Weird request I know (and I appreciate that Black Narcissus is a film!) I'm looking for books which give a lingering, unsettling sense of isolation in vast spaces – possibly haunted, with the feeling that there are secrets and histories which have decayed or been lost. I adored the prickly feeling that watching Black Narcissus gave me, and I think the Terror captured it in words fantastically, so I'd like to find more of the same.
I don't like endless pages of very specific descriptions (Tolkein doesn't appeal to me).
Thank you!
by sivvus
6 Comments
Under the Pendulum Sun by Jeanette Ng fits this well, I think. And Piranesi by Susanna Clarke definitely has the “sense of isolation in vast spaces”, if not the unsettling / prickly part.
Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds
The Invincible by Stanislaw Lem
Picnic at hanging rock
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
– it uses a quote from The Magician’s Nephew on its first page btw
The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern.
The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle.
The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson.
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier