Series

Books like The Variant Effect: 9 series to read next

The Variant Effect is horror, set in our world. The 9 series below are ranked by how much of that they share — each card says which parts.

The Variant Effect is 8 books, 2010–2018.

The The Variant Effect page →Narrow this list →

Jerusalem's Lot
World War Z
Southern Reach Trilogy
Rats
Night
Rosemary Reilly
Castle Rock
Little Tall Island / In the Path of the Eclipse
The Labyrinth

Jerusalem's LotSeries

seriesStephen King3 books1975

About vampires and grief and loss, set in small town and north america.

“Stephen King's 1975 novel 'Salem's Lot follows writer Ben Mears as he returns to his childhood town of Jerusalem's Lot, Maine, only to discover that its residents are being turned into vampires by a newly arrived stranger.”
from the catalogue description

Start with 'Salem's Lot →

World War ZSeries

seriesMax Brooks3 books2006

Zombie horror and post-apocalyptic, about war.

Start with World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War →

Southern Reach TrilogySeries

seriesJeff VanderMeer4 books2014

Weird fiction, eerie in tone.

“In 2013, Paramount Pictures bought the movie rights for the series, and a film adaptation of Annihilation was made with Alex Garland as writer-director.”
from the catalogue description
Wikipedia CC BY-SA 4.0

Start with Annihilation →

RatsSeries

seriesJames Herbert4 books1974

Set in british isles and big city.

“The Rats, James Herbert's 1974 debut novel, imagines a plague of giant mutant rats overrunning London, told through a rotating cast of victims and survivors in the tradition of British disaster horror.”
from the catalogue description

Start with The Rats →

NightUniverse

universe134 books2006

Set in contemporary.

“Jonathan Maberry's Night is one dark country stitched from horror and hard science, where a weaponized pathogen and an old nightmare called Doctor Nine turn out to haunt the same map.”
from the catalogue description

Reading order →

Rosemary ReillySeries

seriesIra Levin2 books1967

About demons and parenthood, set in north america and big city.

“Rosemary's Baby follows a young wife in a Gothic Manhattan apartment building who grows increasingly convinced that her elderly neighbors, and even her own husband, are part of a conspiracy surrounding her pregnancy.”
from the catalogue description

Start with Rosemary's Baby →

Castle RockSeries

seriesStephen King & Richard Chizmar16 books1978

Set in north america and small town.

“Castle Rock is the fictional Maine town that links a cluster of otherwise separate Stephen King novels and novellas, including The Dead Zone, Cujo, The Dark Half, Needful Things, and Elevation.”
from the catalogue description

Start with Nona →

Little Tall Island / In the Path of the EclipseSeries

seriesStephen King4 books1989

Psychological thriller, set in north america.

“The first two novels share a real total solar eclipse as a pivotal, connecting event despite having otherwise unrelated plots and characters.”
from the catalogue description

Start with Home Delivery →

The LabyrinthUniverse

universe48 books2001

Horror, dark in tone, set in contemporary.

“Here the walls between apocalypses are thin, and the same old hungers press against all of them.”
from the catalogue description

Reading order →

Why these

No sales rank, no star ratings, no readers also bought.

Shared terms are not a promise that a book feels the same. Two series can be far-future political intrigue and read nothing alike — what the ranking can say is what they are about, and each card says which parts it shares.

Questions readers ask

What should I read after The Variant Effect?: Jerusalem's Lot — the closest match to The Variant Effect on what it is about, not on what sells.
Where do I start with The Variant Effect?: Skin Eaters. It is the entry the catalogue recommends for The Variant Effect.
How big is The Variant Effect?: The Variant Effect is 8 books, 2010–2018.

Books like The Variant Effect: 9 series to read next

Read next in The Variant Effect

Why these

Questions readers ask

Other series like this one