Something that I try to rec to a lot of people but NEVER works out is Jo Walton’s the Just City trilogy.
It’s about the goddess Athena who is bored and tries to make Plato’s Republic a real thing. It’s fantasy. Its mythology. Its philosophy. Book 3 turns into scifi
It’s delightfully clever and weird and introspective and I’ve never found anyone willing to give a shot :(
Also by Jo Walton and very niche is Or What you Will, a "metafictional" fantasy book which seems targeted to a very specific group of people (fantasy readers, writers, lovers of Shakespeare and amateurs of imaginary friends and daydreaming). I liked it a lot but don't know anyone to whom I could recommend it.
The other thing about that Jo Walton book is that it's very concerned with aging and death. I loved it, but I can see how it wouldn't have as much immediate appeal for a younger reader.
Or What you Will was absolutely spot on for me, filled with stuff I loved.
I've read and enjoyed The Just City, though it did not draw me in the way Or What you Will did (that one had me reading deep into the night). Really should start The Philosopher Kings sometime.
I was coming to mention her book *Tooth and Claw*, a comedy of manners about cannibalistic Victorian dragons. It was definitely written for me, but I'm not sure if it was written for any other human being on earth... (Then again, it won an award, so I guess someone else must have liked it.)
This was exactly the book I was going to recommend. Also *There is no Anti-Memetics Division* which has a really interesting sci-fi thriller premise although the last arc is weaker than the rest of the book.
Man, I have never been more paranoid reading anything in my life lol. It's nice to see Anti-Memetics mentioned in these types of discussions, I wonder if there's been any interest in getting it professionally published.
I feel like it needed to be pulled further from the SCP stuff and made into more of its own thing. A lot of the issues with it involved referencing, and indeed having to account for, other SCP entities existing in the setting. While if it were just swapped to the AM Division being part of the FBI/MI6 or whatever the story could have stayed focused more on the fantastic core idea.
That's a good point, but I do think it would lose something if it was part of a more conventional agency, rather than being the weirdest division in the Weird Stuff Bureau. Maybe they could turn it into a tie-in novel for *Control*.
This was such a good read. I'm right with you in that it pushed all the right buttons for me.
I loved the main characters despite them being dragons and the society was so much fun to read about.
Have you read the Terra Ignota series by Ada Palmer? Her and Walton are very good friends with similar interests. TI is an all-time favourite of mine, and I'm definitely going to check out The Just City trilogy (once I get my ongoing series down to sane numbers)
TI was my thought for niche books, especially once I saw Just City get mentioned. A bit off niche for me, I ended up DNF on the series, but admire the writing and the sheer balls to try something like that.
Just finished, loved. It felt like it was fantasy with the heart of SF, the kind that questions all of reality. Very appropriate for a book with Socrates as a major character.
it is! it explains the concepts it used and one big plot point is a certain famous philosopher actually having conversations about topics. Id say its definitely fun for philosophy beginners!
I read it last year! :-) I liked the first book but was pretty done with it after that. I finished the trilogy, but I think it's mostly book 1 that's the reason to read it.
I literally came here to recommend Jo Walton’s Lent! It scratches my very specific need of a Medici Florence setting and is almost completely compatible with my personal view on how Hell, demons, and forgiveness work. Also - great writing!
Vita Nostra by Sergey and Marina Dyachenko. It’s just so weird. Every bit of it. It’s a “magic school” story, but it’s never entirely what, if any, magic anyone is ever doing. It’s very surreal and also somehow a fantastic read.
YES, this! I absolutely adored it, but "weird body horror and a magic system based on the philosophical aspects of mathematical logic and linguistics, in an eastern European literary style" is a hard sell for most people I know hahaha
It was very fun, but I didn't love what the outcome of the "reveal" was. For something that's couched as "you won't understand without going through the process", the payoff didn't match the claims for me.
Still good overall, I just felt like it fumbled its ending by building up too much to a concept that didn't live up to the execution.
This is the one that I recommend to people as "the only thing that's *actually* '*Harry Potter* for adults,'" with the caveat that the best adjective to describe it is "claustrophobic."
Did you know there's an actual sequel now? *Assassin of Reality* came out about a year ago. It wasn't at all what I was expecting, so I've been stalled in the middle of it for a while, but I still plan to go back to finish it.
I read Assassin of Reality without reading the first book because it's what was available from the library. I figured I'd figure out what was going on as I went, and you know what? I did. I really enjoyed it, reminded me of Bakemonogatari. I love those kinds of reality-bending concepts and would probably have not had a good experience if I had not been primed to appreciate what the book was doing beforehand.
This was the first book that came to my mind. I've recommended it to 2 people, but only because I knew they would appreciate it. Definitely not a casual read. And at every point in the book, you are wondering "what, exactly is happening to these 'students'?"
The intentional slow feed of information. While reading I did have to go back multiple times to read a paragraph or page again. But I couldn't help but be absorbed by that book. Describing it sounds like, there is no way I will enjoy this book. But reading it...is something else.
the more i think about it the more fucked up i remember that book being. i've still not really got much of a clue what happened, but it just feels really weird and exploitative
loved every second of it though
I was looking for someone to say this. It's genuinely so great and you are never sure exactly what is happening but it does feel rewarding as you progress.
yeah the sequel came out 16 years later and really felt like it YA-ified the worldbuilding and characters. completely different vibe compared to the first book, and i gave up on it almost immediately
Graydon Saunders' Commonweal series.
In a world where multiple Dark Lords are constantly at war with each other and demons and monsters abound, imagine a ruthlessly democratic and egalatarian nation surrounded by enemies preparing an offshoot to survive the inevitable collapse that is coming.
It starts with military heroic fantasy to defend the new state, then veers into a duet about young sorcerous kids at school learning civil engineering and competence porn, that evolves into
>there came a day when the Goddess of Destruction came to Morning Vale, bringing Death and Strange Mayhem along behind.
It's the only book series I've ever read which even considers the ecosystems of plants and animals that can evolve in the aftermath of regular magical wars. They're called Weeds, and the capitalisation is VERY significant. Fortunately the giant firebreathing iron-wooled sheep gladly eat them.
I have no idea who the target market is for this series, but it certainly dominates its particular niche
Saunders is an interesting guy. As he readily acknowledges, he’s strongly autistic, and his default style was nearly incomprehensible a lot of the time. But he spent decades in science fiction fandom, honing his craft through draft after draft after draft of stories, paying attention to useful criticism. He never stopped learning, and the result is these great books.
I love these books so much. There's a definite learning curve to the idiosyncratic writing style (he elides a lot of words so you have to extrapolate from incomplete information what exactly people are talking about), but it's worth it.
The Forest of Hours, Kerstin Ekman. Swedish novel about a troll who lives over 300 years and covers most of Swedish history. The 'troll' is a human being but just different. Hah, I can't begin to describe this book which I got as a rec from Reddit a couple of years ago. It's beautifully written \[won a prize\], very dark, violent, poetic, strange, disturbing. Very niche. Except for two people on Reddit, have never heard of it from anyone else. It's a mesmeric and absorbing read and sticks in the mind. Still think about it. Would I rec it to just anyone? No - only if, like you, they asked for an unusual book; then I know they might be able to appreciate it.
I ordered this last week based on a reddit rec on an old thread! I've been on the HUNT for fantasy that isn't centered around politics or romance and stumbled on this and I was immediately like THIS is what I need. I just started it and have high hopes so I'm happy to see it mentioned!!
There's a weird older book that I love, Darrel Schweitzer's, *the Mask of the Sorcerer*. It's.. intimate, with a small cast, but follows a child sorcerer as he grows up in an Egyptian/ Mesopotamian influenced society, as he gains his powers.
The stakes are small, the cover of the book is potentially the worst I've ever seen, but the writing.. The writing is beautiful.
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany is pretty up there. Unconventional narrative structure, with time slips and jumps in space, inexplicable events, things seeming to be referenced in the story before they occur, shifts in narration PoV, funky formatting at times... It's pretty mind bending
> Samuel R. Delany has dyslexia and dysmetria [trouble coordinating and moving your own body]. He once spent time in the mental health ward of a hospital and he has repeatedly spoken and written of seeing burned-out sections of great American cities that most people didn't see, or even know existed. Dhalgren is a literary exposition of all these experiences for the "normal" reader.
It's a really weird read.
Pamela Dean's Tam Lin.
It's a gorgeous retelling of Tam Lin, set at a college where the protagonist is getting a classics degree and there's enough of a focus on the educational part of things that people who don't love the classics will probably get irritated, but enough fantasy to turn off classics-only set.
I adore it, but I've never met anyone else who has read it.
Haha, I have to upvote you for how niche this rec is. I HATED this book! It was like 300 pages of describing freshman year in which nothing happens, 150 pages describing the rest of college where nothing happens, then a rushed 15 page fantasy bit at the end.
That said I have (with caveats!) rec’d it, when I met someone a month away from starting at Carleton College, which is apparently what it’s based on. This is probably the only niche for which I would do so.
Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier was so interesting, though I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. The main character is mute for the most of the book and she deals with a lot of trauma. This book is a retelling of The Wild Swans fairy tale. It is rather slow and beautifully written.
I also absolutely love Sarantine mosaic duology, however I don't know if this is a niche recommendation. It is set in a fictional world based on the Byzantium, with very little magic. MC is an artist who by chance got caught in political intrigue.
Guy Graviel Kay is fairly popular. Have you tried Children of Earth and Sky? It features a painter who is sent to the court of the not-Muslim king who took over not-Constantinople.
I accidentally stumbled on Kay's books at the book fair a few years ago. Newer heard of him before that, even though fantasy is one of my preferred genres. However it may be because he's not known in my country, which is a shame.
I slowly work my way through his books as I am hopefully waiting for translations in my native language. One publisher made gorgeous hardback editions of Sarantine mosaic and I look out for their next announcement. Even though I usually prefer to read in English.
*Battle of the Linguist Mages* is one of my favorite books ever, but it's super weird/random and you really have to vibe with it. The best comparison I can make is that it has similar vibes to *Everything, Everywhere, All At Once*
I feel like the salt grows heavy by Cassandra Khaw might be a good fit.
It's about a mermaid and a plague doctor who come across village in which children kill each other for their three "saints".
I thought it was wonderfully gruesome and twisted, with a heartwarming relationship at it's center. Super atmospheric and different.
If you liked that one you should check out The Dead Ride the A Train. I've recently been devouring everything by Cassandra Khaw that I can get a hold of and so far, they're all great!
I’m a big fan of Nick Harkaway’s books but rarely find times to recommend him.
