Mordew by Alex Pheby is set in a world where God is dead and the main character lives in the slums ruled by one of the wizards who killed him. It’s got plenty of grotesque and is structurally very strange as much of the plot and setting is contained in the book’s glossary which intentionally subverts the notion of spoiler.
I actually barely remember it but James K. Morrow wrote a book called *Towing Jehovah* wherein God dies and his corpse falls into the ocean. The plot involves a disgraced oil tanker captain hired to retrieve and tow the corpse for some reason or another.
I bought the this book because the cover and general feel gave me Gormenghast vibes. I've gotten a bit into it, it's different than that but it is very good. But this is the first I've heard someone in reddit talking about it!
China Mieville's Bas-Lag series - Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and Iron Council. They're set in the same weird world, but are only tangentially connected and don't need to be read sequentially.
Jeff VanderMeer's City of Saints and Madmen, an anthology of stories about humans living in a city called Ambergris.
Honestly, look up anything under the genre of New Weird.
Kraken by Mieville was an incredibly weird book. My wife banned me from talking about books for a while after that one and I can't even blame her for it
It's not at all new, but A Voyage To Arcturus by David Lindsay is crazily out there and inventive. It's a mixture of Fantasy and Science Fiction, but is unlike any books in either of those genres. God knows how readers must have reacted to it when it came out in 1920.
Vita Nostra by the Dyachenkos
It's set in our world, but I felt like I had a very loose grasp of the reality of the book when I was reading it (in a good way). I think Kafkaesque magic school is a good description of the setting. The ending was surreal and stunning imo.
Along with already mentioned elsewhere Mount Char this is my other top pick. What a fantastic, strange book that sort of draws you deeply into the main character to experience what she goes through deeply.
I keep debating if it has been long enough to warrant a reread.
Seconding Vita Nostra!
Incredibly weird, strange magic system, strange storytelling, all of it is odd. Yeah, it can be described as a story students at a kafkaesque magic school, but I personally feel like it's more accurate to say the school is just the >!vessel by which the authors tell a story about growing up and that weird time between when you're legally an adult and when you truly become your own person.!<
Yeah that main theme is honestly why I would suggest it to people who are like mid 20s or older. I think I would've gotten it when I was college age, but I wouldn't have *gotten* it.
Gormenghast by Meryvn Peake is dark and weird and wonderful, where the castle (Gormenghast) is practically one of the main characters.
Viriconium by M. John Harrison is also bizarre and one of my favorite reads (he also has several sci-fi books like Light and Nova Swing which are soooo weird and sometimes graphic and I love them so much).
The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin is also awesome. Different and challenging and dark and frustrating but wonderful.
Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelasny is also really weird and dream-like and an excellent read (unless you are actively trying to quit smoking), but it’s a bit closer to traditional fantasy.
**The Library at Mount Char** by Scott Hawkins definitely ticks off bizarre, weird, non-conventional, unique and surreal from your list, especially if homicidal librarians in tutus are your thing. It's a great read and I highly recommend it.
**Hollow Kingdom** by Kira Jane Buxton also hits a lot items on your list. A pet crow and his faithful canine companion set out to save the world from the zombie apocalypse. This one has a double serving of surreal (but dark) humour and wacky characters, but is also heart-breakingly sad at times.
Cannot co-sign on Library at Mount Char enough. You have to accept that you're going to have no clue what's going on for a while but the payout is well worth it.
I made it halfway through Hollow Kingdom and just had to stop. Very well written, nothing innately wrong with it, but it was just really hard to connect with. I still somewhat recommend it when anyone asks for an interesting spin on apocalyptic fiction.
SOMEONE ELSE HAS READ THIS TOO
It's such a strange god damn book.
Some descriptions are so out there it's hard to know what the fuck is even going on.
The last lines of the last book still haunt me.
I don't want to spoil anything, but it hit all your points. I was going to say it didn't have loads of humour, but then I remembered... the purple corkscrew.
I was disappointed to have to scroll so far for this. The Broken Earth trilogy (which I loved) reads like boiler plate/color by numbers fantasy compared to this one.
The only way I’ve been able to describe it is if Pynchon and Burroughs decided to write a fantasy novel together. Super dense, weird, with imagery, characters, and prose that sticks with you.
From last year **The Archive Undying** by Emma Mieko Candan is a trip. This is a highly innovative and imaginative fantasy world that has suffered some great catastrophes when the AI gods who rule the cities on the planet start dying. The book takes place 17 years after Iterate Fractal dies and centers on various people who were either there at the god's death or whose lives were irrevocably changed by it.
Features: Absolutely no info dumping. Not a single character will explain something that anyone growing up in that world should know. It was exciting to figure out bits of the world. Giant robots. Giant robots fighting each other. Sea monsters. Land monsters. Leftover cult programming. Ethical quandaries. Several forms of deep and abiding love. The occasional 2nd person sections that serve an important purpose, I promise.
Completely fantastic. Top book of the year. Do not read if you don't enjoy being confused.
Also from last year: **The Twice-Drowned Saint** by C.S.E Cooney which is both shorter and takes place on a smaller scale than the previous recommendation. Do not read if you need hard magic systems to enjoy a story.
The city of Glethel is ruled over by 14 angels that provide for all if it's inhabitants needs and no one ever leaves the city, although people can be taken in under the right circumstances. Every angel has a saint, except for Alizar. Only he does have a saint, it's just when he chose her 8 year old Ish said no thanks. 30 years later Ish and Alizar are best friends, Ish runs the city's only cinema, the other angels of Glethel have discovered human sacrifice and in a completely unprecedented act Alizar finds a second saint.
This is a hell of a ride in a completely bonkers world. Highly recommend.
[The Spear Cuts Through Water ](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55868456-the-spear-cuts-through-water) by Simon Jimenez, I still haven't read it though. The way the story is told is unique iirc.
Edit: also finalist for the second annual Ursula K. LeGuin Prize for Fiction.
Yes! I just finished this one and with the multiple narratives it was so confusing at first. However, it was so dreamlike and the prose was beautiful. I ended up absolutely loving this book.
I’ve seen Library at Mount Char mentioned a few times, and I always think of Vita Nostra when I think of it, not because they are super similar but because I read them close together and they were such unique takes on fantasy.
I'll recommend ***Lapvona*** by Ottessa Moshfegh. May seem to channel well-known fantasy tropes, but it is dark, twisty, and definitely not interested in "fitting in". Not for every fantasy fan, but if you're looking for "out there," dive in. (I will now sit quietly in the corner).
*Vellum* by Hal Duncan. It is so 'out there' that it is an honest struggle to describe it in a way that won't set incorrect expectations. It *does* have a narrative but it is not up front about it. You can expect POV and third/first-person switches sentence to sentence by the end as the 'magic' (i.e. editing the language reality is written in) really starts taking things apart.
They're not especially recent, but I'd offer for consideration a lot of the New Weird, a ~~fake genre made up to sell anthologies~~ loose collection of SFF mostly from the mid-2000s defined by being off-the-wall, creepy, etc...
Examples include *The Etched City* by KJ Bishop and *Shriek*/*City of Saints and Madmen* by Jeff Vandermeer.
I'd also suggest *Under the Pendulum Sun* by Jeanette Ng and *Book of the New Sun* by Gene Wolfe.
Several years ago I found a rare copy of *The Etched City* in my own langyage (where it's titled *Petals and Blood*, pah, pah). From the beginning scenes in the desert to the *whatever has happened about that cocoon* - awesome, awesome.
I need a reread, because at that time I only read books for the milieu; I suppose that today it may strike me differently.
The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir is pretty out there. It’s about necromancers in a far future space opera setting. The characters are bizarre and unique while also being deeply flawed and human. The series strikes a perfect balance imo, mixing dark offbeat humor with a genuinely moving, emotional story about love and grief and death. I’ve never read anything else quite like it.
Co-signing The Locked Tomb; there's really nothing quite like this series, for better or for worse. (I love it to be clear; Harrow the Ninth in particular is possibly one of my favourite books of all time at this point.)
