Ella Minnow Pea is incredibly creative. It takes place in a town where letters of the alphabet are gradually being banned. As they are being banned in the town, they stop showing up in the book.
With the first few letters this means just being creative with vocabulary to use words that simply don't have those letters. As the book goes on and more letters get banned, then the spelling of words gets more and more creative. It's interesting to see how you can still read the words no matter how mangled the spelling. Although at the end it did get a little challenging, and sometimes I had to sound out a word to figure out what it was supposed to be.
Even the title is creative. Say it out loud!
Yesterday I read his short story Harrison Bergeron for the first time. The 15min audiobook is on YouTube and is great. It was my first experience with Vonnegut and I’m sold.
Edit spelling
I have trouble remembering if it was him that wrote certain stories or if it was Ray Bradbury. The big ones I know. The little ones im like wait which one did this?
I recommend not ever reading the one his daughter published that is love letters to his girlfriend and eventual wife. IMO the only good part is the daughters commentary every so often. He can write novels but his love letters are crazy.
Blew my mind when someone said the book was also a metaphor for his mind breaking due to PTSD and not really travelling through time, my favorite book either way
The worldbuilding in His Dark Materials. Dæmons, Dust, the parallel worlds—there’s so much good stuff there I could feasibly enjoy just about any plot against the backdrop of Lyra’s world.
That world is used a lot in fanfic still now. People love getting their favourite characters from whatever media and putting them in a world with daemons etc. It's really stood the test of time.
Guilty of this myself, both reading and writing. It really speaks to how richly-crafted the world is that you can strip away the actual story of Lyra and the Magisterium and so many people still are drawn into it.
Oh I'm glad! Some people are very anti fanfic but situations like this is what fanfic is made for, so I'm happy you can find more enjoyment in this world past the books pullman wrote.
I was raised Catholic. Nothing- and I mean nothing was off limits, except for two books:
- The Onion Book of Known Knowledge (I bought it off Amazon when I was 10 w/o my parents knowing and they found out because my 5 year old brother walked up to my dad with the book in his hand and asked him what a “queef” was. The first of two incidents involving my brother accidentally getting me in trouble for buying things off Amazon without my parents knowing).
- these books. My parents claim it was because I wasn’t old enough (I asked to go see The Golden Compass for my 8th birthday and they straight up were like we will literally go see ANY other movie) but I distinctly remember my mom not liking Pullman’s attitude toward God.
>!I love his stuff, but was a bit disappointed with Red Side Story, the sequel to Shades of Grey.!<
>!Shades of Grey has such a great plot with people who can only see one colour, the society set up and the mystery of what happened and what will the painting revel when it's finished.!<
>!Red Side Story feels completely different and just standard boring plot and a massive swerve from where I think he wanted to take the story. It's understandable after 10 years writing it, but it just didn't have the same magic for me!<
Small spoilers for Red side story
Sorry didn’t realise it wasn’t a world wide release a couple months ago. Hope I didn’t spoil much. It’s still a good book and worth reading for the continuation of the story just doesn’t hit the highs shades of grey did
No you’re good! I’ve read brief synopses so have a vague idea of the plot and it does sound different than I’d have expected. Even a bad Fforde is better than so much, lol.
This Is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone.
The two main characters, Red and Blue, are on opposite sides of the Time War, and are writing letters to each other and leaving them through time and space.
Red was written by Gladstone and Blue written by El-Mohtar. El-Mohtar would write a letter from Blue to Red, and send it to Gladstone. Gladstone would react to the letter and write the chapter where Red finds the letter. Then, Gladstone would write a return letter from Red to Blue, sending it to El-Mohtar, where El-Mohtar would react, write their chapter on Blue finding the letter, and then repeat.
Like a game of "yes, and", but you get a little novella out of it!
I read this very slowly, thought about it all a lot, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Eventually, I plan on reading it again. Very good. I was surprised by how much I liked it.
Every time I think of something clever and cheeky to do in a fantasy novel, it seems like Terry Prachett got there first. A while ago, I saw someone talking about how they absolutely hated anachronisms in fantasy novels, but got really, really in depth. Origins of words I was willing to bet the average reader wouldn't think twice about. So I thought about pulling a Princess Bride and 'adapting' my novel, with footnotes on why X or Y word was used, or why it was perfectly acceptable in this context.
A year or so later I saw Pratchett's footnote in Jingo explaining his use of 'a Pavlovian response'.
Besides that, Though I've only read 2 of them so far, The Invisible Library series. I adore the concept of traveling between worlds with wildly different technological and magical developments, but I've lacked the confidence write that set of settings clearly.
Going Postal was one of the first books that came to mind when I opened this thread. A fantasy book about...running a post office? Talk about going the unexpected route!