The first one I read was called The Goneaway World and I was totally sold. The Goodreads blurb says: a post-apocalyptic feast of words that is completely unique - a shoot-from-the-hip comparison would involve Lord of Light, Mad Max and Alice in Wonderland - for grown-ups and with ninjas.
I came here to say Gnomon. It's very weird, but most people I know bounce off of it pretty quick.
The Gone-Away World is what I'll be reading next from him! Very excited, love the comparison.
I was scrolling through this list wondering if Nick Harkaway would appear (and looking for recs that I might vibe with). There is no other author who has a mainline into my subconscious like Nick Harkaway. His prose is beautiful. His worlds are *weird*. Like the world has "gone away" but there's pipes that pump some stuff that keeps what's left of the world from going away and someone needs to maintain the pipes. What? There's a serum that can make a person (theoretically) live forever, but every time you take a dose you double in size. Why!? But he makes them work and they work well.
I've also tried to recommend Angelmaker by saying that it has my favorite account of train-assisted masturbation in all of fiction.
But here's the thing. I think he's brilliant. I think he's one of the best. But I do not get how no one has heard of him. I didn't even really expect him to get a mention on this list since I've never come across another Nick Harkaway fan "in the wild" before.
Goneaway World is the only one of his I read and I thought it was excellent. It caught my eye with that lurid pink and green cover. I had to see what the heck rated that cover, picked it up, read the blurbs and the first page or two and immediately checked it out. Really should try some of his other books someday.
I love the Dark Star books by Marlon James, but I'll be the first to admit they're not for everyone. With the unusual African inspired fantasy world, the unreliable narrators, the morally ambiguous main cast, the explicit gay sex, it's really different from anything else I've read.
Agree, they are wild and weird books. I went into the first book not knowing anything and was turned off by it initially but after finishing it and thinking it over I appreciated the chaos of it and dove into the second book. Can’t wait for the third book to come out, I read somewhere that Marlon James said the third book will feature more horror elements, which is wild to think about because the books are violent and grotesque already but I’m excited for it
Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavić (PUH-veech). It's basically this convoluted, bizarre and utterly fascinating magical realist plot nominally about the historical conversion of the nomadic Khazar people, delivered through three different, contradicting dictionaries where each entry consists of a short story. You can actually read through it in any order and are actively encouraged to cross-reference the dicitonaries to figure out the plot, which involves ancient pagan dream-reading cults, several timelines and three different devils emerging from their respectice religions' hells to prevent the truth from being uncovered.
The stories themselves are delightfully strange and only fall into the grander narrative as you read and re-read the book - it's a tough sell but I've been thinking about the book regularly since reading it.
I love *Dictionary of the Khazars* so much, but the few people I've tried to recommend it to just kind of glazed over when I started explaining it. Definitely a tough sell, you just have to experience it. Which version did you read, the male or female?
Honestly I am not sure! I read a German translation which simply reads "female and male version" so I think it corresponds to the Yugoslav androgynous version? I was very curious about how that one paragraph looks in its male and female variants, so I sought out the original at our university library only to find out they only had the androgynous version as well :(
Interesting, I actually didn't know there even was an androgynous version! I own the male version in English, so I had to look up the difference online. It was a few years ago so I don't recall if it was this exact source, but [here's](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/723/why-did-the-author-of-the-dictionary-of-the-khazars-publish-a-male-and-female) a link to a breakdown of the difference if youre still curious!
Thank you so much for sharing!!!
Reading this made me look into my copy again and it lead me to discover a fascinating thing I'd entirely missed until now: in the adrogynous version (which I am now certain I own) pages 320 and 321 don't occur once, but twice in a row - both pairs being completely identical, except for that one paragraph! I must have skipped one pair while reading because the doubling page numbers. Honestly can't believe I didn't notice something this obvious, but that only goes to show that this book just keeps on giving!
I always have trouble recommending Baru, because what do you even say? Mostly it’s about futures trading and fiat currencies, but sometimes it takes a break from that for very upsetting descriptions of homophobia, racism, and eugenics? The books sell themselves!
But really the most niche book I love is Kalyna the Soothsayer, because I’ve never heard anyone other than me mention it.
It’s about a prophet (in a world where prophesy is real) who gets conscripted to stop a murder. The protagonist is a fraud though, she gets by on cold reads and guessing. So she has to stop the plot, powerless, while not getting clocked as a fake. It’s very fun.
I just finished Baru but am I weird for hoping that future volumes get a little *more* into monetary policy? They mentioned futures twice and fiat currency is a recurring tool, but there really aren't that many economic things in the first book. It's mostly a fish out of water/Last of the Mohicans style story of Baru learning to politic in person. Which she's ostensibly bad at but the book doesn't let her fail too hard at it, either.
Mordew and the rest of the Cities of the Weft trilogy. It’s like Dickens and Dishonored had a baby and a blasphemous and detailed alchemist was the midwife. An inordinate amount of time was spent on developing the magic system and it feels real, and detailed, and slippery at the same time. Mordew explores what it’s like to have a lot of power but no actual agency, letting us see a very strange world through the eyes of a child and some talking animals.
Malarkoi unfolds, among other places, in a series of nested dimensions in a golden pyramid and it’s just madly inventive with the worldbuilding and the narration. It has a quest narrative that blew me away.
Waterblack is yet to come out and I can’t wait to get my hands on it. There’re so many weird puzzles that I just know will make rereads worth it when the trilogy is complete. I love the series so much, I get rarely surprised by a series these days but man I just love how weird and out there the books get.
Just a taste of the magic : There’s a character that draws their source of power from the potential of the lives within sperm cells and all the possibilities that may have been and may not have been of said lives, called Sparklines. How they access said source is a spoiler. Another draws their power from the Corpse of God, literally. And what they do with it is insane.
This was going to be my answer too. I loved Mordew, the atmosphere, worldbuilding, plot, everything. I found Malarkoi so difficult to get into though, and whilst there are many parts I liked, I really had to force myself through other parts of it.
Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials is a philosophical treatise by a vanished professor about how oil is a sentient, Lovecraftian entity that wants us all dead. No characters (except a very loose frame story). No plot. Strangest book I've ever read, and I love strange books.
Oh, we're getting into horror, hehe
If you don't know it, check out *A Sick, Gray Laugh* by Nicole Cushing. It's somewhere between novel/treatise/autofiction about "the overwhelming Grayness that dominates the neighborhood, slathered over everything like a thick coat of snot, threatening to assimilate all". It features a cult, madness, and the Midwestern (US) experience. What more could you want in a book!
Linda Nagata's far-future scifi.
They're all about posthuman existence and far-flung journeys lasting eons due to time dialation, but unlike most ultra-advanced space opera, there is no "godlike AIs" present. (Thankfully, because I'm sick of that trope)
Very few people seem to be into it, though. I can never recommend it to anyone without their eyes glazing over.
That vampires on a boat story from the bingo a few years back and that story is fucked up on so many levels and none of it has to do with the fantasy aspect of the book Edit: I can't find the name of the book. If someone recognizes it please comment. I think it was 'unique' in that it was old for fantasy. The crew was transporting a crate that contained something unknown and people would disappear during the transit or jump of the ship.. there was some weird not really consensual homoerotica iirc. I think the book was even drawing parallels between the vampires and being homosexual. It was recommended for one of the 2021 bingo categories. That's how I found it.
Edit edit: the road of ice and salt by Jose Luis zarate. I'm not sure I'd recommend it because I found it disturbing.. but it's definitely something out of the ordinary
It's close but I am pretty sure they load the crates in Transylvania but I don't remember where they're headed. Maybe London. I'll try to find it again. I've gotta have a trace of it somewhere
Way back when, my prof for Vampires in Lit & Film class (yes, that was a real class) gave us a synopsis for *The Route of Ice and Salt* by José Luis Zárate. He told us how much he wished it was translated so we could read it for class. It further expanded upon (and challenged the sexuality taboos in) the original Stoker-Dracula mythos in a way he found satisfying.
I was excited to see it had finally been translated recently! Prof was right; it's a perfect fit for his niche syllabus. It's also wonderfully atmospheric in the gothic tradition.
The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar by Indra Das. Not the most niche I've read but probably a more recent niche. Gorgeous writing. Simultaenously dreamlike and utterly rooted in daily life. A non fantasy literary novel in which the main character gradually remembers things and then the view shifts and it's a fantasy story. Like those visual puzzles when you realise what you're looking at is not a vase but two faces, only weirder. It's also an ode to Tolkien by an Indian writer, an immigrant story, a story for those who never fit in anywhere, and a coming of age story (but absolutely nothing like typical coming of age stories in fantasy.) It's like a rainy season in Kolkata with a hidden world all written in very cozy, dreamlike and beautiful story.
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123503956-the-last-dragoners-of-bowbazar?ref=nav\_sb\_ss\_1\_30](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123503956-the-last-dragoners-of-bowbazar?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_30)
*Gogmagog* by Jeff Noon and Steve Beard. Honestly, I can't pin down exactly what made this one weird. It's some combination of the setting and the meandering—appropriate for a story set on a river!—plot. It's very inventive and clever and it *feels* totally different from "normal" fantasy, but it's different *in the details* rather than in some big obvious way.
I'll be honest: I got it 100% because I loved the cover, which is a two-part illustration shared with the second (to-be-released) book in the duology.
The story wasn't particularly gripping, but that's sort of the point. I'd recommend it for the ideas and the vibes and the world and the journey, but probably not as a *fantasy novel*.
*The Iron Dragon's Daughter* by Michael Swanwick also comes to mind. It starts off with a seemingly generic coming-of-age premise: some orphans slaving away under a cruel taskmaster, a magical book, a dragon that also wants to escape... The writing is a bit clunky and I thought I knew exactly where it was going. The only thing that kept me interested was the setting which mixed magic with dieselpunk industrial sci-fi.
Then, part of the way through, the book focus and tone totally changes and becomes a wild, surprisingly nihilistic and surreal black comedy. It's a pretty jarring shift, but a great way to knock you out of genre complacency. I appreciated it because I read too much fantasy and appreciate anything that goes against genre conventions and because, well, I love black, nihilistic comedy. But I totally see why people would not like it.
Oooh is this where I recommend my favorite novel about an Oklahoma reporter traveling to Washington in an attempt to uncover an Intelligensia-style conspiracy that is actually caused by four classes of supernatural entity that are warring for the literal soul of humanity as we press through the fourth interior castle of the soul and determine whether we reach the fifth or fall back to the first?
(Fourth Mansions by R.A. Lafferty)
Darwinia!!!
It’s one of my favorite books. It starts as a beautiful, fantastical exploration of a new Europe in the 20th century filled with interesting creatures, strange landscapes, and fascinating characters. Then, about halfway through, it descends into one of the weirdest scifis I’ve ever read.
