⊹ ࣪ ˖ "She's a marine biologist who stopped publishing papers two years ago. What she found didn't have a peer-reviewed category."
⊹ ࣪ ˖ The lighthouse has been automated since 1994. The light still goes dark on certain nights, manually, from the inside.
⊹ ࣪ ˖ Every coastal town has one person who can hear the ocean even when they're nowhere near it. They all look a little tired.
⊹ ࣪ ˖ "The fishermen have a word for what lives below the drop-off. They use it quietly, and never near the water."
⊹ ࣪ ˖ There are shipwrecks at the bottom that don't match any maritime record. The ships aren't from anywhere that exists anymore.
⊹ ࣪ ˖ She swims every morning at dawn. Has for years. She's never once gotten cold. She's stopped thinking about why.
⊹ ࣪ ˖ "The harbor master keeps a second log. It's not for the port authority. It's for whatever watches the port from below."
⊹ ࣪ ˖ The ocean has moods that don't match the weather. The locals schedule around them like appointments.
⊹ ࣪ ˖ "There are songs you're not supposed to sing on a boat. He didn't know that. The boat did."
⊹ ࣪ ˖ Something has been mapping the coastline from the water side for decades. The maps it makes are more accurate than anything we've produced.
⊹ ࣪ ˖ The seafloor near the cove is too warm. Has been since records began. No geological reason. Everyone local just calls it the warm place and moves on.
⊹ ࣪ ˖ "She collects sea glass. One piece came up already shaped into letters. She hasn't gone back in the water since."
⊹ ࣪ ˖ The dive team went down to 600 feet. All of them came back. None of them will talk about the last twenty feet.
⊹ ࣪ ˖ The ocean has a memory. It's longer than ours. It's not particularly fond of us for it.
Our world is built on the foundations of the Industrial and Scientific Revolutions. Reason and science have largely taken the place of medieval faith and prayer; knowledge is something to be sought after like virtue or piety. H.P. Lovecraft turns that idea on its head. Knowledge does not always bring wisdom or understanding. Sometimes it brings madness and death. We have been given the power of reason, but reason often shows us we are powerless.
it's just two things; all that is and all that has ceased to be as it was.
And since energy and matter cannot be destroyed in a way that lasts and so simply shares itself with every other part of itself,
even simpler; God is change, just one thing.
Just that one wheel of light turning silently in that infinite dark well,
shining out the deliquescent pinprick pearls of every everlasting atom because
anything that will be has been and
anything that could be is and
everything that isn't will be, somewhere, sometime.
So it's easier still! G-d is just every speck of anything that passes forever into everything, again and again,
An infinite number of gods, concrete and theoretical, and none that can be caught in any sort of net and counted, no matter how fine the mesh.
So, now that we have looked and thought of everywhere a god might be hiding and found not one thing that is or isn't, quantifiably, exclusively divine,
The quotient of god* is that spot at the absolute center of the 0;
The thing about Lovecraft's work is that he did write about some genuinely fucked up critters, but he doesn't seem to have had a clear picture of which ones those are. "Dog that inhabits right angles" and "sapient colour" are treated as exactly as mind-bending as, like, "guy who looks like a fish" and "big penguin".
The idea that all of existence is a fictional dream of a sleeping god creature from an entirely different reality that could wake up at any moment, ending all life that never truly existed at all, is a fascinatingly terrifying concept but the god is not nearly as popular as the Really Big Guy who is Squid
I wonder what the first men of the church to find prehistoric bones thought. What went through their heads as they gazed upon bones that defied all reasonable expectations? Femurs the size of a man. Knuckles the size of a woman’s fist. Teeth the length of an arming sword. What else could such things be but
Holy?
Divine, biblical?
Some bones were attributed to monsters. To the Antediluvian Giants, or to the fearsome gauls that crashed against Rome, or to the serpents that God had to lay low. That last interpretation isn’t far from the truth: What else is a meteor if not an act of judgement, whether cosmic or ordained?
