As I myself am strange and unusual, I am a huge fan of weird books. Give me a WTF read any day of the week. I don’t even have to understand what is going on—if the writing is great, I’ll love it! I know that sounds, well, weird, but if it’s entertaining, logic is less important. (Don’t tell Spock.)
Recent favorite weird books include Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblein (trans. by Megan McDowell), and The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins (which Jeff recently called a “thought crime” but in a good way.) What is considered weird is subjective, that’s true, but these five books leave no room for doubt that they are strange. There’s an ancient goddess wreaking havoc during an AI uprising; an undead officer trying to stop evil forces; an unusual place full of all kinds of strange stuff; a stuffed hedgehog from outer space; and the adventures of a giant blue bear and some mini pirates.
The Vorrh by B. CatlingI originally picked up this debut book because it had something I had never, ever seen before: a blurb from Tom Waits. How did Catling manage that??! Come for the Waits recommendation, stay for the bananapants plot. It’s a fantasy about the world of Vorrh, a magical place where angels and demons exist, and supposedly the Garden of Eden might be there, plus there are priests, robots, warriors, a cyclops, humans, and more. I won’t lie, I didn’t understand what was going on a lot of the time, but I loved every second of it. |
The Prey of Gods by Nicky DraydenA-I-A-I-NO: This is a sci-fi debut set in South Africa, where a dangerous hallucinogenic drug is taking hold of citizens and the robots are threatening to be the new rulers. But first, five strangers must band together to defeat an ancient goddess (who has been hiding out in a nail salon) before she can destroy humanity. It’s a wild, wacky story, with a hallucinatory sex scene involving a crab and dolphin that will live rent-free in your head for the rest of your days. You’re welcome. |
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The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Blue Bear by Walter Moers, John Brownjohn (translator)So, imagine if Roald Dahl and Douglas Adams co-authored a book. Now amplify that idea by one hundred, and you get this novel. It’s about Captain Blue Bear’s adventures, which are absolutely packed with fantastical places and characters that make Alice’s time in Wonderland seem like watching paint dry. Sure, Alice had a caterpillar, but how would she handle the Mountain Maggot? |
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata, Ginny Tapley Takemori (translator)Sayaka Murata’s first novel to be translated into English, Convenience Store Woman, was the story of a woman who wanted to work her job and be left alone. Since it was straight-forward fiction, many readers were not prepared for Murata’s next translated work, this weird and alarming novel. It’s about a young woman whose childhood hedgehog toy, Piyyut, tells her that he is from the planet Popinpobopia, and only she can help save Earth. And then a lot of really strange and disturbing stuff happens. Like, A LOT. (You’ve been warned.) |
The Dawnhounds (The Endsong) by Sascha StronachAnd last, but not least, this Māori-inspired debut! Yat Jyn-Hok is a queer police officer who is murdered by two other police officers and thrown in the harbor. But Yat comes back to life. And now she has new supernatural abilities, which she will have to use to investigate and stop an evil that is taking over her city. Okay, still having to perform your job after you’re dead sounds like it sucks, but it works in this bonkers fantasy noir with an equally bonkers sequel. I am not sure I always understood it, but I loved it! |
If you need more unusual reads, check out 8 Weird Horror Novels for Super Strange Scares and 9 Books with Odd Plots.
Okay, star bits, now take the knowledge you have learned here today and use it for good, not evil. If you want to know more about books, I talk about books pretty much nonstop (when I’m not reading them), and you can hear me say lots of adjectives about them on the Book Riot podcast All the Books! and on Bluesky and Instagram.
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