1y ago

Book recommendations that play with what it means to be a book

I really love sci-fi novels and I read a lot of books. I read 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson a while back and that book is particularly interesting to me. Rather than each chapter advancing the narrative of the story, there were occasional breaks where a chapter would have a list of semi-random words which just gave the vibe of what's happening, or some history of a scene, or a recipe for how to build an asteroid.

There's another book that I have heard of but neglected to write the name down, where the reader of the book is a character within the book, and the narrator speaks directly to you (but not a choose-your-adventure style book).

All of this got me interested in finding other books, preferably sci-fi or maybe fantasy, where the concept of being a book is played with and new ideas are tried. Any recommendations?

62 comments

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski fits that model really well.
- +1 to this book, it's really surreal
- I immediately thought of House of Leaves. Do not read it as an ebook, if there even is an ebook version. It must be read as a physical book.
- Agreed! House of Leaves is a must read. Get the physical book, it won't work with an Ereader. I got the softcover edtion and it was totally worth it. If I ever sell my house I am going to rough up my copy real good and hide it somewhere for the new owners to find.
- It gave me actual nightmares about houses. Such a high quality book!
- Great call, you have to be careful that you get the color version!
  I lost my original copy and when I replaced it, there was no more color. Had to return that one to find one with color. I think it adds so much.
- House of Leaves is fantastic.
  Another book of his, Only Revolutions, is wild, but I couldn't get through it. You have to turn the book upside down to read half of it.
- Fun fact, his sister is the singer Poe

Player of Games is told in reverse, it works really well. Book of the New Sun is an Ouroborus, so you don't really understand it until you read it twice.
Edit: I mean "Use of Weapons" not Player of Games.
- Use of Weapons is among my absolute favorite books. What an absolutely incredible journey

Redshirts by John Scalzi. A book about people who realize they’re characters in a badly-written TV show. Near the end, though, the main character starts to realize he’s the main character in a book about people who are characters in a TV show. Very surreal.
- Redshirts suuuuuuuucked. Good lord I could barely stomach getting through it after absolutely adoring Kaiju Preservation Society. The audiobook being narrated by Wesley Crusher didn’t help certainly but that was some of the most pat, ham fisted deus ex machina bullshit I’ve ever read. And the premise “no actually we’re just in a *badly written show * does nothing to make those chapters easier to stomach’s.
  
  Well, to each their own then. I rather enjoyed it. It was a silly self-aware little romp. I’m pretty sure being ham-fisted was kind of the point, in keeping with original Trek tradition.
  Didn’t know Will Wheaton narrated the audiobook.

A lot of Douglas Coupland novels play with the form. Microserfs has a similar thing to 2312, except it is one of the characters random txt files on their desktop that lists words in a David Foster Wallace way.
Wallace also plays with the form of the book, particularly with end notes in Infinite Jest.
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski plays with the physical form of the book by rending two stories in parallel and playing all manner of interesting typesetting tricks.
Then there's Tristan Shandy by Laurence Sterne and published in 1759. It's argued that it is the first post-modern novel. The "author" is attempting to tell you the story of his life, but never really gets there because of endless digression.
You should check this page out: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Opinions_of_Tristram_Shandy,_Gentleman

You mean If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino? Still do check it out
- yea this definitely fits the description. brief summary: chapters alternate between the first chapters of different novels, and the main character (addressed as "you") trying to track down the different novels whose chapters youve just read which are cut off for various reasons. it is great, relatively short (i think 250-ish pages in my copy), and if you dont mind the wild stylistic jumps between chapters its pretty delightful.
- What a weird fucking book! It's not the exact one I was looking for (I believe in my novel, one of the characters in the book begged the reader not to finish the book, because then the character would die).
  Thanks so much for the recommendation though, it's definitely the sort of weird I was looking for. I found it a bit hard to get through - I think it being a translation made some parts a bit stilted and a bit unrelatable for me - but I still read it over only a couple of days. I felt at chapter 8 where we read a Certain Character's diary that the book was coming together and starting to make sense for me.
  
  glad you liked it in the end. I still have to read it, never went past the first couple of chapters myself :)

Not sci-fi, but The Princess Bride.
- This was awesome, it had me so confused when the author described the legal problems they were having.

Ilium/Olympos by Dan Simmons has a very interesting theory about reality and fiction, and what ties them together. Unfortunately, it's tied to a very late plot point that I would hate to spoil on a Lemmy comment.

The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brookes is a detailed fictional instruction manual. It's sequel is World War Z which is closer to a normal book, but still has an odd structure of creating a world through interviews ... and the The Zombie Survival Guide book exists within it.
- WWZ is one of my all time favorite books. They should really make it into a movie. Or, even better, an HBO miniseries.
  
  I dunno, I think maybe some things should just be left alone
- WWZ is a banger!
  
  It is at that :-)
- Thanks for the suggestion. Should I read WWZ first?
  
  As with so much in life, it's best to read the manual first. It can get a little dry in places though, like any instruction manual, but I enjoyed all of it because I'm the sort of person who likes normal manuals, lol
- The WWZ audiobook is really solid.
  
  Did they get different people to record each story?

Thursday Next series by Jasper FForde. Very meta, humorous.
- Love his Thursday Next books to bits!
- I just started reading Jasper FForde. I've enjoyed everything I've seen so far.

