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My Real Children

Jo Walton

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Similar in tone + premise

These books are ranked using the tone + premise labels extracted for My Real Children. Books rank higher when they are close on every selected axis.

Tone labels used: quiet, moving, heartbreaking, melancholic, poignant, thought-provoking, gentle, bittersweet, compelling, sad

Premise labels used: parallel lives, alternate timelines, life bifurcation, choice point, what if, old age memory, dementia frame, butterfly effect, domestic life, personal alternate history

This does not mean the books share the same plot, setting, quality, or difficulty. It means their tone + premise embeddings are close.

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UnHappenings

Edward Aubry · 2015

A young man whose life keeps rewriting itself chases the cause of his erased past and a risky future love.

Why this is here

Tone labels: dark · melancholy · bittersweet · somber · heartbreaking · ominous · mysterious · thrilling · sad · thought-provoking

Premise labels: time travel · retroactive change · alternate timeline · butterfly effect · lost relationships · doomed love · future self · time paradox · personal stakes · memory of original timeline

Semantic match: ranked by tone + premise

Distance: 0.1686

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Life Is Strange Vol. 2: Waves

Emma Vieceli · 2019 · Life is Strange Comics

A displaced time traveler tries to live in an alternate reality while old bonds, new powers, and hidden truths unsettle everything.

Why this is here

Tone labels: emotional · angsty · melancholic · wistful · bittersweet · quiet · dreamy · heartbreaking · tender · atmospheric

Premise labels: alternate reality · time travel · parallel timelines · multiple realities · powers · new mystery · identity crisis · displaced protagonist · missing life

Semantic match: ranked by tone + premise

Distance: 0.1691

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The Traveler

Joseph Eckert · 2026

A father is involuntarily thrust forward through time in ever-longer leaps, as his son races to bring him back.

Why this is here

Tone labels: heart-wrenching · poignant · haunting · hopeful · melancholy · philosophical · existential · intense · bleak · bittersweet · mind-bending

Premise labels: time slip · involuntary time travel · exponential time jumps · father and son · family separation · future witness · search for answers · trying to reverse time travel · humanity's future

Semantic match: ranked by tone + premise

Distance: 0.1765

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The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

Ken Liu · 2016

A cross-genre short story collection where Asian diaspora, myth, technology, and history collide in emotional speculative fiction.

Why this is here

Tone labels: bittersweet · melancholic · heartbreaking · poignant · haunting · hauntingly beautiful · sorrowful · emotional · dark · reflective · thoughtful · eerie · moving · harrowing

Premise labels: speculative short fiction · cross-cultural stories · historical imagination · technology and society · memory and storytelling · myth and history · identity conflict · alternate history · future shock · human cost of progress

Semantic match: ranked by tone + premise

Distance: 0.1775

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Story Of Your Life

Ted Chiang · 2002

A linguist learning alien language confronts time, grief, and the cost of knowing the future.

Why this is here

Tone labels: thought-provoking · poignant · melancholy · somber · bittersweet · emotional · quiet · profound · reflective

Premise labels: first contact · alien language · language learning · time perception · future knowledge · determinism · free will

Semantic match: ranked by tone + premise

Distance: 0.1775

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Lightbreakers

Aja Gabel · 2025

A grieving physicist and his artist wife are drawn into a secret time-travel project that forces them to face memory, love, and loss.

Why this is here

Tone labels: luminous · heartbreaking · melancholy · emotional · poignant · tender · thought-provoking · slow · heavy · hopeful · bittersweet · intellectual

Premise labels: grief · memory · time travel · marriage in crisis · lost child · second chance · scientific experiment · art and science · past revisiting

Semantic match: ranked by tone + premise

Distance: 0.1796

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Lukkertid

Maja Lunde · 2023

When human time stops but nature keeps moving, six lives are forced to confront birth, death, love, and meaning.

Why this is here

Tone labels: thoughtful · emotional · melancholic · sombre · reflective · intense · gentle · unsettling

Premise labels: time stoppage · human stasis · thought experiment · endless time · end of aging · no birth · no death · body vs time · life and death

Semantic match: ranked by tone + premise

Distance: 0.1807

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These Memories Do Not Belong to Us

Yiming Ma · 2025

In a future where memories are bought, edited, and banned, a son risks everything to share his mother’s forbidden past.

Why this is here

Tone labels: melancholic · haunting · quiet · hopeful · eerie · timely · thought-provoking · unsettling · beautiful · prescient · bittersweet

Premise labels: memory transfer · memory commodification · memory censorship · authoritarian surveillance · inherited memories · banned memories · state control · history control · truth suppression · memory as evidence · memory inheritance · resistance through remembering · illegal knowledge

Semantic match: ranked by tone + premise

Distance: 0.1844

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For a Limited Time Only

Peng Shepherd · 2025 · The Time Traveler's Passport

A bored time-travel salesman in a corporate future uncovers why his transfers are denied and what his job is really for.

Why this is here

Tone labels: heartbreaking · sad · poignant · melancholic · bittersweet · quiet · devastating · emotional · haunting · thoughtful

Premise labels: time travel workplace · corporate time travel · time-traveling salesman · commercial time travel · transfer request · family through time · grief and loss · memory and choice · time with loved ones · hidden timeline

Semantic match: ranked by tone + premise

Distance: 0.1857

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M Is for Monster: A Graphic Novel

Talia Dutton · 2022

A grieving scientist resurrects her sister’s body, but the girl who returns is someone entirely new.

Why this is here

Tone labels: bittersweet · tender · melancholic · heartwarming · thoughtful · emotional · gentle · comforting · eerie · whimsical · touching · sad

Premise labels: resurrection · identity crisis · sibling loss · scientific experiment · body replacement · coming of age · self-discovery · family expectations · grief recovery

Semantic match: ranked by tone + premise

Distance: 0.1862

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One More for the Road: A Celebrated Author's Magical and Bittersweet Short Fiction

Ray Bradbury · 2002

A late Bradbury story collection of nostalgic, bittersweet vignettes about memory, time, love, and loss.

Why this is here

Tone labels: bittersweet · melancholy · nostalgic · whimsical · eerie · reflective · poignant · humorous · cerebral · heartbreaking

Premise labels: short story collection · late-life reflection · nostalgia collection · memory and regret · human frailty

Semantic match: ranked by tone + premise

Distance: 0.1872

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Oona Out of Order

Margarita Montimore · 2020

A young woman begins leaping through her own life out of order each New Year’s, forced to navigate love, memory, and fate.

Why this is here

Tone labels: thought-provoking · emotional · heart-wrenching · heartwarming · fun · quirky · bittersweet · uplifting · sad · melancholy · lighthearted (mixed)

Premise labels: time travel · random leap · out of order life · birthday loop · future self · past self · one life · nonlinear life

Semantic match: ranked by tone + premise

Distance: 0.1879

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