Looking for a really interesting and dark page-turner to dive into while I'm flying or when I'm at the beach. Doesn't have to be a standalone title, but I'm also not very interested in a series if the first book isn't good.
I'm into sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and thriller mostly, but I'm open to other stuff too. I'm also not a huge fan of purple prose unless the world/plot is also quite interesting. I think the thing I'm most interested in right now is something that's very dark/horror oriented.
Here's some stuff that I've already read and really enjoyed, to give you an idea of my tastes:
- Stormlight Archive series
- Ender's Game & Speaker for the Dead
- Dune
- Project Hail Mary
- The Blacktongue Thief
- Seveneves
- most of Stephen King's works
- Assassin's Apprentice series
- The Fisherman
- Piranesi
- A Song of Ice and Fire
- Children of Time
- Kingkiller Chronicle
- Ready Player One
- HP Lovecraft's works
- Horus Heresy warhammer series
- Halo books trilogy
- Berserk (manga)
by Nurgle_Marine_Sharts
14 Comments
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. Dark as hell. Also anything by Abigail Dean.
*First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers* by Loung Ung.
*Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the F.B.I.* by David Grann.
*The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II* by Iris Chang.
*Unit 731: Testimony* by Hal Gold.
The Naturalist – Andrew Mayne – Thriller
Saevus Corax deals with the Dead – KJ Parker – Fantasy
For dark fantasy, The Black Company by Glen Cook
For psychological horror, I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid or Spider by Patrick McGrath
If you wanna get into the Beach theme, I’ve got 2
Shadow Divers and Pirate Hunters, both by Robert Kurson. True Stories. Read the synopsis.
The Dice Man
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
All three are thrillers. The last two are more dystopian.
Brother and Good and Joyful Things by Ania Alhborn
Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter. This one is very graphic and checks off every TW. There’s also a short story called Blonde Hair, Blue Eyes to give backstory. I suggest reading after.
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
I would give *Perdido Street Station* by China Mieville a try. It’s kind of dark urban steampunk fantasy, but it also features some of the most horrifying monsters I’ve ever encountered in any book, including in straight-up horror novels. And if you like it, both of the other books in the “Bas-Lag” trilogy, *The Scar* and *Iron Council,* are good. They share some characters and settings but are not closely related, story-wise. Chronologically, that’s the order in which they take place. (*PSS* and *The Scar* are both better than *Iron Council*, FWIW, if you don’t want to invest in all three.)
Diavola by Jennifer Thorne. It’s a horror that takes place while the MC is on vacation, funnily enough!
I highly recommend checking out Clive Barker. Especially Imajica or Weave World. Both dark with amazing world building. The Great and Secret Show and its sequel Everville are also both really good.
Kaiju battlefield surgeon
Simon R Green’s Nightside series