More like Arc d'X
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- VALIS
series4 books1981
completed
similar byidentitychallenging+4 more
The VALIS trilogy is a set of science fiction/philosophical novels by author Philip K. Dick which include VALIS (1981), The Divine Invasion (1981), and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1982). Dick's first novel about the VALIS concept originally titled "VALISystem A", was published as Radio Free Albemuth after Dick's death in 1985.
- The Mad Man
Samuel R. Delanystandalone novel1994
similar byidentitychallenginglate 20th centuryliterary & generalour worldnorth america
The Mad Man is a literary novel by Samuel R. Delany, first published in 1994 by Richard Kasak. In a disclaimer that appears at the beginning of the book, Delany describes it as a "pornotopic fantasy". It was originally published in 1994, republished and slightly revised in 1996, and republished again with significant changes in 2002 and again in an e-book version with further corrections in 2015. Delany considers the 2015 version the definitive edition.
- Infinite Jest
David Foster Wallacestandalone novel1996
similar byidentitychallenginglate 20th centuryliterary & generalnonlinear narrativenorth america
Infinite Jest is a 1996 novel by American writer David Foster Wallace. Often considered Wallace’s magnum opus, the book has been categorized as an encyclopedic novel due to its unconventional narrative structure and hundreds of extensive endnotes, some with footnotes of their own.
- My Education: A Book of Dreams
William S. Burroughsstandalone novel1995
similar byidentitychallenginglate 20th centuryliterary & generalour worldnonlinear narrative
My Education: A Book of Dreams (1995) (ISBN 0-14-009454-7) is the final novel by William S. Burroughs to be published before his death in 1997. It is a collection of dreams, taken from various decades, along with a few comments about the war on drugs and paragraphs created with the cut-up technique. The book is dedicated to Michael Emerton.
- C
Tom McCarthystandalone novel2010
similar byidentitychallengingliterary & generalour worldnonlinear narrative
C is a 2010 novel written by Tom McCarthy. C is McCarthy's third novel and sixth book. The novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Critics were polarized by the work.
- V.
Thomas Pynchonstandalone novel1963
similar byidentitychallengingliterary & generalpostmodernnorth america
V. is a satirical postmodern novel and the debut novel of Thomas Pynchon, published on March 18, 1963. It describes the exploits of a discharged U.S. Navy sailor named Benny Profane, his reconnection in New York with a group of pseudo-bohemian artists and hangers-on known as the Whole Sick Crew, and the quest of an aging traveler named Herbert Stencil to identify and locate the mysterious entity he knows only as "V." It was nominated for a National Book Award.
- Dhalgren
Samuel R. Delanystandalone novel1975
similar byidentitychallengingliterary & generalnorth america
Dhalgren is a 1975 science fiction novel by American writer Samuel R. Delany. It features an extended trip to and through Bellona, a fictional city in the American Midwest cut off from the rest of the world by an unknown catastrophe. It is number 33 on the 20th Century's Greatest Hits: 100 English-Language Books of Fiction list.
- Cloud Atlas
David Mitchellstandalone novel2004
similar byidentitychallengingliterary & generalour world
Cloud Atlas, published in 2004, is the third novel by British author David Mitchell. The book combines metafiction, historical fiction, contemporary fiction and science fiction, with interconnected nested stories in different writing styles that take the reader from the remote South Pacific in the 19th century to the island of Hawaii in a distant post-apocalyptic future. Its title references a piece of music by Toshi Ichiyanagi.
- Jerry Cornelius
series50 books1965
similar byidentitylate 20th centurychallengingpostmodern+2 more
Jerry Cornelius is a fictional character created by English author Michael Moorcock. The character is an urban adventurer and an incarnation of the author's Eternal Champion concept. Cornelius is a hipster of ambiguous and occasionally polymorphous gender. Many of the same characters feature in each of several Cornelius books, though the individual books have little connection with one another, having a more metafictional than causal relationship. The first Jerry Cornelius book, The Final Programme, was made into a 1973 film starring Jon Finch and Jenny Runacre. Notting Hill in London features prominently in the stories.
