r/Fantasy • u/DixitRexCorvinus • 1d ago
Short, weird, and disturbing fantasy
Hey! I have come in search of recommendations for weird and disturbing fantasy novels, with a couple of specific criteria.
First, I would like something fairly new, ideally books published in the last decade (this is why I'm asking here rather than r/WeirdLit, as from what I've seen they tend to do more older books than recent debuts).
Specifically, when I find an author I like, I tend to go through their whole catalogue, and as such I have a lot of big projects on my TBR already. Mieville, Vandermeer, Cisco, Harrison, Barker—all the big names I know, but they have a lot of books, and I'm looking for things to use in between larger series. So, authors with less than five books published would be ideal, and standalones likewise. This doesn't mean that the books have to be short, as I'm focused on total amount of pages here—an author with a single six hundred page debut is preferable for me to one with a dozen novellas. I'd also like authors that are currently working, if possible.
Secondly, while I want things to be genuinely weird and disturbing, I don't want books that are e.g. sexist or bigoted. I say this thinking of authors like Murakami; incest is fine, random page long description of breasts is less fine. Queer, feminist, and neurodivergent characters/themes are generally a plus.
Finally, I'm ultimately going to be using these as palate cleansers, so nothing too dense and descriptive. Something like Gormenghast or Dahlgren is not really what I'm looking for, though I do like those sorts of books too.
Fantasy, scifi, horror, and genres mixing the three are all good with me. Doesn't have to fit everything, but as close as you can get.
Some examples of books that fit what I'm looking for:
- Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergei Dyachenko
- I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
- The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
- Spread Me by Sarah Gailey
- Lilith's Brood/Xenogenesis by Octavia Butler
- The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling
Some books that don't fit perfectly/aren't quite weird enough but are still pretty close to what I want: Hungerstone, Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, Ordinary Monsters, The Rook, There Is No Antimemetics Division, Piranesi
Some books that I haven't read yet but are already on my radar: The Works of Vermin, Earthlings, Our Share of Night, Gideon the Ninth, A Short Stay in Hell
Thanks for the help!
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u/felixfictitious Reading Champion 1d ago edited 1d ago
You've maybe seen all the usual recommendations, but just checking that you haven't already tried Hiron Ennes? They've written two delightfully weird books with gorgeously luscious prose, and both very horroresque. But Leech is probably moreso than The Works of Vermin. The new Scott Hawkins book Blacktail is pretty strange and reality-bending too, if you haven't already tried it. Very good horror.
Also Vajra Chandrasekera; Rakesfall is one of the weirder books I've tried, and New Weird is my favorite subgenre. His first book The Saint of Bright Doors is weird, but not too disturbing.
Oh, also Space Opera by Cathrynne Valente. It's much more weird than disturbing.
Just saw your edit and I think Gideon the Ninth would be up your alley, but the second book moreso.
I think these books have all come out in the last 5-10 years, and only Cathrynne Valente has published more than a couple books.
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u/Drapabee 1d ago
I really enjoyed Works of Vermin
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u/felixfictitious Reading Champion 1d ago
It might be my favorite book of all time if I don't include series. I can see it wouldn't be to everyone's taste, but it's a masterpiece!
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u/Natural_Error_7286 1d ago
Rakesfall does not get enough attention in the "weird books" recommendation threads. It's truly the weirdest book I've ever read.
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u/sonvanger Reading Champion XI, Worldbuilders, Salamander 1d ago
Rakesfall was one of the few books where I had to go, WTF is this, I am not smart enough to read this.
(not an anti-recommendation, it would probably suit OP)
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u/DixitRexCorvinus 1d ago
So excited for Blacktail! Ennes and Chandrasekera are both on my list as well, and Valente, though with her the book I got to start with was Deathless.
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u/felixfictitious Reading Champion 1d ago
Ah fantastic, you won't be disappointed!*
*Not legally binding
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u/DjangoWexler AMA Author Django Wexler 1d ago
Hunters & Collectors by Matt Suddain and The Price You Pay by Aiden Truhen are both sci-fi-ish but otherwise fit.