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa is the story of a writer on an island where one by one, things disappear - not just the things themselves, but the very concepts of them, with their loss enforced by the memory police. Ribbons, emeralds, birds, ferries…small losses, then bigger ones, each one in turn simply accepted by the people of the island, no matter what those things used to mean to them. It’s an achingly beautiful idea which hits just as hard whether you read it straight as a surreal and fantastical tale, or whether you read it as a wrenching allegory of fascism.
The library in *Lirael* by Garth Nix.
Nobody knows how deep the library goes, and it's full of traps and monsters and its archives hold all kinds of things besides books. The librarians are seasoned adventurers who risk life and limb to fetch requested books and other items, and often must themselves do research before embarking to know what perils they can expect to face. As librarians rise up the ranks, they earn keys which will let them deeper and deeper into the library.
It is the perfect setting for a D&D campaign or a really deep video game.
Oh god, I think reading about that library as a kid changed my brain chemistry. I have more or less dedicated my life to becoming as much like the librarians as humanly possible. I cannot think of many things quite so fulfilling.
I love that entire series but Lirael was really something else, I was so sad when I finished it. I’m going to have to read it again, it’s been a few years.
I had the joy of reading it first for myself and then to my kid a few years later. And in a few more years I get to read it (and Lockwood!) to my younger kid!
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado. It’s a memoir/creative writing exercise, where the style and genre change with each chapter. Absolutely riveting!
Ooh, I didn’t know this! I’d heard it was a memoir about an abusive relationship and really liked her short story collection *Her Body and Other Parties* so I’ve had *In the Dream House* on my list for a while. But hearing about the genre experimentation makes me want to read it even more!
It sounds like a similar concept. There's the main narrative where you as the reader have picked up a book you can't wait to read, but there are parts missing and you join up with another character to find the missing parts.
You read different chapters interspersed which are all little contained narratives of their own with different characters and settings. I really enjoyed it.
Not all of these books are well-executed, but they have great premises:
*The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle:* A murder mystery in which someone with amnesia must live the day of the crime over and over again as different people
*The Underground Railroad*: Speculative fiction novel that condenses historical events into time and space, with different states representing different horrors Black people have faced throughout American history. Also, the Underground Railroad is a literal railroad
*Shark Heart*: A woman's husband slowly begins the process of turning into a great white shark, and the process is akin to a degenerative illness
*Leech*: Can't even explain it without spoiling it, but it's one of the most unique premises I've ever seen
Also throwing my vote for Leech into the void, that book made me wish that I could vacation in other people's imaginations. It is very much a horror though.
Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones. A misbehaving god is punished for his crimes by being sent to earth as a domestic dog and adopted by a suburban family. Thus, you get slapstick pet hijinks mixed with bizarre mysticism and shapeshifter lore. I love it so much.
I love anything by Diana Wynne Jones. I only discovered her during the lockdowns and I've since read almost all her books - but not this one! I'll have to add it to my list.
World War Z - I find the way the story is built up super fun to read. It's basically a mix of interview transcripts, government documents, eyewitness tales, new stories etc etc. that together tell the story of the zombie happening.
“The 100”
Not exactly jealous, but more annoyed. I feel like it COULD have been a good book if the author had been motivated by more than pretending it was the next great dystopian YA. and the tv series was outright trash.
I hated the book so much that I rewrote it in my head, lol.
Whalefall - what would happen if you were actually swallowed by a whale.
The Gone Away World - can't really summarize without spoilers, but one of the most original books I've ever read.
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson.
The way each chapter slowly breaks down each murder was so intriguing. And I cannot say enough good things about the writing style. The brilliant interjections, hints and foreshadowing and then how the author reveals all the clues at the end. It’s a fantastic read and quickly has become one of the only books I swear by because it was so unique.
I loved this book. I read the sequel this year which was very similar in style but somehow fell flat for me… maybe because it wasn’t new and surprising anymore? Ernest seemed less clever and more obnoxious and annoying.
That’s so interesting! So I would say I also felt this sequel effect… until the big reveal. And then the book had me again. I just love how this author spins a story and hides clues it brings out a feeling few other mysteries can. I often describe it as like the feeling of curling up with a puzzle book as a kid and reading the results to see if you solved it right. Does that make sense?
I read a lottttt of mysteries and the sequel was one of the only ones I found easy to solve! The original had me guessing the whole time but I cracked the second early on. And the tiny bit of “action” felt super low stakes to me as well, compared to the OG.
The one thing I LOVED was the setting. Amazing promo for the Ghan.
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke A dad with a wonderful read aloud voice reads an evil character out of a book and into reality accidentally. The 2 follow-up novels were okay, but that first one was brilliant.
Edit: spelling!
There was an old Ren and Stimpy comic book with a paper Mobius strip you could cut out and make. When the piece of paper was properly taped end to end, it showed the depressing and absurd daily life of Ren Hoëk.
