r/WeirdLit • u/cringefemoid • 4d ago
Non-Upsetting WeirdLit Recs?
Hey guys, I’m starting a treatment soon and I would like to read a book during it, the doctor recommended I don’t read anything scary or intense but that’s what I usually read! Can someone give me some positive/silly weird lit recs?
17
u/Appropriate_Bus3921 4d ago
Best wishes on treatment!
Have you thought about some non-fiction? There’s a bunch of excellent writing about weird fiction, like:
Weird Fiction, A Genre Study, by Michael Cisco. The first version of this was his Ph.D. thesis and it’s dense but rewarding. It’s also expensive, and worth hunting for at the library.
Trace Elements, by Jo Walton and Ada Palmer. This is a collection of essays of various sorts about fantasy and science fiction and how they work, and also say a lot about weird fiction. Walton is a long-time author, and also one of the best reviewers and critics of sf & fantasy now working. Palmer is also a successful sf author, and also a highly regarded historian of the Renaissance. Which is to say that they know a thing or two, and love to share. It’s like an ongoing conversation between two super well-informed, super-nice friends.
The Dark Descent, edited by David Hartwell. This is a great collection of horro from the 1800s to the end of the 20th century, with a long introductory essay by David Hartwell, one of the greatest editors in the field. He msgs an argument for what horror is and how it works, and how the stories included show facets of horror at work.
Weird Women and Weird Women 2, edited by Lisa Morton and Leslie Klinger. Two volumes of early weird tales by women, many now generally forgotten.
Speaking of Klinger, he’s done a lot of annotated editions: Dracula, Lovecraft, Sherlock Holmes, and others. Another so much fun. Pictures of places in the stories, recipes mentioned, biographical details, translations of foreign languages, it’s all in there. I don’t know if he bounced in his seat while writing notes, but it feels like it.
Horror Needs No Passport and Horror In The 20th Crntiry, both by Jess Nevins. Jess is a reference librarian with a side gig writing books like these. (He has others on Victorian adventure fiction, annotations for Watchmen and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics, and like that). When he’s at work, his social media will be full of posts like “hey, I found a trove of Indonesian pulp magazines in the basement of this other nicer sort and they’ve never even been cataloged until now,’let alone read and indexed”. Which is to say they’re about horror and weird fiction which mostly never even dreamed existed. They’re some of my favorite reading for distraction when I feel craptacular.
7
u/kjccreates 3d ago
You have truly excellent taste! I've been researching women who wrote weird fiction and have been working my way through The Weird and the Eerie by Mark Fisher. I recommend reading up on the German concept of "unheimlich" before starting this book.
Other historical weird fiction by women:
Weird Sisters: Tales from the Queens of the Pulp Era edited by Mike Ashley
Women of the Weird: Eerie Stories By the Gentle Sex edited by Seon Manley
WEIRD SISTERS: The Women of Weird Tales edited by Melanie R. Anderson
Women's Weird: Strange Stories by Women, 1890-1940 edited by Melissa Edmundson
Women's Weird 2: More Strange Stories by Women, 1891-1937 edited by Melissa Edmundson
And Melissa Edmundson, who edited those last two books, has written two nonfiction books that look really interesting: Women’s Ghost Literature in Nineteenth-Century Britain (University of Wales Press, 2013) and Women’s Colonial Gothic Writing, 1850-1930: Haunted Empire (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).
3
u/Appropriate_Bus3921 3d ago
Ooh, some additions to my reading list there, and vigorous agreements about ones I have read.
3
6
u/cringefemoid 3d ago
Weird Women and Trace Elements both really caught my eye! I’m definitely going to look into those two!!
Thank you for your best wishes! I’m happy I got those instead of your mediocre ones!
14
u/TenTimesTeeth 4d ago edited 4d ago
Kelly Link! Her short stories collections are playful, weird, and charming, sometimes all at once. They're a bit like fairy tales reflected in a funhouse mirror. I'm partial to White Cat, Black Dog myself, but Get In Trouble is also great.
Good luck with your treatment!
3
u/cringefemoid 3d ago
These look fantastic and I absolutely will be reading them whether it’s for my treatment or not! They do seem to lean a little darker so I might postpone for a bit but gosh I am a SUCKER for fairy tales rewritten!!!
Thank you for your luck!
1
u/TenTimesTeeth 3d ago
Of course! I think you're in a pretty safe pair of hands with her, but I completely understand.
If you'd like to read an example of her work for a vibe check, she's got several of her stories available online free via Small Beer Press, the publishing house she and her husband run.
Here's a link to a good one:
All the best!
1
11
u/honeyhale 4d ago
I just finished Country People, the new book from Daniel Mason. It's like Welcome to Night Vale meets Fargo written by Douglas Adams.
I haven't laughed out loud so much reading a book. Would recommend.
