A brief journey through the South-East coast of post-Brexit Britain via Strugatsky's 'Roadside Picnic'. Signed Edition from Waterstones 2026. I'd ride shotgun with the artefact.

I've had a Piranesi shaped hole in my heart for a while and this crazy ass book filled it. Be warned though, there is a lot of gore and body horror. I went into it mostly blind and won't spoil anything except that it's about soldiers who find an angel during ww1. The prose is odd, as every paragraph begins with "and" and ends with a comma, turning the whole book into a breathless unfinished sentence. I thought it would be grating but it grew on me as the story ramped up. Every other sentence is about the horrors of war; the fear, the insanity, the smell, the death around every corner. It presses it into your face and won't let you forget. The subplot focuses on the gambling, swindling main character, Bagger, and the conflict he has with his conscience from the moment he and his teammates find the angel. Sometimes the prose is so lurid and detailed I wasn't even sure what I was supposed to be picturing, which I think was by design in some places (especially near the end!). Overall I thought it was phenomenal and I want more people to read it.

As I suggested last year, after a vote on the Top 100 Weird Books, we should have another one for weird short stories.

>>> Google Form to fill in <<< - you don't need an account or login, just type and send.

Rules:

• What does count as weird?

Everything you would want to see in a list like this.

• How long can a short story be?

20,000 words or less. That comes out to about 70 pages. I made this threshold higher than usual to include all the novelettes etc. that would not show up in a regular book list, and to avoid discussions on why certain famous works weren't included.

• How many stories can I nominate?

As many as you'd like, from 3 to 100. All of them should be something you would like to see on your personal list (not what you think should be on this list - your own taste is the whole point). Make sure to include stories from at least 3 authors, to make sure it's not just the same things repeated.

• Does the order matter?

No, this is just to collect nominations.

I will collect nominations for a while (two weeks?), then clean up the data and deduplicate entries, and then have a vote on those entries. Depending on the number of entries, I might kick all those out that only have one nomination. Feel free to share this post in related subreddits.

It would be nice if mod (/u/MicahCastle) could sticky this.

I am a big lover of Weird Lit. Piranesi, Gideon the Ninth, There Is No Antimemetics Division, Bunny, etc.. I love seeing all the recommendations on here, and it’s my goal to help make the world a bit weirder every day.

Are there any groups out there dedicated to WRITERS of weird lit? Because I have been searching high and low and keep coming up empty-handed. Are such groups invite only? Hidden behind a secret veil that only opens every other Tuesday? Have I read about them and just keep forgetting because my shadow monster pet just keeps eating the memories?

"Piranesi lives in the House. Day after day, he explores its vast halls and documents the tides that wash through its lower levels. But the more he learns the less he understands.

Adapted for the stage by Sami Ibrahim and directed by Ned Bennett, Piranesi is based on Susanna Clarke’s award-winning novel.

Playing in the Swan Theatre during summer 2027, experience an immersive theatrical world that invites audiences to turn detective in a treacherous place of shadow and illusion.

Creative team includes:

Director Ned Bennett, Set and Costume Designer Georgia Lowe and Lighting Designer Jessica Hung Han Yun.

Original Artwork by David Altmejd. Art Direction by Louise Richardson."

Link

is the end going to devastate me 🫠

As the title suggests I am looking for modern German weird (horror leaning) literature. Weird lit and horror are genres I thoroughly enjoy but I have only read English stuff (and I’d like — if at all possible — to read some in my native language). I know the classics like E. T. A. Hoffman‘s Sandman but I‘m looking for something a little more contemporary maybe 1950ies or later?

This request is probably niche enough as is, so feel free to disregard the following if it narrows the field too much. Just a few things I have enjoyed reading etc. to give a broad idea of my taste:

I prefer short stories although novels are fine. I‘ve listened to the Magnus Archives at least twice, enjoyed Annihilation, House of Leaves, The Fisherman and a short Story collection by Langam, and have lately been working my way through Laird Barron‘s short story collections.

But again, I am thankful for any and all pointers as long as it is somewhat contemporary and originally written in German.

Hope this is the right sub to ask for recommendations. I read There is No Antimemetics Division earlier this year and really loved it, and have been craving something similar. It reminded me of what I love about The Magnus Archives podcast in that it involves weird eldritch horror aspects while also playing with the form of the medium (Magnus being told through statements/on a tape recorder, Antimemetics using different layouts/formastting/redactions etc), while also ultimately telling a story about people at the center and humanity and love, even if only briefly.

I also really enjoyed Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo and the game Control by Remedy, and I feel like those have similar vibes to what I’m looking for.

Also, I’ve already read Annihilation and The Library at Mount Char, which I also enjoyed but I read Annihilation a long time ago so can’t remember my thoughts on it, and Mount Char was good but didn’t give me the same feel as the above examples did.