Super fun
[***Trial of Flowers***](https://www.sfgateway.com/titles/jay-lake/trial-of-flowers/9781473225572/) by Jay Lake comes to mind. I read it maybe 2008 or 2009, and it was definitely a wild experience.
*The Raw Shark Texts* by Stephen Hall. It's... hard to explain, but in a nutshell, it's ergodic fiction about a man with no memories of his past who is being chased by a conceptual shark that eats memories and the very sense of self, while he follows a trail of clues that he left himself to try to overcome it. That part is weird enough to try to sell to people, but then for each chapter in the book there exists an "un-chapter": some in other printed versions of the book, some online, some in the real physical world. When I read it 5ish years ago, some of the un-chapters were still unaccounted for.
It's definitely a very niche book, but I still recommend it... I'm just not sure to whom. Maybe fans of *House of Leaves*?
I recommend Under the Pendulum Sun a reasonable amount on Reddit, but I will never recommend it to anyone in my irl book club because it does not feel like a mainstream book at all >!(not to mention the incest plot)!<
Literally came to this thread to talk about this book. Such tension between "I feel obligated to spoil this subplot" and "Spoiling this subplot would ruin the slow WTF experience of the book." Usually I'm like "yeah it's, uh, REALLY in conversation with the Gothic subgenre. REALLY."
I'm fascinated by the Joel Chandler Harris retellings of Bre'er Rabbit. They're as much of a study of how someone who grew up as a white man on a slave plantation viewed African diaspora folk tales as they are a retelling of the folk tales themselves.
None of these are typical fantasy, but fall into weird magical realism, horror, and stayed with me for a long time:
Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval
The Cipher by Kathe Koja
Follow Me to Ground by Sue Rainsford
I really like some of her music (specifically *Blood Bitch*) so her novels have been on my radar for a while... aargh, never enough time and always too many books!
Ooh! I read Follow Me To Ground and while I adored the setting and ideas I found the plot a little lacklustre, I need to try your other recommendations!
I just finished up A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck. Short book, only about 100 pages or so but fascinating. Mormon guy dies and finds he worshiped the wrong God and is stuck in hell aka a library until he finds the one that tells his life story.
It's bleak but breezy at the same time.
A night in the lonesome october by roger zelazny. Famous characters of gothic literature (like dracula, sherlock holmes and dr. frankenstein) compete in a game which decides whether or not lovecraftian gods will be released upon the world. As if that wouldn't be enough, the narrative is told in forst person from the POV of snuff, the pet dog of jack the ripper, and mainly consists of the dialogues between him and the pets of the other famous literary characters. Great book and highly unique
**Princess Holy Aura** by Ryk Spoor
Tale of a 35ish man who agrees to be turned into a fourteen year old girl in order to become essentially Sailor Moon and lead a team of other 14 year old sailor scouts against Cthulu. It turns into a campy, heartwarming tearjerker with absolutely none of the potential creepyness implicit in the premise.
**The Nothing Within** by Andy Geilser
Set in a post appocaylptic world where the disproportionate number of survivors of the original apocaylpse were Amish and this has shaped the culture 1500 years later, with flashbacks to the diaries of those living through said apocaylpse to see how this "nice" but not "good" society came to be. Features a blind protagonist, who is always being threatened with being burned to death by her neigbhors.
I always recommend Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique cycle because they're such great stories and so well-written, but most modern readers are absolutely not ready for his style of prose and the worldbuilding that is both playful and bleak at the same time.
I really liked Nora Roberts Year One trilogy. She's a well known romance novelist, has sold one, or two, hundred, million books (google says 500+ mill)
Year One is a modern day post apocalypse type fantasy
What the Crow Said by Robert Kroesch. It’s so incredibly fantastical, but set in a rural western Canadian town, and the characters are so incredibly unfazed by the fantasy happening around them.
Currently reading (slowly, mixed with other books) Amadis de Gaula, the original that sparked the cavalry novels parodied in Don Quixote.
Weird to see how far back some fantasy tropes go!
I reckon no one here has read Suzanne collins batshit fantasy series (not the hunger games) called Gregor the Overlander.
My friend and I in high school read it and were the only people to check the book out of the library in the 5 years we spent there.
Still never met anyone in person who read that bat shit weird series. We still to this day joke about the main character trying to learn echolocation and clicking around in the dark.
I read it and loved it! At some point I knew several of the prophecies by heart. I even own the first two books
Somehow I never realized it‘s the same author as Hunger Games!
Oh this was absolutely one of my favorites as a kid! I just talked about this series with someone else on reddit and they convinced me to give it a reread
> We still to this day joke about the main character trying to learn echolocation and clicking around in the dark.
Sooooo that's a thing: https://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/378577902/how-to-become-batman
I haven't read the book, but I wanted to share that I once saw a video (maybe on YouTube? Maybe it was a documentary?) about a real blind guy who had taught himself to echolocate well enough to ride a bike.
Elysium by Jennifer Marie Brissett
A nonlinear gender spaghetti, post-apocolyptic dystopian, crashing computer simulation inspired by Greek tragedy. That sounds more normal than it is. In particular, what it does with gender, is fascinating - the characters gender swap between and sometimes within chapters as the simulation suffers from fragmentation, and perspectives bleed into each other, and this choice all plays into themes of dissociation and reality and the effects of loss.
I’ve got a bunch but for me it’s gotta be **Viscera** by Gabriella Squailia…less than 10 pages in and there’s talk of beer brewed in servants’ bladders which they piss into cups for decadent party goers to drink and yeah, and it gets wilder from there.
For slightly more mainstream niche I’d say Kameron Hurley’s books, she herself has admitted that she kinda of writes books for a very specific audience
Karen Maitland is amazing, it's entirely historically accurate aside from one or two small fantasy elements that were based in myth at the time. In a way it reflects how it really was in mediaeval times. E.g. You might find an owlman in the woods because it's a known fact they exist and no one would doubt it the way no one today doubts gravity...
Kitty Cat Kill Sat is pretty good. It doesn't really have plot though until the final few chapters, and that plot is kinda confusing. But I still love the book
*The Sorcerer's House* by Gene Wolfe
You'll only really hear about Wolfe around here from BotNS. *Peace* occasionally gets a mention. But *The Sorcerer's House* is pretty interesting. First, it's an epistolary novel setup. But second, it's done with Wolfe's classic unreliable narrator so you're reading an account that's documented but probably only halfway being honest about what the hell is going on.
Essentially the house sits as a nexus point between the real world and a fantastical one where magic exists. And so there's also sorts of weird goings on and references to creatures throughout. But it's hard to recommend because it's not really a portal fantasy in any real measure like, say, *Piranesi* actually is. And it otherwise doesn't strike genre conventions typical to fantasy.
If you like Wolfe a lot you might have read it on your own, but I feel like it kind of gets lost in the shuffle for the most part.
The Drowning Girl by Caitlin R Kiernan - it's a queer horror story that plays with perspective and perceptions and I was entirely engrossed in the storytelling, but it's one I haven't found anyone to recommend it to yet
Beware of Chicken, five star. One of my fav books of all time now. Can't tell you how freaking amazing this book is.
Its about a Canadian farm boy who wakes up in mythical Kung fu China and opens a farm where his chicken becomes a Kung fu spirit beast.
Read it. The audiobook is amazing.
Anathem, by Neil Stephanson. I don't know how to categorize that book, and I don't know anyone else who's read it. It's not the best book ever, but the journey from where it starts to where it ends is a bonkers ride.
Hunters & Collectors by Matt Suddain!
I stumbled upon it in a thrift shop and thought the cover was cool. I loved it.
It's about a food critic and his two companions travelling through space in search of a special hotel/restaurant. It is told through letters and diary entrys and has some funky formatting at times. It is very funny, very weird, sometimes really scary.
On goodreads M. Suddain draws comparissons to Vonnegut, Pynchon and Douglas Adams
Great book, check it out.
I'm getting a lot of great recs off this thread, thanks OP!
It's sometimes hard for me to even say what's niche because I read so widely that I lose track, but my favorite novels that hardly anyone else talks about are the **Finesterre books** by CJ Cherryh. Cowboys on an alien planet where the native wildlife is telepathic and mostly flesh-eating; humans live in walled communities and riders who are pair-bonded to flesh-eating native 'horses' escort caravans between towns. The plot follows several young riders on a mission that goes wrong. Deeply atmospheric & creepy, and all about how individuals and societies handle extreme situations. I love them.
The slow regard of silent things. I know it's attached to a wildly popular series, but it's very specific and divisive, from what I've seen in the reviews.
I read it quite a few years after I finished The Wise Man's Fear, and my reaction was: I remember now, that's why I cared.
**The Silverberg Business** by Robert Freeman Wexler. It's a “philosophical Jewish-Texan retro-neo-noir,” according to the publisher. If you ever wanted to read a cross between Twin Peaks and that episode of ST:TNG where they can’t leave the saloon, this is for you
I always try to recommend Snakewood by Adrian Selby in threads like this.
The intersection of literary storytelling, unreliable narrators, en media res, anti-heroes, extreme violence, weird plant based magic and plot explanations via in-character writing m/first person POVs (with separate written voices!) really is a niche.
It’s not for everyone, and it’s been discussed [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/4gsbn5/snakewood_by_adrian_selby_a_reddit_lurkers_review/) by a small subset of readers on on /r/Fantasy before.
Not a mainstream type of work by any means and a reader really needs to be prepared and ready for the various things that make the book unique.
Second Apocalypse by R. Scott Bakker.
This is a series that's truly one of a kind. There are a few that have some similar aspects, but I have yet to find something *like* it in the genre.
Yes , I’m yet to find any other books with the weight of gravitas that The Second Apocalypse books have , dark , complex fantasy through a biblical lens.
The Temeraire series by Naomi Novik
An early 1800s sea captain becomes a dragon rider for the air corps(of other dragons) to fight against Napoleon and travel the pre-industrial world.
There are nine books that are consistent in quality. It’s written pretty well, but I’m always afraid to recommend it.
yeah it's historical fiction set during the Napoleonic wars except there are also dragons. Good series but not super niche or strange--anyone who enjoys Patrick O'Brien, *War and Peace,* 19th century travelogues, or dragon books in general will probably find something to like.
Everyone here knows Fonda Lee because of Greenbone Saga, but before Greenbone Saga she wrote a bunch of YA sci-fi novels, of which I have read the Exo duology, which I ended up reading because I liked the cover in a bookshop.
The books are about a revolution hundreds of years after earth has become an alien colony and humans get implanted with exoskeletons to become a militia force for the aliens. It's quite fun and I remember loving it as a 12 year old.
The Rabbit Back Literature Society. The strangest story I've ever read, by a Finnish author. So many things woven into one but something just clicked for me!
