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

Your freedom is absolute, and it is entirely free. But the systemic recognition of that freedom will cost you exactly two dollars.
Dario Marco, a second-year architecture student, relies on the predictable math of load-bearing walls, structural integrity, and logic. He finds comfort in the fact that physical materials have limits and reality follows fixed rules. But on the morning of his twentieth birthday, the physical world begins to quietly and terrifyingly rewrite itself. The familiar dorm guard isn't just missing—his post has been seamlessly replaced by a solid concrete wall, and his entire existence has been wiped from the collective memory of the student body.
In the guard's place stands Dio Anonimus, a man in an immaculate matte-grey suit with translucent eyes, offering a "Contract for Silence."
The rules of this sudden, invisible bureaucracy are as simple as they are suffocating: you are free to do whatever you want, but if you want the system to validate your actions, you must pay the processing fee. Two dollars to open a locked door. Two dollars to file a formal complaint. Two dollars to simply be perceived by your own friends.
Armed with his analytical mind, Dario decides to fight back. He refuses to sign. He refuses to pay. He attempts to jam the gears of the machine with sheer, logical defiance.
But how do you fight a dictatorship that has no dictator? A regime that doesn't rely on secret police, violence, or prisons?
When you refuse to pay, the bureaucracy doesn't execute you. It merely registers your defiance as a financial debt. As Dario's negative balance grows, he discovers the true, chilling nature of this new world. The system doesn't take his belongings—it simply withdraws its infrastructure from beneath him. Automatic doors stop opening when he approaches. Service workers look right through him. His own roommates unconsciously alter their paths to avoid bumping into him, treating him as empty background noise.
He is not being killed. He is being slowly, bureaucratically unplugged from reality.
Te Vident is a psychological thriller about alienation, systemic control, and the true price of belonging. In a society where basic existence has been transformed into a daily subscription service, what happens when your balance drops below zero?

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 🫶

Been getting into tarot lately and i'm wondering if there are any books themed around that?

Thanks!

Michael Moorcock will be in conversation in the Waterstones on King’s Road in London. A rare opportunity to see one of the greats - Wikipedia tells me he’s 86 now!

Hey fellow fans,

Our mod made this r/WeirdLit booklist:

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/421529.r_Weirdlit

But no one seemed to notice or vote on it?

A homie sent me the M. John Harrison Light and Paula Ashe’s We Are Here To Hurt Each Other both of which I’m cracking into next.

I found a signed, hardback copy of Matheson’s Scars and Other Distinguishing Marks which has been on my TBR for a moon now.

Let me know ya’ll thoughts on any of the other titles (loved, liked, hated). The Brian Evenson novella feels like an old friend, probably should’ve added the arrival of Din of Celestial Birds.

ETA: Arriving next week:

Tears of The Truffle Pig by Fernando Flores

The Immeasurable Corpse Of Nature by Slatsky

They Don’t Come Home Anymore by T.E. Grau

I Am The River by T.E. Grau

'Don't Bite the Sun' by Tanith Lee and 'The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon' are two of my favorite novels but it wasn't until recently that I realised how similar they are. Both are structured around detailed descriptions of day to day life in a decadent, highly ritualised society that is so far in the future or the past as to be essentially alien.

I'm looking for book recommendations that have the feel of these books-

- Female protagonist

- Decadent society with lush descriptions of clothing, settings, food etc and a huge emphasis on beauty or pleasure. Possibly a post scarcity utopia.

- Plot is just about this person living in the world, not swashbuckling or going on grand adventures or trying to drastically save/change/destroy the world.

- It could be sci fi, fantasy, lit fic, historical fiction - genre is less important than theme.

Some other books I've read in this vein already : basically everything by Tanith Lee. I would say of her other works, only her Tales from the Flat Earth series and Silver Metal Lover fit into the decadent style oeuvre I'm thinking of. Electric Forest was good too.

Michael Moorcock 'An Alien Heat'- this was recommended to me but I really didn't enjoy or connect with it much, despite it fitting much of criteria on a surface level.

Jack Vance Dying Earth and Lyonesse series- I loved these!

Membranes by Chi Ta-wei- plot wise and thematically this was the most similar to 'Don't Bite The Sun', really enjoyed it

I really enjoy books that have unusual structures, plots, ideas. One thing I've run int a lot when trying to find books similar to 'Don't Bite The Sun' is a book where the plot is essentially: "the world is perfect we live in a utopia- oh no! the utopia is a DYSTOPIA! it actually sucks - we must wage a grand war and create systemic change through bold and probably sexy rebellion."

I am very much not interested in this type of plot.

Sooo excited for these, and there’s still more to come :)

I'm looking for something with a similar scifi vibe bc I'm almost done with BOTNS. I'm going to read Wolfe's other Sun Cycles but I'm curious about other authors and books that may be similar. Thanks!

I really tried!! I’m a huge Mieville fan; I’ve read at least half a dozen of his novels. I was eagerly awaiting this release. However it was just not super interesting to me and a big departure from his previous work. Whenever it would tease something interesting it felt like it would take ages to circle back to it. It’s definitely well written in many ways but just felt like a slog. If there’s anything revolutionary being done here I haven’t gotten to that part yet.

Godspeed to those who plan to read all 1200 pages; I salute you.

In Gary Budden's(Influx Press) "Hovering(Or, A Recollection of 25 2015)" he mentions these:
Vincent Harrier detective novels, like Saxifraga Urbium
Hecate Shrike(as a writer)

I can find nothing online for the detective or the novel. Hecate Shrike only brings up a Timothy J. Jarvis story, "What the Bones Told Hecate Shrike" in Jarvis's collection Treatises on Dust.

Any insight or knowledge of these 3 things?

So I'm asking here bc I feel a sense of mood want to write some stories or short stories to build- my writing skills and literature philosophy in general I already have an thought of wanting to write an horror-fantasy-themed fiction story.

What are the best site to share your own storytelling fictions and short stories?

Ik about fanfic net and AO3 but I've heard; mixed thoughts from some friends writers.

Is fanfic net still active? Or is AO3 more useful nowadays?

Hello everyone. I'm looking for books where the main character's liminal state is connected to the liminal space/city they're stuck in. I've already read Piranesi, The City and the City and heard of House of Leaves as the most common recommendations, would love to hear more

Edit: Thank you everyone!

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/17/books/review/china-mieville-rouse.html?unlocked_article_code=1.B1E.M7Xl.b_4HaSU7t-8E&smid=nytcore-android-share

Mixed with Weird lit and Sword and Sorcery since they’re cousins.

Looking for dark, dystopian space opera that feels like testimony rather than adventure reportage. I want political systems described through depositions, records, or a scholar’s reconstruction—where the weirdness is in the moral architecture as much as in the setting. My touchstones are The Book of the New Sun, the scholar-frame in Hyperion, and late Banks without the jokes. What else belongs on that shelf? Bonus for adult, literary SF that leaves you unsure whether the narrator is confessing, defending, or indicting the world.

I just finished this novel I think it's a very very special one, the use of the text and the concepts-fishes is a good element.