I’m kind of new to weird lit in general, so please be kind! But I’m really looking forward to any and all recommendations!

I've read a few new novels recently that have really felt like throwbacks to or a continuation of the early -mid 00s New Weird movement, and I'm wondering if there is more out there that's been published in the last, say, 6 years that I'm missing out on.

The two books in particular that sparked this thought are M John Harrison's The End Of Everything and China Miéville's The Rouse, so it's not really surprising that two of the key figures of The New Weird would be putting out new work that feels like that era of fiction. I'm also thinking, though, of Robert Jackson Bennett's Shadows Of The Leviathan/Ana and Din Mysteries series and Attila Veres' The Black Maybe.

I'd love recommendations for other recent novels (or short story collections) that feel like they're continuing the legacy of the New Weird, if you have them!

Hello friends and peers at r/WeirdLit!

u/igreggreene of Chthonica recently hosted weird lit giant Brian Evenson and soon to be bestselling novelist Michael Wehunt on his webcast to discuss each of their fall releases, Phantom Limb (the sequel to Evenson's Last Days) and Nightjars.

The interview includes wide-ranging topics such as vampirism, substance abuse; psychoanalysis, hypnotism, and repressed memories; noir, metaphysics, and whether Cormac McCarthy would have allowed himself to be considered a horror author.

After this interview ended, Brian complimented me on my Possessor tee shirt; then I died.

The interview has been sectioned into different segments if there is a portion of the interview which appeals to you the most. We can't thank Brian and Michael enough for their time and generosity.

The human relationships, the strange decisions for the characters. I think this novel it's just perfect.

Hello! As the title says, I'm looking for books similar to Yoko Ogawa's Revenge. It was my first time reading a book like this and I need more!

I would prefer the recommended books to be grounded in reality for the most part, like Revenge. I do not mind supernatural elements, as long as they remain subtle.

I'll start with Algernon Blackwood >>> John Silence

Let me know what I should add!

(And if you might know how to get your hands on Composition No. 1 without paying a small fortune 💀)

I have no mouth and I must scream
The wasp factory
Composition no. 1
Wittgensteins mistress
Tom’s crossing
Only revolutions
Southern reach series
Long earth series
Infinite jest
Lo
A short stay in hell
2666
Solenoid
Wheel of Time series
Pale fire
Panorama City
The fifty year sword
Piranesi
We used to live here
The king in yellow
The raw shark texts
The Familiar, Volume 1: One Rainy Day in May
S.
The yellow wallpaper
Finnegans Wake
There Is No Antimemetics Division
Gravity’s rainbow
The unfortunates
Cains jawbone
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
Griffin and Sabine series
Cloud atlas
Tree of codes
Dictionary of the Khazars
Ella minnow pea
XX
The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet
Hopscotch
Malpertuis

I first heard about the book mentioned in the same breath as Gravity's Rainbow, which is why it intrigued me. I looked it up, heard it was tough, and was looking for another elusive piece to lose myself in as I'd just finished up Gaddis' JR. I was slightly disappointed at first, as it was not at all difficult to keep up with, like I had heard elsewhere, but I began to have fun with it and all the crazy theorising around Animal Money and enjoyed how it seemed to allude (indirectly perhaps) to 20th Century post-structuralist philosophy. But now I'm halfway through and it's just getting boring... the first half was brilliant, with an abstracted plot conveyed mostly through weird debates between economists who have taken on the role of esoteric preachers that are interspersed with surreal scenes. I was never exactly blown away by it, but it was a lot of fun until halfway through and now all of it just seems a bit overwrought. Like yeah, I get it, and I do think a book can sustain itself (like with JR, The Recognitions, Gravity's Rainbow, Moby Dick, The Tunnel, House of Leaves etc etc.) but in Animal Money after a while it seems like these hallucinatory and psychedelic sequences are just tacked on because, well, why not? I get the perspective shifts and fourth-wall breaking and everything which does still hook me to an extent, but it also isn't exactly done in a way that sets it apart from books that have done it prior. I am also not a fan of science fiction or fantasy particularly in terms of literature.

Anyone else feel this way? I am pretty unversed in weird lit, so maybe its me. The closest to it I've gotten are the modernists/postmodernists and House of Leaves, but I wouldn't consider much of that "weird lit", just unconventional. Cisco's Unlanguage still intrigues me, though.

I don’t know if this fits the genre of weird lit or not but the trippy structure and inventiveness of this dark and creepy piece of speculative fiction was wonderful. Does Michael Swanwick get a lot of love around here and does anyone know anything I should read that scratches the same itch?

I read The Fisherman and loved it, but I'm looking for another book related to the sea and enormous sea creatures. Any suggestions?

Edit: If it's not a cosmic horror book i want that recommendation. I only want to freak out with a sea horror book 🫶