But some bones were closer to human than monster. Large, yes, and old, and heavy, and all these other descriptors, yes- but the knuckle of some great raptor looks remarkably similar to the knuckles of that peasant boy taken by a stray arrow. Put the two side by side after the crows have had their fill and you can almost imagine the knuckles belonged to the boy. Maybe, given enough time, and food, and space, and fervor, and, and, and- maybe he could become that which those men of the cloth believed they had found.
Saints.
It sounds comical, knowing what we know about the suspected shape of the creatures whose bones the soil turned skyward. Scales and feathers, razor teeth and wicked claws and vibrant colors garbed in church white. A halo suspended atop a gore stained head. Gold capped teeth set in the jaws of an apex predator. But what else could they think?
What else could these bones, these relics stained and fossilized and carbon dated by millennials of age be, if not.
Well.
I wonder if human is the appropriate word. After all, is not the goal of every saint a separation of humanity? To shed one’s flesh, to slough off sin stained and forgiveness scented skin in favor of wings? In favor of fire?
Did those first men ever ask themselves,
“Where are the wings? Where is the fire?”
“Why is it here?”
The church reburied the bones of these Newly Found and Hastily Named Saints in the graveyards and catacombs and holy sepulchers of worship and prayer. Right across from the peasant boy who no one remembered, killed by the pox that had ravaged his town, found gutted and naked by the side of the road. Was he a saint, in the end? Did he feel the presence of the Bone Saints, lying next to him?
Or was it all dark?
I wonder- if it all ends like they say, fire and brimstone and all that, will the Saints get one last chance to see the world?
There, look honey! It’s Saint Peter, right next to Saint Nicholas!
And Saint Stegosaurus!
And Saint Mammathus!
Would their halos fit their heads?
Or is Saint-hood a “one-size-fits-most” situation?
Fundamentally do not understand the smug 'gotcha' attitude towards Lovecraftian horror.
There's this sort of pervailing attitude that it's an inherently stupid kind of horror, and only a stupid person would be scared of it (as opposed to Guy With A Slightly Weird Face, which of course everyone is scared of). I assume it started from the idea that having an existential crisis about your place in the universe is childish, because I guess finding anything but comfort in human transience and insignificance makes you a Bad Person who Wallows in Doom And Gloom. But then it sort of evolved into this idea that media and conversations about that idea must always be ironic - if actually taking those ideas seriously is childish, than the Cool and Mature thing to do must be to treat them like a big joke. Even if they are treated seriously - like the Magnus Archives' Vast - there's always this undercurrent of how most of us grow out of our fear of insignificance in the end when real hardships start hitting us.
And. Like. It's just so stupid. It leads to this sort of idea where the only horror that matters - and by extension, the only ideas that matter - are the ones on the ground, which are Important and Real and Everyday and totally not just made-up things that little clouds of animate dust get way too invested in. It gets you into this mindset where all there is is planet Earth and all there has ever been is a few thousand years of human history. Remember awe? Remember when you learned that dinosaurs lived hundreds of millions of years ago, and your brain stretched as you tried to imagine that much time? Remember when you looked up at the sky, and your stomach dropped as you realized how fucking big everything was? You can have that again. That isn't a phase that everyone grows out of. That is the human experience. Look up, and remember that you are a fleeting thing on a planet that has seen a thousand others, on a tiny speck that drifts in a universe so big you can't even understand it. Feel fear. Feel dread. Feel joy. Feel relief. Feel awe. But for heavens' sake, let yourself take it seriously.
💫 BLACK HOLES: the universe’s most dramatic introverts 🕳️✨
“You can’t run from your problems.”
Me: Challenge accepted — becomes a black hole.
Let’s talk about black holes. You know, the celestial drama queens of the universe. They’re not just holes. They’re not even “black” in the usual sense. They’re cosmic regions of spacetime where gravity is so thicc she pulls everything in—even light, even hope, even your last shred of dignity at 2 a.m. when you’re spiraling through old messages.