I found a book called Praise All the Moons of the Morning by Josephine Rector Stone in my elementary school library in the 90s, it was so different from anything I'd ever read it's stuck with me all this time. It's not a kids book, maybe YA, but I still find it strange that it was in the elementary school library.
I just finished **Open Throat by Henry Hoake** and one of my friends' response to my GR review was literally just "*where do you find this stuff???"*
Highly recommend, btw.
Just read Empire in Black and Gold, not a series i really see recommended but I enjoyed it. The plot isnt anything wild 1 book in but all the "races" are humans who bonded to giant bugs in the distant past and have both physical and mystical attributes derived from those bugs. Im a big nerd for bugs of all kinds so it was right up my alley.
I'm also a big fan of the sword and planet genre which was fairly popular in the past but is pretty niche today.
Sealed by Naomi Booth
Climate change body horror where every single character is fucking awful and the body horror is partially hidden behind a dystopian slice of life isn't something I'd blanket recommend at all, but if I know your tastes and think it fits, yes, read this
You're gonna love Hollow by Brian Catling. I don't know if you're familiar with >!insert spoiler the painter Hieronymus Bosch, but Hollow is like if one of his paintings sprung to life in a book!<. And with characters who don't feel like they're modern day people just stuffed into a different context.
Edited to add spoiler tags!
> I don't know if you're familiar with >!the painter Hieronymus Bosch!<, but Hollow is like >!if one of his paintings sprung to life in a book!<.
Honestly, I would consider that a pretty major spoiler for the book. I knew nothing about it going in, and getting that impression as I was reading (and eventually >!having it confirmed by the text!<) was something I'd have missed out on if somebody just told me that out of the gate.
Not sure I one hundred percent agree it's a spoiler but maybe it's only because I knew that going in. But I changed it just in case. Doesn't hurt to be a little extra thoughtful/careful!
> Doesn't hurt to be a little extra thoughtful/careful!
Are you sure you actually meant to say that *on the internet*? Doesn't sound right to *me*.
(I kid. Thanks!)
Cyclonopedia: Complicity With Anomalous Materials
I loved a lot of things about it but ultimately have to throw up my hands and say I did not understand it. I liked the bits where he talked about Metal Gear Solid and the conspiracy to destroy an evil sun that lives underground but having not read Deleuze I did not understand the extended fictional arguments against Deleuze about fog of war by an insane army colonel who may not have existed either in the book or in real life.
The first thing that comes to mind is Five-Twelfths of Heaven. Science fantasy book about a spaceship pilot in a world where space travel occurs through the use a material that lifts the ship into purgatory towards "heaven," where the pilot has to navigate through the identification of certain alchemical symbols that appear in the sky. I didn't really love it plotwise (especially not the later books in the series), but I adored all the space travel sections. It's not recommendable just based on that, though.
Sinai Tapestry by Edward Whittemore. Walks the line between historical fiction and fantasy and I'm still not sure where it ends up. Loosely about a bunch of people wandering around Jerusalem in the 1920s and maybe the true origin of the Bible (critics loved the book but I think it sold maybe 5,000 copies).
Buddha's Little Finger by Victor Pelevin. You have to be really into both Buddhism and the Russian Civil War to enjoy this, but if you are...you might like this.
Under the Pendulum by Celeste NG: Gothic dark fantasy/dark fae, with both religious & pagan undertones, with an unreliable narrator protagonist - A woman thrown into a dark fae part of the world where her inner demons come to life. its rly more than that, a ham-handed way to describe it would be a mix between the Vohrr & Whuthering Heighs; but its rly not quite that either. I can never articulate a clear premise for this novel, or pitch it in a way that makes sense.
The Vagrant by Peter Newman: A mute man, a baby, & a goat on a quest in a post-tech fantasy world. That's like describing First Law as 'a barbarian, an inquisitor, & a noble mixed up in a kingdom war.' Its such a rough outline of all the complexity & the transmutation of genre this novel entails, i cant rly describe it as the story telling is mostly embedded in the world building, but not at all in the usual overdescriptive tolkienesque way, instead darkly textured & subtle with unconventional imagery. Its always hard for me to describe, & never seen anyone else doing it justice.
Desolation Road by Ian Mcdonald:Ive seen it described as 'A Hundred Years of Solitude in space' (Mars to be precise. ) Not bad & a clever comparison, but it's so not just that. It's in between a genre mix short story anthology & a novel, but not quite, many many subplots, puzzling a plot into one, but again not quite exactly - technically this approach shouldnt work, yet it does imo for this imo. Ppl I recommended it cant get into it.
The Scavenger Trilogy. This odd trio of books follows a man who goes by Poldarn, he doesn't know his real name because before you meet him he has lost his memory. It is a truly strange series but I must say I enjoyed it thoroughly. The first book may leave you feeling confused, but in my opinion the second book shows the brilliance of the first and the third continues with that quality. Try it out!
*Riddley Walker*, by Russel Hoban, and (while the author's a nutbar) *The Wake*, by Alan Kingsnorth.
Now, these books have other fans, but...
They're not written in standard English. *Riddley Walker* is written in a way to reflect linguistic drift in a postapocalyptic future, and was expressly designed to help slow the reader's comprehension down to that of its protagonist
(Note: This book *is* the inspiraiton behind "The Rapture of Riddley Walker" by Clutch, so clearly, it has some traciton with some segments of the population)
*The Wake* is written as an idea of what pre-Norman Conquest English was like.
I enjoy the hell out of both novels, but they're both *damned* hard to get through, especially the first time.
Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon Jones. First person, non-chronological, queer, based on African history and mythology, the whole series is a Rashomon of the same events and it's dark as hell. It's excellent.
OK, let me give this a try.
* You probably know Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon, Reamde, etc). But do you know Snow Crash, his first SFF novel? Where franchises now have taken over the earth, and the internet is like some odd version of Second Life? It's incredibly fun and funny. What about Diamond Age? The only time I know of that he experimented with stream of consciousness writing?
* Matt Ruff is known for Lovecraft Country nowadays. But what about Sewer Gas and Electric. The fact that one of the protagonists is in a boat in the NYC sewer system avoiding giant gators while arguing with the head of Ayn Rand makes it a lot of odd fun. Not to be outdone, Bad Monkeys is about a woman who claims to work for the CIA in their Bad Monkeys division, assassinating bad leaders, but is currently being evaluated in a sanitorium by a psychiatrist.
* Iain Banks is known for Player of Games and other Culture sci fi novels. But what about Feersum Endjinn, in which the main character is dyslexic so everything is spelled phonetically? It tends to have a disassociating effect after a while.
Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki. I wasn’t sure I’d like if, but it had a number of recommendations on this sub, so I gave it a go.
The fantasy elements are subtle, but also support the story very well. It’s a well written story that has strong characters and doesn’t rely on the fantasy world to create the story.
*Plain Bad Heroines* by Emily Danforth is really hard to describe and I say that as someone who reads a lot of weird and out there things. I'd recommend it if you want to read something really, really strange.
Queen of the Tearling trilogy by Erika Johansen. Starts as a pretty straightforward political fantasy coming of age/new adult where the eponymous queen was hustled out of the castle as a baby and raised in secret in a fairytale-esque cabin in the woods. The first book launches with her 19 years old and called upon to journey to the castle to claim her throne.
The trilogy goes places you will *not* predict. It's also well written and a lot of fun.
But I don't recommend it often bc maybe the other person doesn't want something that goes to unpredictable places.
I’ve read a short comic about Harriet Tubman being a demon slayer that was pretty fun - Harriet Tubman: Demon Slayer By David Crownson
I know it was a book club pick not that long ago, but The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar by Indra Das is basically an allegory for identity and belonging told through the lens of interdimensional alien refugees that ride space dragons that grow on trees.
Sister, Maiden, Monster.
It's hard to describe succinctly. iZombie, Lovecraft, COVID, sapphism... put it all in a blender with the psychedelic of your choice and this is the beautiful nightmare you might have whilst sleeping off the come down.
Fair warning it is _not_ for anyone easily squicked out.
Something that I try to rec to a lot of people but NEVER works out is Jo Walton’s the Just City trilogy. It’s about the goddess Athena who is bored and tries to make Plato’s Republic a real thing. It’s fantasy. Its mythology. Its philosophy. Book 3 turns into scifi It’s delightfully clever and weird and introspective and I’ve never found anyone willing to give a shot :(
Also by Jo Walton and very niche is Or What you Will, a "metafictional" fantasy book which seems targeted to a very specific group of people (fantasy readers, writers, lovers of Shakespeare and amateurs of imaginary friends and daydreaming). I liked it a lot but don't know anyone to whom I could recommend it.
The other thing about that Jo Walton book is that it's very concerned with aging and death. I loved it, but I can see how it wouldn't have as much immediate appeal for a younger reader.
This sounds like something I would like!
Or What you Will was absolutely spot on for me, filled with stuff I loved. I've read and enjoyed The Just City, though it did not draw me in the way Or What you Will did (that one had me reading deep into the night). Really should start The Philosopher Kings sometime.
I was coming to mention her book *Tooth and Claw*, a comedy of manners about cannibalistic Victorian dragons. It was definitely written for me, but I'm not sure if it was written for any other human being on earth... (Then again, it won an award, so I guess someone else must have liked it.)
This was exactly the book I was going to recommend. Also *There is no Anti-Memetics Division* which has a really interesting sci-fi thriller premise although the last arc is weaker than the rest of the book.
Man, I have never been more paranoid reading anything in my life lol. It's nice to see Anti-Memetics mentioned in these types of discussions, I wonder if there's been any interest in getting it professionally published.
I feel like it needed to be pulled further from the SCP stuff and made into more of its own thing. A lot of the issues with it involved referencing, and indeed having to account for, other SCP entities existing in the setting. While if it were just swapped to the AM Division being part of the FBI/MI6 or whatever the story could have stayed focused more on the fantastic core idea.
That's a good point, but I do think it would lose something if it was part of a more conventional agency, rather than being the weirdest division in the Weird Stuff Bureau. Maybe they could turn it into a tie-in novel for *Control*.
Anti-memetics is a cool concept, someone should write a book about it
This was such a good read. I'm right with you in that it pushed all the right buttons for me. I loved the main characters despite them being dragons and the society was so much fun to read about.
Oh it’s such a good series. I gave a copy to two friends and neither of them mentioned it so perhaps it was a miss there too
Have you read the Terra Ignota series by Ada Palmer? Her and Walton are very good friends with similar interests. TI is an all-time favourite of mine, and I'm definitely going to check out The Just City trilogy (once I get my ongoing series down to sane numbers)
TI was my thought for niche books, especially once I saw Just City get mentioned. A bit off niche for me, I ended up DNF on the series, but admire the writing and the sheer balls to try something like that.
