Logic by Tom Strelich
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIf "Dr. Strangelove" and "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" got together and had a litter of puppies you'd get "Dog Logic", a duck-and-cover fable and love story. Funny, inflammatory, and weirdly propheticHertell Daggett is the divorced and damaged caretaker of a failing pet cemetery on the outskirts of Bakersfield, and he's just discovered a lost civilization... -
![New American Stories by Ben Marcus]()
New American Stories by Ben Marcus
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIn New American Stories, the beautiful, the strange, the melancholy, and the sublime all comingle to show the vast range of the American short story . In this remarkable anthology, Ben Marcus has corralled a vital and artistically singular crowd of contemporary fiction writers. Collected here are practitioners of deep realism, mind-blowing experimentalism, and every hybrid in between... -
![Equinox by Lara Morgan]()
Equinox by Lara Morgan
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsSeventeen-year-old Rosie Black’s problems are only just beginning. Her dad is locked away, her friend Pip has abandoned her and Riley isn’t telling her the full story. Bent on revenge, Rosie is still working in secret to try and take down the evil Helios group... -
-
![Neanderthals: The experiment by Serag Monier, سراج منير]()
Neanderthals: The experiment by Serag Monier, سراج منير
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsTwo strangers, a man and a woman, meet on a deserted island, where neither remembers when or how they arrived. Eventually they realize they’re undergoing a deliberate unorthodox experiment.Omar and Shadia are continually exposed to hazards that reveal their true selves... -
![Super Flat Times by Matthew Derby]()
Super Flat Times by Matthew Derby
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWith a heightened sense of the boundless possibility and lurking doom that Orwell and Huxley once envisioned, Matthew Derby's stories provide a glimpse into an intricately imagined world: a world in which clouds are treated with behavioral serum, children are handicapped by their ability to float, and all food (including Popsicles) is made of meat... -
![Muscle Memory by Steve Lowe]()
Muscle Memory by Steve Lowe
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsBilly Gillespie wakes up one morning to discover his junk is gone. In its place is his wife's junk. Billy is now Tina, and Tina is dead. That's because Billy's dead. His lifeless body is still in bed and empty beer bottles and a container of antifreeze litter the kitchen counter... -
![Young Blood by Andrew Barrer, Lauren Ezzo, MacLeod Andrews, David de Vries]()
Young Blood by Andrew Barrer, Lauren Ezzo, MacLeod Andrews, David de Vries
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsYouth wasted on the young? Not in this provocative, darkly comic story of cold-blooded dreams by the cowriter of Ant-Man and the Wasp. In the near future, the fountain of youth has been found—running through the veins of post-millennials. It’s a win-win... -
![The End of the World News by Anthony Burgess, John B. Wilson]()
The End of the World News by Anthony Burgess, John B. Wilson
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe dying Freud hustled out of Vienna into exileA Broadway musical on the subject of Trotsky in New YorkThe last throes of the planet Earth in AD 2000These are all items onThe End of the World NewsPsychoanalysis, international socialism and The End - three themes, three stories - outrageously counterpointed into trinity, in a novel stuffed with verbal pyrotechnics, amazing sleights of fantasy,... -
![Extinction Journals by Jeremy Robert Johnson]()
Extinction Journals by Jeremy Robert Johnson
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsYou can survive a nuclear blast. All you need is some luck, and maybe a customized business suit coated in cockroaches. It could work. At least that's what Dean believed before the bombs actually dropped and his suit led him to murder a Very Important Man at the foot of a blackened obelisk. Now D.C. is looking awfully empty. Life on Earth is pretty much coming to an end...Categorized as:
dystopia humor literary-fiction action-adventure adult apocalyptic book contemporary
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.