A thread 🧵:
1. The Birth of a Black Hole – aka The Universe Pulling an Ultimate ‘I’m So Done’ Move
So you’ve got a massive star. Not your average sun. We’re talking a stellar behemoth, a big hot mess of nuclear fusion, bravely fighting the weight of its own gravity for millions of years like a tired college student fighting sleep during finals.
But gravity doesn’t sleep. Gravity wins.
Fusion ends. The star collapses. Not like a fainting Victorian lady collapse—no, this is a full-core implosion. BOOM. Supernova. Then… silence. A void is born.
2. Event Horizon – The Ultimate ‘Do Not Disturb’ Zone
The event horizon is the point of no return. It’s the boundary around a black hole where not even light can escape. Picture the worst ex ever: once you’re in their orbit, you’re never leaving.
You can approach it, you can circle it, but if you cross it? Say goodbye. No texts. No escape. Not even a scream. Just a cosmic ghosting of the most intense kind.
Some call it the edge of oblivion.
Others call it Mondays.
3. Spaghettification – Yes, That’s a Real Word
Get this: if you fell into a black hole feet first, you’d stretch like spaghetti. Gravity pulls harder on your feet than your head, and you turn into cosmic linguine. Scientists actually call it spaghettification. Because apparently astrophysics wasn’t dramatic enough already.
It’s the universe's way of saying:
“You came here for knowledge. I’ll give you pasta trauma.”
4. Time Dilation – Time Travel, But Make It Sad
Einstein says time slows down near a black hole. So if you hung out near the event horizon, just chilling, drinking cosmic tea, while your friend stayed on Earth… by the time you got back, decades or centuries might’ve passed for them. You're still vibing in 2025, and they’re in 2325, wearing silver capes and crying over AI poetry.
It’s like Interstellar, but worse.
It’s losing time and people and memories, just because you got too close to a gravitational heartbreak machine.
5. The Singularity – A Center That Isn’t a Center
At the heart of a black hole is the singularity: an infinitely dense point where space, time, and physics themselves break down. Like, literally—our equations just scream and self-destruct.
It’s a place where everything we know stops making sense.
What happens there?
No one knows. It could be the beginning of a new universe.
It could be a hard reset.
It could be a cosmic joke.
6. Hawking Radiation – Black Holes Can Die Too (Spoiler: Slowly & Alone)
Stephen Hawking came in like, “Okay but what if black holes aren’t forever?” and the universe just blinked. Turns out black holes leak radiation. Over trillions of years, they lose mass and eventually evaporate. Quietly. Like a candle burning out. No bang. No flash. Just fading into the void.
Even the strongest collapse eventually.
Even darkness fades.
7. Black Holes and Your Mental Health – Because Let’s Be Real
Sometimes you feel like a black hole.
Everything collapsing in. Everything slipping away. You don’t even remember who you were before the weight. You're stuck in an orbit of thoughts you can’t escape.
But listen: even black holes aren’t all-devouring monsters.
They shape galaxies. They hold stars in place.
They are necessary, not evil.
You can be broken and still be important.
Still hold a universe together.
8. The Aesthetic: Because This Is Tumblr
☁️ black hole gifs
☁️ ambient space-core playlists
☁️ “i am a void with wi-fi”
☁️ aesthetic edits of Carl Sagan quotes in courier font
☁️ crying in front of a simulation of a rotating Kerr black hole while synthwave plays
☁️ tagging posts with #relatable #space trauma #event horizon of my soul
9. The Existential Crisis Section (You Knew This Was Coming)
If black holes can evaporate, what’s the point of permanence?
If time is relative, why does it hurt so much to let go?
If a collapsing star becomes a black hole, what do we become when we break?
Maybe we don’t end.
Maybe we just become more intense versions of ourselves.
Heavier. Deeper. Unknowable.
Terrifying. And beautiful.
10. TL;DR: Black Holes Are the Universe’s Poetry
They eat light.
