I'm looking for book suggestions with big, mysterious underpinnings that become more and more important as the book goes on. I've experienced this most often in sci-fi, but I'm open to any genre. I'm thinking lost civilizations, weird reality-bending stuff, forbidden knowledge, simulated reality, time travel, dimensional travel, any or all of the above, or something in a similar vein. I really loved Alistair Reynolds' books and Cixin Liu's Three Body Problem. I'm not that into YA. Any recommendations?
Edit: I know it's not a book, but I LOVED the show Haunting at Hill House, and I loved how they incorporated little details to hint at the mind-bending reality at the end. I know it's based on a book, but the show really took it in a totally different direction. I'd love to read a book like that as well, so there's an example of something that isn't a space opera or sci fi in the classic sense but still fits this theme
by Jessiiiieeeeeeeeee
7 Comments
The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera
Piranesi has a simple man living in a strange but beautiful labyrinth.
Roadside Picnic by the Strutagatsky Brothers
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
Both are about zones that appear where completely inexplicable events that seem to break the laws of nature occur. Beyond that they’re quite different but both great books.
You might want to look at other books in the weird fiction genre as well.
The Colour Out of Space by Lovecraft
Mystery: The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
The Divine Farce by Michael Graziano. Beautiful, disturbing, open to interpretation, and a quick read which is good because I couldn’t put it down.
Anathema by Stephenson. Parallel narratives, multiple worlds, and lots of musing on basically the history of science and how sentient beings discover and preserve knowledge.