- The Edible Woman
Margaret Atwoodstandalone novel1969
similar byidentitylate 20th centuryliterary & generalour worldnorth america
The Edible Woman is the first published novel by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, published in 1969. It is the story of a young woman, Marian, whose sane, structured, consumer-oriented world starts to slip out of focus. Following her engagement, Marian feels her body and her self are becoming separated. Marian begins endowing food with human qualities that cause her to identify with it, and finds herself unable to eat, repelled by metaphorical cannibalism. In a foreword written in 1979 for the Virago edition of the novel, Atwood described it as a protofeminist rather than feminist work.
- Red Shift
Alan Garnerstandalone novel1973
similar byidentitychallengingliterary & generalnonlinear narrative
Quoting that 1978 review article by Brian Lee: Red Shift [after The Owl Service] was again about the relationship between two adolescents, but interwoven in their love story were two other strands: one about a group of Roman legionaires 'going tribal' among warring factions of the British (the parallel and the brutal language are obviously those of the Americans among the Viet Cong and the Viet Minh); the other strand is about the massacre of a village on the Welsh border during the Civil War.{{BREAK}} Undoubtedly, Red Shift is a brilliantly written and gripping book. The difficulty about it is that Garner makes no concessions to his readers (and on the book jacket he makes it clear that it is for children). It is told almost entirely in cryptic conversation with minimal clues to the identity of the speakers. He switches from strand to strand of the story without warning. The book cannot be understood and appreciated at one hasty reading. It is worth serious study, but will children persevere? In her introduction to the 1973 edition of Children's Books of the Year, critic and reviewer Elaine Moss says: Spurred on by the publication of Alan Garner's literary crossword puzzle Red Shift ... many of us asked ourselves where children's publishing should end and adult begin? For Children's Books of the Year I have drawn the line below Red Shift and excluded it ... Alan Garner, in deliberately choosing an avant-garde form, is also choosing an advanced, sophisticated audience for his book. Alan Garner himself seems to have come around to this view. This year a television adaptation of Red Shift was screened at peak viewing time with no mention of the fact that it was originally published as a children's novel. [end quotation from the review article; ellipses by Lee]
- Nova Trilogy
series3 books1961
completed
similar bychallengingliterary & generalpostmodernour worldnonlinear narrative+1 more
William S. Burroughs's Nova Trilogy -- The Soft Machine, The Ticket That Exploded, and Nova Express -- extends the fragmented cut-up and fold-in techniques he developed with Brion Gysin into a paranoid, hallucinatory sequence about control itself. Across the three books, the shadowy Nova Mob, personified as viral, parasitic forces of language and image, is opposed by an equally strange Nova Police, in an allegory for how societies are manipulated through media and addiction. It continues directly from the world and method of Naked Lunch rather than telling a conventional linear story.
- The Satanic Verses
Salman Rushdiestandalone novel1988
similar byidentitychallengingliterary & generalour worldnonlinear narrative
The Satanic Verses is the fourth novel by British–Indian writer Salman Rushdie. First published in September 1988, the book was inspired by the life of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. As with his previous books, Rushdie used magical realism and relied on contemporary events and people to create his characters. The title refers to the Satanic Verses, a group of Quranic verses about three pagan Meccan goddesses: Allāt, Al-Uzza, and Manāt. The part of the story that deals with the satanic verses was based on accounts from the historians al-Waqidi and al-Tabari.
- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Junot Díazstandalone novel2007
similar byidentitychallenginglate 20th centuryliterary & general+1 more
Dark fantasy novel. A young man who dreams of being “the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien” is doomed by a family curse, traced across generations.
- The Magus
John Fowlesstandalone novel1965
similar byidentitychallengingliterary & generalpostmodern
The Magus (1965) is a postmodern novel by British author John Fowles, telling the story of Nicholas Urfe, a young British graduate who is teaching English on a small Greek island. Urfe becomes embroiled in the psychological illusions of a master trickster, which become increasingly dark and serious. Considered an example of metafiction, it was the first novel written by Fowles but his third book to be published. A revised edition was published in 1977.
