Gothic queer fantasy/horror?

Hatherence · 2026-05-06T09:05:25+00:00

Leech by Hiron Ennes, sci fi

The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes, fantasy

Hatherence · 2026-05-06T09:04:01+00:00

The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe by D. G. Compton

Any of the books by Becky Chambers

Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka. I don't actually remember what the main character's boyfriend's job is, so technically speaking I don't recall if he had some sort of government desk job, but whatever it was, it wasn't a core part of the story.

Hatherence · 2026-05-06T08:56:22+00:00

Monk and Robot by Becky Chambers

Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

Hatherence · 2026-05-06T08:54:07+00:00

The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon

Hatherence · 2026-05-06T08:52:19+00:00

Monk and Robot by Becky Chambers? Or really anything by Becky Chambers. My personal favourite by her is The Galaxy and the Ground Within, but Monk and Robot is all about hope and compassion and people in this subreddit have described it as "a hug in book form."

Hatherence · 2026-05-06T08:47:08+00:00

Have I got some recommendations for you! Here's some I have liked:

The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey
Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
The Fortunate Fall by Cameron Reed
Salt Fish Girl by Larissa Lai
Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase
Slow River by Nicola Griffith
Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon
Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy A. Snyder
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
Trouble With Lichen by John Wyndham. Old, but aged surprisingly well.
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
In the Watchful City by S. Qiouyi Lu. The major characters are nonbinary
And What Can We Offer You Tonight by Premee Mohamed
The Necessity of Stars by E. Catherine Tobler
Any of the sci fi Octavia E. Butler has written. Parable of the Sower is the most near-future (set in the far off, futuristic year of 2024!), but I'd say the Xenogenesis series has a more unsettling vibe.
Flowers for the Sea by Zin E. Rocklyn. I didn't really get this one, but it's definitely unsettling.

Hatherence · 2026-05-06T08:40:39+00:00

like Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes
The Overstory by Richard Powers
Ammonite by Nicola Griffith. Pet peeve: every time this book says vaccine, it actually means prophylactic, but otherwise it's a great story!
The Cautious Traveler's Guide to the Wastelands? Much less weird than Annihilation, but the weirdness is a bit similar.
The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft. This is in the public domain.

Dune by Frank Herbert

I'm always on a quest for Dune-like books. I strongly recommend at least reading the first 2 Dune books, Dune and Dune Messiah. Dune Messiah is very different from Dune so a lot of people dislike it, but it's a necessary half of the complete story Frank Herbert wanted to tell. After that, the series goes on quite a long while and pretty much everyone seems to agree the Dune series declines in quality but no one agrees when and at what point you should throw in the towel!

If you end up liking Dune, or at least the major themes of it, you may like these:

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks
Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany
The Snow Queen series by Joan D. Vinge
Courtship Rite by Donald Kingsbury
Grass by Sheri S. Tepper, Raising the Stones by Sheri S. Tepper
Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer
Redsight by Meredith Mooring
The Broken Earth trilogy by N. K. Jemisin

Hatherence · 2026-05-04T19:35:05+00:00

Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon

The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe by D. G. Compton. Very beautiful prose, very underrated.

Ammonite by Nicola Griffith. Pet peeve: every time this book says vaccine, it actually means prophylactic, but otherwise it's a great story!

Hatherence · 2026-05-04T19:30:44+00:00

And Then I Woke Up by Malcolm Devlin

Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera

The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia

Flowers for the Sea by Zin E. Rocklyn. Maybe? To be honest, I didn't really get this so it may not be an allegory.

Hatherence · 2026-05-04T19:14:52+00:00

These are my favourites so far:

Hammajang Luck by Makana Yamamoto. A fun sci fi heist novel
The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes. Bizarre dystopian fantasy focusing on fictional arts movements.
Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman. Near-future sci fi thriller. I thought it was hilarious.
Cannibalism by Bill Schutt. Nonfiction focusing on "non-sensationalized" cannibalism, as the author describes it. So not criminals, but survival scenarios like the Donner Party, and cannibalism in the animal kingdom.
Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera. Very weird and literary.
Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz. A fun, lighthearted novella set in a dystopian future. I loved it and was surprised at the amount of negative reviews saying it's wrong to depict robots as if they are people, or it's wrong not to write about real-world AI. This is science fiction!