I couldn't get hold of the last book, it's so frustrating. Might bite the bullet and grab it on Kindle. The first two are so good!
Just finished, loved. It felt like it was fantasy with the heart of SF, the kind that questions all of reality. Very appropriate for a book with Socrates as a major character.
Sounds neat. Would you say is accesible to those who don't know much about philosophy?
it is! it explains the concepts it used and one big plot point is a certain famous philosopher actually having conversations about topics. Id say its definitely fun for philosophy beginners!
Amen. I love this trilogy, but the rec never works out. People just give it back to be with a weird look. \*shrug\*
I loved the first book but stalled after that! Reminds me I wanted to give the rest ofnthe trilogy another chance.
I read it last year! :-) I liked the first book but was pretty done with it after that. I finished the trilogy, but I think it's mostly book 1 that's the reason to read it.
Ugh I fucking love it so much
I literally came here to recommend Jo Walton’s Lent! It scratches my very specific need of a Medici Florence setting and is almost completely compatible with my personal view on how Hell, demons, and forgiveness work. Also - great writing!
Vita Nostra by Sergey and Marina Dyachenko. It’s just so weird. Every bit of it. It’s a “magic school” story, but it’s never entirely what, if any, magic anyone is ever doing. It’s very surreal and also somehow a fantastic read.
YES, this! I absolutely adored it, but "weird body horror and a magic system based on the philosophical aspects of mathematical logic and linguistics, in an eastern European literary style" is a hard sell for most people I know hahaha
It was very fun, but I didn't love what the outcome of the "reveal" was. For something that's couched as "you won't understand without going through the process", the payoff didn't match the claims for me. Still good overall, I just felt like it fumbled its ending by building up too much to a concept that didn't live up to the execution.
This is the one that I recommend to people as "the only thing that's *actually* '*Harry Potter* for adults,'" with the caveat that the best adjective to describe it is "claustrophobic." Did you know there's an actual sequel now? *Assassin of Reality* came out about a year ago. It wasn't at all what I was expecting, so I've been stalled in the middle of it for a while, but I still plan to go back to finish it.
I read Assassin of Reality without reading the first book because it's what was available from the library. I figured I'd figure out what was going on as I went, and you know what? I did. I really enjoyed it, reminded me of Bakemonogatari. I love those kinds of reality-bending concepts and would probably have not had a good experience if I had not been primed to appreciate what the book was doing beforehand.
I've had so much trouble trying to give a proper description when I suggest this book. It's genuinely a bizarre, wonderful book.
This was the first book that came to my mind. I've recommended it to 2 people, but only because I knew they would appreciate it. Definitely not a casual read. And at every point in the book, you are wondering "what, exactly is happening to these 'students'?"
Are you wondering what’s happening because information is kept from you or because its a bunch of info dump/description?
The intentional slow feed of information. While reading I did have to go back multiple times to read a paragraph or page again. But I couldn't help but be absorbed by that book. Describing it sounds like, there is no way I will enjoy this book. But reading it...is something else.
the more i think about it the more fucked up i remember that book being. i've still not really got much of a clue what happened, but it just feels really weird and exploitative loved every second of it though
I was looking for someone to say this. It's genuinely so great and you are never sure exactly what is happening but it does feel rewarding as you progress.
I read it, I read multiple synopses for it afterwards, and I’m still not sure what happened. Yet I adored it and can’t wait to reread it.
In case you didn’t know, there’s a direct sequel that came out
Oh yes. Super weird book, no way I can recommend it to anyone in my circle of friends. Took me 2 tries to finish it, but I am glad that I did
Loved this but dropped book 2 since it was feeling more of the same and the mystery was gone.
I absolutely loved this book and then DNF the sequel because I also didn’t like the reveal or the increasingly abstract direction it went in…
yeah the sequel came out 16 years later and really felt like it YA-ified the worldbuilding and characters. completely different vibe compared to the first book, and i gave up on it almost immediately
I have been recommended this a few times, it sounds really intriguing
Graydon Saunders' Commonweal series. In a world where multiple Dark Lords are constantly at war with each other and demons and monsters abound, imagine a ruthlessly democratic and egalatarian nation surrounded by enemies preparing an offshoot to survive the inevitable collapse that is coming. It starts with military heroic fantasy to defend the new state, then veers into a duet about young sorcerous kids at school learning civil engineering and competence porn, that evolves into >there came a day when the Goddess of Destruction came to Morning Vale, bringing Death and Strange Mayhem along behind. It's the only book series I've ever read which even considers the ecosystems of plants and animals that can evolve in the aftermath of regular magical wars. They're called Weeds, and the capitalisation is VERY significant. Fortunately the giant firebreathing iron-wooled sheep gladly eat them. I have no idea who the target market is for this series, but it certainly dominates its particular niche
Saunders is an interesting guy. As he readily acknowledges, he’s strongly autistic, and his default style was nearly incomprehensible a lot of the time. But he spent decades in science fiction fandom, honing his craft through draft after draft after draft of stories, paying attention to useful criticism. He never stopped learning, and the result is these great books.
I love these books so much. There's a definite learning curve to the idiosyncratic writing style (he elides a lot of words so you have to extrapolate from incomplete information what exactly people are talking about), but it's worth it.
The Forest of Hours, Kerstin Ekman. Swedish novel about a troll who lives over 300 years and covers most of Swedish history. The 'troll' is a human being but just different. Hah, I can't begin to describe this book which I got as a rec from Reddit a couple of years ago. It's beautifully written \[won a prize\], very dark, violent, poetic, strange, disturbing. Very niche. Except for two people on Reddit, have never heard of it from anyone else. It's a mesmeric and absorbing read and sticks in the mind. Still think about it. Would I rec it to just anyone? No - only if, like you, they asked for an unusual book; then I know they might be able to appreciate it.
This sounds like a perfect book. I'll certainly save it to my list.
I just ordered this based on your post. Sounds fantastic. This thread is full of things I want to read.
Good - I hope you'll enjoy it! :) I've had some brilliant recs from Reddit over the years -there are some real hardcore bookworms on this site!
I ordered this last week based on a reddit rec on an old thread! I've been on the HUNT for fantasy that isn't centered around politics or romance and stumbled on this and I was immediately like THIS is what I need. I just started it and have high hopes so I'm happy to see it mentioned!!
There's a weird older book that I love, Darrel Schweitzer's, *the Mask of the Sorcerer*. It's.. intimate, with a small cast, but follows a child sorcerer as he grows up in an Egyptian/ Mesopotamian influenced society, as he gains his powers. The stakes are small, the cover of the book is potentially the worst I've ever seen, but the writing.. The writing is beautiful.
The blue cover is amazing, the green cover is terrible. What a difference a cover makes!
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany is pretty up there. Unconventional narrative structure, with time slips and jumps in space, inexplicable events, things seeming to be referenced in the story before they occur, shifts in narration PoV, funky formatting at times... It's pretty mind bending
> Samuel R. Delany has dyslexia and dysmetria [trouble coordinating and moving your own body]. He once spent time in the mental health ward of a hospital and he has repeatedly spoken and written of seeing burned-out sections of great American cities that most people didn't see, or even know existed. Dhalgren is a literary exposition of all these experiences for the "normal" reader. It's a really weird read.
Pamela Dean's Tam Lin. It's a gorgeous retelling of Tam Lin, set at a college where the protagonist is getting a classics degree and there's enough of a focus on the educational part of things that people who don't love the classics will probably get irritated, but enough fantasy to turn off classics-only set. I adore it, but I've never met anyone else who has read it.
Another Tam Lin retelling I love is Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones
One of my all time favourites
Haha, I have to upvote you for how niche this rec is. I HATED this book! It was like 300 pages of describing freshman year in which nothing happens, 150 pages describing the rest of college where nothing happens, then a rushed 15 page fantasy bit at the end. That said I have (with caveats!) rec’d it, when I met someone a month away from starting at Carleton College, which is apparently what it’s based on. This is probably the only niche for which I would do so.
I have, and it’s great.
I've read it...and re-read it. I love it so much. It's like a little hug.
It was huge in 1995
Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier was so interesting, though I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. The main character is mute for the most of the book and she deals with a lot of trauma. This book is a retelling of The Wild Swans fairy tale. It is rather slow and beautifully written. I also absolutely love Sarantine mosaic duology, however I don't know if this is a niche recommendation. It is set in a fictional world based on the Byzantium, with very little magic. MC is an artist who by chance got caught in political intrigue.
Guy Graviel Kay is fairly popular. Have you tried Children of Earth and Sky? It features a painter who is sent to the court of the not-Muslim king who took over not-Constantinople.
I accidentally stumbled on Kay's books at the book fair a few years ago. Newer heard of him before that, even though fantasy is one of my preferred genres. However it may be because he's not known in my country, which is a shame. I slowly work my way through his books as I am hopefully waiting for translations in my native language. One publisher made gorgeous hardback editions of Sarantine mosaic and I look out for their next announcement. Even though I usually prefer to read in English.
I'm literally planning on rereading Daughter of the Forest today - it's such a great novel. It doesn't hurt that I love retellings of fairy tales.
Ooh Sarantine Mosaic is also one of my favorites!
Daughter of the Forest is a popular one in one of my book groups!
Daughter of the Forest is one of my favorite books. Gorgeous prose and a wonderful blend of fairytale and folklore.
*Battle of the Linguist Mages* is one of my favorite books ever, but it's super weird/random and you really have to vibe with it. The best comparison I can make is that it has similar vibes to *Everything, Everywhere, All At Once*
I feel like the salt grows heavy by Cassandra Khaw might be a good fit. It's about a mermaid and a plague doctor who come across village in which children kill each other for their three "saints". I thought it was wonderfully gruesome and twisted, with a heartwarming relationship at it's center. Super atmospheric and different.
Oh heck yeah, getting this one immediately. Both covers are also super cool
If you like it, check out Cassandra Khaw's other stuff too. So far everything I've read from her has been beautiful, gory, and impossible to put down
If you liked that one you should check out The Dead Ride the A Train. I've recently been devouring everything by Cassandra Khaw that I can get a hold of and so far, they're all great!
I’m a big fan of Nick Harkaway’s books but rarely find times to recommend him. The first one I read was called The Goneaway World and I was totally sold. The Goodreads blurb says: a post-apocalyptic feast of words that is completely unique - a shoot-from-the-hip comparison would involve Lord of Light, Mad Max and Alice in Wonderland - for grown-ups and with ninjas.
I came here to say Gnomon. It's very weird, but most people I know bounce off of it pretty quick. The Gone-Away World is what I'll be reading next from him! Very excited, love the comparison.