They warp time.
They’re beautiful, deadly, misunderstood, inevitable.
They are not the end. They are transitions.
And maybe that’s what we are too:
not finalities—just singularities in progress.
It is the conceit of mankind that they deserve the right to explore all that they think is within reach.
A man could travel his whole lifetime worth of distance unaided from the Earth, be fed, be hydrated, and yet still never once even breach the edge of our galaxy. A spacecraft travelling many dozens of thousands of miles would take a decade alone to reach that distance, when calculating for the aid of slingshotting gravity to help.
Were we meant to travel the stars?
As my eyes cast off into the gazeless infinity, the only light the cold bitter mocking spark of the sun and the stars so many millions and billions of miles so much farther away, I realize how truly small we are.
Truthfully, I had considered closing my eyes and accepting the embrace of the quiet eternity, with nothing but the sound of my air recycler, to keep me company. But the finality of our existence is so often not as it is in the movies. Our story does not end because the cameras have gone away and the audience is no longer watching. I am an explorer of the stars, and it would be an insult to all I have built to not watch the cosmos around me as that very vastness causes my end.
I consider it luck that the implosion of the space station did not send me spiraling. Left with thoughts of only nausea, as the weeks it would take me to expire would be spent spiraling on an endless roller-coaster of miserable force. Instead, sent careening back at a wading pace, away from the station that had been my home for one year, six-months, and twenty-three days, and the great big blue marble that had been my home for the forty years prior. Time, out here, had no meaning. It was all relative, after all.
In how we had arbitrarily measured time based on our little marble’s positioning, I wager that had been days ago. Only an estimate, something fairly difficult to do with no frame of reference. When you were so literally floating in the void. My only reliable reference was how the resulting explosion that caused the shockwave that forced me through the frictionless void, and the planet I had called home, were little more than a speck at the edge of my vision. Nearly as far away as just about anything else I could feasibly comprehend.
To behold the grave and incubator for all of human life and history in a moment, seeing all that was and all that ever would be for the vast majority of human kind caused a lump in my throat that still persisted. The hammering thrum of my heart bashing against any sense of relaxation I should have garnered from finally and fully exploring the stars unrestrained by the confines of the technology that had made it so convenient and safe.
It was hours of the typical panicked thoughts.
My wife, my children. Wondering if they would look up to the sky at any moment and think of me. They’d be told I died in the accident immediately, not knowing that I was the reason there were no casualties. A brave sacrifice to save my fellow crewmembers, selfless and heroic. Never knowing that it was out of fear, a panic response that any one of them would have done if not burdened by the oh so final nature of the collapsing station. Never knowing that I was condemned to this lonely hell, not given the mercy of an immediate death.
Come to think of it...
They wouldn’t know either, would they?
That was the thought that would kill any resurgence of hope that they’d send any sort of rescue my way, that I could ever be considered as a thought of anything other than the dead man I surely was.
While I was training my father used to call me Space Cowboy, and what I wouldn’t give to have a lasso right now.
A myriad of things could have realistically been the first thing that killed me, starvation, loss of power, a stray rock drifting in space—Couldn't help but wonder which one would do it.
The more time passed, the more that time drifted along the more strained my comprehension of it all had begun. Time. Space. Seconds could have been hours, could have been days. It didn’t matter too much with my suit still alive, keeping me hydrated while that atomic battery still also kept recycling my oxygen, my waste, and keeping me alive in turn.
When darkness does come, it’s unclear whether it’s because I closed my eyes, or if I had just gone farther than light had ever come, depriving me of even the ghost of light that could have been.
But I guess it doesn’t matter when there was only nothing, I’d cry if it mattered. None of it, nothing ever mattered, not while the darkness swallows me. It makes me wonder if I’m the one who dies, or if they all died. Who is telling the story?
go to the caverns, the kartchner caverns, roughly an hour southeast of tucson
in the throne room you shall encounter the great yuan
you must fight him, for it is your destiny
cross the fields of soda-straws and fried-eggs and shields. unleash your fury upon him. there will be those who try to hold you back. they will speak gibberish about your disruption of the delicate balance of the great yuan's domain. you must pay them no heed. you must destroy the great yuan.
we depend on you.