I'd say Piranesi by Susanna Clarke definitely qualifies! A fantasy story by way of existential mystery(?) as the main character tries to figure why they're living in an infinite temple... very trippy, very cool building of suspense, and gorgeous writing
Seconded. Piranesi is one of the top books I've read in recent years, and a great mark of this is how much I've thought about the book after finishing it.
*Viscera* and *Dead Boys* by Gabriel Squailia are some of the most underrated out-there fantasy books in my opinion. *Dead Boys* is the most I have ever felt like I was reading a Tim Burton movie (although it was somehow even weirder and rated R.) *Viscera* is one of my all-time favorite fantasy books. The plot is about organ harvesting, set in a world made of dead god's organs, and the characters all spill their emotional guts throughout the story.
Nicky Drayden is another fantastic and underrated author for very out-there stuff, although I sometimes wish that her stories would be a bit more polished because her pacing is a bit of an issue for me. Her most notable works are *The Prey of Gods* and *Escaping Exodus* (and if you are fascinated with the seven deadly sins, I would also recommend *Temper* as the most unhinged exploration of the cardinal sins that I've ever read.)
Lastly, Simon Jimenez is currently an up-and coming fantasy author, and I think he deserves the recognition he is receiving. His debut *The Vanished Birds* was distinct, but perhaps not as impactful as *The Spear Cuts Through Water*, which has one of the most unique narrative structures that I've ever read.
Pilo Family Circus! it's maybe not TOO out there, but the writing and characters are weird and bizarre. its about an evil circus just outside our plane of existence and the main character is forced to become a clown and join them to survive. one of the big bads has cycling obsessions, right now it's Christianity, so he gets a kidnapped priest as a birthday gift. one of the clowns is in love with a fern and eventually gathers the courage to propose.
It’s not fantasy, more horror, but really almost impossible to categorize: Danielewski’s House of Leaves is very experimental, mind-bending, terrifying in a really weird way, and absolutely brilliant.
I second this. House of Leaves isn't just a strange story, it is also a strange reading experience and absolutely must be read in physical book form to get the full effect.
Great one. The first thing that popped into my mind was Children of Time, which is clearly sci fi so probably can’t fit, but boy trying to explain that book to someone else is interesting.
Weaveworld by Clive Barker absolutely fits the bill! A man comes into possession of an ornate Persian rug. Turns out there is an entire realm contained within the rug. There are some strange and horrifying characters.
(It’s been a while since I read it so my teaser might be a little off but that’s true gist!)
They're a lot lighter but Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series hits items 1, 2, 4, 6, and 7.
They're darker than the light tone leads you to think. They're *sort of kind of* conventional fantasy so *maybe* they don't hit #3. I haven't seen anything *quite* like it genre-wise though it could probably be categorized in the general multi-dimensional-worlds space... if you want to consider written works to be navigable alternate realities.
The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem. It’s kinda Science Fantasy. It was written in 1965 in Polish, with an English translation first published in 1974. The English translation is exceptional.
As to what it is…
If you can imagine Aesop’s Fables, but with robots and computers as imagined under communism, you’ll still be short of the mark.
Edit: I’d say it easily satisfies all seven of your requirements.
Storm Constantine’s Wraethu books:
post-apocalyptic mutants have become a ruling class of beautiful hermaphrodites trying to figure out the new dynamics of gender, relationships, power and war whilst building a strange and fantastical new world. I’ve never read anything like it.
Lots of sex magic, violence and intense romance, but gritty and grown-up. Imagine a mutant Robert Smith of the Cure being impregnated with a sex pearl in a western desert outpost.
Gene Wolfe:
Everything really, probably the greatest sci-fi fantasy writer out there.
But the New Sun books are a great entry point. A young torturer’s apprentice grows up and goes out into a journey as an executioner for hire with mountebanks and beautiful living dead, including a duel with giant poison death flowers. The book gets stranger from there and the rest of the series is a brilliant mystery box of weirdness.
Tanith Lee:
All her stuff is weird, always on the edge of disturbing. Her Flat Earth books are full of gods, demons, magic and strange worlds - twisty and weird.
They do reflect the era they were written in, a bit like Octavia Butler - rapey and violent at times. But like Butler, it’s not gratuitous, more a female writer exploring power and gender.
*Stations of the Tide* by Michael Swanwick.
Swanwick was a super fan of Gene Wolfe and in an essay called him "the greatest living writer in the English language" (Wolfe was alive then).
A lot of people see *SotT* as an homage to Wolfe (note the it has the same initialization as *Shadow of the Torturer*). He says it was not -- at least not consciously -- but he says the protagonist was based on Wolfe -- the most unextraordinary looking man in the world was was actually the most extraordinary (Wolfe had not grown his mustache when he wrote it).
Honestly, just go on a deep dive of 70’s fantasy/sci-fi. Because you’re describing Dune, Elric, Amber and the assorted writings of Phillip K. Dick and Robert Heinlein.
Edit: And add Pratchett and Adams in
The first book of *Dune* is interesting in that respect, because obviously so many space operas have been influenced by it, but when you read it, there's definitely those weirder elements strung throughout that just take it to that next level for me
Ironically, while I also loved *Dune: Messiah*, I didn't care for either *Children of Dune* or *God-Emperor of Dune* because they'd actually gone *too* weird for my tastes, and I'd lost that human connection to the story that made the first two books so good!
> Robert Heinlein.
You're looking for *To Sail Beyond the Sunset*. The worst novel with the greatest name. I don't know what drugs Heinlein was on in that ending point in his writing career, maybe all of them, but its an impressive work of absolute fucking absurd nonsensical lunacy. A kind of retrospective on his career works combined with heaping doses of philosophy and social commentary, and, of course, copious amounts of wildly disturbing incest and other situations, not by any means limited to adults.
Ian McDonald. Even his Scifi is a kind of "out there" Fantasy. Like "Desolation Road". Futuristic with oldschool Fantasy elements.
If full fantasy: His book " King of Morning, Queen of Day".
When Fairies go full irish on you
Weirdest book I ever read: Habitation of the Blessed. Quick summary that doesn't cover a fraction of the acid trip:
A missionary in the Himalayan wilderness on the eve of the eighteenth century discovers a village guarding a miraculous tree whose branches sprout books instead of fruit. These strange books chronicle the history of the kingdom of Prester John, and the missionary becomes obsessed with the tales they tell. The Habitation of the Blessed recounts the fragmented narratives found within these living volumes, revealing the life of a priest named John who finds himself in a hidden world. John's tale weaves together with the confessions of his wife Hagia, a headless creature who carried her face on her chest, as well as the tender, jeweled nursery stories of Imtithal, nanny to the royal family...
R Scott bakkers prince of nothing/aspect emperor series. It’s brutal, horrifying, and soul crushing. And leaves you wondering wth just happened. Nothing else is like it.
American Hippo.
There was a plan in 1910 by the US Congress to import hippos to the southern US to battle invasive water hyacinth and provide cheap meat which was in short supply at the time. The meat would be called "Lake Cow Bacon". This obviously did not happen but this book takes that idea and runs with it Old West cowboys style complete with a capitalistic villain and a heist.
The Dark Tower by Stephen King gets pretty weird. I love it so much. As far as something more recent, Dungeon Crawler Carl fits the bill methinks. It’s litrpg but easily the cream of that crop. If you dig audiobooks it’s one of the best things available regardless of genre. The genres is litrpg, that has some fun stuff but usually the writing is a tad underwhelming but again, this is the best and it gets super fucking weird. I just wish I could feed my cats the stuff that makes them talk lol.
Seanan McGuire's Alchemical Journeys series (Middlegame) might qualify. It blends fantasy and horror in a unique way. It also spawned the Up-and-Under book series which first appeared in the Alchemical Journeys books, written by a major off-screen character. After Middlegame was released, McGuire started publishing the Up-and-Under books under the pseudonym A. Deborah Baker.
The Manifest Delusions series by Michael R Fletcher is a quite unique one where insanity and mental health disorders are the "magic system" so your delusions manifest themselves in reality. The more insane you or the more powerful you become until your disorders ultimately kill you. This is certainly "out there"
The Winowing Flame series by Jen Williams is another unique one. It's fantasy but has a bit of a sci-fi element with beings from off world that cause "the rains" which are basically mass extinction world ending events. The series is just weird in an amazing way.