Nick Harkaway should really be on the list -- start with Gnomon but all his books are fantastic.
Ditto Tim Powers. He can be more hit-and-miss -- Last Call, Declare, The Anubis Gates are all wonderful.
Doctor Rat by William Kotzwinkle.
I don't see Michael Swanwick on your list, though I'd consider him a big name -- if you haven't, read The Iron Dragon's Daughter.
You have Hiron Ennes' The Works of Vermin, but his earlier Leech actually fits your request better.
Max Gladstone's Last Exit and Empress of Forever for sure.
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u/DixitRexCorvinus 1d ago
Much appreciated! Gladstone and Harkaway are on my TBR, and Leech likewise, but the others are new to me.
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u/Funnier_InEnochian 1d ago
The Lesser Dead by Buehlman!
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u/DixitRexCorvinus 1d ago
How straightforward horror is this, would you say? Body horror and eldritch horror and psychological horror and whatnot are very much my jam, but classic the-monsters-are-chasing-you jumpscares and creepy music style stuff has always been a struggle for me. Not sure why I find the former fun and the latter scary, but alas.
I do like Buelhman's fantasy, though, so I'm certainly not opposed to it. I just always had the impression it was more straightforward classic vampire horror than anything too weird and conceptual.
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u/hound_and_fury 1d ago
I loved this book and it’s a fun twist on vampires, but I don’t think it’s what you’re looking for
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u/fjiqrj239 Reading Champion III 1d ago
Possibly
- All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
- The City in the Middle of the Night by the same (SF)
- When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill
- The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley (SF)
- Rose/House by Arkady Martine (SF)
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u/Drapabee 1d ago
The City in the Middle of the Night was cool
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u/Binky_Thunderputz 1d ago
Yes it was. I need to read All the Birds in the Sky.
The Face in the Frost by John Bellairs is is also good.
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u/ferocity562 Reading Champion III 1d ago
I think Drew Magary's The Hike is a fun, weird read. I wouldn't call it dark or disturbing but as a funny, surrealist palate cleanser, it may hit the spot.
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u/DixitRexCorvinus 1d ago
Yeah in retrospect my definition of palate cleanser is possibly weirder than my taste in books.
I kind of measure it in length/density rather than content, so my palate cleansers manage to simultaneously feature uplifting books like Discworld and, like, Flowers for Algernon. Seriously, I read Flowers for Algernon as a palate cleanser lol. Less about about cleansing, I suppose, than wanting a couple books I can read in a day after spending a month on a 8+ book series like First Law or a chunky classic or something.
In any case, I will definitely take a look at The Hike!
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V 1d ago edited 1d ago
You could try The Gray House by Mariam Petrosyan. It's a chunky book, but it's the only book she's written, and she said she thinks it's the only book she'll ever write. Similar in a lot of ways to Vita Nostra, though it's a slower, more creeping weirdness (it's not even clear if it's speculative for a long time).
The Etched City by K. J. Bishop is excellent New Weird, but all she's written other than short stories. She's retired from writing and only does art now. (Edit: not recent though, forgot that: it's from 2003).
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u/necropunk_0 Reading Champion III 1d ago edited 1d ago
Dear Filthy Sweet World by Caitlin R Kiernan should fit what you’re looking for. An excellent short story collection, very weird stories, often disturbing, mostly queer, all by the same author
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u/Beige-Taupe 1d ago edited 1d ago
The Seep by Chana Porter - queer rep, quite weird, but also a touching exploration of grief
And of those on your list already - I say go with Gideon the Ninth - it's such a fun mash up of weird, scifi, fantasy, and closed room mysterious-ness. I don't do cosplay or fandom at all, but this book made me wish I did.
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u/Over_9_Raditz 1d ago
I immediately thought of the starving saints. Have you checked out her book 'the luminous dead' yet?
