I love the absurdity of the world of the Hunger Games for example.
I also remeber the movie In Time, in which people use their lifespan as a currency; the more currency you have, the longer you live, when it ends, you die. That was kinda dark but an interesting new idea I hadn't seen before.
Preferably nothing ultra-complex, I feel like my brain capacity isn't enough right now to remember a complex, deep worldbuilding with a crazy history.
by bitchduh
13 Comments
*Luna: New Moon* by Ian McDonald. Glitzy sex, drugs and cult of personality style neo-feudalism in a dystopian lunar colony. Gets described often as “Game of Thrones on the moon” which is largely accurate, though it’s much less dense.
I’m reading The Storm Beneath The World right now.
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203588014-the-storm-beneath-the-world](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203588014-the-storm-beneath-the-world)
The insectile ashkaro live on flying islands travelling the eternal River of Days while a hellish firestorm devours the world below.
Sounds bizarre right? Yep, and the “corrupt” those with sort of super powers….but it’s a lot more fun and interesting than I expected!
Fantasy. Not SF.
A Discworld novel maybe? I haven’t read any myself yet, but I hear they’re fairly absurd and enjoyable. Same with the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Universe — good reputation, haven’t got to it myself yet
Fullmetal Alchemist also has an unusual type of magic-science, if you’re up for manga rather than all-text! Though it for sure gets rather dark in places
Possibly The Dark Lord of Derkhelm? It’s a world in which the wizard’s realm is being exploited by a tour agent who basically blackmails them into putting on a show, including one of them pretending to be the Dark Lord each year, to give the tourists a good experience. Frankly, it’s not one of my favorites due to the writing style, but the premise is novel and interesting.
I think the genre you’re looking for is called dystopian.
I would recommend 1984 by George Orwell but it might not be as scifi as you might want.
Babel-17 by Samuel R Delany is pretty bizarre. It’s a space opera about a poet/linguist/retired cryptographer working to translate an alien language that is so efficient that she basically gets superpowers when she thinks in it.
The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester is a far-future reverse noir about a guy trying to commit murder in a society where all the cops (and lots of other people) are psychic. Bester does some really cool experimental shit with formatting to visually represent what a conversation between a bunch of psychics is like.
Logan’s Run by William F. Nolan. The movie is based on it.
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. Ice Nine is a scary thing.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley!
Dungeon Crawler Carl. I just started reading the series and it’s great. Sort of Dungeons and Dragons meets Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with a splash of Hunger Games.
Altered Carbon
The Integral Trees
Dayworld by Philip Jose Farmer. The way to deal with overpopulation is to only let you live one day a week, but the MC lives 7 days a week by living 7 separate lives. Super weird, but Farmer is also know for his Riverworld series, where everyone who ever lived is reincarnated on the same river.