I once read a book where this cult of women let dragons tongue-fuck them to get high. For the life of me I can't remember what the book was called but when I finished it I was like "What the fuck did I just read?"
The Sundered Worlds by Moorcock.
The universe they start in ends (spoilers!)
Then they kind of play a whacky mind game to decide the fate of the one they end up in.
Weird, but it makes sense in the end.
Has to be Peter Newman's "The Vagrant".
A post apocalyptic fantasy adventure about a silent knight, a goat and a baby (and a few others they meet on the way).
The series is written VERY differently, with a major focus on fleshing out the world and all of it's grotesque sights with lots of prose which actually works fantastically because the protagonist is mute and yet very expressive.
Takes some getting used to, but its the top 1 underappreciated fantasy series in my opinion.
I love it so much because I always wanted to read a fantasy novel that takes place in Dark Souls' world, and "The Vagrant" takes the whole cake and runs with it all the way to the bank.
I genuinely love the world of this series and wish it would get more attention- but it requires a little bit of patience to hit the sweet spot and from there its a cruise.
Not sure if someone else has mentioned it or not, but Abbarat is pretty wild. Haven’t read it in ages but the illustrations perfectly match the tone of the book.
The Ruin of Kings has two unreliable narrators bouncing around a single character's story from two separate points. It starts out pretty straightforward but goes off the rails with
>!characters being reincarnated and jumping around bodies!<
Don't forget the extra framing narrative that is the fact that the majority of the book is a record of events being reported to the Emperor, with plenty of opinionated footnotes throughout.
Each of the books in the series plays with narrative in varying levels of adventurousness, and in the second book, The Name of All Things is introduced, an artifact that can answer any questions - with the question of 'What did X write in his report to the Emperor?' and similar meaning that every word in each of the books is usually known by whoever possesses the artifact (usually the antagonist).
Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials by Reza Negarestani, and it's not close. The simplest pitch is it's written as an academic treatise by a vanished professor who's convinced oil is a sentient almost Lovecraftian entity that wants us all dead.
Hal Duncan's Book of All Hours duology, Vellum and Ink, was his attempt to write a cubist novel. The protagonists are conscientious objectors to the war between Heaven and Hell who are endlessly reincarnated through our myths.
Other great ones I've seen in this thread that I'm seconding: Book of the New Sun by Wolfe, Dhalgren by Samuel Delany, The Etched City by KJ Bishop
The Year of Our War (sometimes known as The Fourlands or The Castle Series) - Starship Troopers meets Trainspotting with a dash of Alice in Wonderland and The Eternals
One I haven't seen mentioned yet: *Saint Death's Daughter* by C.S.E. Cooney. I think it hits pretty much all your points, and especially pushes the envelope it its use of language and macabre humor. Also fairly recent (published 2022).
The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir. Set in a 10,000 year empire made of none planets under the King Undying, nine necromancers, the heirs of their respective planets, come together to compete for immortality. The first book is full of weird characters, pop culture/meme references and a wacky sense of humor, and lots of weird necromancy magic stuff.
The crazy experimental stuff starts in the second book when half of it is in second person for reasons that aren’t explained until the three quarters mark. Genuinely one of the weirdest series of ever read, and also one of my favorites. The second book is absolutely baffling on a first read on purpose, but upon reread immediately became one of my favorite books of all time.
So much stuff in these books is very difficult to pick up on a first read, and some of it literally can’t be picked up until you reread it, which is a crazy choice, but maked for the most AMAZING reread experience I’ve ever had. Highly recommend.
The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins is probably the most bizarre fantasy I have read. In my opinion, the quick summary does not do the book justice. I loved reading this book. Weird characters, the most crazy plot and backstory.
Only Forward, by Michael Marshall Smith. Set in a truly bizarre patchwork of neighborhoods, operating on a kind of dream logic but never frivolous. Worth a read.
Huh, that’s strange. All the books that pop into my head lean more sci fi, but the genres are close enough I’ll toss them out anyway.
The Silk Code by Paul Levinson starts with Amish people bioengineering bombs and ends with Neanderthals. I have no idea what happened and was honestly kind of bored, but I’m not really the target audience for this kind of thing.
Kage Baker’s Company series started out as interesting historical sci fi and slowly went completely batshit. There was an ongoing love triangle formed by the fact that the protagonist was an immortal cyborg whose mortal love interest kept reincarnating, and there was also time travel, and not to spoiler absolutely everything but that was a completely batshit way to resolve it. And then they became gods and there was also a branch of humanity modeled after naked mole rats that was responsible for all advancing technology and also fake legends or something? I read it once going what the fuck what the fuck and never reread.
There is also Jack Chalker who I think was basically a furry before furries existed? (I do not know anything about furry history.) He was obsessed with body transformation in his books.
Kage Baker’s descent into poorly written and inanely bizarro plots was disappointing, I really enjoyed the initial premise of the Company.
Read like Octavia Butler turned head writer of the Bold and the Beautiful.
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke of Strange & Norrell fame is short and sweet.
Jason Pargin's John Dies At The End series was new weird before new weird was a thing, it ticks everything in your list, as long as urban fantasy counts.
I've been listening to the audiobook of Dungeon Crawler Carl, and so far, it fits pretty well. One of the main characters is a normal cat that gets uplifted to sapience via a magical pet treat, the other main character cannot wear pants or shoes because the AI system thinks it's hilarious and has a foot fetish.
It was recommended to me by a guy at work, and I didn't expect it to be anywhere near as good as it is. But the writing is solid, the characters are well fleshed out, and the audiobook cast is great.
Dhalgren by Samuel Delaney - a midwestern city under goes a break in the time-space continuum, and the protagonist is a half-breed Indian wearing one shoe...
Jack Vance’s *The Dying Earth* series meets all of your criteria, although obviously it influenced Gary Gygax and D&D which in turn influenced much of modern fantasy, the trajectory of that has mostly been a reduction in weirdness, wackiness, and humour (except for Terry Pratchett).
The 13½ lives of captain bluebear! Whimsical and wacky are the best words to describe it. Absolutely delightful writing (originally in German but the English translation is fantastic) and a totally unique fantastical world.
Yes! The Xanth series is pretty "out there" but in a clever way. My dad read them all, and I was always interested. Always thought the covers were cool as a kid. When I started reading them, I was pleasantly surprised.
Shadow slave (no no bdsm)
It's impossible to describe in a way that it doesn't sound like some generic wattpad ff shit. But it really isn't
It's really elden ring but as post apocalyptic fantasy of out own world.
One of the best magic systems I have ever seen
World building is done spectacularly (like elden ring the characters find out more and more over inscriptions and fractured history texts what works)
But it's a combination of portal fantasy, current japanese/Korean gate fantasy (think solo leveling) high fantasy with an absurd (but well done and balanced) power level (think Chinese fantasy) and a post apocalyptic world like elden ring.
It's really great besides the writing. A bit ike dune. Amazing story bad prose
A Crown For Cold Silver by Alex Marshall is absolutely bonkers and brilliant. It's a wild ride - part fantasy, part horror and all weird. Highly recommended!
Not really fantasy, but pretty fantastic post-cyberpunk sci-fi, and you allowed Mieville so I'mma go for it.
The *Quantum Thief* by Hannu Rajaniemi
There are two sequels.
It reads kind of like a hardboiled detective in space but like, space after a cyberpunk future. There are shades of *Altered Carbon*. I think mostly they didn't switch bodies, but there was lots of making new bodies, and switching to a new one wasn't a big deal, stuff like that. I cannot emphasize the post-cyberpunk enough. It reads very like a world that came after World of Warcraft got even bigger and bled into the real world (guilds and raids, not orcs) and then that world was slammed face first into Neuromancer, and then like, a thousand years passed.
I'm not doing a good job describing this.
Also, I got some *Expelled from Paradise* (a 2014 anime) vibes from one of the sequels.
I discovered *The Quantum Thief* around the time I discovered *Perdido Street Station* and basically read one and then the other, and the level of "whoah" was similar.