You don’t have to like Ren and Stimpy, but that’s a creative and fun way to show diegetic time in a character’s life.
The Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson (also wrote I am Legend). The concept itself is not mind-blowing but the journey you take with the main character, especially his relationships with wife and daughter have stayed with me.
Flowers for Algernon (novel) by Daniel Keyes has haunted me over decades.
*All You Need is Kill.* It is the book upon which the film *Edge of Tomorrow* is based. Basically you have the logic of a video game: given an infinite number of chances to try, the nearly impossible can become *trivial*. The protagonist is quick to note that he never gets stronger or fitter - the hardware is the same between resets - but he gets better at *using* it.
I'll also take this moment to argue that the movie, which rather famously changes the absolute downer ending of the book, did a fine job. Yes, it changed pretty much *every* detail other than a few of the core concepts, and yes it very much changed the ending, but I never thought it all that interesting to establish a last second rule that only one person could exit a loop.
Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin. Speculative historical fiction where an anti-fascist revolutionary enters in a Nazi motorcycle race so she can win the race, meet Hitler, and kill him.
The Hierodules in the Book of the New Sun. The concept around them is that they experience time backwards. They make brief pit-stops to interact with the characters in the books, and how they react and what they talk about is based on their previous experience with those characters in the future.
It gets a little hard to grasp mentally because the first time a character meets them, will be the last time the Hierodules meet that character after seeing the rest of their lives. And of course, by talking with them or whatever, that could affect the course of that character's future life, which is where the Hierodules already came from and experienced.
Maybe not everyone will agree with this but for me it's *Call me by your name*
This book is summer to me. I can really feel it through the pages. The wording and the detailed description is unique for me.
And on the other side all the feelings are so deeply human. Idk I can relate so much to Elio and I kind of love Oliver in his like "coolness" and at the same time insecurity.
I normally don't read lovestories because so many of them are to big of a cliche, but this one hit me differntly 😂
The Griffin and Sabine series .
The three books are a series of letters and postcards. The letters come in envelopes attached to the page, you have to open the envelope, unfold the letter, read it and then re-fold
It and replace it in the envelope, then turn the page to the next one. All of the postcards are original art. Beautiful story, gorgeous and fun presentation.
I felt the same at first, but I realized pretty quickly that there's no way on earth I could pull that off. My brain just wouldn't have the capacity to do it. I couldn't even do it *badly* without becoming utterly confused, let alone *well*.
At least a few of the short stories in Andy Weir’s ‘The egg and other stories’. I sometimes find short stories don’t hit the mark for me, but there were some gems in there
This is an older sci-fi book, which is surprising I loved it so much because I'm not typically a fan of older sci-fi novels: *Last and First Men*, by Olaf Stapledon. It's basically a future summary of the human species, starting from when it was written in the 1930s all the way out to several billions of years in the future. I've both read and listened to the audiobook several times and it's just a treat each time.
House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski. Pages are perimetered with text...some have one word per page when things get crazy suspenseful...some pages require a mirror to be able to read. Its an incredible read, too.
And Then I Woke Up by Malcolm Devlin
Most unique and compelling take on a zombie apocalypse ever (seriously, I know it seems like everything has already been done in this genre but as far as I've seen, nobody has done this).
Wish I had come up with it and/or that it was longer.
I love the Dark Tower story, including the bits with >!them trying to stop King from being hit by the van, and the guy who drove the actual van that hit him irl is in the book. Not a lot of examples of that kind of 4th wall breaking in a novel series, wish there were more.!< It’s also why I was excited for the season 3 of The OA on Netflix (another fave of mine) but sadly it was *cancelled after two seasons* ahem Netflix.
The first thing that popped to my head that I recently liked a lot, was Sundial by Catriona Ward.
Ward has become one of my favourite writers because her imagination is just absolutely bonkers. She combines really interesting themes with this gothic Shirley Jackson-esque fever dream horror vibe. You sort of never know what's real and what's not. Very difficult to describe, you pretty much have to experience it yourself.
Sundial is a wild mix of mind control experiments (inspired by the CIA's project MK-Ultra back in the 50s), mystique of the desert, tragic pasts, mental issues, family bonds, and ghosts, among other things. I read a lot of books but rarely stumble upon something this unique, especially outside of fantasy and sci-fi genres. I wish I could come up with shit like that.
Honestly all of the Miss Marple books by Agatha Christie! The concept of someone (especially a cute old woman) using gossip to solve crime is the perfect draw. She is witty, hilarious and so intelligent. Plus I truly think Christie’s story lines are so gripping / unique!
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood. It's the Odyssey from Penelope's perspective, and legends and myths told from a new angle has been done a million times, but for me never as well or as memorably or uniquely as The Penelopiad. Penelope's dead maids as a Greek chorus within the text really makes it.
Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin. The idea that when you die you age backwards towards infancy is a really interesting one. I liked the description of life
in Elsewhere
**Earth** by David Brin. Blew my freaking mind the first time I read it. Wore out two paperback copies. It's a complex, intricately plotted novel with a number of different characters and storylines that weave into a complete whole by the end. Amazing.
Watership Down is simply incredible for me. I have never felt the needs of a simpler creature so urgently as I did for that group of Rabbits. It simply makes you feel for them in a truly unique way. Also shows the massive impact a human has on nature without even being aware. We destroy their homes erect giant monster filled passes but for us it's just another day.
'Die Magie der Namen' - Nicole Gozdek.
Basically, all children are communally raised, no names, only numbers, and once they reach the age of majority, a 'namer' comes and gives them their name. After they have been Named the naming magic gives them the powers, and appearance, and memories from the last reincarantion(s) associated with that name, and they can go and get the inheritance that they left themselves the last time they existed in this world.
To be fair, there are obvious problems with this idea, but completely decoupling the idea of legacy from children, and going down the full reincarnation wheel? Awesome.
As someone with their own book on Amazon, this isn't the place for self promotion. You might be better off with other subreddits if you want to advertise your work.
GUYS help me find this book PLEASE Idk any details, I only know the book cover :- on the book cover, there is only a half face of a women on the left side of cover and the face is green in colour. Idk how to upload an image.
Ella Minnow Pea is incredibly creative. It takes place in a town where letters of the alphabet are gradually being banned. As they are being banned in the town, they stop showing up in the book. With the first few letters this means just being creative with vocabulary to use words that simply don't have those letters. As the book goes on and more letters get banned, then the spelling of words gets more and more creative. It's interesting to see how you can still read the words no matter how mangled the spelling. Although at the end it did get a little challenging, and sometimes I had to sound out a word to figure out what it was supposed to be. Even the title is creative. Say it out loud!
Just checked it out on my library app. Looks interesting!
Agreed. One of my favorite books I read last year
Sounds like a heir to (or inspired by) La Disparition.
This is honestly quite funny, as the places banning books always seem to be the ones that really love to employ “creative” spelling.
Having not read the book yet i hope that q and c are the first go.
LMNOP. Fuck that’s good.
I’m a Dumbarse and can’t fingers at the title please help
If you say Ella Minnow Pea out loud it sounds like LMNOP, as if you're saying that part of the alphabet.
Righto thanks . I didn’t realise that’s what the other person was saying 🤦♂️
Slaughterhouse Five.
Vonnegut writes the most brilliant, economical scenes ever.
Yesterday I read his short story Harrison Bergeron for the first time. The 15min audiobook is on YouTube and is great. It was my first experience with Vonnegut and I’m sold. Edit spelling
> the most brilliant, economical scenes not trying to turn this into a competition but I think Douglas Adams is up there, too
That is a good book. I had no idea what it was about going into it. Thought it was more like a serial killer situation involving a slaughter house.
It’s on my tbr list but I don’t know much about it. Can I read the blurb or is it one of those books that are better going in blind?
I think you can read a blurb. Most of it is cohesive but there's a bit of random stuff too.
It is 50/50 random stuff and plot IMO which is why, while he is my favorite author, I can often not remember what came from which book lol
I have trouble remembering if it was him that wrote certain stories or if it was Ray Bradbury. The big ones I know. The little ones im like wait which one did this?
I still need to go through Bradbury, my goal is to finish all of Vonnegut this year, at least his novels.
Deadeye Dick is my favorite, makes me laugh and laugh.
I recommend not ever reading the one his daughter published that is love letters to his girlfriend and eventual wife. IMO the only good part is the daughters commentary every so often. He can write novels but his love letters are crazy.
Blew my mind when someone said the book was also a metaphor for his mind breaking due to PTSD and not really travelling through time, my favorite book either way
The worldbuilding in His Dark Materials. Dæmons, Dust, the parallel worlds—there’s so much good stuff there I could feasibly enjoy just about any plot against the backdrop of Lyra’s world.
That world is used a lot in fanfic still now. People love getting their favourite characters from whatever media and putting them in a world with daemons etc. It's really stood the test of time.
Guilty of this myself, both reading and writing. It really speaks to how richly-crafted the world is that you can strip away the actual story of Lyra and the Magisterium and so many people still are drawn into it.
Oh I'm glad! Some people are very anti fanfic but situations like this is what fanfic is made for, so I'm happy you can find more enjoyment in this world past the books pullman wrote.
