100 books like The Rats

H.G. Wells delivers an astonishing tale of space invaders from Mars, with breathtaking scenes of monstrously huge three-legged walking machines terrorizing the populace of London and its surrounds. For sheer imagery, few science fiction stories before or since have come close to its gripping, real-world feel.

The story is told by an unnamed protagonist who goes on an odyssey in ravaged London as towering alien war machines chase, kill, or capture fleeing citizens in chaotic scenes of panic and fear. That fear sent chills along my spine on rereading this classic recently.

Notable were touching humanistic scenes with Dr. Ogilvy, an astronomer who leads an ill-fated attempt at truce-making, and a defeated soldier whose counterattack with artillery failed horribly.

The most iconic and somehow most misrepresented vampire story of all time. I read this book because it was iconic and for no other reason. It was not long before I began to see this book's Christian themes and messages. Though the book may not be explicitly Christian, the influences and messages are most apparent in Mina Harker.

I loved how the character of Mina becomes a prototype of what people would eventually call “The Final Girl”, not because of her physical strength or survival instincts, but because of her unwavering faith in God. I knew this was essentially a story of good and evil, but I was wonderfully surprised by this being a story of faith vs flesh and corruption vs holiness.

As if a plague of memory loss that eventually makes you forget how to breathe isn’t scary enough, Cutter takes us deep under the ocean, to a lab where something has gone terribly wrong with our potential saviors. This is the most claustrophobic book I’ve ever read. You can feel the crushing weight of the water and the dark just outside the lab’s walls. There’s a wonderful sort of madness to the whole thing, and one scene, in particular, continues to haunt me.

I’m recommending this book because of its subject matter. A virus. After what’s happened in the world recently with Covid, why not believe this could happen? A disease that makes you think someone is trying to kill you, so you have to kill them first. It’s similar to being paranoid. The author of this book has written a few sequels that follow the main character’s journey. A journey that took the person from working a normal day to thinking people were now the enemy. 

Plants, man. Plants. Three thousand-yard stare. In another shining example of ‘Hey, you might want to listen to the locals,’ an intrepid group of young Americans decides to ignore warnings and explore an archeological dig on the Yucatan Peninsula. 

What they find makes for not only a grisly horror read that I burned through, but it also shook any sense of complacency I had of our supposed dominion over the forces of nature. And as we exit a global pandemic that was on no one’s bingo card and find ourselves learning new terminology like ‘fire tornado,’ it also feels eerily prescient.

Joe Hill is a masterful storyteller.

It’s hard to pick a favorite, but The Fireman has it all––a pandemic that causes its afflicted to spontaneously combust (called Dragonscale because Spinal-Tap Drummer Disease was too long), a plucky pregnant nurse determined to have a healthy baby in spite of the odds (which includes an unhinged husband and a blood-thirsty post-apocalyptic death squad), a commune that has figured out a way to live with the disease, and a lone wolf that wears a fireman’s jacket who has somehow learned how to control his fire.

The characters are so real they still live rent free in my head. I read it during the COVID lockdown and the parallels were both scary and hopeful. 

This was one of the hardest books to "get into," but a friend of mine told me to stick with it because the rewards of getting through the first quarter would be so great. I'm glad I did. It is an astounding piece of work, quite different from anything I've ever read before or since, and remains one of my top five books.

The tangents the book takes, and the blasé attributes of the leading character are superbly crafted. It was suggested it was "unfilmable," and there's one scene in particular I thought they'd never get away with, but if you look at the movie version carefully, it's in there. 

I had no idea what I was getting into with this book, and the experience was so much richer for that blindfold. That title alone was enough to intrigue me–what on earth could it mean? This is one of the most interesting and shocking coming-of-age stories I have ever read.

The island world the author creates made me think of Lord of the Flies and what can happen when youth is allowed to go unsupervised. This is deliciously dark and twisted stuff. It’s a short book, but you won’t forget it.

Jackson’s Gothic horror flows like black chiffon over a yawing window. That’s how I felt reading about Hill House. I loved the way the house sneaks up with its psychological weights swinging and jarring. Eleanor possesses a dark ambiance. She desperately needed to belong to something or someone, and I couldn’t let go of that.

Her emotions and fears were right there with me. But it was the romantic underbelly that got me: Eleanor’s romance with Hill House. The statuesque gardens, the light, and shadows, all tempted her into its sinister realm. As it tempted me. I felt deeply for Eleanor, wanting to belong to something extraordinary to replace her dull life. Shirley Jackson is quoted as saying, “I delight in what I fear.” This book proves it.

I’m fascinated by the in-depth character development and details in this book. The film is a classic, but I think the book is even better. Many people think of Hannibal Lecter as the obvious villain of Silence of the Lambs, forgetting that Clarice and the FBI were seeking his guidance to find “Buffalo Bill,” a fictional serial killer attacking women.

Buffalo Bill is an amalgamation of real serial killers, including Ted Bundy, Ed Gein, and Gary Heidnik. By cherry-picking the methods and traits of real killers, I think Harris created a truly terrifying villain. I find the characters, and especially the villain, to be rooted in reality, making them stick in your mind long after the last page.