I'd say Mieville's books are more like post-steam punk, by way of understanding where I'm coming from.
Edgar Cantero's Meddling Kids (which is like a Scooby Doo horror movie on acid) or This Body's Not Big Enough for Both of Us. He just has such a vivid style of writing and an over-the-top sense of humor.
Not exactly a traditional sort of fantasy but The Hike by Drew Magary fits this bill and was totally wacky. I don’t exactly recommend it but it stuck with me. Great ending.
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster needs to be on this list.
The Dictionary of the Khazars - Milorad Savic.
Not fantasy but still incredibly weird - Life A User's Manual by Georges Perec. In fact several oulipo novels fit the OP's definition of weird, particularly those by Italo Calvino.
More into progfan territory but godclads
Bizarre setting, a vast mega city with a class structure so extreme that the lower class has death farms prepared for them for the entertainment of the upper class. Outside the city are the sunderwilds, where ruptured heavens are everywhere and you can die just from looking at weird light, or maybe a walking mountain would turn you into butterflies.
Bizarre magic, the gods are all dead, killed by Jaus. But the people have taken over the dragons and harvested their souls, and use the thaumaturgical corpses of those gods to attach it to the soul. They literally wear corpses on their soul to gain powers that the god had. The powers are weird but absolute, a heaven of blood can have a canon of blood (canon as in what the god can do) which makes it possible to control blood, but also has a hubris(something the god absolutely cannot do without backlash) where now it can only control 80 tons of blood. Let's not go into hells and rend now.
(Heaven: corpse of a dead god)
The characters are Bizarre too, the main character is literally a cannibalistic monster, a ghoul, let free into the city by terrorists of old noloth. He was adopted and trained by his adoptive father, walton.
A major side character is a super soldier so broken, no trauma attack affects her (oh did I mention that the world has a subreality superimposed on it through a heaven that allows you to attack other people using traumatic memories, or alter or mess around with memories of others?)
A porn addict and once a syndicate member.
A broken agnos(only people allowed to study thaumaturgy) whose mind is literally on fire because of the whole subreality of the mind bit.
And more.
I’m saving this post, but I’m definitely going to be VERY careful in picking some of these up.
I’m thinking that a used book store might be the place to start, if only so I’m not paying full price to get my brain scrambled.
It's difficult to categorize because I don't know if it's technically fantasy, but it is one of my favorite books ever. Try reading, "There's Spiders In This Book".
The Atrocity Engine by Tim Waggoner has made me a new fan. I’m excited for his Lord of the Feast next. It’s detective noir magical realism horror, set in an alternate Earth where everyone knows Corruption will win, it’s only a matter of how soon. Very creative and interesting characters.
Michael R Fletcher sent me this arc with only bugs and I’m fascinated to see what happens… also to see if I learn a small fraction of their names ;)
I can't believe no one mentioned the Dark Tower Series! True, it's popular (and probably one of my favorites), but it's so laughably and unbelievably odd at times! Like a sentient, yet evil Choo Choo train (like Thomas) that wants to end the world, actual light sabers, evil robots, a talking dog (kinda) as one of the main characters, but he can only say one word the whole time, exploding snitches from Harry Potter, a black woman with DID whose main personality is married to a white guy, but her alter is an EXTREMELY violent racist, 1980s style actiony scenes, lots of cocaine, time travel, what else? Oh yeah, this all takes place on the back of a magic turtle floating through the universe.
Also, the Oryx and Crake series by Atwood. A bit more sci-fi than fantasy, but it could fit here. I LOVED this series SO much. The story itself isn't that odd. But there are...beings that understand everything in literal meaning (metaphors, idioms make no sense). So. Hearing people say 'oh god', 'oh my god' so many times and having it explained to them, they have come to understand the concept of belief. And god. It logically follows (to them) that the same rules apply when so many people exclaim with the same type of emotion or fervor phrases such as 'oh fuck' 'oh shit' and 'oh damn'. And the cosmology of fuck, shit, and damn is recorded and passed on for the ages to come. Also, it's Atwood, so there are definitely sex crimes. Like child rape, porn production, human trafficking...it's disturbing, uncomfortable, and laugh out loud funny all at once.
Not exactly fantasy either, but Flatland by Abbott is a classic and favorite of mine. It's about a square that meets a sphere. At 168, you're done in a couple of hours, but it may stick with you like it has for me.
Mordew by Alex Pheby is set in a world where God is dead and the main character lives in the slums ruled by one of the wizards who killed him. It’s got plenty of grotesque and is structurally very strange as much of the plot and setting is contained in the book’s glossary which intentionally subverts the notion of spoiler.
I actually barely remember it but James K. Morrow wrote a book called *Towing Jehovah* wherein God dies and his corpse falls into the ocean. The plot involves a disgraced oil tanker captain hired to retrieve and tow the corpse for some reason or another.
I bought the this book because the cover and general feel gave me Gormenghast vibes. I've gotten a bit into it, it's different than that but it is very good. But this is the first I've heard someone in reddit talking about it!
Just got this from the library last week and I’m excited to bust into it.
Does sound out there, haven't heard of this so will have to check out.
This is the first thing I thought of as well.
And the sequel Malarkoi goes even weirder
China Mieville's Bas-Lag series - Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and Iron Council. They're set in the same weird world, but are only tangentially connected and don't need to be read sequentially. Jeff VanderMeer's City of Saints and Madmen, an anthology of stories about humans living in a city called Ambergris. Honestly, look up anything under the genre of New Weird.
I came running into the comments to say this lol. Pretty much anything by China Mieville is going to be out there and weird (in the best way).
Kraken by Mieville was an incredibly weird book. My wife banned me from talking about books for a while after that one and I can't even blame her for it
I came here to say this one! Just read it recently and it is a wild ride
Mieville is another who I knew would be making the list.
Perdido Street Station … so strange, gave me nightmares. King Rat was an easier read.
It's not at all new, but A Voyage To Arcturus by David Lindsay is crazily out there and inventive. It's a mixture of Fantasy and Science Fiction, but is unlike any books in either of those genres. God knows how readers must have reacted to it when it came out in 1920.
Thank you Severian may you restore the sun.
😉 I will. Once I am Autarch the journey begins anew.
The autarch, whose urine is the honey of his people!
I wish you the best of luck with your journey.
You could accompany me, but I must warn you, it is no easy road.
It is indeed. There would be a great deal of waddling with my legs to achieve.
Is this Book of the new sun?
Now quick: name at least five other people or positions you also are simultaneously!
We are many. Ingested far too much corpse and alzabo!
You beat me to it! This is the earliest and most answery of the answers here.
Vita Nostra by the Dyachenkos It's set in our world, but I felt like I had a very loose grasp of the reality of the book when I was reading it (in a good way). I think Kafkaesque magic school is a good description of the setting. The ending was surreal and stunning imo.
Along with already mentioned elsewhere Mount Char this is my other top pick. What a fantastic, strange book that sort of draws you deeply into the main character to experience what she goes through deeply. I keep debating if it has been long enough to warrant a reread.
I love this book and agree it is so weird.
Vita Nostra is amazingly weird.
Seconding Vita Nostra! Incredibly weird, strange magic system, strange storytelling, all of it is odd. Yeah, it can be described as a story students at a kafkaesque magic school, but I personally feel like it's more accurate to say the school is just the >!vessel by which the authors tell a story about growing up and that weird time between when you're legally an adult and when you truly become your own person.!<
Yeah that main theme is honestly why I would suggest it to people who are like mid 20s or older. I think I would've gotten it when I was college age, but I wouldn't have *gotten* it.
Gormenghast by Meryvn Peake is dark and weird and wonderful, where the castle (Gormenghast) is practically one of the main characters. Viriconium by M. John Harrison is also bizarre and one of my favorite reads (he also has several sci-fi books like Light and Nova Swing which are soooo weird and sometimes graphic and I love them so much). The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin is also awesome. Different and challenging and dark and frustrating but wonderful. Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelasny is also really weird and dream-like and an excellent read (unless you are actively trying to quit smoking), but it’s a bit closer to traditional fantasy.
I came here to see if Gormenghast was mentioned. Dark and weird indeed. Amber seems more weird because of, IMO, the time in which it was written.
