I’m picturing something like… here’s a chapter of hard sci-fi space opera, and then the next chapter is completely unrelated modern day slice-of-life, or a nonfiction skillshare book, etc, and we don’t find out how or why they’re connected until the end, if at all.
The closest thing I can think of is something like Anda’s Game by Cory Doctorow, where chapter perspectives switch between the protag’s life and her online avatar. But I’m looking for something even further out there.
Genre and tone don’t matter, I’m just curious to see if it’s been done well before. Thanks!
edit: things like Song of Ice and Fire, where we get different character perspectives in the same world that seem totally unrelated but are part of the same larger story, don’t fit. The tone/chapter/genre swaps should feel like a totally different book.
by hakuna_dentata
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The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing. It’s pretty weird but interesting. I’ve read it twice.
This isn’t exactly (or even close, maybe) but this made me think of The Blind Assassin. Worth reading either way and I hope you get some better responses!
*Cloud Atlas* by David Mitchell might be of interest
Maybe…
The redemption of Christopher Columbus
For half of the book (if I remember correctly) one chapter is a historical retelling on Christopher Columbus’s life the next chapter is a futuristic world with people studying the past and trying to save the world.
Fall or Dodge in Hell by Neil Stephenson
Seveneves by Neil Stephenson as well
Cloud Cuckoo land by Anthony Doerr
Changing Planes by Ursula k Le Guin
I believe Against the Day by Pynchon is like this if I remember right.
Pale Fire, by Nabokov, sort of fits this. Would fit it more if you read the text before reading any of the footnotes.
Trust by Hernan Diaz does this incredibly well- it’s a really brain-squisher. I loved it. (The fact that it won the Pulitzer is secondary, but it did, if that matters to you)
Harrow the Ninth, to a degree. It alternates between second and third person perspective every other chapter. But both perspectives are pretty grim cyberpunk(? whatever you call swashbuckling necromancers in space) settings. That book is basically incomprehensible if you haven’t read the first book in the series, though.
The Address Book by Tim Redford is interesting. It starts out as a history of his childhood home, then his neighborhood, his city, his country, his continent, the whole planet, the Solar System, the galaxy, the universe… Starts out as a cozy memoir and ends up a scientific examination of the inevitability of change in a constantly moving universe.
Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellman is mainly a stream of conciousness from an American housewife. Its interspersed with sections about a lioness on a long journey.