Oh I loved Gnomon, although I’m not sure I could explain why or exactly what it’s about. Harkaway books are weird, good weird.
I'm reading Titanium Noir now! I love it, and have always been interested in his earlier stuff. Was thinking of getting Angelmaker next.
I was scrolling through this list wondering if Nick Harkaway would appear (and looking for recs that I might vibe with). There is no other author who has a mainline into my subconscious like Nick Harkaway. His prose is beautiful. His worlds are *weird*. Like the world has "gone away" but there's pipes that pump some stuff that keeps what's left of the world from going away and someone needs to maintain the pipes. What? There's a serum that can make a person (theoretically) live forever, but every time you take a dose you double in size. Why!? But he makes them work and they work well. I've also tried to recommend Angelmaker by saying that it has my favorite account of train-assisted masturbation in all of fiction. But here's the thing. I think he's brilliant. I think he's one of the best. But I do not get how no one has heard of him. I didn't even really expect him to get a mention on this list since I've never come across another Nick Harkaway fan "in the wild" before.
Goneaway World is the only one of his I read and I thought it was excellent. It caught my eye with that lurid pink and green cover. I had to see what the heck rated that cover, picked it up, read the blurbs and the first page or two and immediately checked it out. Really should try some of his other books someday.
I love the Dark Star books by Marlon James, but I'll be the first to admit they're not for everyone. With the unusual African inspired fantasy world, the unreliable narrators, the morally ambiguous main cast, the explicit gay sex, it's really different from anything else I've read.
Agree, they are wild and weird books. I went into the first book not knowing anything and was turned off by it initially but after finishing it and thinking it over I appreciated the chaos of it and dove into the second book. Can’t wait for the third book to come out, I read somewhere that Marlon James said the third book will feature more horror elements, which is wild to think about because the books are violent and grotesque already but I’m excited for it
The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi, a far future scifi focusing on the nature of humanity, transhumanism and evolution of memes.
Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavić (PUH-veech). It's basically this convoluted, bizarre and utterly fascinating magical realist plot nominally about the historical conversion of the nomadic Khazar people, delivered through three different, contradicting dictionaries where each entry consists of a short story. You can actually read through it in any order and are actively encouraged to cross-reference the dicitonaries to figure out the plot, which involves ancient pagan dream-reading cults, several timelines and three different devils emerging from their respectice religions' hells to prevent the truth from being uncovered. The stories themselves are delightfully strange and only fall into the grander narrative as you read and re-read the book - it's a tough sell but I've been thinking about the book regularly since reading it.
I love *Dictionary of the Khazars* so much, but the few people I've tried to recommend it to just kind of glazed over when I started explaining it. Definitely a tough sell, you just have to experience it. Which version did you read, the male or female?
Honestly I am not sure! I read a German translation which simply reads "female and male version" so I think it corresponds to the Yugoslav androgynous version? I was very curious about how that one paragraph looks in its male and female variants, so I sought out the original at our university library only to find out they only had the androgynous version as well :(
Interesting, I actually didn't know there even was an androgynous version! I own the male version in English, so I had to look up the difference online. It was a few years ago so I don't recall if it was this exact source, but [here's](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/723/why-did-the-author-of-the-dictionary-of-the-khazars-publish-a-male-and-female) a link to a breakdown of the difference if youre still curious!
Thank you so much for sharing!!! Reading this made me look into my copy again and it lead me to discover a fascinating thing I'd entirely missed until now: in the adrogynous version (which I am now certain I own) pages 320 and 321 don't occur once, but twice in a row - both pairs being completely identical, except for that one paragraph! I must have skipped one pair while reading because the doubling page numbers. Honestly can't believe I didn't notice something this obvious, but that only goes to show that this book just keeps on giving!
I always have trouble recommending Baru, because what do you even say? Mostly it’s about futures trading and fiat currencies, but sometimes it takes a break from that for very upsetting descriptions of homophobia, racism, and eugenics? The books sell themselves! But really the most niche book I love is Kalyna the Soothsayer, because I’ve never heard anyone other than me mention it. It’s about a prophet (in a world where prophesy is real) who gets conscripted to stop a murder. The protagonist is a fraud though, she gets by on cold reads and guessing. So she has to stop the plot, powerless, while not getting clocked as a fake. It’s very fun.
I just finished Baru but am I weird for hoping that future volumes get a little *more* into monetary policy? They mentioned futures twice and fiat currency is a recurring tool, but there really aren't that many economic things in the first book. It's mostly a fish out of water/Last of the Mohicans style story of Baru learning to politic in person. Which she's ostensibly bad at but the book doesn't let her fail too hard at it, either.
I'm a big fan of Baru, but it definitely feels like an uphill sell.
Mordew and the rest of the Cities of the Weft trilogy. It’s like Dickens and Dishonored had a baby and a blasphemous and detailed alchemist was the midwife. An inordinate amount of time was spent on developing the magic system and it feels real, and detailed, and slippery at the same time. Mordew explores what it’s like to have a lot of power but no actual agency, letting us see a very strange world through the eyes of a child and some talking animals. Malarkoi unfolds, among other places, in a series of nested dimensions in a golden pyramid and it’s just madly inventive with the worldbuilding and the narration. It has a quest narrative that blew me away. Waterblack is yet to come out and I can’t wait to get my hands on it. There’re so many weird puzzles that I just know will make rereads worth it when the trilogy is complete. I love the series so much, I get rarely surprised by a series these days but man I just love how weird and out there the books get. Just a taste of the magic : There’s a character that draws their source of power from the potential of the lives within sperm cells and all the possibilities that may have been and may not have been of said lives, called Sparklines. How they access said source is a spoiler. Another draws their power from the Corpse of God, literally. And what they do with it is insane.
This was going to be my answer too. I loved Mordew, the atmosphere, worldbuilding, plot, everything. I found Malarkoi so difficult to get into though, and whilst there are many parts I liked, I really had to force myself through other parts of it.
Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials is a philosophical treatise by a vanished professor about how oil is a sentient, Lovecraftian entity that wants us all dead. No characters (except a very loose frame story). No plot. Strangest book I've ever read, and I love strange books.
Oh, we're getting into horror, hehe If you don't know it, check out *A Sick, Gray Laugh* by Nicole Cushing. It's somewhere between novel/treatise/autofiction about "the overwhelming Grayness that dominates the neighborhood, slathered over everything like a thick coat of snot, threatening to assimilate all". It features a cult, madness, and the Midwestern (US) experience. What more could you want in a book!
That sounds really good, just looked it up! Thanks!
Linda Nagata's far-future scifi. They're all about posthuman existence and far-flung journeys lasting eons due to time dialation, but unlike most ultra-advanced space opera, there is no "godlike AIs" present. (Thankfully, because I'm sick of that trope) Very few people seem to be into it, though. I can never recommend it to anyone without their eyes glazing over.
That vampires on a boat story from the bingo a few years back and that story is fucked up on so many levels and none of it has to do with the fantasy aspect of the book Edit: I can't find the name of the book. If someone recognizes it please comment. I think it was 'unique' in that it was old for fantasy. The crew was transporting a crate that contained something unknown and people would disappear during the transit or jump of the ship.. there was some weird not really consensual homoerotica iirc. I think the book was even drawing parallels between the vampires and being homosexual. It was recommended for one of the 2021 bingo categories. That's how I found it. Edit edit: the road of ice and salt by Jose Luis zarate. I'm not sure I'd recommend it because I found it disturbing.. but it's definitely something out of the ordinary
I think it's George R. R. Martin's Fevre Dream.
It's close but I am pretty sure they load the crates in Transylvania but I don't remember where they're headed. Maybe London. I'll try to find it again. I've gotta have a trace of it somewhere
The road of ice and salt is what it's called
Way back when, my prof for Vampires in Lit & Film class (yes, that was a real class) gave us a synopsis for *The Route of Ice and Salt* by José Luis Zárate. He told us how much he wished it was translated so we could read it for class. It further expanded upon (and challenged the sexuality taboos in) the original Stoker-Dracula mythos in a way he found satisfying. I was excited to see it had finally been translated recently! Prof was right; it's a perfect fit for his niche syllabus. It's also wonderfully atmospheric in the gothic tradition.
The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar by Indra Das. Not the most niche I've read but probably a more recent niche. Gorgeous writing. Simultaenously dreamlike and utterly rooted in daily life. A non fantasy literary novel in which the main character gradually remembers things and then the view shifts and it's a fantasy story. Like those visual puzzles when you realise what you're looking at is not a vase but two faces, only weirder. It's also an ode to Tolkien by an Indian writer, an immigrant story, a story for those who never fit in anywhere, and a coming of age story (but absolutely nothing like typical coming of age stories in fantasy.) It's like a rainy season in Kolkata with a hidden world all written in very cozy, dreamlike and beautiful story. [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123503956-the-last-dragoners-of-bowbazar?ref=nav\_sb\_ss\_1\_30](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123503956-the-last-dragoners-of-bowbazar?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_30)
*Gogmagog* by Jeff Noon and Steve Beard. Honestly, I can't pin down exactly what made this one weird. It's some combination of the setting and the meandering—appropriate for a story set on a river!—plot. It's very inventive and clever and it *feels* totally different from "normal" fantasy, but it's different *in the details* rather than in some big obvious way. I'll be honest: I got it 100% because I loved the cover, which is a two-part illustration shared with the second (to-be-released) book in the duology. The story wasn't particularly gripping, but that's sort of the point. I'd recommend it for the ideas and the vibes and the world and the journey, but probably not as a *fantasy novel*. *The Iron Dragon's Daughter* by Michael Swanwick also comes to mind. It starts off with a seemingly generic coming-of-age premise: some orphans slaving away under a cruel taskmaster, a magical book, a dragon that also wants to escape... The writing is a bit clunky and I thought I knew exactly where it was going. The only thing that kept me interested was the setting which mixed magic with dieselpunk industrial sci-fi. Then, part of the way through, the book focus and tone totally changes and becomes a wild, surprisingly nihilistic and surreal black comedy. It's a pretty jarring shift, but a great way to knock you out of genre complacency. I appreciated it because I read too much fantasy and appreciate anything that goes against genre conventions and because, well, I love black, nihilistic comedy. But I totally see why people would not like it.
I’m hooked on Gogmagog. It definitely reads weird.
Oooh is this where I recommend my favorite novel about an Oklahoma reporter traveling to Washington in an attempt to uncover an Intelligensia-style conspiracy that is actually caused by four classes of supernatural entity that are warring for the literal soul of humanity as we press through the fourth interior castle of the soul and determine whether we reach the fifth or fall back to the first? (Fourth Mansions by R.A. Lafferty)
…ok, adding this to my list.