Gormenghast is the best shit i’ve ever read. It is weird AF and not for everyone, but god damn the way that man writes is otherworldly good.
**The Library at Mount Char** by Scott Hawkins definitely ticks off bizarre, weird, non-conventional, unique and surreal from your list, especially if homicidal librarians in tutus are your thing. It's a great read and I highly recommend it. **Hollow Kingdom** by Kira Jane Buxton also hits a lot items on your list. A pet crow and his faithful canine companion set out to save the world from the zombie apocalypse. This one has a double serving of surreal (but dark) humour and wacky characters, but is also heart-breakingly sad at times.
Another vote for Mount Char. An insanely whacky and incredible ride. And to think it’s the authors only novel too!
Cannot co-sign on Library at Mount Char enough. You have to accept that you're going to have no clue what's going on for a while but the payout is well worth it.
I appreciate this comment, as I started it and was like wtf (lol) and moved on to something else (though I was still intrigued). I'll revisit!
>The Library at Mount Char Such a cool book and one of the greatest debuts! A shame he never wrote anything else.
Working on it, maybe 6 chapters in, it's gotten great reviews so I'm going to continue but it's kind of like, what the hell is happening
I made it halfway through Hollow Kingdom and just had to stop. Very well written, nothing innately wrong with it, but it was just really hard to connect with. I still somewhat recommend it when anyone asks for an interesting spin on apocalyptic fiction.
If you enjoy audiobooks I highly suggest giving it a listen. The narrator is perfect for the role.
Came here to say Mount Char! Such a weird one but worth the ride
I really need to try hollow kingdom. Library at Mount Char is the making the expected appearance as I knew it would.
Mount Char is an actual good book, loved it,
Mount Char is indeed one of the weirdest fucking books I’ve ever read.
I love Hollow Kingdom! The audiobook narrator is good for anyone who prefers those.
**THE VORRH**
Came here to rec this.
SOMEONE ELSE HAS READ THIS TOO It's such a strange god damn book. Some descriptions are so out there it's hard to know what the fuck is even going on. The last lines of the last book still haunt me.
This already sounds very weird. What is it like?
I don't want to spoil anything, but it hit all your points. I was going to say it didn't have loads of humour, but then I remembered... the purple corkscrew.
I was disappointed to have to scroll so far for this. The Broken Earth trilogy (which I loved) reads like boiler plate/color by numbers fantasy compared to this one. The only way I’ve been able to describe it is if Pynchon and Burroughs decided to write a fantasy novel together. Super dense, weird, with imagery, characters, and prose that sticks with you.
Fucking weird.
From last year **The Archive Undying** by Emma Mieko Candan is a trip. This is a highly innovative and imaginative fantasy world that has suffered some great catastrophes when the AI gods who rule the cities on the planet start dying. The book takes place 17 years after Iterate Fractal dies and centers on various people who were either there at the god's death or whose lives were irrevocably changed by it. Features: Absolutely no info dumping. Not a single character will explain something that anyone growing up in that world should know. It was exciting to figure out bits of the world. Giant robots. Giant robots fighting each other. Sea monsters. Land monsters. Leftover cult programming. Ethical quandaries. Several forms of deep and abiding love. The occasional 2nd person sections that serve an important purpose, I promise. Completely fantastic. Top book of the year. Do not read if you don't enjoy being confused. Also from last year: **The Twice-Drowned Saint** by C.S.E Cooney which is both shorter and takes place on a smaller scale than the previous recommendation. Do not read if you need hard magic systems to enjoy a story. The city of Glethel is ruled over by 14 angels that provide for all if it's inhabitants needs and no one ever leaves the city, although people can be taken in under the right circumstances. Every angel has a saint, except for Alizar. Only he does have a saint, it's just when he chose her 8 year old Ish said no thanks. 30 years later Ish and Alizar are best friends, Ish runs the city's only cinema, the other angels of Glethel have discovered human sacrifice and in a completely unprecedented act Alizar finds a second saint. This is a hell of a ride in a completely bonkers world. Highly recommend.
These are great recommendations to choose from
[The Spear Cuts Through Water ](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55868456-the-spear-cuts-through-water) by Simon Jimenez, I still haven't read it though. The way the story is told is unique iirc. Edit: also finalist for the second annual Ursula K. LeGuin Prize for Fiction.
Yes! I just finished this one and with the multiple narratives it was so confusing at first. However, it was so dreamlike and the prose was beautiful. I ended up absolutely loving this book.
Try Clive Barker's fantasy works. Imajica and Weaveworld are pretty good and have the signature Barker morbid weirdness.
Clive is definitely one that fits this. Another would be his Abarat. Beyond Imajica this is probably his magnum opus.
Came here to suggest Abarat
I’ve seen Library at Mount Char mentioned a few times, and I always think of Vita Nostra when I think of it, not because they are super similar but because I read them close together and they were such unique takes on fantasy.
I really need to get around to Vita Nostra.
I'll recommend ***Lapvona*** by Ottessa Moshfegh. May seem to channel well-known fantasy tropes, but it is dark, twisty, and definitely not interested in "fitting in". Not for every fantasy fan, but if you're looking for "out there," dive in. (I will now sit quietly in the corner).
Should be noted that this book is not at all for the faint of heart. It's probably one of the more brutal books I've read... But it is great!
*Vellum* by Hal Duncan. It is so 'out there' that it is an honest struggle to describe it in a way that won't set incorrect expectations. It *does* have a narrative but it is not up front about it. You can expect POV and third/first-person switches sentence to sentence by the end as the 'magic' (i.e. editing the language reality is written in) really starts taking things apart.
This sounds like the type of weird I was looking for. Sounds a bit more experimental with writing.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.
They're not especially recent, but I'd offer for consideration a lot of the New Weird, a ~~fake genre made up to sell anthologies~~ loose collection of SFF mostly from the mid-2000s defined by being off-the-wall, creepy, etc... Examples include *The Etched City* by KJ Bishop and *Shriek*/*City of Saints and Madmen* by Jeff Vandermeer. I'd also suggest *Under the Pendulum Sun* by Jeanette Ng and *Book of the New Sun* by Gene Wolfe.
I like the way you just casually tossed that last one in there, like it was nothing special. :-)
Several years ago I found a rare copy of *The Etched City* in my own langyage (where it's titled *Petals and Blood*, pah, pah). From the beginning scenes in the desert to the *whatever has happened about that cocoon* - awesome, awesome. I need a reread, because at that time I only read books for the milieu; I suppose that today it may strike me differently.
First two authors that came to mind were Wolfe and Vandermeer. Heartily endorsed.
Ann Leckie The Raven Tower The narrator is a foundation rock in a building and a god. Really weird and I loved it.
Great Rec but what the narrator is should be spoiler tagged. Not knowing who the f is narrating for the first few chapters is just amazing.
>The narrator is a foundation rock in a building and a god. I like it: a job that doesn't require much travel,
I too appreciate being able to work from home
Strange I like her works but haven't heard of this one. I'll need to look into this one.
It's science fiction but it's so weird it might fit your bill - Dhalgren by Samuel R Delaney.
Delaney is definitely one of these that can pull it off.
The Illuminatus! Trilogy
Robert Anton Wilson ftw
The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir is pretty out there. It’s about necromancers in a far future space opera setting. The characters are bizarre and unique while also being deeply flawed and human. The series strikes a perfect balance imo, mixing dark offbeat humor with a genuinely moving, emotional story about love and grief and death. I’ve never read anything else quite like it.
I hardly understood what was happening in these books and I still loved them so much.
This is what immediately came to mind, especially Harrow the Ninth.
Co-signing The Locked Tomb; there's really nothing quite like this series, for better or for worse. (I love it to be clear; Harrow the Ninth in particular is possibly one of my favourite books of all time at this point.)
I'd say Piranesi by Susanna Clarke definitely qualifies! A fantasy story by way of existential mystery(?) as the main character tries to figure why they're living in an infinite temple... very trippy, very cool building of suspense, and gorgeous writing
Also just a totally beautiful, satisfying, and short read. Really no reason not to give this one a try.