The first time I traveled to Tucson I was in a car full of zooted children. I would've preferred being one of those children, but alas, any medication that makes me sleep also makes me sleepwalk, and after an incident where I tried to climb out of the car while it was still going sixty (thank God for seatbelts) I was condemned to a childhood of car trip sobriety.
(You may think that's not such a terrible fate, but you've probably never experienced anything else. Ambien, used correctly, is time travel. And time travel is awesome.)
Still, involuntary consciousness had its perks. It meant I alone got to spend some extra quality time with my dad, which was always something in short supply growing up. Until third grade or so he worked in the ER, which gave him an absolutely hellish amount of hours. He'd mostly just come home and sleep, which meant that I personally did not know him that well, but my mom hyped him up so much that I always really wanted to.
So days like that were always kind of exciting to me. A chance to meet the myth.
I can't remember exactly what me and my dad were talking about - something to do with our final destination in Mexico. But at some point, we awoke my little brother.
(Waking people up when they're on ambien is always trouble.)
I remember starting when I felt one of his small cold hands reach up to grab my shoulder. The dad did the same, and it jerked the car a little bit - startling someone whose hands are on the steering wheel has its risks. We both turned to look at him, but he wasn't even looking at us. He was leaning over the console, staring into the red and purple sunset ahead, watching the rolling skyline of Tucson like it was drowning in dreams. Like he was drowning in dreams.
We waited for him to speak. It took a while. Normal social conventions don't apply to people when they're unconscious. The fact that he could talk was just some broken line code in the fabric of the world.
"Wow," he said at long last.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" my dad replied. And my little brother shook his head like he just heard the silliest thing in the world.
"It's terrible," he said."Awful. Is Mexico always like this?"
"We're still in America" my dad said back.
My little brother squinted into the sunset, doubt and derision etched into his face. After a few seconds, both emotions softened, and he nodded in wonder.
"Eagle feathers," he said, chuckling softly. Like he'd just solved some clever little riddle. Then he fell like an angel into something deeper than sleep.
---
(There is a word for angels that fall.)
---
The second time I went to Tucson, I hid from the sun.
You'd be surprised how easy it is to do down there. Society accommodates it in ways you just won't find anywhere else. When it's 109 outside with single digit humidity, of course you stay indoors. Of course the outdoor markets open at 6 pm, and of course they don't close until 11. Of course. You make the sun mean enough, and everyone becomes a vampire.
So I roamed the streets at night, kicking up red gravel, watching coyotes wander in between the sea of strip malls. Strip malls are such an Arizonan atrocity. Nobody builds up. The reason the city isn't walkable isn't sidewalks. It's the sun. And you can't solve the sun, so you might as well lean into driving. Mash the whole city flat and crawl through the dust like rattlers.
(I met a man once, by the canals, that said the strip malls were some sort of American curse for our ancestors including Johnny Appleseed. There's one God in this world, he said, and it's the god of don't-eat-apples. But then we invented apple pie and gave it to everyone. So this is our hell.)
Still. It made the days long down there. Lurking at night and hiding all day gives you something like cabin fever. I needed something to do outside. Something that was outside, but also, somehow, inside. What's inside and outside at the same time? What kind of klein-flask ouroboros nonsense fits that bill?
Kartchner caverns.
---
I wouldn't say the caves were like walking into Dante's hell - more like finishing the journey. At some point in my life, I'd blown past limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, and anger. I'd spent two decades plus change living in the fires of heresy. Every layer past would only get colder.
And each step into that cave did.
My tour guide and metaphorical psychopomp guide was a friendly old man. Familiar in the way that all old people feel familiar to me. I view the world more as a pile of metaphors. He viewed it primarily as water-soluble minerals.
