Quoting Aristotle when writing about yourself probably comes off as pretentious, but looking back at how I became a writer, his idea of how good stories must be “surprising yet inevitable” rings true: from a childhood split in rural Bavaria, where dark German fairytales sparked my love for books to experiments with lucid dreaming that ended in a loss of reality, my ending up as a game writer and novelist focused on the mind and dreams does sound somewhat inevitable—even if it took me some detours and distractions to get there. Now, I couldn’t be happier. 😊
I wrote...
Dreams of the Dying: The Dark Corners of Our Minds
One thing I love about a book is if it goes beyond established tropes—and that’s what China Miéville is all about. From the aging, overweight biochemist protagonist to his insectoid girlfriend to a world full of politics, steampunk, and Lovecraftian influences, this had me from the first page and stayed with me years after I finished it.
Winner of the August Derleth award and the Arthur C. Clarke Award, Perdido Street Station is an imaginative urban fantasy thriller, and the first of China Mieville's novels set in the world of Bas-Lag.
The metropolis of New Crobuzon sprawls at the centre of its own bewildering world. Humans and mutants and arcane races throng the gloom beneath its chimneys, where the rivers are sluggish with unnatural effluent, and factories and foundries pound into the night. For more than a thousand years, the parliament and its brutal militia have ruled over a vast array of workers and artists, spies, magicians,…
From the strange title to the premise of a futuristic television star who suddenly no one remembers, this book, is the essence of why PKD remains one of my favorite authors: futurism, psychology, and existential angst distilled into a mind-bending cocktail whose characters somehow still feel perfectly grounded and believable.
Jason Taverner has a glittering TV career, millions of fans, great wealth and something close to eternal youth. He is one of a handful of brilliant, beautiful people, the product of top-secret government experiments forty years earlier. But suddenly, all records of him vanish. He becomes a man with no identity, in a police state where everyone us closely monitored. Can he ever be rich and famous again? Or was that life just an illusion?
Even though it’s been years since I read this novel, this list wouldn’t be complete without it. Following two storylines in a realistic science fiction world and another in a parallel universe, this book read like a surreal meditation on synchronicity, dreams, and estrangement that somehow always stayed entertaining and left me with a strange feeling that maybe there’s more to our reality than we think.
A narrative particle accelerator that zooms between Wild Turkey Whiskey and Bob Dylan, unicorn skulls and voracious librarians, John Coltrane and Lord Jim. Science fiction, detective story and post-modern manifesto all rolled into one rip-roaring novel, Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is the tour de force that expanded Haruki Murakami's international following.
Tracking one man's descent into the Kafkaesque underworld of contemporary Tokyo, Murakami unites East and West, tragedy and farce, compassion and detachment, slang and philosophy.
I found out about this book when a friend urged me not to buy this book because it messed her up. Needless to say, I bought and read it right away, and even though it took me a long time with frequent pauses to get through this behemoth of a book, I understand why my friend said what she said.
Even beyond the striking visuals and the slowly escalating typographic madness (just google it and you’ll know what I mean) a feeling of dread suffuses this novel that stayed with me long after I put it down.
“A novelistic mosaic that simultaneously reads like a thriller and like a strange, dreamlike excursion into the subconscious.” —The New York Times
Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations,…
This book is a reimagining of Alice in Wonderland that takes place in a bizarre 90s Montreal parallel world, and it’s every bit as mind-bending and crazy as it sounds. There’s disturbing violence and sexual elements, but somehow, it never felt gimmicky. It’s a coming-of-age story unlike any I’ve ever read, and I’d recommend it to anyone who speaks French.
Alice a dix-huit ans. Curieuse, intelligente et fonceuse, elle décide un jour de quitter sa province pour s'installer à Montréal. La métropole. La ville de tous les possibles. À son arrivée, suite à une rencontre inattendue, Alice débarque dans un quartier peuplé d'excentriques. Comme Charles, mathématicien dandy et tourmenté ; Verrue, fumeur de joints et amateur de chansons populaires ; Andromaque, poétesse et tenancière d'un club de strip-tease un peu " spécial " ; ou les inquiétants Bone et Chair, fascinés par la torture. Alice mord la vie à pleines dents, prête à tout pour entrer dans le mystérieux Palais,…
Hoping to move on from his trauma of a harrowing war experience, the ex-mercenary Jespar tre Moreste accepts a mysterious invitation into the beautiful but dangerous archipelago of Kilay—and everything changes. Plagued by boiling social tensions and terrorism, the tropical empire is edging ever closer to civil war.
Kilay’s merchant king is the only person able to prevent this catastrophe, but he has fallen into a preternatural coma—and it’s Jespar’s task to figure out what or who caused it. As the investigation takes him across the archipelago and into the king’s nightmares, unexpected events not only tie Jespar’s own life to the mystery but also unearth inner demons he believed to be exorcised long ago.
This book (and its sequels) are about overcoming the odds; about learning to improve the skills and abilities you have, rather than dwelling on what you can't do. Conflict, plague, and scheming politicians are all featured along the way–but none of the characters are human!
When a plague kills half the Drax population, and leaves the hatchlings of the survivors with a terrible deformity – no wings – suspicion and prejudice follow. Continuously harassed by raids from their traditional enemies, the Koth, the Drax are looking for someone, or something, to blame.
Zarda, an apprentice Fate-seer, is new to her role and unsure of her own abilities; but the death of her teacher sees her summoned by the Drax Prime, Kalis, when his heir, Dru, emerges from his shell without wings.
A vision that Dru will one day defeat the Koth is enough to keep…