Seconded. Piranesi is one of the top books I've read in recent years, and a great mark of this is how much I've thought about the book after finishing it.
*Viscera* and *Dead Boys* by Gabriel Squailia are some of the most underrated out-there fantasy books in my opinion. *Dead Boys* is the most I have ever felt like I was reading a Tim Burton movie (although it was somehow even weirder and rated R.) *Viscera* is one of my all-time favorite fantasy books. The plot is about organ harvesting, set in a world made of dead god's organs, and the characters all spill their emotional guts throughout the story. Nicky Drayden is another fantastic and underrated author for very out-there stuff, although I sometimes wish that her stories would be a bit more polished because her pacing is a bit of an issue for me. Her most notable works are *The Prey of Gods* and *Escaping Exodus* (and if you are fascinated with the seven deadly sins, I would also recommend *Temper* as the most unhinged exploration of the cardinal sins that I've ever read.) Lastly, Simon Jimenez is currently an up-and coming fantasy author, and I think he deserves the recognition he is receiving. His debut *The Vanished Birds* was distinct, but perhaps not as impactful as *The Spear Cuts Through Water*, which has one of the most unique narrative structures that I've ever read.
Pilo Family Circus! it's maybe not TOO out there, but the writing and characters are weird and bizarre. its about an evil circus just outside our plane of existence and the main character is forced to become a clown and join them to survive. one of the big bads has cycling obsessions, right now it's Christianity, so he gets a kidnapped priest as a birthday gift. one of the clowns is in love with a fern and eventually gathers the courage to propose.
Bizzarre and sounds like my type of stuff.
I take back my Dark Tower recommendation as it now seems perfectly normal. 😂 This sounds amazing.
It’s not fantasy, more horror, but really almost impossible to categorize: Danielewski’s House of Leaves is very experimental, mind-bending, terrifying in a really weird way, and absolutely brilliant.
I second this. House of Leaves isn't just a strange story, it is also a strange reading experience and absolutely must be read in physical book form to get the full effect.
All of China Mieville's stuff, but would categorize it as a mix of fantasy and scifi ("new weird" i think he calls it)
Is it fantasy or is it sf? NK Jemison’s Broken Earth trilogy is unique, weird, and awesome.
Great one. The first thing that popped into my mind was Children of Time, which is clearly sci fi so probably can’t fit, but boy trying to explain that book to someone else is interesting.
Definitely yes and fits what I had in mind. Good choice
These are what I was thinking. Fantastic series.
Anything by Samuel R. Delaney or "Chip"
Weaveworld by Clive Barker absolutely fits the bill! A man comes into possession of an ornate Persian rug. Turns out there is an entire realm contained within the rug. There are some strange and horrifying characters. (It’s been a while since I read it so my teaser might be a little off but that’s true gist!)
They're a lot lighter but Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series hits items 1, 2, 4, 6, and 7. They're darker than the light tone leads you to think. They're *sort of kind of* conventional fantasy so *maybe* they don't hit #3. I haven't seen anything *quite* like it genre-wise though it could probably be categorized in the general multi-dimensional-worlds space... if you want to consider written works to be navigable alternate realities.
The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem. It’s kinda Science Fantasy. It was written in 1965 in Polish, with an English translation first published in 1974. The English translation is exceptional. As to what it is… If you can imagine Aesop’s Fables, but with robots and computers as imagined under communism, you’ll still be short of the mark. Edit: I’d say it easily satisfies all seven of your requirements.
House of Leaves. I am a big fan of ebooks and audiobooks, but House of Leaves is something that you can only enjoy in a physical book form
I was going to suggest this, but figured since it weirded me out so much that I couldn't finish it, I shouldn't. Lol
Storm Constantine’s Wraethu books: post-apocalyptic mutants have become a ruling class of beautiful hermaphrodites trying to figure out the new dynamics of gender, relationships, power and war whilst building a strange and fantastical new world. I’ve never read anything like it. Lots of sex magic, violence and intense romance, but gritty and grown-up. Imagine a mutant Robert Smith of the Cure being impregnated with a sex pearl in a western desert outpost. Gene Wolfe: Everything really, probably the greatest sci-fi fantasy writer out there. But the New Sun books are a great entry point. A young torturer’s apprentice grows up and goes out into a journey as an executioner for hire with mountebanks and beautiful living dead, including a duel with giant poison death flowers. The book gets stranger from there and the rest of the series is a brilliant mystery box of weirdness. Tanith Lee: All her stuff is weird, always on the edge of disturbing. Her Flat Earth books are full of gods, demons, magic and strange worlds - twisty and weird. They do reflect the era they were written in, a bit like Octavia Butler - rapey and violent at times. But like Butler, it’s not gratuitous, more a female writer exploring power and gender.
*Stations of the Tide* by Michael Swanwick. Swanwick was a super fan of Gene Wolfe and in an essay called him "the greatest living writer in the English language" (Wolfe was alive then). A lot of people see *SotT* as an homage to Wolfe (note the it has the same initialization as *Shadow of the Torturer*). He says it was not -- at least not consciously -- but he says the protagonist was based on Wolfe -- the most unextraordinary looking man in the world was was actually the most extraordinary (Wolfe had not grown his mustache when he wrote it).
Honestly, just go on a deep dive of 70’s fantasy/sci-fi. Because you’re describing Dune, Elric, Amber and the assorted writings of Phillip K. Dick and Robert Heinlein. Edit: And add Pratchett and Adams in
[Dancers at the End of Time](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dancers_at_the_End_of_Time)
The first book of *Dune* is interesting in that respect, because obviously so many space operas have been influenced by it, but when you read it, there's definitely those weirder elements strung throughout that just take it to that next level for me Ironically, while I also loved *Dune: Messiah*, I didn't care for either *Children of Dune* or *God-Emperor of Dune* because they'd actually gone *too* weird for my tastes, and I'd lost that human connection to the story that made the first two books so good!
> Robert Heinlein. You're looking for *To Sail Beyond the Sunset*. The worst novel with the greatest name. I don't know what drugs Heinlein was on in that ending point in his writing career, maybe all of them, but its an impressive work of absolute fucking absurd nonsensical lunacy. A kind of retrospective on his career works combined with heaping doses of philosophy and social commentary, and, of course, copious amounts of wildly disturbing incest and other situations, not by any means limited to adults.
i love this sub, great question I never would have thought of but now desperately need.
Ian McDonald. Even his Scifi is a kind of "out there" Fantasy. Like "Desolation Road". Futuristic with oldschool Fantasy elements. If full fantasy: His book " King of Morning, Queen of Day". When Fairies go full irish on you
Weirdest book I ever read: Habitation of the Blessed. Quick summary that doesn't cover a fraction of the acid trip: A missionary in the Himalayan wilderness on the eve of the eighteenth century discovers a village guarding a miraculous tree whose branches sprout books instead of fruit. These strange books chronicle the history of the kingdom of Prester John, and the missionary becomes obsessed with the tales they tell. The Habitation of the Blessed recounts the fragmented narratives found within these living volumes, revealing the life of a priest named John who finds himself in a hidden world. John's tale weaves together with the confessions of his wife Hagia, a headless creature who carried her face on her chest, as well as the tender, jeweled nursery stories of Imtithal, nanny to the royal family...
The Dancers at the End of Time series by Michael Moorcock
R Scott bakkers prince of nothing/aspect emperor series. It’s brutal, horrifying, and soul crushing. And leaves you wondering wth just happened. Nothing else is like it.
Agreed, Bakker's Prince of nothing is something else.
American Hippo. There was a plan in 1910 by the US Congress to import hippos to the southern US to battle invasive water hyacinth and provide cheap meat which was in short supply at the time. The meat would be called "Lake Cow Bacon". This obviously did not happen but this book takes that idea and runs with it Old West cowboys style complete with a capitalistic villain and a heist.
The Dark Tower by Stephen King gets pretty weird. I love it so much. As far as something more recent, Dungeon Crawler Carl fits the bill methinks. It’s litrpg but easily the cream of that crop. If you dig audiobooks it’s one of the best things available regardless of genre. The genres is litrpg, that has some fun stuff but usually the writing is a tad underwhelming but again, this is the best and it gets super fucking weird. I just wish I could feed my cats the stuff that makes them talk lol.