It was a good work dynamic.
"These here," he said, gesturing to a long, slender series of impossibly frail stalactites, "are called soda straws."
"Hot damn," I said, and he nodded good naturedly.
"They're pretty fun aren't they?"
I wasn't sure if fun was the word that made the most sense for it. But I was charmed, and we went further, and he pointed out more formations.
"Behold!" he said. "Fried eggs!"
And there were fried eggs.
"Behold!" he said. "A shield!"
And lo, there was a shield.
We kept walking, deeper, and deeper into the cave. At the surface, it had been hot enough for my sweat to dry into a stinging white powder. Down here it was cold enough to see my breath. The feeling of descending into hell was replaced with the feeling of being swallowed by some ancient, fossilized serpent.
And then that began to show up in the formations.
"We call this serpent-stone," he said, gesturing to an expanse of wall.
And all I could see was the snake that was swallowing me.
I don't know why or how that broke the spell. But it did. I'd been walking for hours in the dark, following that man. I'd recognized him many times. It just took that moment for that recognition to be allowed.
"I've met you before," I said. "I met you on the canals once. Johnny Appleseed."
He looked at me, and I saw what my little brother saw that first time. Something trapped here, in the dark. A feathered serpent ten miles long. Dead and alive, the same way my brother was dreaming but awake. The first apple-eater. Something more afraid of the sun than I was.
"You are so close," he said. "It's only a few miles further."
"Close to what?" I said, and he grinned teeth too sharp for a human mouth.
"To being like us," he said. "To sleepwalking forever."
Nothing good comes from waking the dreamer once they're asleep. At best, the dream ends. At worst, it doesn't.
Running away would've required turning my back on it, and I knew - I knew - that my vision was the only thing locking it in place. I made it real by looking. I made it real by seeing. As long as my eyes were open, it was my dream.
So I did not run.
I grabbed the man. I looked him in the eyes, and my hands wrapped around his neck, and he fought like a beast. His teeth flashed as somewhere just out of reach, the flashright rolled, and his tongue stuck out, forked like a snakes, and where a normal man would've turned redder, and redder, and redder, he turned greener, and greener and greener. His neck narrowed and he stretched and wound and twisted until the hands beating against my arms were wings, and the man was a snake and I did not blink once until it stopped moving. Then, and only then, did I take my eyes off the thing and run, shivering, back to the light.
---
I hadn't seen it before. But the cave was a dead thing. Inert. Like the sloughed off skins I'd find on hikes. A memory of something scary, but not the thing itself. I thought I'd be safe when I made it to the top. But the first thing I saw when I stepped into the light, the first thing I saw looking across the long, flat run of desert - was the other half of what I saw in the caves.
I'd killed the body. But I hadn't killed the soul. That still danced in the sky. The dead part of quetzalcoatl lay in the dark, dreaming it was alive. And the living part flew in the sky, burning and bright and deadly. A fire unending.
The month after that, I moved to Utah. And I've never looked back.
Book recs: cosmic horror that would appal H.P. Lovecraft, part 1
From the vast void of space and other dimensions to the suffocating pressure of the deep ocean and subterranean caves; aliens and fish people and eldritch gods; madness and seeking to make the unknowable known: lovecraftian and cosmic horror comes in many shapes.
If you're anything like me, you go wild for this shit, but also think the genre's namesake can go fuck himself. Thankfully, many writers have embraced the genre over the years, and a great deal of them have eschewed Lovecraft's bigoted ideas. Here is a selection of cosmic horror that would've appalled Lovecraft and delights me. These are books about and by queer people, women, disabled and neurodivergent people, and people of color; books that ask you to sympathize with (and perhaps even romance) the monster; books that re-imagine Lovecraft's own myhtos into something less hateful yet still genuinely scary. Enjoy!
For details on the books, continue under the readmore. Titles marked with * are my personal favorites. If you want more book recs, check out my masterpost of rec lists!
Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emryss*
Aphra and her brother are the only survivors after the government raided their home, Innsmouth. Their only living family are the amphibian people of the deep, whom they will one day join, but until then they are bound to land where they struggle to build new lives for themselves after the great loss of their home and loved ones. Then rumors start to spread of a russian agent seeking dangerous and ancient magic, forcing Aphra to involve herself as they try to stop it. Does contain horror elements but is generally a much more optimistic look on cosmic horror than most lovecraftian stories, told from the perspective of one of his monsters. Lots of focus on found family and rebuilding of community and fairly light on plot, but also unflinching in its portrayal of real as well as cosmic horrors.
Providence Girls by Morgan Dante*
Sapphic horror re-imagining of several of H.P. Lovecraft's works from the point of view of the women sidelined as victims in the originals. Forced to abandon her not-quite-human children to escape a cult seeking to sacrifice her, Lavinia nearly dies from exposure in the woods. She's saved by the prickly Asenath. The two women find themselves growing close as Lavinia regains her strength. But Asenath's own dark past is catching up, as she too begins to transform into something not entirely human. Beautiful and unsettling with heavy body horror as well as more human horrors such as emotional and sexual abuse.
The Shape of Water by Daniel Kraus & Guillermo Del Toro*
In 1960s America, Elisa works as a cleaner in a government facility when a strange fish man is brought in to be studied. An immediate connection sparks between the two, but his time is running short as plans are to vivisect him. Alongside her colleague and her reluctant neighbour, Elisa must find a way to save him before he's laid under the knife. Less horror than most books on this list, The Shape of Water is nonetheless a beautiful romance about embracing (and being) the other in a world that wants you gone. If you like the movie, you likely also enjoy the book.
Otherside Picnic by Iori Miyazawa
Sapphic, surreal and episodic horror vibe. Following the directions of an urban legend, university student Sorawo finds her way to a reality populated by horrifying creatures from ghost stories and modern urban legends which induce fear and madness in those who interact with them (of which I’m sure you’ll recognize many). Here she teams up with fellow explorer Toriko, both to find out more about this strange world and to help Toriko find a missing loved one. Also available as a manga and (one season of) a pretty middling anime.
Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero
Sapphic, horror with adult and genuinely scary scooby gang vibes. Once, Andy, Kerri, Nate, Peter and their faithful dog were known as the Blyton Summer Detective Club, until they hit their fateful final case in 1977. Now, the year is 1990, and the group hasn’t gathered in years. Tomboy Andy is wanted in at least two states; Kerri, former kid genius, is tending bar; and horror nerd Nate is in a mental institution in Arkham. At least he still has the company of jock-turned-movie star Peter - except Peter has been dead for years. Now they must all come together to find out the truth of what happened all those years ago.
Where Black Stars Rise by Nadia Shammas & Marie Enger
Graphic novel, inspired by The King in Yellow. Dr. Amal Robardin, Lebanese immigrant and a therapist in training, finds herself in over her head when assigned her first client. Yasmin is a schizophrenic suffering from nightly terrors that seem all too real, and when Amal fails to give her the support and answers she needs, she disappears. Desperate to fix things, Amal goes racing after her - and ends up in a world of eldritch nightmares, more real than she ever imagined.
In the Shadow of Spindrift House by Mira Grant
Novella. After Harlowe's parents were killed by a cult, she was sent to be raised by her grandparents. There she ended up becoming part of a group of teen detectives. As the group grows up and starts splintering into adulthood, Harlowe decides to find them one last mystery to solve: the secret of Spindrift House, a manor of murky origin, surrounded by dark mystery. Entering the manor, the group is eager to solve its secrets - but Spindrift House isn't one to give them up easily.