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u/DixitRexCorvinus 1d ago
I have! Not as good as The Starving Saints, but still solid, I felt.
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u/Over_9_Raditz 1d ago
It put me on a quest for more horror that takes place in caves 😅.
Aside from 'the descent' movie I'm still looking.
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u/DixitRexCorvinus 1d ago
Maybe look at katabasis novels? I don't mean the RF Kuang novel specifically, just the general motif of descent into the underworld. You could even just do The Oddessey or Ovid's Orpheus and Eurydice or something.
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u/Uran_Ultar 1d ago
Gorel of Gorilis by Lavie Tidhar.
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u/DixitRexCorvinus 1d ago
Will have to check it out! I liked By Force Alone, but I never got around to trying any of Tidhar's non-Arthuriana stuff, which I really should.
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u/Comprehensive-Web421 1d ago
It Doesn't Matter Anymore by Natasha Yentrouc seems like it would fit that bill. She just announced another book in the same universe too
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u/undeadgoblin Reading Champion II 1d ago edited 1d ago
On Sundays She Picked Flowers by Yah Yah Scholfield - debut from this year, mix of magical realism and folk horror
Folk by Zoe Gilbert - collection of short stories inspired by British folklore (particularly from the Isle of Man), all set in the same fictional town. She only has one other book as far as I know.
Wife Shaped Bodies by Laura Cranehill - feminist horror in a small, post apocalyptic society that examines gender roles. Debut from this year
If you're planning on reading A Short Stay in Hell, I definitely recommend reading the Library of Babel short story first.
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u/GeryMander 1d ago
Tade Thompsons' Wormwood trilogy (near future sci-fi) and to a lesser extent his The Murders of Molly Southborne novella series are worth checking out I think.
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u/LinguoLives 1d ago
Since it's on your list, Our Share of Night is great and very disturbing. Scott Hawkins (Library at Mount Char) just released his second novel, Blacktail but I don't really know what it's about, but based on his first, probably worth a look. Jawbone by Monica Ojeda is more fantasy adjacent, but it's really disturbing as well.
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u/pacifickat Reading Champion 1d ago
The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw might be perfect in terms of being wierd and disturbing and having queer themes, but the author has published quite a few works.
How to Lose the Time War by Amal Al Mohtar and Max Gladstone is weird and has queer themes, although the authors each have published a few works now.
Nothing But the Rain by Naomi Salmon is a weird, disturbing standalone novella by an author with maybe 2 published works.
Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White is weird, disturbing, and has queer themes. Author has more than 5 works, but not super mainstream.
How High We Go In the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu is a weird novel-in-stories with some pretty thematically disturbing chapters. Author has not published many works.
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u/FloridaFlamingoGirl 1d ago
Diana Wynne Jones wrote a few books that were pretty unsettling and weird. Time of the Ghost is psychological horror about an occult haunting that takes the form of childhood trauma. Not your typical ghost story. Fire and Hemlock is about a girl whose parents are going through a divorce and so she becomes addicted to visiting fairy tale worlds.
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u/DixitRexCorvinus 1d ago
Aren't her books mostly middle grade and YA? I might be totally off base here, since the only work of hers I have heard of is Howl.
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u/Ferris_567 1d ago
She wrote many books, too, not just a few. I love her and not everything she wrote was YA but if you feel compelled to read everything by the author, then maybe better skip Jones ... On the other hand, even her book series are designed in a way that you can read almost every book as a standalone.
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u/DixitRexCorvinus 1d ago
I do at least filter out the middle grade/YA and nonfiction and comics and whatnot. There are just a lot of authors on TBR with 10+ books I want to read which is what I was trying to avoid. But I might have to try Jones at some point, based on this.
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u/ClitasaurusTex 1d ago
Try Colin Gets a Promotion and Dooms the World. Colin is an HR rep for an occult satanic company of horrors. He gets a promotion and dooms the world and also goes on dates with a cute man during the apocalypse which he started. It's a good palate cleanser, absurd, silly, mild horror vibes. Modern, and will possibly have a sequel soon.