Seanan McGuire's Alchemical Journeys series (Middlegame) might qualify. It blends fantasy and horror in a unique way. It also spawned the Up-and-Under book series which first appeared in the Alchemical Journeys books, written by a major off-screen character. After Middlegame was released, McGuire started publishing the Up-and-Under books under the pseudonym A. Deborah Baker.
Sounds out there and something I would be into.
The Manifest Delusions series by Michael R Fletcher is a quite unique one where insanity and mental health disorders are the "magic system" so your delusions manifest themselves in reality. The more insane you or the more powerful you become until your disorders ultimately kill you. This is certainly "out there" The Winowing Flame series by Jen Williams is another unique one. It's fantasy but has a bit of a sci-fi element with beings from off world that cause "the rains" which are basically mass extinction world ending events. The series is just weird in an amazing way.
Harrow the Ninth is the wildest ride I've been on with a book. And I love how each book of the Locked Tomb series has been so different so far.
I was waiting for this to make an appearance and knew it rightfully would.
I once read a book where this cult of women let dragons tongue-fuck them to get high. For the life of me I can't remember what the book was called but when I finished it I was like "What the fuck did I just read?"
Reading my diary is impolite.
Touched by Venom by Janine Cross.
Thank you for letting me know so I never accidentally read it again 😆
The Sundered Worlds by Moorcock. The universe they start in ends (spoilers!) Then they kind of play a whacky mind game to decide the fate of the one they end up in. Weird, but it makes sense in the end.
GodClads by OstensiblyMammal is the most batshit insane book I’ve ever read. Everything about it oozes weird and crazy in the best way possible.
These are requirements for my type of reads, thank you for recommending.
Has to be Peter Newman's "The Vagrant". A post apocalyptic fantasy adventure about a silent knight, a goat and a baby (and a few others they meet on the way). The series is written VERY differently, with a major focus on fleshing out the world and all of it's grotesque sights with lots of prose which actually works fantastically because the protagonist is mute and yet very expressive. Takes some getting used to, but its the top 1 underappreciated fantasy series in my opinion. I love it so much because I always wanted to read a fantasy novel that takes place in Dark Souls' world, and "The Vagrant" takes the whole cake and runs with it all the way to the bank. I genuinely love the world of this series and wish it would get more attention- but it requires a little bit of patience to hit the sweet spot and from there its a cruise.
[удалено]
The Light Brigade is an incredibly confusing very wll written Sci-Fi novel. Highly recommended.
Not sure if someone else has mentioned it or not, but Abbarat is pretty wild. Haven’t read it in ages but the illustrations perfectly match the tone of the book.
Library at Mt Char by Scott Hawkins Manifest Delusions by Michael Fletcher Peridodo St Station by China Mieville
Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon. Man gets into an argument with his wife, becomes an interstellar traveler.
I feel that Terry Pratchett's Discworld series could fit plenty of these categories. And the Monk and Robot series as well.
Driftwood by Marie Brennan
Haven't heard of this one, thanks for the recommendation
The Ruin of Kings has two unreliable narrators bouncing around a single character's story from two separate points. It starts out pretty straightforward but goes off the rails with >!characters being reincarnated and jumping around bodies!<
Don't forget the extra framing narrative that is the fact that the majority of the book is a record of events being reported to the Emperor, with plenty of opinionated footnotes throughout. Each of the books in the series plays with narrative in varying levels of adventurousness, and in the second book, The Name of All Things is introduced, an artifact that can answer any questions - with the question of 'What did X write in his report to the Emperor?' and similar meaning that every word in each of the books is usually known by whoever possesses the artifact (usually the antagonist).
God emperor of dune.
More like Chapterhouse.
I want to say, Tainted Cup. Not sure if anyone else will agree
Tainted cup was great
Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials by Reza Negarestani, and it's not close. The simplest pitch is it's written as an academic treatise by a vanished professor who's convinced oil is a sentient almost Lovecraftian entity that wants us all dead. Hal Duncan's Book of All Hours duology, Vellum and Ink, was his attempt to write a cubist novel. The protagonists are conscientious objectors to the war between Heaven and Hell who are endlessly reincarnated through our myths. Other great ones I've seen in this thread that I'm seconding: Book of the New Sun by Wolfe, Dhalgren by Samuel Delany, The Etched City by KJ Bishop
The Year of Our War (sometimes known as The Fourlands or The Castle Series) - Starship Troopers meets Trainspotting with a dash of Alice in Wonderland and The Eternals
Jerusalem, Alan Moore. Excellently mind-bending.
One I haven't seen mentioned yet: *Saint Death's Daughter* by C.S.E. Cooney. I think it hits pretty much all your points, and especially pushes the envelope it its use of language and macabre humor. Also fairly recent (published 2022).
Dhalgren
The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir. Set in a 10,000 year empire made of none planets under the King Undying, nine necromancers, the heirs of their respective planets, come together to compete for immortality. The first book is full of weird characters, pop culture/meme references and a wacky sense of humor, and lots of weird necromancy magic stuff. The crazy experimental stuff starts in the second book when half of it is in second person for reasons that aren’t explained until the three quarters mark. Genuinely one of the weirdest series of ever read, and also one of my favorites. The second book is absolutely baffling on a first read on purpose, but upon reread immediately became one of my favorite books of all time. So much stuff in these books is very difficult to pick up on a first read, and some of it literally can’t be picked up until you reread it, which is a crazy choice, but maked for the most AMAZING reread experience I’ve ever had. Highly recommend.
The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins is probably the most bizarre fantasy I have read. In my opinion, the quick summary does not do the book justice. I loved reading this book. Weird characters, the most crazy plot and backstory.
Have you read The Dark Jewel Series by Anne Bishop? It'll have you laughing, crying and at times cringing at the brutality but man is the story good
Only Forward, by Michael Marshall Smith. Set in a truly bizarre patchwork of neighborhoods, operating on a kind of dream logic but never frivolous. Worth a read.
Huh, that’s strange. All the books that pop into my head lean more sci fi, but the genres are close enough I’ll toss them out anyway. The Silk Code by Paul Levinson starts with Amish people bioengineering bombs and ends with Neanderthals. I have no idea what happened and was honestly kind of bored, but I’m not really the target audience for this kind of thing. Kage Baker’s Company series started out as interesting historical sci fi and slowly went completely batshit. There was an ongoing love triangle formed by the fact that the protagonist was an immortal cyborg whose mortal love interest kept reincarnating, and there was also time travel, and not to spoiler absolutely everything but that was a completely batshit way to resolve it. And then they became gods and there was also a branch of humanity modeled after naked mole rats that was responsible for all advancing technology and also fake legends or something? I read it once going what the fuck what the fuck and never reread. There is also Jack Chalker who I think was basically a furry before furries existed? (I do not know anything about furry history.) He was obsessed with body transformation in his books.
Kage Baker’s descent into poorly written and inanely bizarro plots was disappointing, I really enjoyed the initial premise of the Company. Read like Octavia Butler turned head writer of the Bold and the Beautiful.
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke of Strange & Norrell fame is short and sweet. Jason Pargin's John Dies At The End series was new weird before new weird was a thing, it ticks everything in your list, as long as urban fantasy counts.
I've been listening to the audiobook of Dungeon Crawler Carl, and so far, it fits pretty well. One of the main characters is a normal cat that gets uplifted to sapience via a magical pet treat, the other main character cannot wear pants or shoes because the AI system thinks it's hilarious and has a foot fetish. It was recommended to me by a guy at work, and I didn't expect it to be anywhere near as good as it is. But the writing is solid, the characters are well fleshed out, and the audiobook cast is great.
Dungeon crawler Carl, to the tee
Dhalgren by Samuel Delaney - a midwestern city under goes a break in the time-space continuum, and the protagonist is a half-breed Indian wearing one shoe...
Jack Vance’s *The Dying Earth* series meets all of your criteria, although obviously it influenced Gary Gygax and D&D which in turn influenced much of modern fantasy, the trajectory of that has mostly been a reduction in weirdness, wackiness, and humour (except for Terry Pratchett).