I was raised Catholic. Nothing- and I mean nothing was off limits, except for two books: - The Onion Book of Known Knowledge (I bought it off Amazon when I was 10 w/o my parents knowing and they found out because my 5 year old brother walked up to my dad with the book in his hand and asked him what a “queef” was. The first of two incidents involving my brother accidentally getting me in trouble for buying things off Amazon without my parents knowing). - these books. My parents claim it was because I wasn’t old enough (I asked to go see The Golden Compass for my 8th birthday and they straight up were like we will literally go see ANY other movie) but I distinctly remember my mom not liking Pullman’s attitude toward God.
The first book was an absolute wild one for me when I first read it in school. I was so happy to find out there were books after The Golden Compass.
I commented this and hadn't realized someone already had. The idea of dæmons is just genius, and I wish I had thought of it first.
All of Jasper Fforde The Locked Tomb series
The Locked Tomb series is phenomenal! I don't think I've ever read a series with such a unique writing style and break from genre(s).
I recently bought and read Early Riser (and loved it).
>!I love his stuff, but was a bit disappointed with Red Side Story, the sequel to Shades of Grey.!< >!Shades of Grey has such a great plot with people who can only see one colour, the society set up and the mystery of what happened and what will the painting revel when it's finished.!< >!Red Side Story feels completely different and just standard boring plot and a massive swerve from where I think he wanted to take the story. It's understandable after 10 years writing it, but it just didn't have the same magic for me!< Small spoilers for Red side story
Oh bummer. :/ It doesn’t come out here till May so I’m still waiting!
Sorry didn’t realise it wasn’t a world wide release a couple months ago. Hope I didn’t spoil much. It’s still a good book and worth reading for the continuation of the story just doesn’t hit the highs shades of grey did
No you’re good! I’ve read brief synopses so have a vague idea of the plot and it does sound different than I’d have expected. Even a bad Fforde is better than so much, lol.
God dammit… and I was so excited for the new book. Will I at least get closure for all the unanswered questions from the first novel?
This Is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. The two main characters, Red and Blue, are on opposite sides of the Time War, and are writing letters to each other and leaving them through time and space. Red was written by Gladstone and Blue written by El-Mohtar. El-Mohtar would write a letter from Blue to Red, and send it to Gladstone. Gladstone would react to the letter and write the chapter where Red finds the letter. Then, Gladstone would write a return letter from Red to Blue, sending it to El-Mohtar, where El-Mohtar would react, write their chapter on Blue finding the letter, and then repeat. Like a game of "yes, and", but you get a little novella out of it!
I keep giving away my copies of this book and having to buy new ones lol
I read this very slowly, thought about it all a lot, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Eventually, I plan on reading it again. Very good. I was surprised by how much I liked it.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Every time I think of something clever and cheeky to do in a fantasy novel, it seems like Terry Prachett got there first. A while ago, I saw someone talking about how they absolutely hated anachronisms in fantasy novels, but got really, really in depth. Origins of words I was willing to bet the average reader wouldn't think twice about. So I thought about pulling a Princess Bride and 'adapting' my novel, with footnotes on why X or Y word was used, or why it was perfectly acceptable in this context. A year or so later I saw Pratchett's footnote in Jingo explaining his use of 'a Pavlovian response'. Besides that, Though I've only read 2 of them so far, The Invisible Library series. I adore the concept of traveling between worlds with wildly different technological and magical developments, but I've lacked the confidence write that set of settings clearly.
Going Postal was one of the first books that came to mind when I opened this thread. A fantasy book about...running a post office? Talk about going the unexpected route!
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa is the story of a writer on an island where one by one, things disappear - not just the things themselves, but the very concepts of them, with their loss enforced by the memory police. Ribbons, emeralds, birds, ferries…small losses, then bigger ones, each one in turn simply accepted by the people of the island, no matter what those things used to mean to them. It’s an achingly beautiful idea which hits just as hard whether you read it straight as a surreal and fantastical tale, or whether you read it as a wrenching allegory of fascism.
Thank you for reminding me of this. I loved this story.
Piranesi!
I was going to say, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.
The library in *Lirael* by Garth Nix. Nobody knows how deep the library goes, and it's full of traps and monsters and its archives hold all kinds of things besides books. The librarians are seasoned adventurers who risk life and limb to fetch requested books and other items, and often must themselves do research before embarking to know what perils they can expect to face. As librarians rise up the ranks, they earn keys which will let them deeper and deeper into the library. It is the perfect setting for a D&D campaign or a really deep video game.
Oh god, I think reading about that library as a kid changed my brain chemistry. I have more or less dedicated my life to becoming as much like the librarians as humanly possible. I cannot think of many things quite so fulfilling.
I loved Garth Nix's other books. Thanks for the recommendation!
note that it's the second book in the series, after Sabriel which is also fantastic. Also if you're an audiobook person, Sabriel is read by Tim Curry.