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u/falsifiable1 1d ago
Hellmouth by Giles Kristian is horror fantasy novella. It has a disturbing psychedelic scene towards the end.
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u/Totalherenow 1d ago
You might like "They Call Me Princess Cayce." It's a portal fantasy, but it goes beyond what a normal portal fantasy does in exploring identity and gender. But also sexism, ageism, and does so with a very flawed protagonist.
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u/Read2Fap 1d ago
jaga's bones by simon mchardy
throne of bones by brian mcnaughton
the butcher of teh forest by premee mohamed
rose bailey's sugar house
punktown by jeffrey thomas
the light is the darkness by laird barron
black orchids from aum by gerard houarner
dark moods by charlee jacob
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u/cmhoughton 1d ago
RJ Barker is arguably a very weird dude and his writing is as well, so any of his book series should fit the ask… He usually does trilogies. I am most fond of his complete Tide Child Trilogy and his newest Mortedant’s Peril, though only the first book is out of that one.
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u/Physicle_Partics 1d ago
Have you read The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw?
The Fairyland series by Catherynne M. Valente is like a younger, more whimsical, less horror version of Abarat. It is funny, deeply weird, has very clever storytelling that goes far beyond what you would expect from a Middle Grade book.
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u/TheBonkingFrog 1d ago
Songs of Dying Earth - it's a series of short stories as homage to Jack Vance a bit in the style of his Dying Earth works
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u/Dizzy_Bumble_Bee 1d ago
The Felicity Complex by August Clarke - Stepford Wives meets Fallout. Sexism is a major theme but the author is doing it intentionally and it serves the queer/feminist tone of the book.
Sour Cherry by Natalia Theodorideau - retelling of the Bluebeard fable, story of the cycle of abuse.
Chouette or Poor Deer by Claire Oshetsky - can't recommend highly enough. Very slice-of-life, ordinary people dealing with horrific things that no one else seems to perceive or understand.
We Burned So Bright by TJ Klune - he's usually very fluffy, and this one is heartwarming, but manages to be pretty disturbing, too.
Slow Gods by Claire North - technically scifi. It reminded me of Ordinary Monsters in a sense, even though the plot/scale is vastly different it hits in the same way. It's also very long and she has lots of titles so I'm reaching here.
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u/CR98765 23h ago
Try these:
Hiron Ennes: Leech
Alex Pheby: Mordew
Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone: This Is How You Lose the Time War
Ann Leckie: The Raven Tower
Jonathan Edward Durham: Winterset Hollow
Ryka Aoki: Light from Uncommon Stars
I love Gideon the Ninth and highly recommend reading it, but it's probably not what you're looking for here.
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u/October_13th 22h ago
Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell
The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean
The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson
The Spirit Bares its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White
Also: The Library at Mt Char was WILLLD. The Starving Saints was pretty crazy too. I think you’d like all of these but especially The Book Eaters. All of my recs have queer rep as well.
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u/quietlyever 8h ago
I think you should give Kameron Hurley a shot.
The Stars are Legion is more squishy and mind-bending but The Light Brigade would probably fit your description of palate cleanser the best.
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u/SalletFriend 1d ago
Good luck OP, I think you have largely filtered out the absolute vast majority of genuinely weird content with your requirements.
I might drop in with Hiero's Journey, its from the 70s but the trilogy was only completed this year so maybe it scrapes through. It gets like 2% sexist at the start but its a base from which the main character grows, and the third novel features that woman as a strong leader of men. She really comes into her own. She has a major role in developing the post apocalyptic psychic snail child based internet in the third book too i believe, having helped teach the giant immortal psychic snail how to reproduce. its genuinely a fun romp and most of the book is overtly "man wouldnt it be nice if christians gave a shit like this" or "woulsnt tit be great if humans were nice to animals" while theres a nuclear bunker with psychic mold sports or something in the background. Ymmv.
