I’m looking for recommendations of fiction books (maybe sci-fi, maybe fantasy, maybe even some horror- but doesn’t need to fit squarely into those genres) with elements of surrealism, escapism and beautiful, super-immersive world-building. I want something unusual, unconventional, unpredictable, or otherworldly. I feel like my issue with picking out fiction books is that too many of them feel too familiar, or done-before.
What I’m not looking for is books that take place in a normal Earth setting with normal life going on- also when it comes to fantasy, not interested in the typical dragons, wizards, knights, princesses & magic wands kinds of stories.
Here are some examples of books I’ve enjoyed that I would consider in the vein of what I’m looking for, if that helps:
* Frank Herbert – Dune (the first three books)
* Philip K. Dick – A Scanner Darkly
* Aldous Huxley – Brave New World
* Mark Danielewski – House Of Leaves
* David Wong – John Dies At The End / This Book Is Filled With Spiders
* David Mitchell – Cloud Atlas
* Angela Carter – The Passion Of New Eve
* Douglas Adams – Hitchhiker’s Guide series
and even though these aren’t books, TV shows or movies that give the kind of feeling I’d love to find in a book:
* Love Death & Robots
* Black Mirror
* Altered Carbon
Thanks!
by drewtangclan
6 Comments
A backpack filled with sunsets by Ifeanyi Ogbo
Thursday Next, on an alternate Earth, Special Operative Thursday escapes the mundane day to day vampire hunting and cheese smuggling by picking up a good book and hiding it from the evil corporation trying to get ahold of it
Magic 2.0, forget Neo, Martin is ready to reprogram the Matrix to make the world safe for all the other computer nerds out there, if the IRS doesn’t find him first
Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer is fantastic. It’s a trilogy but have only read the first
Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
And if you enjoyed John Dies at the End, you might like Tales from the Gas Station by Jack Townsend
I often recommend Julian May’s Pliocene Exile/Intervention/Galactic Milieu series. They’re inexorably tied together, but have completely different tones.
Pliocene Exile: Humanity is part of a peaceful multispecies galactic community, but there are people who just don’t fit in a world like that. Some of the misfits choose “exile” through a one-way portal six million years in the past, only to find Earth occupied by two alien species at war with each other.
Intervention/Galactic Milieu: In the late 20th century, people begin to appear with great mental powers — telepathy, telekinesis, farseeing, etc. — but they’re not godlike superheroes, they’re regular people who are just as screwed up as the rest of us. Worse, in fact, since the genes for such powers tend to emerge in insular communities with a fair amount of inbreeding and parochial thinking. People abuse their powers, make others do their bidding, and even kill each other in exotic ways. One notable character is also a split personality.
{{The Hike by Drew Magary}}