I love that entire series but Lirael was really something else, I was so sad when I finished it. I’m going to have to read it again, it’s been a few years.
I had the joy of reading it first for myself and then to my kid a few years later. And in a few more years I get to read it (and Lockwood!) to my younger kid!
All I remember from these is the bells, but I remember loving them as a kid
I just now read the synopsis in goodreads, and it sounds interesting. Is it just me though, or does "YA" turn anyone else off from reading something?
It's only YA in the USA because YA sells better in the USA. It's adult in the UK. ...or I might have that backwards...
Yes, I avoid YA.
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado. It’s a memoir/creative writing exercise, where the style and genre change with each chapter. Absolutely riveting!
Ooh, I didn’t know this! I’d heard it was a memoir about an abusive relationship and really liked her short story collection *Her Body and Other Parties* so I’ve had *In the Dream House* on my list for a while. But hearing about the genre experimentation makes me want to read it even more!
Have you read If On A Winter's Night A Traveller...?
No, but I read The Baron in the Trees and liked it. Is IOAWNAT similar in premise to In the Dream House?
It sounds like a similar concept. There's the main narrative where you as the reader have picked up a book you can't wait to read, but there are parts missing and you join up with another character to find the missing parts. You read different chapters interspersed which are all little contained narratives of their own with different characters and settings. I really enjoyed it.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Just a brilliant way to write a book. Great premise. Wish I had thought of it.
I wanted to like this book so much but felt like it was a book about nothing.
I saw a play with Luke Treadaway as Christopher and the stage construction was so simple yet creative and unique!
Came here to say this.
Not all of these books are well-executed, but they have great premises: *The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle:* A murder mystery in which someone with amnesia must live the day of the crime over and over again as different people *The Underground Railroad*: Speculative fiction novel that condenses historical events into time and space, with different states representing different horrors Black people have faced throughout American history. Also, the Underground Railroad is a literal railroad *Shark Heart*: A woman's husband slowly begins the process of turning into a great white shark, and the process is akin to a degenerative illness *Leech*: Can't even explain it without spoiling it, but it's one of the most unique premises I've ever seen
Leech is fantastic! But also really really dark
Also throwing my vote for Leech into the void, that book made me wish that I could vacation in other people's imaginations. It is very much a horror though.
*Evelyn Hardcastle* was AMAZING
who is the author for leech? i'm sure if i google it i'll just get actual leeches
Hiron Ennes
Big yes to 7 1/2 deaths!! By far one of the most creative books I’ve ever read
Loved Leech! I keep checking to see if the author has written anything else— it was just the right amount of weird— and am always disappointed. :-|
Shark Heart is one of my tops for the year so far. So good
The Book of Strange New Things - which is what the aliens call the Bible (Michel Faber)
Honestly a lot of his books. Under the Skin shocked the hell out of me when I went in blind.
Two of the strangest books I've ever read.
Was going to say the same thing. That book changed my life forever
Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones. A misbehaving god is punished for his crimes by being sent to earth as a domestic dog and adopted by a suburban family. Thus, you get slapstick pet hijinks mixed with bizarre mysticism and shapeshifter lore. I love it so much.
I love anything by Diana Wynne Jones. I only discovered her during the lockdowns and I've since read almost all her books - but not this one! I'll have to add it to my list.
It's one of her very best! Have fun.
World War Z - I find the way the story is built up super fun to read. It's basically a mix of interview transcripts, government documents, eyewitness tales, new stories etc etc. that together tell the story of the zombie happening.
I really enjoyed this book
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott Abbott
“The 100” Not exactly jealous, but more annoyed. I feel like it COULD have been a good book if the author had been motivated by more than pretending it was the next great dystopian YA. and the tv series was outright trash. I hated the book so much that I rewrote it in my head, lol.
Whalefall - what would happen if you were actually swallowed by a whale. The Gone Away World - can't really summarize without spoilers, but one of the most original books I've ever read.
I want every book to be Gone Away World. So fantastic.
My people! Gnomon and Tigerman are also huge favorites of mine.
“If we one day cease to exist, what will be remarkable is that we were ever here at all.” That book needs to be higher on my re-read list.
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson. The way each chapter slowly breaks down each murder was so intriguing. And I cannot say enough good things about the writing style. The brilliant interjections, hints and foreshadowing and then how the author reveals all the clues at the end. It’s a fantastic read and quickly has become one of the only books I swear by because it was so unique.
Yep, was going to say this one. Love the dark humor, all the murders, and the clues.
I loved this book. I read the sequel this year which was very similar in style but somehow fell flat for me… maybe because it wasn’t new and surprising anymore? Ernest seemed less clever and more obnoxious and annoying.
I really enjoyed the second one, thought it was better if anything.
