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Recommend me weird fiction books, please!
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2026
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Self-Reference Engine by Toh Enjoe - this one stretches the limits of what a novel even is, it's not like anything else I've ever read
The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts - the inhabitants of a generation ship rebel against the controlling computer to take charge of their lives
Transfinite Man by Colin Kapp - starts like a cloak-and-dagger detective novel, almost tropey, then goes off the rails into speculative science fiction
Ubik by Philip K. Dick - a classic of surrealism, often referenced directly and indirectly by other works
Permutation City by Greg Egan - ultimately an exploration of self-determination and personal trauma in a digital world - who do we become, if we have the freedom to be and do anything?
The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson - in my opinion the most compelling of Sanderson's work
Einstein's Bridge - a fictional exploration of the Einstein-Rosen bridge set in a timeline where the Superconducting Super Collider was not cancelled
Unflattening by Nick Sousanis - philosophy in a graphic novel, an exploration of identity and self-knowledge
The science in Permutation City is truly mind-warping, if you really try to wrap your head around it. One of my favourite books.
Egan's short story collection Axiomatic is full of heavy concept scifi in a similar vein to it.
Yeah, knowing a fair bit about the way computers actually work at the hardware level, some of the details of how the virtual world functions are hand-wavy and kind of magic-disguised-as-technology. But Egan makes more of an effort to try to explain how the simulation works than most other fiction that describes similar virtual worlds - and ultimately the crux of the story is how people behave in a world of their own making.
You're the only other person I've ever encountered who believes the emperor's soul to be Sanderson's best work. I really do think he thrives with the short story / novella length fiction in general, and it's a shame he's always going for the opposite. Emperor's soul crams so much depth into such a compelling little story, I can't believe how often it's overlooked.
I enjoy Sanderson's writing, his fantasy work is good. I think the brilliance of it is the consistent, expansive world-building that extends across his book series, which he's really good at. I'm not knocking his other work at all.
But as a single work unto itself, I think The Emperor's Soul is really a perfect story. The ideas presented at the beginning of the book are masterfully executed by the end.
that's a lot! thanks for all these references!
I'm commenting so I may come back to this later.