- Phases of Gravity
Dan Simmonsstandalone novel1989
similar byidentitylate 20th centuryliterary & generalour worldnorth america
Follows Richard Baedecker, an Apollo astronaut who walked on the moon, through his midlife crisis. He meanders through India, Glen Oak Illinois, the mountains of Colorado, and the coastline of Oregon, checking up on his son and his former Apollo crewmates.
- American Psycho
Bret Easton Ellisstandalone novel1991
similar bychallenginglate 20th centuryliterary & generalpostmodernnorth america+1 more
American Psycho is a horror novel by American writer Bret Easton Ellis, published in 1991. The story is told in the first-person by Patrick Bateman, a wealthy, narcissistic, and vain Manhattan investment banker who lives a double life as a serial killer. Alison Kelly of The Observer notes that while "Some countries [deem it] so potentially controversial that it only to be sold as shrink-wrapped", "critics rave about it" and "academics revel in its transgressive and postmodern qualities".
- Stranger in a Strange Land
Robert A. Heinleinstandalone novel1961
similar byidentitychallengingnorth americaour world
Stranger in a Strange Land is a 1961 science fiction novel by the American author Robert A. Heinlein. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who comes to Earth in early adulthood after being born on the planet Mars and raised by Martians, and explores his interaction with and eventual transformation of Terran culture.
- Pale Fire
Vladimir Nabokovstandalone novel1962
similar byidentitychallengingliterary & generalpostmodern+1 more
Novel, written in the form of an epic poem by a fictional author, and scholarly commentary by a fictional biographer.
- Concrete Island
J. G. Ballardstandalone novel1974
similar byidentitychallengingliterary & generalour world
Architect Robert Maitland crashes his car onto a stretch of wasteland trapped between three converging motorways -- visible from thousands of cars, reachable by none of them. Injured and unable to climb back to the road, Maitland adapts to life on what he starts calling the Island, scavenging food thrown from car windows, and discovers he isn't alone: a runaway sex worker hiding in a bunker, and a brain-damaged former circus acrobat, both long past expecting rescue. What begins as a survival story turns into a question of whether Maitland even wants to leave. A J. G. Ballard novel of urban isolation, grouped with Crash and High-Rise.
- Underworld
Don DeLillostandalone novel1997
similar byidentitychallengingliterary & generalpostmodernnorth america+1 more
Underworld is a 1997 novel by American writer Don DeLillo. The novel is centered on the efforts of Nick Shay, a waste management executive who grew up in the Bronx, to trace the history of the baseball that won the New York Giants the pennant in 1951, and encompasses numerous subplots drawn from American history in the second half of the twentieth century. Described as both postmodernist and a reaction to postmodernism, it examines themes of nuclear proliferation, waste, and the contribution of individual lives to the course of history.
- Briefing for a Descent Into Hell
Doris Lessingstandalone novel1971
similar byidentitychallengingliterary & generalour world
Briefing for a Descent into Hell is a 1971 psychological novel by British novelist Doris Lessing. It was shortlisted for that the 1971 Booker Prize.
- The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor
John Barthstandalone novel1991
similar byidentitychallengingliterary & generalpostmodern
The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor is a novel by American writer John Barth, published in 1991. It is a postmodern metafictional story of a man who jumps overboard from a modern replica of a medieval Arab ship and is rescued by sailors from the world of Sinbad the Sailor. Eventually he makes his way to "Baghdad, the City of Peace", and finds himself in the stories of Sindbad and Scheherazade. The novel makes use of a challenging double-stranded narrative and a rich prose style.
- The Broom of the System
David Foster Wallacestandalone novel1987
similar byidentitychallengingliterary & generalpostmodernnorth america
The Broom of the System is the first novel by the American writer David Foster Wallace, published in 1987.