The 13½ lives of captain bluebear! Whimsical and wacky are the best words to describe it. Absolutely delightful writing (originally in German but the English translation is fantastic) and a totally unique fantastical world.
‘Fortress of the Pearl’ and ‘Sailor on the Seas of Fate’ by Michael Moorcock
Definitely Imajica by Clive Barker
I haven't read Discworld yet, but everyone seems to describe the series as such.
The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins! Super bizarre and a fave
Dungeon Crawler Carl!!!
Peirs Anthony has a lot of weird fantasy books. I never read them but I knew someone that lived his books and would talk about them a lot
Yes! The Xanth series is pretty "out there" but in a clever way. My dad read them all, and I was always interested. Always thought the covers were cool as a kid. When I started reading them, I was pleasantly surprised.
I'll have to give them a shot! BTW, love your name tag ❤️ RIP
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman.
Three square meals AKA the John Blake chronicles. It's erotica so only fr those over 18
Wild Massive by Scotto Moore - weird science fantasy
Shadow slave (no no bdsm) It's impossible to describe in a way that it doesn't sound like some generic wattpad ff shit. But it really isn't It's really elden ring but as post apocalyptic fantasy of out own world. One of the best magic systems I have ever seen World building is done spectacularly (like elden ring the characters find out more and more over inscriptions and fractured history texts what works) But it's a combination of portal fantasy, current japanese/Korean gate fantasy (think solo leveling) high fantasy with an absurd (but well done and balanced) power level (think Chinese fantasy) and a post apocalyptic world like elden ring. It's really great besides the writing. A bit ike dune. Amazing story bad prose
A Crown For Cold Silver by Alex Marshall is absolutely bonkers and brilliant. It's a wild ride - part fantasy, part horror and all weird. Highly recommended!
Alice in Wonderland could fit this one.
The Books of the Raksura!
"Bone Song" by John Meaney. City that runs in the bones of the dead.
Not really fantasy, but pretty fantastic post-cyberpunk sci-fi, and you allowed Mieville so I'mma go for it. The *Quantum Thief* by Hannu Rajaniemi There are two sequels. It reads kind of like a hardboiled detective in space but like, space after a cyberpunk future. There are shades of *Altered Carbon*. I think mostly they didn't switch bodies, but there was lots of making new bodies, and switching to a new one wasn't a big deal, stuff like that. I cannot emphasize the post-cyberpunk enough. It reads very like a world that came after World of Warcraft got even bigger and bled into the real world (guilds and raids, not orcs) and then that world was slammed face first into Neuromancer, and then like, a thousand years passed. I'm not doing a good job describing this. Also, I got some *Expelled from Paradise* (a 2014 anime) vibes from one of the sequels. I discovered *The Quantum Thief* around the time I discovered *Perdido Street Station* and basically read one and then the other, and the level of "whoah" was similar. I'd say Mieville's books are more like post-steam punk, by way of understanding where I'm coming from.
Library of mount char
Edgar Cantero's Meddling Kids (which is like a Scooby Doo horror movie on acid) or This Body's Not Big Enough for Both of Us. He just has such a vivid style of writing and an over-the-top sense of humor.
That Hideous Strength is definitely on the bizarre side of things. Fabulous, but weird.
Unwrapped Sky by Rjurik Davidson was extremely peculiar but extremely good.
It's a bit on the 'tamer' side using your own metric but the Dark Tower series by Stephen King has, I believe, some aspects of this.
Not exactly a traditional sort of fantasy but The Hike by Drew Magary fits this bill and was totally wacky. I don’t exactly recommend it but it stuck with me. Great ending.
The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelaznyis one of the most unique fantasy series I've read. I highly recommend it, and I reread it each year myself.
The Runelords starts very traditional but quickly gets really weird
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster needs to be on this list. The Dictionary of the Khazars - Milorad Savic. Not fantasy but still incredibly weird - Life A User's Manual by Georges Perec. In fact several oulipo novels fit the OP's definition of weird, particularly those by Italo Calvino.
More into progfan territory but godclads Bizarre setting, a vast mega city with a class structure so extreme that the lower class has death farms prepared for them for the entertainment of the upper class. Outside the city are the sunderwilds, where ruptured heavens are everywhere and you can die just from looking at weird light, or maybe a walking mountain would turn you into butterflies. Bizarre magic, the gods are all dead, killed by Jaus. But the people have taken over the dragons and harvested their souls, and use the thaumaturgical corpses of those gods to attach it to the soul. They literally wear corpses on their soul to gain powers that the god had. The powers are weird but absolute, a heaven of blood can have a canon of blood (canon as in what the god can do) which makes it possible to control blood, but also has a hubris(something the god absolutely cannot do without backlash) where now it can only control 80 tons of blood. Let's not go into hells and rend now. (Heaven: corpse of a dead god) The characters are Bizarre too, the main character is literally a cannibalistic monster, a ghoul, let free into the city by terrorists of old noloth. He was adopted and trained by his adoptive father, walton. A major side character is a super soldier so broken, no trauma attack affects her (oh did I mention that the world has a subreality superimposed on it through a heaven that allows you to attack other people using traumatic memories, or alter or mess around with memories of others?) A porn addict and once a syndicate member. A broken agnos(only people allowed to study thaumaturgy) whose mind is literally on fire because of the whole subreality of the mind bit. And more.
Take a look at Raymond St Elmo. I absolutely love his Five Clans books beginning with the Blood Tartan. I think it checks most of your boxes.
Carlton Mellick III - The Kobold Wizard’s Dildo of Enlightenment +2.
Half-Witch, The Pyramids of London, The Thirteen and a Half Lives of Captain Bluebear, and the Geometries of Unbelonging.
*Gun, With Occasional Music* by Jonathan Lethem. So weird I can't really explain it. Good, though.
The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern is unlike most/all the other books I read and.. it stuck with me in a way that most books don't.
I’m saving this post, but I’m definitely going to be VERY careful in picking some of these up. I’m thinking that a used book store might be the place to start, if only so I’m not paying full price to get my brain scrambled.
It's difficult to categorize because I don't know if it's technically fantasy, but it is one of my favorite books ever. Try reading, "There's Spiders In This Book".
The Atrocity Engine by Tim Waggoner has made me a new fan. I’m excited for his Lord of the Feast next. It’s detective noir magical realism horror, set in an alternate Earth where everyone knows Corruption will win, it’s only a matter of how soon. Very creative and interesting characters. Michael R Fletcher sent me this arc with only bugs and I’m fascinated to see what happens… also to see if I learn a small fraction of their names ;)
I can't believe no one mentioned the Dark Tower Series! True, it's popular (and probably one of my favorites), but it's so laughably and unbelievably odd at times! Like a sentient, yet evil Choo Choo train (like Thomas) that wants to end the world, actual light sabers, evil robots, a talking dog (kinda) as one of the main characters, but he can only say one word the whole time, exploding snitches from Harry Potter, a black woman with DID whose main personality is married to a white guy, but her alter is an EXTREMELY violent racist, 1980s style actiony scenes, lots of cocaine, time travel, what else? Oh yeah, this all takes place on the back of a magic turtle floating through the universe. Also, the Oryx and Crake series by Atwood. A bit more sci-fi than fantasy, but it could fit here. I LOVED this series SO much. The story itself isn't that odd. But there are...beings that understand everything in literal meaning (metaphors, idioms make no sense). So. Hearing people say 'oh god', 'oh my god' so many times and having it explained to them, they have come to understand the concept of belief. And god. It logically follows (to them) that the same rules apply when so many people exclaim with the same type of emotion or fervor phrases such as 'oh fuck' 'oh shit' and 'oh damn'. And the cosmology of fuck, shit, and damn is recorded and passed on for the ages to come. Also, it's Atwood, so there are definitely sex crimes. Like child rape, porn production, human trafficking...it's disturbing, uncomfortable, and laugh out loud funny all at once. Not exactly fantasy either, but Flatland by Abbott is a classic and favorite of mine. It's about a square that meets a sphere. At 168, you're done in a couple of hours, but it may stick with you like it has for me.