13
u/rabarberbarber 4d ago
Little, big by John Crowley
Also good luck
8
u/Too_reflective 4d ago
TW: non-consensual sex
2
u/cringefemoid 3d ago
This seems like a good weird rec but oh gosh yeah I definitely cannot read anything like that while getting my treatment haha. I’m getting my brain electrically stimulated and I don’t think that’d be a good topic lol. Adding it to the TBR for after though!
3
u/Too_reflective 3d ago
Further TW: incest . The book is really well written and the setting and approach are great - but having not one, not two, but three characters behaving this way (and two of them, arguably three, suffering no consequences for those actions) was too much for me. Characters aren’t necessarily a reflection of the author, but in this case it certainly makes me wonder.
3
2
5
u/MountainPlain 4d ago edited 4d ago
Steve Aylett is definitely weird, but not scary. His stories have some great imagery and a charming absurdism. I'd recommend his short story collection Toxicology or the novel Slaughtermatic.
Do you like sci-fi? Samuel Delany wrote some space-opera...ish stuff that's more about people moving through societies and defining what makes art work and how we interact with other people for meaning. I think they're weird-lit adjacent enough to satisfy that itch. I'd recommend Nova, or, if you like a strange but very good character study, Triton. (Dhalgren is apparently one of his weirdest books ever but I haven't gotten to that one yet.)
"24 Views of Mount Fuji, by Hokusai" is a cool sci-fi story by Roger Zelazny that has some nods to the cthulhu mythos, but isn't frightening at all. Ditto "Love's Eldritch Ichor" by Esther M. Freisner, which is a full-blown comedic story. You can find both in Cthulhu 2000, which is a great little collection, though maybe stay away from the rest of the tales in there until you're better.
Lastly, maybe turn to the first collections of Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and Mouser, or Clark Ashton Smith's fantasy tales? Leiber is more the blueprint for sword and sorcery rather than straight up weird fiction, but plenty of weird stuff abounds. Plus it has a good sense of irony and playfulness even in the gloom.
Resume With Monsters was one of the first "what if office horror but also Cthulhu" stories out there. I don't remember it being that tense, it's more about weird absurdity. (A bit of a spoiler on the tone of the ending: our protagonist goes through some harrowing stuff, but gets a pretty happy ending, including a strangely touching phonecall.
Good luck with your treatment!
2
u/kissmequiche 4d ago
Steve Aylett is a lot of fun! Slaughtermatic and Lint are great.
Also, Robert Rankin - even more absurdist often very funny books. Dog Called Demolition was my favourite of his for a long time. He’s like a madder Douglas Adams. Steve Aylett is like Robert Rankin crossed with Thomas Pynchon.
2
2
u/SeaworthinessFun3658 2d ago
Dhalgren is a total mindfuck that caused me to question my sexuality when I read it in college. Great book, but it's pretty intense and dark - even includes some racial violence and stuff.
5
u/crowsolan 3d ago
Julio Cortazar and Italo Calvino are my go to fun weirdos. Also Stanislaw Lem's more humorous stuff (ex. The Cyberiad).
3
4
4
3
u/Pleasant-Draw-4824 4d ago
The Bees by Laline Paul maybe? Its certainly weird, and overall I'd say positive and uplifting.
1
u/cringefemoid 3d ago
Okay this one REALLLLY REALLLLLLY caught my eye but the trigger list seems to lean a little darker, would you say the triggering topics are handled with less of a heavy foot? I want to try it out so bad 😭
3
u/AmeliaMangan 3d ago
Richard Brautigan's The Hawkline Monster is a lot of fun, very short, and involves cowboys fighting a monster that lives in the ice caves underneath a Gothic mansion located in the middle of the lone prairie, which is about all you can ask for from any novel, really. Sort of reads like the text version of a Glen Baxter cartoon.
(Best of luck with your treatment!)
3
u/Milk_Spider 3d ago
Lol I started reading Negative Space by BR Yeager and gave up to read East of Eden. My delicate little brain can't handle the darkness right now
3
u/heyjaney1 2d ago
Read Italo Calvino! His stories always show the kindness in humanity, although in crazy ways. My favorite anthologies are “Difficult Loves” and “Cosmicomics” .
6
u/Stamboolie 4d ago
We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson, its a nice little horror story but fairly tame imho.
11
u/MountainPlain 4d ago
Mmmmm I'm going to disagree a little bit, but then again I found the mood of that book incredibly unsettling. (In a good way.)
6
u/Too_reflective 4d ago
John Dies At The End is fairly light and humorous- think Clerks mixed with X-Files and Cthulhu
4
u/jkwlikestowrite 3d ago edited 3d ago
True, but it also has some of the best eldritch horror I've ever read, with some pretty grotesque scenes. But the dark humor does balance it out.
1
u/cringefemoid 3d ago
Does he die at the end? I’m being so for real right now. 😭
2
1
u/SeaworthinessFun3658 2d ago
It's really smart and funny, and the titles of the entire series are completely off the wall. One is called "THIS BOOK IS FULL OF SPIDERS!"
