The unexplained, the eerie, the incomprehensible.
I'm talking books with the vibe of being alone in the metro 2033 tunnels, or books with eldritch horrors focused on the actual madness or the entity like with annihiliation (vandermeer). Stories like horns or pluribus on which people start behaving very differently, or like the background in some dr who stories like the spheree that couldnt be detected or the constant mentions to "wolf" (no need to say much), the vibe (minus the sillyness) of the nightvale podcast, like the existential dread implied in short stories like the egg and the question or the music of erich zann. Even boardgames lik the journalign "the machine" or the dice-rolling "doom machine". Environments of isolation like sort of in ember city and the movie coherence, and a long list of etcetera. You can have your own interpretation of what it means, but the feeling I want is that of attention and vigilance, not in an inquisitive way but when both your inner and outer voice are called to silence and when you put the story aside, you still ponder about it a little.
You *can* suggest me ergodic literature if you want (though I have yet to start house of leaves and S) but that is not my priority right now.
Thanks in advance!
by simonbleu
6 Comments
maybe Penpal by Dathan Auerbach
Comfort Me With Apples by Catherynne M. Valente. – go in without reading about it. It’s very short and absolutely hair-raising
The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins.
Vita Nostra by Marina & Sergey Dyachenko.
– For slightly incomprihensible but compelling, anything by Thomas Pynchon (Start with The Crying of Lot 49, it’s short and encapulstes his style)
– For poetic and haunting, try Lanny by Max Porter (one of my all time faves)
– For nail-biting grimness, Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh (if you can get through the Scots vernacular) or The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
Ill Will by Dan Chaon
Manual of Detection by Jedidiah Berry
*Dissonant Harmonies* novella duology by Bev Vincent and Brian Keene. They sent each other “mix tapes” (I can’t remember if they were actually tapes or CDs or a streaming list or what) to inspire each other. I’m suggesting Vincent’s story more than Keene’s.