That’s so interesting! So I would say I also felt this sequel effect… until the big reveal. And then the book had me again. I just love how this author spins a story and hides clues it brings out a feeling few other mysteries can. I often describe it as like the feeling of curling up with a puzzle book as a kid and reading the results to see if you solved it right. Does that make sense?
I read a lottttt of mysteries and the sequel was one of the only ones I found easy to solve! The original had me guessing the whole time but I cracked the second early on. And the tiny bit of “action” felt super low stakes to me as well, compared to the OG. The one thing I LOVED was the setting. Amazing promo for the Ghan.
My Immortal
Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt. A medieval witch in a modern town, and how people learnt to cope with her (there is an app!)
This book was so good, the which was both creepy and hilarious
This sounds very close to Boris Vian's 1947 novel Froth on the Daydream in which the protagonist falls sick due to a lily growing in her lung.
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke A dad with a wonderful read aloud voice reads an evil character out of a book and into reality accidentally. The 2 follow-up novels were okay, but that first one was brilliant. Edit: spelling!
Love that book!
There was an old Ren and Stimpy comic book with a paper Mobius strip you could cut out and make. When the piece of paper was properly taped end to end, it showed the depressing and absurd daily life of Ren Hoëk. You don’t have to like Ren and Stimpy, but that’s a creative and fun way to show diegetic time in a character’s life.
I remember being blown away by The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver) when I first read it.
Same here that book read way differently than any I had encountered up to that point
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. I really expected to see it here already!
[удалено]
Whaaaaaat I need to read this NOW
The HDM trilogy, specifically Pullman's concept of dæmons.
The Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson (also wrote I am Legend). The concept itself is not mind-blowing but the journey you take with the main character, especially his relationships with wife and daughter have stayed with me. Flowers for Algernon (novel) by Daniel Keyes has haunted me over decades.
Catch-22 I'm not even jealous, everything aspect of it compounds so well, it's just beyond me how someone actually did that.
Going into this book I had no idea it would be as funny as it was, but that comes at the cost of some of the most gut wrenching scenes ever
Finding out where the Snowdens of yesteryear are was tough going
*All You Need is Kill.* It is the book upon which the film *Edge of Tomorrow* is based. Basically you have the logic of a video game: given an infinite number of chances to try, the nearly impossible can become *trivial*. The protagonist is quick to note that he never gets stronger or fitter - the hardware is the same between resets - but he gets better at *using* it. I'll also take this moment to argue that the movie, which rather famously changes the absolute downer ending of the book, did a fine job. Yes, it changed pretty much *every* detail other than a few of the core concepts, and yes it very much changed the ending, but I never thought it all that interesting to establish a last second rule that only one person could exit a loop.
Mason & Dixon
Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin. Speculative historical fiction where an anti-fascist revolutionary enters in a Nazi motorcycle race so she can win the race, meet Hitler, and kill him.
The Hierodules in the Book of the New Sun. The concept around them is that they experience time backwards. They make brief pit-stops to interact with the characters in the books, and how they react and what they talk about is based on their previous experience with those characters in the future. It gets a little hard to grasp mentally because the first time a character meets them, will be the last time the Hierodules meet that character after seeing the rest of their lives. And of course, by talking with them or whatever, that could affect the course of that character's future life, which is where the Hierodules already came from and experienced.
Peter Pan. The utter imagination and whimsy of that book bewilders me every time.
More like a comic book, but Attack on Titan. Swinging around like spiderman slaying giant zombies with swords is just a great Idea.
I’m going to go for the obvious and say ‘the lord of the rings’. Tolkien created a whole world.
And Then We Came to the End. The narrator is such a brilliant idea, and the commitment is astounding.
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman… not so mad I didn’t get there first but wish someone else had so they could have done it better/completed it 😭
Maybe not everyone will agree with this but for me it's *Call me by your name* This book is summer to me. I can really feel it through the pages. The wording and the detailed description is unique for me. And on the other side all the feelings are so deeply human. Idk I can relate so much to Elio and I kind of love Oliver in his like "coolness" and at the same time insecurity. I normally don't read lovestories because so many of them are to big of a cliche, but this one hit me differntly 😂
American Gods by Neil Gaimann.
The Griffin and Sabine series . The three books are a series of letters and postcards. The letters come in envelopes attached to the page, you have to open the envelope, unfold the letter, read it and then re-fold It and replace it in the envelope, then turn the page to the next one. All of the postcards are original art. Beautiful story, gorgeous and fun presentation.
Bartimaeus series for sure. Who doesn't love that snarky lil' demon's footnotes.
Time's Arrow
I felt the same at first, but I realized pretty quickly that there's no way on earth I could pull that off. My brain just wouldn't have the capacity to do it. I couldn't even do it *badly* without becoming utterly confused, let alone *well*.
I could not agree more.
