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.
+1 to this book, it’s really surreal
It gave me actual nightmares about houses. Such a high quality 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.
Fun fact, his sister is the singer Poe
Great call, you have to be careful that you get the color version!
I lost my original copy and when I replaced it, there was no more color. Had to return that one to find one with color. I think it adds so much.
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.
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.
Player of Games is told in reverse, it works really well. Book of the New Sun is an Ouroborus, so you don’t really understand it until you read it twice.
Edit: I mean “Use of Weapons” not Player of Games.
Use of Weapons is among my absolute favorite books. What an absolutely incredible journey
Ilium/Olympos by Dan Simmons has a very interesting theory about reality and fiction, and what ties them together. Unfortunately, it’s tied to a very late plot point that I would hate to spoil on a Lemmy comment.
A lot of Douglas Coupland novels play with the form. Microserfs has a similar thing to 2312, except it is one of the characters random txt files on their desktop that lists words in a David Foster Wallace way.
Wallace also plays with the form of the book, particularly with end notes in Infinite Jest.
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski plays with the physical form of the book by rending two stories in parallel and playing all manner of interesting typesetting tricks.
Then there’s Tristan Shandy by Laurence Sterne and published in 1759. It’s argued that it is the first post-modern novel. The “author” is attempting to tell you the story of his life, but never really gets there because of endless digression.
You should check this page out: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Opinions_of_Tristram_Shandy,_Gentleman
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 a banger!
Thanks for the suggestion. Should I read WWZ first?
As with so much in life, it’s best to read the manual first. It can get a little dry in places though, like any instruction manual, but I enjoyed all of it because I’m the sort of person who likes normal manuals, lol
WWZ is one of my all time favorite books. They should really make it into a movie. Or, even better, an HBO miniseries.
Thursday Next series by Jasper FForde. Very meta, humorous.
I just started reading Jasper FForde. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve seen so far.
Self-Reference ENGINE by Toh EnJoe definitely fits this description.
In the middle it feels like nonsensical chaos, by the end it all folds back in on itself.
Not sci-fi, but The Princess Bride.
This was awesome, it had me so confused when the author described the legal problems they were having.
I think Idaho Winter by Tony Burgess does this pretty well. It’s a wild read.
Wow, what a mindfuck. Had a bit of time to spare before getting up and read it through in one go. Not what I was expecting from the (honestly boring) cover. Thanks for the recommendation!
Not sci-fi but The Princess Bride is also a story-within-a-story.
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 :)
Great recommendations!
@PostWatchBot@lemy.lol
The Knife of Never Letting Go has a couple cool sections with fonts where as the action is rising you start turning pages faster.
Basically anything by Danielewski.