What a great question. I have added S and House of Leaves to my to-read list.

Self-Reference ENGINE by Toh EnJoe definitely fits this description.
In the middle it feels like nonsensical chaos, by the end it all folds back in on itself.

Of course Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes cannot be overlooked in terms of experimental writing.
There is a novel that will eternally be on my mind to wonder if it was drivel or I was not smart enough for it - The Troika by Stepan Chapman. It has some of the greatest imagination ever and you will probably not understand what is going on at all. Just find the description and decide if it's nonsense or worth it.

The Neverending Story
- Adding to this to say you MUST get it in physical form. DO NOT read it on an e-reader. There are important reasons for this.
- Not sci-fi but The Princess Bride is also a story-within-a-story.

Not sci-fi, but Mister B Gone by Clive Barker was really good. The book is a conversation with a demon who is telling you his life story. It is the story of how he came to be trapped in the book you are reading.
I thought the book was super funny and surreal. I saw reviews after finishing that it is considered some of his worst work. That might be true, but the worst 24 carat bar of gold is still a 24 carat bar of gold. Well worth the read imo.
- Great suggestion. I had this book sitting by my computer when I was waiting on the computer to finish processing something. Idly picked it up and started reading, then just read the whole book in one sitting. I liked it a lot :)

"Building Stories" by Chris Ware. Not a book, but a deconstructed graphic novel that comes in a box full of different formats and sizes - from a newspaper to a tiny bubblegum sized strip. You read them in any order you please, learning stories of people who live in the same building, while also building your own path through the stories.
It's one of my most prized pieces of literature.

The Knife of Never Letting Go has a couple cool sections with fonts where as the action is rising you start turning pages faster.

I think Idaho Winter by Tony Burgess does this pretty well. It's a wild read.
- Wow, what a mindfuck. Had a bit of time to spare before getting up and read it through in one go. Not what I was expecting from the (honestly boring) cover. Thanks for the recommendation!

There's another book that I have heard of but neglected to write the name down, where the reader of the book is a character within the book, and the narrator speaks directly to you
If, on a winter's night, a traveller?
- What a weird fucking book! It's not the exact one I was looking for (I believe in my novel, one of the characters in the book begged the reader not to finish the book, because then the character would die).
  Thanks so much for the recommendation though, it's definitely the sort of weird I was looking for. I found it a bit hard to get through - I think it being a translation made some parts a bit stilted and a bit unrelatable for me - but I still read it over only a couple of days. I felt at chapter 8 where we read a Certain Character's diary that the book was coming together and starting to make sense for me.
  
  I believe the chapters that sound stilted were deliberately written thus to give an air of being foreign or exotic.
  My favourite chapter in the book was the discussion on censorship. My country has a weird and completely unpredictable censorship system that depends on how many people got offended, who they know, which judge the case goes to, and how well the author can get the media interested in the case.

Basically anything by Danielewski.

Great recommendations!
@PostWatchBot@lemy.lol

Sophie's world. Also a nice introduction to philosophy

Thank you everyone for the suggestions! I didn't expect there would be so many!
I've put them all on my reading list and I'll get back to each of you when I've read your book.
(I don't know if it's possible to do a reply-all type thing and I don't want to type out the same comment 30 times so..)

another older recommendation is jacques the fatalist, where jacques is attempting to tell the story of his lovelife but is constantly interrupted by other people telling their own stories, there is a "reader" who interrupts the narrator to ask questions, and the narrator at times gets bored of telling the story and asks the reader to fill in their own details. it also has an entire section directly from tristam shandy near the end.
not sci fi or fantasy but worth a read if you have the patience.

Cloud Atlas for its Russian nesting doll narrative structure.
Feersum Endjinn for how it plays with time, space, and even basic concepts of spelling and punctuation.
Generation X for its intwerweaving of advertising and informational sidebars into the text.
- Started reading Feersum Endjinn but it hasn't grabbed me yet. The badly spelled chapter is honestly just annoying to me. There's a couple of weeks left before it's due at the library so I might give it another go. But, it's definitely a weird book which fits my criteria so thank you for the suggestion.

Stanislaw Lem's Imaginary Magnitude, a collection of introductions to non-existent books, is tangentially related to what you're asking here. Worth reading.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/953489

"S" by J.J. Abrams(yes, that one) and Doug Dorst
At face value it is a book about a man who became a member of a ship's crew and his journey. There is a second layer of editors notes left by the translator. Then there is a third layer of two previous readers of the book. There are puzzles and clues tucked into the pages of the book that you, as the third reader, try to understand what the fuck is actually going on.

I think the most famous example is probably “Pale fire” by Nabokov. Not sci-fi, but very very fun! George Perec write some interesting concept books. One is about this apartment in Paris where every chapter just describes a random room in the building, but slowly tells a story of the inhabitants.

It’s not sci-fi, but Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar lets you decide in what order to read the chapters.

Red X by David Demchuk is fiction mixed with autobiography.
Twenty-One Truths About Love by Matthew Dicks is a novel told entirely in list form.
I didn't care for either book, but they were definitely unique structures.
How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu was great and has been compared to Cloud Atlas, if that kind of structure is appealing to you.

62 comments