Enjoy weird fiction overall, sci-fi and “horror” (in a very general sense). I like some Lovecraft, VanderMeers, Ballard, China Miéville, Samanta Schweblin, late William Gibson, Mariana Enríquez… what recent books or writers caught your eye that may loosely fit the term or are similar to works of the above authors? Can be in English, Portuguese or Spanish.
Self-Reference Engine by Toh Enjoe - this one stretches the limits of what a novel even is, it’s not like anything else I’ve ever read
The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts - the inhabitants of a generation ship rebel against the controlling computer to take charge of their lives
Transfinite Man by Colin Kapp - starts like a cloak-and-dagger detective novel, almost tropey, then goes off the rails into speculative science fiction
Ubik by Philip K. Dick - a classic of surrealism, often referenced directly and indirectly by other works
Permutation City by Greg Egan - ultimately an exploration of self-determination and personal trauma in a digital world - who do we become, if we have the freedom to be and do anything?
The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson - in my opinion the most compelling of Sanderson’s work
Einstein’s Bridge - a fictional exploration of the Einstein-Rosen bridge set in a timeline where the Superconducting Super Collider was not cancelled
Unflattening by Nick Sousanis - philosophy in a graphic novel, an exploration of identity and self-knowledge
The science in Permutation City is truly mind-warping, if you really try to wrap your head around it. One of my favourite books.
Egan’s short story collection Axiomatic is full of heavy concept scifi in a similar vein to it.
Yeah, knowing a fair bit about the way computers actually work at the hardware level, some of the details of how the virtual world functions are hand-wavy and kind of magic-disguised-as-technology. But Egan makes more of an effort to try to explain how the simulation works than most other fiction that describes similar virtual worlds - and ultimately the crux of the story is how people behave in a world of their own making.
You’re the only other person I’ve ever encountered who believes the emperor’s soul to be Sanderson’s best work. I really do think he thrives with the short story / novella length fiction in general, and it’s a shame he’s always going for the opposite. Emperor’s soul crams so much depth into such a compelling little story, I can’t believe how often it’s overlooked.
I enjoy Sanderson’s writing, his fantasy work is good. I think the brilliance of it is the consistent, expansive world-building that extends across his book series, which he’s really good at. I’m not knocking his other work at all.
But as a single work unto itself, I think The Emperor’s Soul is really a perfect story. The ideas presented at the beginning of the book are masterfully executed by the end.
I’m commenting so I may come back to this later.
that’s a lot! thanks for all these references!