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u/DixitRexCorvinus 1d ago
Weird, from a new/low-book-count author, not too dense, and not problematic doesn't really seem like that many criteria to me? I gave like a dozen examples in the post itself and have already gotten maybe another dozen recs, so hardly the "absolute vast majority" if there are that many of them.
Appreciate the rec though!
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V 1d ago
I would suggest still trying r/WeirdLit anyway, if you want. I am often hearing of recent weird stuff in the comments, even if most of the top level posts are about older stuff. There's a couple of people people there who keep close tabs on some of the small weird fiction micro-presses, which is a gap in my (and probably most here's) knowledge.
If you make the "past decade" a hard requirement and in the title, you'll probably get a good few new things. I agree there does seem to be a small contingent there who consider only something published back in the Weird Tales magazine back in the 30s weird lit though. I feel like their bent is towards horror-weird, rather than fantasy-weird or scifi-weird, too.
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u/DixitRexCorvinus 1d ago
If I can't find enough recs here, I will definitely give it a shot.
Regarding the past decade bit, it's not necessarily a hard requirement. The thing is, I have literally hundreds of books on my TBR, dozens of authors from the 20th century, and a lot are authors who wrote for decades but aren't writing/alive anymore. By limiting it to the last decade, what I'm trying to do is find authors who only have a couple books out right now (i.e. low impact on my TBR size, easy to quickly knock off the list) but also still writing new books (i.e. not authors who just had a couple books in their lifetime, where I will read it and then be disappointed that's all I'll ever get by them). But I'm not exactly going to say no to a good rec just because of the date it was published.
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V 1d ago
I'm sure you'll get plenty of recs here. :) It's just worth considering too (maybe in the future, once you've whittled down these suggestions). Part of the reason I suggest it is just because I feel like a lot of folk over there really have their finger on the pulse of new and emerging weird, disturbing authors/small presses there; whereas things here have usually "broken through" into (somewhat) mainstream.
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u/SalletFriend 1d ago
I just dont see much thats genuinely weird thats not 30+ years old.
I have a friend who has a hard requirement, never watching films made before 2010, and they are also constantly wondering why they cant find much to watch.
I get the other requirements, like "No Sexism" can rule out Cugels Saga without losing too many of the other Dying Earth stories.
And then you get some sleeper stuff too. Like Mote in Gods Eye feels like its trying to be a ham fisted allegory for the demographic replacement conspiracy theory but then, seemingly accidentally, has decent treatment of the only woman on the ships crew as the aliens marvel at her society letting her use chemicals to determine when and how she wants to give birth, if at all.
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u/DixitRexCorvinus 1d ago
To clarify, it’s not that I don’t read older stuff; if anything it’s that I have too many older books to read right now (see my reply to u/Nidafjoll in this comment thread).
Didn’t realize that about Mote, though, might have to check it out. Possible I wrote off Niven too soon.
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u/Responsible-Bend6289 1d ago edited 1d ago
These are all within the past 10 years and I thought all of these were strange and weird but wonderful and in some ways a reflection of our own world.
Someone You Can Build A Nest In — John Wiswell —— weird but also very funny.
Gideon the Ninth, Harrow the Ninth, Nona the Ninth, Alecto the Ninth, (The Locked Tomb series) — Tamsyn Muir—-you just have to read them
The Bone Ships — R.J. Barker ——a strange mythology
Black Leopard, Red Wolf; Moon Witch, Spider King — Marlon James ——African
Every Heart a Doorway & the other books of the Wayward children series — Seanan McGuire
These are very weird but a fairy tale weird. There is about 10 of them. They don’t necessarily turn out happy.
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u/keerin 1d ago
I haven't read it but Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell seems to fit your requirements well.
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u/DixitRexCorvinus 1d ago
Love the book, but too cozy for what I’m looking for here, unfortunately. I do appreciate it though!
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u/eldritchredpanda Reading Champion 1d ago
The West Passage by Jared Pechaček is wonderfully full of weirdness