Foe

By Iain Reid,

Book cover of Foe

Book description

“Foe is a tale of implacably mounting peril that feels all the more terrifying for being told in such a quiet, elegantly stripped-down voice. Iain Reid knows how to do ‘ominous’ as well as anyone I’ve ever read.” —Scott Smith, author of The Ruins and A Simple Plan

A taut,…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

2 authors picked Foe as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I recently discovered Reid’s writing and I love the slow literary suspense of Foe, his twist relying upon an unreliable first-person narrator.

Farmer Junior is selected by lottery as a possible candidate for an off-world workforce colonising space. The narrative takes place on earth, however, and it is a domestic portrait of a marriage as much as it is science fiction. Junior is a transparent and sincere narrator. His unreliability comes from what he himself does not know and his hazy memory of his own past. ("Everything blends into a nebulous fog.")

His narrative reveals more than he realises,…

From Alice's list on books featuring unreliable narrators.

Released in 2018, Foe is a book recommended to me by a friend who said – Oh, you like trippy fiction, check this out. The premise of the book has been done before – Invasion of the Body Snatchers et al. You got a guy who has a double he didn’t agree to or know about at first. But the twist here is something that grabs you by the throat and makes you stop after some of the chapters and go – man that’s not right- before reading on. I started reading this at night. Put it aside and finished…

Want books like Foe?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Foe.

Browse books like Foe

Book cover of The Three-Body Problem
Book cover of Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
Book cover of Ishmael

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,187

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in artificial intelligence, farms, and rural?

Farms 68 books
Rural 25 books