New to Reading and Overwhelmed by options!

You should check out the Murderbot novellas by Martha Wells. They’re short science fiction books about a disaffected cyborg, funny little thrillers. I think you’d like them, and even if you don’t, they’re not a huge time commitment.

If you want to ease into horror, almost anything by Darcey Coates would be good. She’s more “horror-lite” than some of the heavy hitters in the genre. Any of her books with a house on the cover would be good and will give you a well-written haunted house story with interesting characters and some sort of twist on the typical haunted house plot. Many people find *From Below* to be her best horror novel, though it’s not a haunted house plot.

If you want to try some classic horror that leans a bit more literary, *The Exorcist* is quite good. Stephen King, of course, is probably the big name in horror. His novels *Pet Sematary* and *The Shining* will give you a taste of his supernatural horror. *Misery* will give you a sense of his non-supernatural horror that leans a bit more toward the suspense end of the genre. All of them are more tightly written with strong endings, both things which King sometimes has trouble pulling off.

Just in case you want to go to the more extreme end of the horror genre, *The Troop* by Nick Cutter is often well received. Early stuff by John Skipp helped to establish the splatterpunk subgenre (i.e., gross-out horror).

If you want some trashy, quick, totally unserious but fun reads then Guy N. Smith wrote a *ton* of monster novels in back in the 70s and 80s that were mostly made up of lots of quick chapters, sex scenes, and gory deaths. James Herbert helped to establish this kind of horror with his novel *The Rats*, though others such as Smith followed and evolved it further. They’re basically low-budget B-movie horror films in novel form, if that appeals to you.

For non techy sci-fi my recs are:

The Expanse(if you’re using a library just put your name on the list for #1 now cause these are insanely popular[with good reason])-The surviving members of a mining ship get caught up in the conspiracy around its explosion, and are stuck between the 3 factions that control space- earth(running out of resources to support its high population and relying heavily on the belt for minerals and metals), the belt(poor miners who are ruled by the companies that own their shit), and mars(low population, high tech militaristic state, always disdainful of the others, relies on the belt for water). Pretty action packed and a bit grim, the main crew has to stick together to find a way forwards while trying to avoid an all out war that could kill all three factions.

The Murderbot Diaries: A lab grown security cyborg hacks itself to gain freedom, still does it’s job for a few thousand more hours, just with the tv playing in the background. Ends up guarding a planetary survey crew of space hippies when everything goes wrong. Very action packed novellas(and 2 novels) that are largely about the main character finding its own path in a universe that doesn’t view it as a full person. -If you like this one try Ancillary Justice

The Long Way To a Small Angry Planet: about a lady joining a crew on it’s long trip to build a wormhole for a distant planet to help with treaty negotiations. If you want something lighthearted and funny about people finding their people in a messy universe this is the series. – If you like this one try The Monk and Robot series or The Terraformers

as far as piranesi it really stands in it’s own space(I think it really really reflects the author’s struggles with chronic illness, so it’s hard to find anything else that fits it’s vibe/class), but have you read her first novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell yet? It’s an alternative history where two magicians bring real magic back to the UK during the napoleonic wars, and is written as if it was in fact a history book written at the time by one of the characters, complete with asides, footnotes, and personal little bits tossed in.