85 books like Mister B. Gone

This book blew my mind! It changed my life and gave me food poisoning; well, maybe it was some lousy shrimp that did that, but it came around the same time anyhow.

I loved the initial point of revenge, how the main character was abandoned to die in a broken spaceship in the middle of nowhere. I, too, would be pissed if a ship flew by me without stopping to save my butt.

I was happy that the book also played with metaphysical notions and cranked up the ending to a glorious finish that broke from the standard good-guy wins trope.

One of the first Ellison books I ever read and the one that haunts me the most.

Deathbird Stories lives up to its title and delivers a tour de force of fantasy and horror that only Ellison could have written. The nineteen stories in this collection are, in a sense, about gods. Not the gods we know and may worship but new ones. “A New Testament of deities for the computerized age of confrontation and relevance,” as notes Ellison in his introduction.

You’ll likely want to read every story in this collection several times, though to the casual reader looking for a taste, I recommend “The Whimper of Whipped Dogs,” an unflinchingly honest assessment of human behavior and depravity—and based in part on actual events.

I’ve seldom been so gutted by a short story, and it hits me every time I re-read it.

I love this book because, like all of the Parker novels, it starts in the middle of the action, with Parker and his associates spilling out of a car, on the run. Parker hides in an off-season theme park and what follows is a story that is better than Die Hard (and pre-dates it by a decade).

I love the Parker novels for this sort of action and the way that Parker adheres to his particular code. It is not one most heroes abide by but you have to admire this tough thief who lives by the words he speaks – there’s something honorable in that.

Published a year after his infamous novel Psycho, Bloch’s The Dead Beat is an offbeat short novel about a piano player named Larry Fox.

Larry’s a bad seed with a criminal record who worms his way into a suburban American family’s house after they discover him unconscious in the back of their car and learn that he’d been attacked. Larry keeps a lot of secrets and has a lot of big dreams, most of them around seducing teenage girls and extorting his former crime partner.

The story has some sections that read as dated, which isn’t surprising for a title published in 1960, but Bloch’s undeniably crisp writing and play on words will keep you turning the page. I’m not much of a night owl these days but I stayed up until 4:00 a.m. to finish this one.

The ending is satisfying, and you may find yourself thinking about… show more.

One of a series that can be read in any order. I found this spine-chilling as it is so easy to put yourself in the place of the characters. I could feel, and live, their fear and desperation. This is not a ghost story. I found it easy to imagine a group of ne’re do wells indulging in these rituals and bringing terror to themselves and others. Not a book I could put down.

Kim Curran is another writer that I have enjoyed for years since I read her debut Control. She writes with great immediacy and her characters are brilliant. Slay is about the hottest boy band on the planet. But they aren’t just a boy band, in fact, this is a cover for their real gig – slaying monsters. 

While Bujold is famous for her science fiction Vorkosigan Saga, she has taken a welcome turn to fantasy in recent years with her Penric & Desdemona series, starting with Penric’s Demon. The book focuses on the accidental sorcerer Penric and the demon who possesses him and gives him power, Desdemona. Theirs is a complicated relationship, in no small part because Desdemona retains the memories and personalities of the many people—and animals!—she has possessed before. While having magical powers obviously has its advantages for Penric, demonic possession is not without its dangers, and quite a few people in the world of the Five Gods believe that sorcerers and their demons are best drowned at sea. The book features exciting adventures in an exotic world—but also touching mediations on death, fate, and destiny.

The second book of the original Shannara series follows a young man tasked with escorting a young woman to her destiny to forestall a demonic invasion. But a menacing evil stalks them: a seemingly invincible demon assassin. Can he unlock the magic secrets of the mystical Elfstones before he and his companions are destroyed and the world with them? Like many of Brooks’ novels, this one features superb world-building, white-knuckled tension, jaw-dropping action, and a bittersweet romance in a single package. The magic and environment of the book captured me in seconds and I wished Shannara was real. I re-read it from time to time and it is one of my all-time favorites.

I call him HIM is an apocalyptic horror story about a man who is a fighting machine.

Hell has come to earth and wreaked havoc. Demonic beings lurk everywhere, feasting off of humanity. Our main character is simply called Him. He has no name, but only rage as he kills demonic hordes with his sword and his strength.

Where is God in a world filled with demonic influences? Where is God when the cry of humanity reaches out for answers? This thought consumes Him, but there may be a light. A young girl who may be the key.

Scott Kimak blends this horror, apocalyptic story with gritty violence, intense action scenes, coarse language, but also themes of redemption and sacrifice.

I’ve read this book twice, once as a paperback and more recently as an audiobook, which added a wonderful extra layer to this luscious novel.

Primarily a love story, the tale is told in beautiful prose that made my skin tingle with both appreciation and envy. Love, memory, the nature of books, the nature of self, characters that jump off the page, there is so much to appreciate in this deeply immersive story.

But for me, it was the characters’ sense that there is something unknown missing in themselves, something just out of reach, that resonated most strongly, a feeling that comes so close to my experiences of depression that it almost took my breath away. A book of wonder and magic that reached deep into my soul.