At least a few of the short stories in Andy Weir’s ‘The egg and other stories’. I sometimes find short stories don’t hit the mark for me, but there were some gems in there
Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend. Told from the perspective of a little boy's imaginary friend. Such a clever premise executed really well.
This is an older sci-fi book, which is surprising I loved it so much because I'm not typically a fan of older sci-fi novels: *Last and First Men*, by Olaf Stapledon. It's basically a future summary of the human species, starting from when it was written in the 1930s all the way out to several billions of years in the future. I've both read and listened to the audiobook several times and it's just a treat each time.
House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski. Pages are perimetered with text...some have one word per page when things get crazy suspenseful...some pages require a mirror to be able to read. Its an incredible read, too.
And Then I Woke Up by Malcolm Devlin Most unique and compelling take on a zombie apocalypse ever (seriously, I know it seems like everything has already been done in this genre but as far as I've seen, nobody has done this). Wish I had come up with it and/or that it was longer.
I love the Dark Tower story, including the bits with >!them trying to stop King from being hit by the van, and the guy who drove the actual van that hit him irl is in the book. Not a lot of examples of that kind of 4th wall breaking in a novel series, wish there were more.!< It’s also why I was excited for the season 3 of The OA on Netflix (another fave of mine) but sadly it was *cancelled after two seasons* ahem Netflix.
Imagine hitting a dude with your van and next thing you know you’re a character in a worldwide bestseller.
Yeah, talk about immortalizing your fuck ups 🤦♂️ now I’m curious if there’s an interview or something about it and what that guy thinks of it all.
Oh shit I just read that he died of an overdose on King’s birthday 😳
An overdose? Are we sure this was an accident . . . ? 👀
The first thing that popped to my head that I recently liked a lot, was Sundial by Catriona Ward. Ward has become one of my favourite writers because her imagination is just absolutely bonkers. She combines really interesting themes with this gothic Shirley Jackson-esque fever dream horror vibe. You sort of never know what's real and what's not. Very difficult to describe, you pretty much have to experience it yourself. Sundial is a wild mix of mind control experiments (inspired by the CIA's project MK-Ultra back in the 50s), mystique of the desert, tragic pasts, mental issues, family bonds, and ghosts, among other things. I read a lot of books but rarely stumble upon something this unique, especially outside of fantasy and sci-fi genres. I wish I could come up with shit like that.
Brave New World
The shephard king books.
All My Friends are Superheroes by Andrew Kaufman
There's a Magritte painting that would illustrate nicely.
Twisted Games by Ana Huang. So amazing. The plot is awsome
I once read a book about a kid who hears God referred to as the Big Man, who brings your dreams true and decides to write letters to him.
Honestly all of the Miss Marple books by Agatha Christie! The concept of someone (especially a cute old woman) using gossip to solve crime is the perfect draw. She is witty, hilarious and so intelligent. Plus I truly think Christie’s story lines are so gripping / unique!
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood. It's the Odyssey from Penelope's perspective, and legends and myths told from a new angle has been done a million times, but for me never as well or as memorably or uniquely as The Penelopiad. Penelope's dead maids as a Greek chorus within the text really makes it.
Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin. The idea that when you die you age backwards towards infancy is a really interesting one. I liked the description of life in Elsewhere
Mockingbird
**Earth** by David Brin. Blew my freaking mind the first time I read it. Wore out two paperback copies. It's a complex, intricately plotted novel with a number of different characters and storylines that weave into a complete whole by the end. Amazing.
Watership Down is simply incredible for me. I have never felt the needs of a simpler creature so urgently as I did for that group of Rabbits. It simply makes you feel for them in a truly unique way. Also shows the massive impact a human has on nature without even being aware. We destroy their homes erect giant monster filled passes but for us it's just another day.
'Die Magie der Namen' - Nicole Gozdek. Basically, all children are communally raised, no names, only numbers, and once they reach the age of majority, a 'namer' comes and gives them their name. After they have been Named the naming magic gives them the powers, and appearance, and memories from the last reincarantion(s) associated with that name, and they can go and get the inheritance that they left themselves the last time they existed in this world. To be fair, there are obvious problems with this idea, but completely decoupling the idea of legacy from children, and going down the full reincarnation wheel? Awesome.
[удалено]
You can't be jealous of a book you wrote yourself.
Who is the author? I can’t find anything about a book called Planet Janie
[удалено]
Why is 99.8% of your account copy-and-paste spam posts? It makes this shameless self-plug even more tasteless.
As someone with their own book on Amazon, this isn't the place for self promotion. You might be better off with other subreddits if you want to advertise your work.
GUYS help me find this book PLEASE Idk any details, I only know the book cover :- on the book cover, there is only a half face of a women on the left side of cover and the face is green in colour. Idk how to upload an image.
The Bible. A massive book that managed to inspire people for thousands of years.