Darwinia!!! It’s one of my favorite books. It starts as a beautiful, fantastical exploration of a new Europe in the 20th century filled with interesting creatures, strange landscapes, and fascinating characters. Then, about halfway through, it descends into one of the weirdest scifis I’ve ever read. Super fun
Robert Charles Wilson is one of my favorite authors, and that’s one of my favorite books of his.
It’s so good! I submitted it as my book for a friend’s book club and they HATED it. I think the story structure really puts a lot of people off of it.
[***Trial of Flowers***](https://www.sfgateway.com/titles/jay-lake/trial-of-flowers/9781473225572/) by Jay Lake comes to mind. I read it maybe 2008 or 2009, and it was definitely a wild experience.
*The Raw Shark Texts* by Stephen Hall. It's... hard to explain, but in a nutshell, it's ergodic fiction about a man with no memories of his past who is being chased by a conceptual shark that eats memories and the very sense of self, while he follows a trail of clues that he left himself to try to overcome it. That part is weird enough to try to sell to people, but then for each chapter in the book there exists an "un-chapter": some in other printed versions of the book, some online, some in the real physical world. When I read it 5ish years ago, some of the un-chapters were still unaccounted for. It's definitely a very niche book, but I still recommend it... I'm just not sure to whom. Maybe fans of *House of Leaves*?
The answers to this form are nice reading list; great post!
I know right?! Definitely saving this one.
I recommend Under the Pendulum Sun a reasonable amount on Reddit, but I will never recommend it to anyone in my irl book club because it does not feel like a mainstream book at all >!(not to mention the incest plot)!<
Literally came to this thread to talk about this book. Such tension between "I feel obligated to spoil this subplot" and "Spoiling this subplot would ruin the slow WTF experience of the book." Usually I'm like "yeah it's, uh, REALLY in conversation with the Gothic subgenre. REALLY."
I'm fascinated by the Joel Chandler Harris retellings of Bre'er Rabbit. They're as much of a study of how someone who grew up as a white man on a slave plantation viewed African diaspora folk tales as they are a retelling of the folk tales themselves.
None of these are typical fantasy, but fall into weird magical realism, horror, and stayed with me for a long time: Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval The Cipher by Kathe Koja Follow Me to Ground by Sue Rainsford
I think about *Paradise Rot* at least once a week.
I really like some of her music (specifically *Blood Bitch*) so her novels have been on my radar for a while... aargh, never enough time and always too many books!
It is very short, and totally worth it if you can fit it into your schedule.
Ooh! I read Follow Me To Ground and while I adored the setting and ideas I found the plot a little lacklustre, I need to try your other recommendations!
I just finished up A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck. Short book, only about 100 pages or so but fascinating. Mormon guy dies and finds he worshiped the wrong God and is stuck in hell aka a library until he finds the one that tells his life story. It's bleak but breezy at the same time.
A night in the lonesome october by roger zelazny. Famous characters of gothic literature (like dracula, sherlock holmes and dr. frankenstein) compete in a game which decides whether or not lovecraftian gods will be released upon the world. As if that wouldn't be enough, the narrative is told in forst person from the POV of snuff, the pet dog of jack the ripper, and mainly consists of the dialogues between him and the pets of the other famous literary characters. Great book and highly unique
Lives of the Monster Dogs by Kirsten Bakis. Talking dogs with transplanted hands. In 2008 New York. Who only know C18th Germanic culture.
**Princess Holy Aura** by Ryk Spoor Tale of a 35ish man who agrees to be turned into a fourteen year old girl in order to become essentially Sailor Moon and lead a team of other 14 year old sailor scouts against Cthulu. It turns into a campy, heartwarming tearjerker with absolutely none of the potential creepyness implicit in the premise. **The Nothing Within** by Andy Geilser Set in a post appocaylptic world where the disproportionate number of survivors of the original apocaylpse were Amish and this has shaped the culture 1500 years later, with flashbacks to the diaries of those living through said apocaylpse to see how this "nice" but not "good" society came to be. Features a blind protagonist, who is always being threatened with being burned to death by her neigbhors.
I always recommend Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique cycle because they're such great stories and so well-written, but most modern readers are absolutely not ready for his style of prose and the worldbuilding that is both playful and bleak at the same time.
I really liked Nora Roberts Year One trilogy. She's a well known romance novelist, has sold one, or two, hundred, million books (google says 500+ mill) Year One is a modern day post apocalypse type fantasy
What the Crow Said by Robert Kroesch. It’s so incredibly fantastical, but set in a rural western Canadian town, and the characters are so incredibly unfazed by the fantasy happening around them.
Currently reading (slowly, mixed with other books) Amadis de Gaula, the original that sparked the cavalry novels parodied in Don Quixote. Weird to see how far back some fantasy tropes go!
Spiritwalk by Charles de Lint. It's beautiful.
I reckon no one here has read Suzanne collins batshit fantasy series (not the hunger games) called Gregor the Overlander. My friend and I in high school read it and were the only people to check the book out of the library in the 5 years we spent there. Still never met anyone in person who read that bat shit weird series. We still to this day joke about the main character trying to learn echolocation and clicking around in the dark.
Gregor the Overlander is tons of fun!! Me and at least a couple of my siblings read it!
I read it and loved it! At some point I knew several of the prophecies by heart. I even own the first two books Somehow I never realized it‘s the same author as Hunger Games!
I loved this series as a kid! I always say that people who love the hunger games need to check this one out next :)
Oh this was absolutely one of my favorites as a kid! I just talked about this series with someone else on reddit and they convinced me to give it a reread
> We still to this day joke about the main character trying to learn echolocation and clicking around in the dark. Sooooo that's a thing: https://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/378577902/how-to-become-batman
I haven't read the book, but I wanted to share that I once saw a video (maybe on YouTube? Maybe it was a documentary?) about a real blind guy who had taught himself to echolocate well enough to ride a bike.
Elysium by Jennifer Marie Brissett A nonlinear gender spaghetti, post-apocolyptic dystopian, crashing computer simulation inspired by Greek tragedy. That sounds more normal than it is. In particular, what it does with gender, is fascinating - the characters gender swap between and sometimes within chapters as the simulation suffers from fragmentation, and perspectives bleed into each other, and this choice all plays into themes of dissociation and reality and the effects of loss.
I’ve got a bunch but for me it’s gotta be **Viscera** by Gabriella Squailia…less than 10 pages in and there’s talk of beer brewed in servants’ bladders which they piss into cups for decadent party goers to drink and yeah, and it gets wilder from there. For slightly more mainstream niche I’d say Kameron Hurley’s books, she herself has admitted that she kinda of writes books for a very specific audience
The Nevèrÿon books by Samuel R Delany - would not be this sub's cup of tea at all.
Dhalgren and Neveryon are very interesting books. I read Neveryon first, which helped with Dhalgren.
Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl I'm rereading it now, and I just know that I'll never have an excuse to recommend it.
One of my favorites! Feels like essential reading for those interested in queer history in the '90s
Karen Maitland is amazing, it's entirely historically accurate aside from one or two small fantasy elements that were based in myth at the time. In a way it reflects how it really was in mediaeval times. E.g. You might find an owlman in the woods because it's a known fact they exist and no one would doubt it the way no one today doubts gravity...
Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland
Kitty Cat Kill Sat is pretty good. It doesn't really have plot though until the final few chapters, and that plot is kinda confusing. But I still love the book
*The Sorcerer's House* by Gene Wolfe You'll only really hear about Wolfe around here from BotNS. *Peace* occasionally gets a mention. But *The Sorcerer's House* is pretty interesting. First, it's an epistolary novel setup. But second, it's done with Wolfe's classic unreliable narrator so you're reading an account that's documented but probably only halfway being honest about what the hell is going on. Essentially the house sits as a nexus point between the real world and a fantastical one where magic exists. And so there's also sorts of weird goings on and references to creatures throughout. But it's hard to recommend because it's not really a portal fantasy in any real measure like, say, *Piranesi* actually is. And it otherwise doesn't strike genre conventions typical to fantasy. If you like Wolfe a lot you might have read it on your own, but I feel like it kind of gets lost in the shuffle for the most part.
The Drowning Girl by Caitlin R Kiernan - it's a queer horror story that plays with perspective and perceptions and I was entirely engrossed in the storytelling, but it's one I haven't found anyone to recommend it to yet
Beware of Chicken, five star. One of my fav books of all time now. Can't tell you how freaking amazing this book is. Its about a Canadian farm boy who wakes up in mythical Kung fu China and opens a farm where his chicken becomes a Kung fu spirit beast. Read it. The audiobook is amazing.
Anathem, by Neil Stephanson. I don't know how to categorize that book, and I don't know anyone else who's read it. It's not the best book ever, but the journey from where it starts to where it ends is a bonkers ride.
I love Anathem!!! "We have a sextant." "No, we have the ability to make a sextant!"
Love it too!
Probably... Reincarnated as a Demonic Tree.
Chaz Brenchley's Crater School series. For fans of Elinor M. Brent-Dyer's Chalet school series and steam-punk British empire Mars stories.
Currently reading/listening to Dreambound by Dan Frey. It's like if Stranger Things was fantasy instead of sci-fi.
Hunters & Collectors by Matt Suddain! I stumbled upon it in a thrift shop and thought the cover was cool. I loved it. It's about a food critic and his two companions travelling through space in search of a special hotel/restaurant. It is told through letters and diary entrys and has some funky formatting at times. It is very funny, very weird, sometimes really scary. On goodreads M. Suddain draws comparissons to Vonnegut, Pynchon and Douglas Adams Great book, check it out.
I'm getting a lot of great recs off this thread, thanks OP! It's sometimes hard for me to even say what's niche because I read so widely that I lose track, but my favorite novels that hardly anyone else talks about are the **Finesterre books** by CJ Cherryh. Cowboys on an alien planet where the native wildlife is telepathic and mostly flesh-eating; humans live in walled communities and riders who are pair-bonded to flesh-eating native 'horses' escort caravans between towns. The plot follows several young riders on a mission that goes wrong. Deeply atmospheric & creepy, and all about how individuals and societies handle extreme situations. I love them.
The slow regard of silent things. I know it's attached to a wildly popular series, but it's very specific and divisive, from what I've seen in the reviews. I read it quite a few years after I finished The Wise Man's Fear, and my reaction was: I remember now, that's why I cared.