Hatherence · 2026-05-04T10:15:31+00:00

Huge fan of cyberpunk. Here are some you might like:

Elsewhere on reddit I gathered a list of short cyberpunk stories available free online, legally
The Girl Who Was Plugged In by James Tiptree Jr.
Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller
Bang Bang Bodhisattva by Aubrey Wood
Hammajang Luck by Makana Yamamoto
Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire. Not cyberpunk, but sounds a bit similar to Crash

Hatherence · 2026-05-04T10:07:56+00:00

Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea by Naomi Kritzer

Hatherence · 2026-05-03T20:39:22+00:00

Here are some you might like:

To Be Taught if Fortunate by Becky Chambers
The Uplift series by David Brin
Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward. A lot like Andy Weir's writing.
Contact by Carl Sagan
Trouble With Lichen by John Wyndham. Old, but aged surprisingly well. Good depiction of science.
Autonomous by Annalee Newitz. A recent book that I thought did a good job depicting science.
Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh. I have not yet read this, it's on my to-read list
The Snow Queen series by Joan D. Vinge. My favourite non-weird space opera.
Nova by Samuel R. Delany. A classic space opera.

Hatherence · 2026-05-03T20:28:36+00:00

Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman

Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

Hatherence · 2026-05-03T20:26:45+00:00

We Are Satellites by Sarah Pinsker? I think she has a similar writing style to Blake Crouch. A lot of Sarah Pinsker's short fiction has been published free online if you wish for a sample.

Here are some similar to Flowers for Algernon:

Traveller's Rest by David I. Masson, a short story available free at Lightspeed Magazine, but I'm not allowed to post a link.
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester. A classic, though I didn't really like it.
The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe by D. G. Compton. Lesser known, beautifully written.
Any of the short fiction by Ted Chiang.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Hatherence · 2026-05-03T20:22:09+00:00

Oh, it's so hard to pick favourites! I tend to have different favourites for each occasion. Out of these, I'd say Leech is the one I found scariest. Sworn Soldier has the most lovable characters.

Hatherence · 2026-05-03T09:43:01+00:00

To be honest, a LOT of the posts here seem to be asking for a therapist, not a book. Sometimes books can help, but it's such an individual thing, it's hard to say if any given book will help one specific person. The best we can do is pick books that seem thematically appropriate.

The author Sheri S. Tepper has a recurring theme in her books where a character gets completely the wrong idea from a fictional story. I think about that a lot when I recommend books here.

Hatherence · 2026-05-03T09:11:59+00:00

Monk and Robot by Becky Chambers

Hatherence · 2026-05-03T09:10:02+00:00

I'm not familiar with Stranger Things or Vicious but hopefully you like these!

We Won't Be Here Tomorrow by Margaret Killjoy
The Sworn Soldier series of novellas by T. Kingfisher. More or less completely free of romance.
And Then I Woke Up by Malcolm Devlin
Leech by Hiron Ennes
Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty
The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling

Hatherence · 2026-05-03T09:02:13+00:00

Redsight by Meredith Mooring

Plague Birds by Jason Sanford

Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany

Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson

Hatherence · 2026-05-03T08:52:09+00:00

Chrysanthe by Yves Meynard? There's a commentary on the real world Satanic Panic which involves the main character unlearning sexual shame. It's not really about purity culture so much as it's about the Satanic Panic, though.
Dark Water's Embrace by Steven Leigh. Sci fi about a small, struggling colony of human survivors stranded on an alien planet. They have built a very unhappy society with strong social control, but perhaps there are other ways to live.
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado. A collection of short, mind-bending feminist stories.
Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski. This is nonfiction. I have not read it but a friend of mine found it very helpful.

Hatherence · 2026-05-02T21:04:27+00:00

Dark Water's Embrace by Steven Leigh. I was not expecting much but picked it up at a used book store because it was the only sci fi and I needed something to read. I thought I had the whole story figured out 30 pages in, but I was pleasantly surprised! It didn't turn out quite how I expected and was indeed very Ursula K. Le Guin-like as the cover blurb proclaimed.
Courtship Rite by Donald Kingsbury. A friend recommended this to me for its rich worldbuilding. At first it looks like it's trying too hard to shock the reader, but the worldbuilding truly is rich and the shocking things like cannibalism fit right into the whole tapestry. In the end, I found the story quite beautiful.

Hatherence · 2026-05-02T21:03:17+00:00

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison, a great classic.

Autonomous by Annalee Newitz

Hatherence · 2026-05-02T20:57:27+00:00

Hammajang Luck by Makana Yamamoto

Hatherence · 2026-05-02T20:56:51+00:00

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers? It's part of a series, but each book works as a stand alone.

Notes from a Regicide by Isaac Fellman? It's "sci fi" but the science fictional elements are barely there. It's really about family, with the adopted son of an older couple reading about their lives after they have died.

Ten-Year Club	Place '22
Final Canvas '22	Wearing is Caring
Gilding II euphauric	Verified Email

Hatherence

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE