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  • General Recommendations
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VPL - Books Just For You - Dystopian, Haunting, and the Surreal in Horror, Science Fiction, and Fantasy

This list was selected for a VPL reader who enjoys David Lynch, Brandon Sanderson, and Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman. They are looking for ambiguity and the surreal, sprawling fantasy, and thoughtful horror. They are interested in stories that take place in space or on earth and want fantasy, horror, and science fiction. Created by the reading experts at Vancouver Public Library.

User from Vancouver Public Library

16 items

  • A horror classic, recommended for fans of David Lynch. Suspenseful and unsettling, this work of psychological fiction intensifies when cousin Charles arrives at the family estate. As the old manor slowly becomes a grave, the past reveals its true…
    Book, 1962New York, Viking Press [1962]
  • "Twin Peaks is the story of a seemingly normal town that actually contains demonic killers, mystical lodges, and a backward-talking dwarf. Davis's Duplex has a similar conceit: a suburban America that transforms into a dreamscape of witches, robots,…
    Book, 2013Minneapolis, Minnesota : Graywolf Press, [2013]
  • A mind-bending, surreal, and haunting piece of speculative fiction which follows the point of view of a biologist and her team of fellow specialists (an anthropologist, psychologist, and surveyor) who explore what is known as Area X in an attempt to…
    Book, 2014Toronto : HarperCollins Pub., c2014.
  • "Like Lynch, Haruki Murakami has a knack for injecting the truly strange into the seemingly everyday. [...] Murakami's novel creates a mystery novel out of two parallel stories: One is a weird science-fiction story about data encryption, and the…
    Book, 1993New York : Vintage International, 1993.
  • A postmodern version of a classic horror story. This cult novel is about a normal family who moves into a frightening new home whose interior measures more than its exterior.
    Book, 2000New York : Pantheon Books, c2000.
  • "Binyam’s beguiling and dreamlike debut chronicles an immigrant man’s return to his home country after 26 years. [...] This is one of those novels that demands a second reading, and is well worth the time." -- Publishers Weekly
    Book, 2023New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023.
  • A brilliant and terrifying novel, based on true historical events. A doomed polar expedition has left 126 men fighting to survive, trapped in the ice with poisonous food, dwindling supplies, and an unseen predator stalking them. While not…
    Book, 2007New York : Little, Brown and Co., 2007.
  • Hugo Award winner. In a place called the Stillness, apocalypses occur as regularly as the seasons, and science and magic have an uneasy relationship. On her quest to rescue her daughter, Essun faces difficult choices and unexpected secrets. This is…
    Book, 2015New York, NY : Orbit, Hachette Book Group, 2015.
  • "Life imitates art and art scams life in Lynch's debut, a picaresque fantasy that chronicles the career of Locke Lamora orphan, thief and leader of the Gentlemen Bastards from the time the Thiefmaker sells Locke to the faking Eyeless Priest up to…
    Book, 2006New York : Bantam Books, 2006.
  • Scherblin's surreal, unsettling novel is about a young woman dying in a hospital. Dream memory gradually reveals a story involving toxins and contamination. Schweblin was named one of Granta's best writers in Spanish under 35.
    Book, 2017New York : Riverhead Books, 2017.
  • The monster that 13-year-old Conner must face isn't the type you'd expect, but one from his subconscious that forces him to recognize uncomfortable truths.
    Book, 2011Somerville, Mass. : Candlewick Press, 2011.
  • Apollo Kagwa has had strange dreams that have haunted him since childhood. An antiquarian book dealer with a business called Improbabilia, he is just beginning to settle into his new life as a committed and involved father, unlike his own father who…
    Book, 2017New York : Spiegel & Grau, [2017]
  • What if the evil the Puritans feared was real, and dark spirits indeed lurk in the woods? In this fantasy novel they do, and an oppressive social order keeps the community safe. For Immanuelle, who is marginalized because of her race and her birth,…
    Book, 2020New York : Ace, 2020.
  • "Harrison's talent for brilliant, reality-bending SF is on display yet again with this three-tiered tale [...] This is space opera for the intelligentsia, as Harrison (Things That Never Happen ) tweaks aspects of astrophysics, fantasy and humanism…
    Book, 2019London : Gollancz, 2019.
  • In this imaginative narrative depicting the disillusionment of urban life, society descends into a tumultuous reversal. The isolated residents of the high-rise, propelled by primal instincts, establish a dystopian realm governed by the rules of the…
    Book, 2000London : Flamingo, 2000, c1975.
  • In the city of New Crobuzon, corrupt politicians and drug lords have co-opted national research with tragic consequences. Outside the fold, rogue scientist Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin dabbles in a combination of advanced computer theory and alchemy…
    Book, 2001New York : Del Rey, 2001.