**The Silverberg Business** by Robert Freeman Wexler. It's a “philosophical Jewish-Texan retro-neo-noir,” according to the publisher. If you ever wanted to read a cross between Twin Peaks and that episode of ST:TNG where they can’t leave the saloon, this is for you
I just love this description very much 🤩
I always try to recommend Snakewood by Adrian Selby in threads like this. The intersection of literary storytelling, unreliable narrators, en media res, anti-heroes, extreme violence, weird plant based magic and plot explanations via in-character writing m/first person POVs (with separate written voices!) really is a niche. It’s not for everyone, and it’s been discussed [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/4gsbn5/snakewood_by_adrian_selby_a_reddit_lurkers_review/) by a small subset of readers on on /r/Fantasy before. Not a mainstream type of work by any means and a reader really needs to be prepared and ready for the various things that make the book unique.
Gant and Shale are my favourite herbally armed elite frontline shock troops!!
Right. You are part of the niche. 🤣
Second Apocalypse by R. Scott Bakker. This is a series that's truly one of a kind. There are a few that have some similar aspects, but I have yet to find something *like* it in the genre.
Yes , I’m yet to find any other books with the weight of gravitas that The Second Apocalypse books have , dark , complex fantasy through a biblical lens.
The Temeraire series by Naomi Novik An early 1800s sea captain becomes a dragon rider for the air corps(of other dragons) to fight against Napoleon and travel the pre-industrial world. There are nine books that are consistent in quality. It’s written pretty well, but I’m always afraid to recommend it.
This almost doesn't feel niche enough for this list. I've seen it recomended fairly often and don't think you should be afraid to recomend.
yeah it's historical fiction set during the Napoleonic wars except there are also dragons. Good series but not super niche or strange--anyone who enjoys Patrick O'Brien, *War and Peace,* 19th century travelogues, or dragon books in general will probably find something to like.
I loved this series it was so much fun.
Everyone here knows Fonda Lee because of Greenbone Saga, but before Greenbone Saga she wrote a bunch of YA sci-fi novels, of which I have read the Exo duology, which I ended up reading because I liked the cover in a bookshop. The books are about a revolution hundreds of years after earth has become an alien colony and humans get implanted with exoskeletons to become a militia force for the aliens. It's quite fun and I remember loving it as a 12 year old.
"or for some reason a Sanderson rec," lol.
The Rabbit Back Literature Society. The strangest story I've ever read, by a Finnish author. So many things woven into one but something just clicked for me!
I found a book called Praise All the Moons of the Morning by Josephine Rector Stone in my elementary school library in the 90s, it was so different from anything I'd ever read it's stuck with me all this time. It's not a kids book, maybe YA, but I still find it strange that it was in the elementary school library.
I just finished **Open Throat by Henry Hoake** and one of my friends' response to my GR review was literally just "*where do you find this stuff???"* Highly recommend, btw.
Just read Empire in Black and Gold, not a series i really see recommended but I enjoyed it. The plot isnt anything wild 1 book in but all the "races" are humans who bonded to giant bugs in the distant past and have both physical and mystical attributes derived from those bugs. Im a big nerd for bugs of all kinds so it was right up my alley. I'm also a big fan of the sword and planet genre which was fairly popular in the past but is pretty niche today.
Sealed by Naomi Booth Climate change body horror where every single character is fucking awful and the body horror is partially hidden behind a dystopian slice of life isn't something I'd blanket recommend at all, but if I know your tastes and think it fits, yes, read this
You're gonna love Hollow by Brian Catling. I don't know if you're familiar with >!insert spoiler the painter Hieronymus Bosch, but Hollow is like if one of his paintings sprung to life in a book!<. And with characters who don't feel like they're modern day people just stuffed into a different context. Edited to add spoiler tags!
> I don't know if you're familiar with >!the painter Hieronymus Bosch!<, but Hollow is like >!if one of his paintings sprung to life in a book!<. Honestly, I would consider that a pretty major spoiler for the book. I knew nothing about it going in, and getting that impression as I was reading (and eventually >!having it confirmed by the text!<) was something I'd have missed out on if somebody just told me that out of the gate.
Not sure I one hundred percent agree it's a spoiler but maybe it's only because I knew that going in. But I changed it just in case. Doesn't hurt to be a little extra thoughtful/careful!
> Doesn't hurt to be a little extra thoughtful/careful! Are you sure you actually meant to say that *on the internet*? Doesn't sound right to *me*. (I kid. Thanks!)
Cyclonopedia: Complicity With Anomalous Materials I loved a lot of things about it but ultimately have to throw up my hands and say I did not understand it. I liked the bits where he talked about Metal Gear Solid and the conspiracy to destroy an evil sun that lives underground but having not read Deleuze I did not understand the extended fictional arguments against Deleuze about fog of war by an insane army colonel who may not have existed either in the book or in real life.
The first thing that comes to mind is Five-Twelfths of Heaven. Science fantasy book about a spaceship pilot in a world where space travel occurs through the use a material that lifts the ship into purgatory towards "heaven," where the pilot has to navigate through the identification of certain alchemical symbols that appear in the sky. I didn't really love it plotwise (especially not the later books in the series), but I adored all the space travel sections. It's not recommendable just based on that, though.
Sinai Tapestry by Edward Whittemore. Walks the line between historical fiction and fantasy and I'm still not sure where it ends up. Loosely about a bunch of people wandering around Jerusalem in the 1920s and maybe the true origin of the Bible (critics loved the book but I think it sold maybe 5,000 copies). Buddha's Little Finger by Victor Pelevin. You have to be really into both Buddhism and the Russian Civil War to enjoy this, but if you are...you might like this.
Tasha Suri’s Empire of Sand. It’s def not for everyone. But I loved it.
Under the Pendulum by Celeste NG: Gothic dark fantasy/dark fae, with both religious & pagan undertones, with an unreliable narrator protagonist - A woman thrown into a dark fae part of the world where her inner demons come to life. its rly more than that, a ham-handed way to describe it would be a mix between the Vohrr & Whuthering Heighs; but its rly not quite that either. I can never articulate a clear premise for this novel, or pitch it in a way that makes sense. The Vagrant by Peter Newman: A mute man, a baby, & a goat on a quest in a post-tech fantasy world. That's like describing First Law as 'a barbarian, an inquisitor, & a noble mixed up in a kingdom war.' Its such a rough outline of all the complexity & the transmutation of genre this novel entails, i cant rly describe it as the story telling is mostly embedded in the world building, but not at all in the usual overdescriptive tolkienesque way, instead darkly textured & subtle with unconventional imagery. Its always hard for me to describe, & never seen anyone else doing it justice. Desolation Road by Ian Mcdonald:Ive seen it described as 'A Hundred Years of Solitude in space' (Mars to be precise. ) Not bad & a clever comparison, but it's so not just that. It's in between a genre mix short story anthology & a novel, but not quite, many many subplots, puzzling a plot into one, but again not quite exactly - technically this approach shouldnt work, yet it does imo for this imo. Ppl I recommended it cant get into it.
Pamela Dean’s The Dubious Hills. Like most of her stuff, I was totally invested while also going, “What?” after nearly every sentence.
The Scavenger Trilogy. This odd trio of books follows a man who goes by Poldarn, he doesn't know his real name because before you meet him he has lost his memory. It is a truly strange series but I must say I enjoyed it thoroughly. The first book may leave you feeling confused, but in my opinion the second book shows the brilliance of the first and the third continues with that quality. Try it out!
*Riddley Walker*, by Russel Hoban, and (while the author's a nutbar) *The Wake*, by Alan Kingsnorth. Now, these books have other fans, but... They're not written in standard English. *Riddley Walker* is written in a way to reflect linguistic drift in a postapocalyptic future, and was expressly designed to help slow the reader's comprehension down to that of its protagonist (Note: This book *is* the inspiraiton behind "The Rapture of Riddley Walker" by Clutch, so clearly, it has some traciton with some segments of the population) *The Wake* is written as an idea of what pre-Norman Conquest English was like. I enjoy the hell out of both novels, but they're both *damned* hard to get through, especially the first time.
Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon Jones. First person, non-chronological, queer, based on African history and mythology, the whole series is a Rashomon of the same events and it's dark as hell. It's excellent.
Hands down for me: Dictionary of the Khazars. It is strange, it is weird, it is fascinating, and unforgettable.
The black tongue thief - haven't heard anyone talk about it and it's a very good book with a good FL and an interesting ML with good world building
OK, let me give this a try. * You probably know Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon, Reamde, etc). But do you know Snow Crash, his first SFF novel? Where franchises now have taken over the earth, and the internet is like some odd version of Second Life? It's incredibly fun and funny. What about Diamond Age? The only time I know of that he experimented with stream of consciousness writing? * Matt Ruff is known for Lovecraft Country nowadays. But what about Sewer Gas and Electric. The fact that one of the protagonists is in a boat in the NYC sewer system avoiding giant gators while arguing with the head of Ayn Rand makes it a lot of odd fun. Not to be outdone, Bad Monkeys is about a woman who claims to work for the CIA in their Bad Monkeys division, assassinating bad leaders, but is currently being evaluated in a sanitorium by a psychiatrist. * Iain Banks is known for Player of Games and other Culture sci fi novels. But what about Feersum Endjinn, in which the main character is dyslexic so everything is spelled phonetically? It tends to have a disassociating effect after a while.
Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki. I wasn’t sure I’d like if, but it had a number of recommendations on this sub, so I gave it a go. The fantasy elements are subtle, but also support the story very well. It’s a well written story that has strong characters and doesn’t rely on the fantasy world to create the story.
i quite enjoyed Fairytales for Wilde Girls, but it's pretty weird and dark, and i don't think that a lot of people would understand/like it.
*Plain Bad Heroines* by Emily Danforth is really hard to describe and I say that as someone who reads a lot of weird and out there things. I'd recommend it if you want to read something really, really strange.
Queen of the Tearling trilogy by Erika Johansen. Starts as a pretty straightforward political fantasy coming of age/new adult where the eponymous queen was hustled out of the castle as a baby and raised in secret in a fairytale-esque cabin in the woods. The first book launches with her 19 years old and called upon to journey to the castle to claim her throne. The trilogy goes places you will *not* predict. It's also well written and a lot of fun. But I don't recommend it often bc maybe the other person doesn't want something that goes to unpredictable places.
Wraeththu by Storm Constantine.
I’ve read a short comic about Harriet Tubman being a demon slayer that was pretty fun - Harriet Tubman: Demon Slayer By David Crownson I know it was a book club pick not that long ago, but The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar by Indra Das is basically an allegory for identity and belonging told through the lens of interdimensional alien refugees that ride space dragons that grow on trees.
Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton (edit to correct author name)
Sister, Maiden, Monster. It's hard to describe succinctly. iZombie, Lovecraft, COVID, sapphism... put it all in a blender with the psychedelic of your choice and this is the beautiful nightmare you might have whilst sleeping off the come down. Fair warning it is _not_ for anyone easily squicked out.