I really love sci-fi novels and I read a lot of books. I read 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson a while back and that book is particularly interesting to me. Rather than each chapter advancing the narrative of the story, there were occasional breaks where a chapter would have a list of semi-random words which just gave the vibe of what’s happening, or some history of a scene, or a recipe for how to build an asteroid.
There’s another book that I have heard of but neglected to write the name down, where the reader of the book is a character within the book, and the narrator speaks directly to you (but not a choose-your-adventure style book).
All of this got me interested in finding other books, preferably sci-fi or maybe fantasy, where the concept of being a book is played with and new ideas are tried. Any recommendations?
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski fits that model really well.
Fun fact, his sister is the singer Poe
Agreed! House of Leaves is a must read. Get the physical book, it won’t work with an Ereader. I got the softcover edtion and it was totally worth it. If I ever sell my house I am going to rough up my copy real good and hide it somewhere for the new owners to find.
I immediately thought of House of Leaves. Do not read it as an ebook, if there even is an ebook version. It must be read as a physical book.
House of Leaves is fantastic.
Another book of his, Only Revolutions, is wild, but I couldn’t get through it. You have to turn the book upside down to read half of it.
+1 to this book, it’s really surreal
Not sci-fi, but Mister B Gone by Clive Barker was really good. The book is a conversation with a demon who is telling you his life story. It is the story of how he came to be trapped in the book you are reading.
I thought the book was super funny and surreal. I saw reviews after finishing that it is considered some of his worst work. That might be true, but the worst 24 carat bar of gold is still a 24 carat bar of gold. Well worth the read imo.
Great suggestion. I had this book sitting by my computer when I was waiting on the computer to finish processing something. Idly picked it up and started reading, then just read the whole book in one sitting. I liked it a lot :)
Thank you everyone for the suggestions! I didn’t expect there would be so many!
I’ve put them all on my reading list and I’ll get back to each of you when I’ve read your book.
(I don’t know if it’s possible to do a reply-all type thing and I don’t want to type out the same comment 30 times so…)
Redshirts by John Scalzi. A book about people who realize they’re characters in a badly-written TV show. Near the end, though, the main character starts to realize he’s the main character in a book about people who are characters in a TV show. Very surreal.
If you’re intrigued by stories that play with narrative form, you might really enjoy Murder & Mead. While it’s more cozy fantasy mystery than pure sci-fi, the tavern’s Whispering Wall echoes secrets on its own schedule and the chapters weave in mystical songs and cosmic sigils that blur the line between story and setting. The way the tavern itself reacts makes the narrative space feel alive, almost like the book is a character too. You can explore it on my Substack if that sparks your curiosity: dobohica.substack.com
It’s not sci-fi, but Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar lets you decide in what order to read the chapters.
Not sci-fi but The Princess Bride is also a story-within-a-story.
Basically anything by Danielewski.
Great recommendations!
The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brookes is a detailed fictional instruction manual. It’s sequel is World War Z which is closer to a normal book, but still has an odd structure of creating a world through interviews … and the The Zombie Survival Guide book exists within it.
WWZ is one of my all time favorite books. They should really make it into a movie. Or, even better, an HBO miniseries.
I dunno, I think maybe some things should just be left alone
Thanks for the suggestion. Should I read WWZ first?
Sophie’s world. Also a nice introduction to philosophy
There’s another book that I have heard of but neglected to write the name down, where the reader of the book is a character within the book, and the narrator speaks directly to you
If, on a winter’s night, a traveller?
What a weird fucking book! It’s not the exact one I was looking for (I believe in my novel, one of the characters in the book begged the reader not to finish the book, because then the character would die).
Thanks so much for the recommendation though, it’s definitely the sort of weird I was looking for. I found it a bit hard to get through - I think it being a translation made some parts a bit stilted and a bit unrelatable for me - but I still read it over only a couple of days. I felt at chapter 8 where we read a Certain Character’s diary that the book was coming together and starting to make sense for me.
I believe the chapters that sound stilted were deliberately written thus to give an air of being foreign or exotic.
My favourite chapter in the book was the discussion on censorship. My country has a weird and completely unpredictable censorship system that depends on how many people got offended, who they know, which judge the case goes to, and how well the author can get the media interested in the case.
another older recommendation is jacques the fatalist, where jacques is attempting to tell the story of his lovelife but is constantly interrupted by other people telling their own stories, there is a “reader” who interrupts the narrator to ask questions, and the narrator at times gets bored of telling the story and asks the reader to fill in their own details. it also has an entire section directly from tristam shandy near the end.
not sci fi or fantasy but worth a read if you have the patience.
Cloud Atlas for its Russian nesting doll narrative structure.
Feersum Endjinn for how it plays with time, space, and even basic concepts of spelling and punctuation.
Generation X for its intwerweaving of advertising and informational sidebars into the text.
Started reading Feersum Endjinn but it hasn’t grabbed me yet. The badly spelled chapter is honestly just annoying to me. There’s a couple of weeks left before it’s due at the library so I might give it another go. But, it’s definitely a weird book which fits my criteria so thank you for the suggestion.
I think the most famous example is probably “Pale fire” by Nabokov. Not sci-fi, but very very fun! George Perec write some interesting concept books. One is about this apartment in Paris where every chapter just describes a random room in the building, but slowly tells a story of the inhabitants.
