Ok, I have a weird one! So, I've been reading Venom comics lately. For those who are unaware, Venom is a sentient alien ooze that needs to live inside a host creature to survive. They share a body and, to some extent, a brain. Emphasis on the sharing. The symbiote is a character just as much as it's host is. Like the body snatcher trope but less malevolent towards the host individual
I would like to read some books that explore this idea further, of 2 individuals sharing a body and maybe some mind. Preferably in which it is the MC who is the host or, uh, not-host and the not-host is a character in it's own right rather than just becoming an extention of the host. Im not super picky on it being a wholy (or even any) biological situation. Like a person with an intelligent AI living in their head or something is good, idk
Y'all have any ideas?
by SinkPhaze
6 Comments
* Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M. Valente. Available [free from Clarkesworld Magazine](https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/valente_10_11/)
* Leech by Hiron Ennes. A great book, but unfortunately no sharing.
* Blood Music by Greg Bear. There is a [short story version](https://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781625791153/9781625791153___2.htm) but there’s also a novel version that shows more interactions between those sharing the brain.
This idea is explored in multiple permutations throughout the Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir, although I can’t give you more details without spoilers and it doesn’t really come into play until books 2 and 3. Definitely worth the read though!
*Starseed* by Spider and Jeanne Robinson involves a symbiotic life form. There are three books in the trilogy–S*tardance, Starseed* and *Starmind.* It’s been decades since I read it but I think either the symbiot has a mind or the Stardancers can commune their minds.
*Penric’s Demon* and the rest of the Penric books by Lois McMaster Bujold.
>“Inglis.” For such a gentled tone, it was oddly implacable. “From the strangest hour of my life, on a roadside four years ago, I have been >!sharing my mind with a two-hundred-year-old demon with twelve personalities speaking six languages, and an underlying yen to destroy everything in her path, and I expect to go on doing so till the hour of my death. *Try me*.”!<
Filth by Irvine Welsh might be what you’re looking for. Super dark and weird. You’ll need en English-Scotish dictionary though.
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
Someone Like Me by MR Carey.