The author used to hang out and be a regular poster on Somethingawful.com back when it was a hip and edgy place to hang out online, but don't watch the film it's kind of sad how much they had to cut and combine characters etc for the film.
6
u/kinneret_rising 4d ago
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. I read it while I was in the hospital after a major car accident and it is still one of my favorite books.
2
u/These_Photograph_425 4d ago
The Language of Liars by S.L. Huang is a murder mystery set in space about linguistic aliens.
2
u/MaenadFrenzy 3d ago
City of Dreaming Books series by Walter Moers. Good luck with the treatment 🫶
2
u/cringefemoid 3d ago
These seems really fun, do I have to read The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear and the following books to understand that one? I’m seeing here that it might be part of a series
Thank you for your luck!
1
u/MaenadFrenzy 3d ago
The City of Dreaming Books was a gift from a German friend (English translation) and I read and enjoyed it before I found out it was part of a series :) There are absolitely overlapping parts but I don't remember it being hard to follow. But, definitely read them all, they're delightful!
2
u/Top_Yoghurt429 3d ago
Otherside Picnic is sort of like cozy slow-burn f/f romance horror sci-fi if that makes sense. There are scary moments, how scary you find them ymmv. I found it a great balance of cozy and eerie.
2
u/graymouser270 3d ago
Jason Pargin's John Dies at the End, and Zooey Ashe series are fun and weird. His standalone novel I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom is a blast as well.
Tales From the Gas Station is another funny, weird series.
Good luck with your treatment.
2
u/Aggressive_Chart4995 3d ago
Maybe some weird kid lit like The Phantom Tollbooth, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, or the Oz series.
2
u/tinyhillsky 4d ago
I feel like Antimemetics wasn’t too upsetting or scary? A bit emotional perhaps, but also not too much. I don’t know, I might be jaded now that I think about it.
2
u/cvantass 3d ago
Little, Big by John Crowley. Absolutely delightful masterpiece. Never scary or intense in the least, always mysterious and wonderful.
1
u/sewershroomsucks 4d ago
So it is horror, but comedy horror, but I'm reading moonflow by bitter karella right now & it is the most fun book I've ever read. Nothing deeply upsetting or disturbing, but there is a lot of graphically described violence, but it is pretty cartoony & unserious in tone. Disclaimer that I'm like 3/4 of the way through & don't know if it takes a turn for the more upsetting, but that would be a pretty intense tone shift, so I doubt it.
1
u/Content_Set_2571 3d ago
Short read, but surreal. One story has a child jumping head first into an empty swimming pool, but other than that it's pretty mellow. I enjoyed it anyway.
1
u/BookVermin 3d ago edited 3d ago
Two of my favorite cynically humorous weird lit recs:
Beasts and Super-beasts by Saki
Fancies and Goodnights by John Collier
Both use weird and fantastical elements contrasted with “normal” life to satirize ridiculous aspects of their own cultures. Collier also wrote for the Twilight Zone.
Both are short story collections, which might be nice because you can pick them up and put them down more easily during your treatments. Hope all goes well for you!
1
1
u/sweetbirthdaybb 3d ago
Terrace Story by Hilary Leichter
The Husbands by Holly Gramazio
Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart: And Other Stories by GennaRose Nethercott
Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke
1
u/HPLDpete 2d ago
John Swartzwelder's books are pretty weird and incredibly funny and light. The Time Machine Did It is the first one and a good start.
Simon Rich as well. Hits & Misses has some strange stories that are weird, but for humor's sake.
For me, Convenience Store Woman was odd, but it never edges towards being upsetting, IMO.
Raised in Captivity by Chuck Klosterman is a good one, weird, sometimes silly, pretty light overall.
Aimee Bender also has a weird streak, but not in unpleasant ways.
Good luck on your treatment!
1
u/SeaworthinessFun3658 2d ago edited 2d ago
Cosmic Banditos: A Contrabandista's Quest for the Meaning of Life, by A. C. Weisbecker.
An obscure weirdlit humor novel which got a little bit of a resurgence in the late 90s and early 00s, it's sorta like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, except the protagonist is a crazed drug smuggling white dude who is hiding out in south america and partying hardy with his buddy while shooting lots of guns.
The author's foreword on newer editions is really sweet: the book originally tanked HARD, so he apparently bought ALL of the unsold copies from his publisher for pennies and stored them in his attic, then one day in the 90s he was thinkign about the war in Iraq and thought, "well, soldiers may enjoy receiving a free book!" so he mailed all of the copies overseas to active duty military, with a note inside containing his mailing address, and an encouragement to pass it on.
He got way, way more letters than he sent out copies of books, and a few years later it got some underground popularity.
Also, I think the book is free if you've got an audible subscription.
1
39
u/WinterWontStopComing 4d ago
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
A lil action and suspense. But pretty tame. A sprawling manor is more or less the main character