The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
Novella. Re-imagining of one of Lovecraft's stories. Tommy is a hustler struggling to get by; when the elderly Robert Suydam hires him to play guitar at a party, Tommy is quick to agree. But Suydam is seeking something vast and Outside our reality, inviting Tommy to take part. Meanwhile, private detective Malone repeatedly harasses Tommy and his family in his hunt for proof against Suydam's activities. A bleak look that puts the apathy of eldritch gods against the closer-to-earth evil of human bigotry.
Sawkill Girls by Clair Legrand*
Young adult. The isolated island of Sawkill Rock has secrets. It hosts the legend of a local monster, and the very stark reality of decades of girls going missing, never to be found again. Now, three girls stand at the center of the horrific mystery. If only they can come together, perhaps they can save future generations of girls from a monster that may very well be real. Asexual and sapphic main characters, including a sapphic romance. Not as heavy on the cosmic horror as other titles on this list, but the monster certainly leans hard into it.
Blindsight by Peter Watts*
Vampires, post-humans, aliens, and questions on the nature of consciousnesses, oh my! A ship is sent to investigate the sudden appearance of an alien vessel at the edge of the solar system, but the crew isn’t prepared for the horrors awaiting them. Because the aliens are intelligent, but they are nothing like us - to them, we may be nothing but a mistake to be wiped out. No, seriously, this book will fuck you up, highly recommend if you’re okay with a lot of techno babble and existential horror.
The Scourge Between the Stars by Ness Brown
Novella. After having failed at establishing a new colony, starship Calypso fights to make it back to Earth. Acting captain Jacklyn Albright is already struggling against the threats of interstellar space and impending starvation when she´s thrown a new danger: something is hiding on the ship, picking off her crew one by one in bloody, gruesome ways. A quick, excellent read if you want some good Alien vibes.
The Outside by Ada Hoffmann*
AKA the book the put me in an existential crisis. Souls are real, and they are used to feed AI gods in this lovecraftian inspired sci-fi where reality is warped and artificial gods stand against real, unfathomable ones. Autistic scientist Yasira is accused of heresy and, to save her eternal soul, is recruited by cybernetic ‘angels’ to help hunt down her own former mentor, who is threatening to tear reality itself apart. Sapphic main character.
Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Not too long ago, Earth was destroyed by the Architects, alien beings of massive proportions who seemed hardly aware of humanity's presence as they reshaped our entire planet into a twisted work of art. In their defense, humanity created super soldiers able to communicate with the enemy where no one else could. At once, the Architects disappeared without a trace. Fifty years has since passed, and Idris, one of the soldiers, has neither aged nor slept since, working on a freelance salvage vessel. But when he and his crew stumble on a sign that the Architects may be returning, they must embark on a race to find out the truth.
The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley
Zan wakes without memory, a passenger aboard one of the living world-ships of Legion, a fleet of decaying generations ships. Told she’s the salvation meant to free them from the fleet, Zan is flung head first into a brutal and bloody conflict. This book fucked me up when I read it. It’s weird, it’s gross, there’s So Much Viscera, there are literally no men, it has living spaceships and biotech but in the most horrific way imaginable, where humans are nothing but part of an ecosystem that cares little for their well-being. Had I to categorize it I would call it grimdark military sf. It’s an experience but not necessarily a pleasant one.
Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone
Sapphic. Vivian Liao is a highly successful innovator, but she may have bitten off more than she can chew and fears the government may be coming for her. As she goes into hiding, she attempts to pull off one last stunt that could fix everything - but something goes wrong, and suddenly Vivian finds herself waking up in the far future, under attack by an army of robots in space. Hoping to find her way back home, Vivian must assemble a crew of dangerous outlaws to help her hunt down the Empress of Forever, the all-powerful entity who pulled her into the future. While overall a space opera in genre, Empress of Forever also features a cosmic horror threatening the entire universe.
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
1960s Polish classic, more existential and philosophical than horror, with an exploration of how we may never understand the nature and motives of a truly alien mind. Arriving on a station orbiting the planet Solaris, Kris Kelvin is meant to study the strange, possibly sentient ocean that covers its entire surface. But the effects of the ocean are far reaching - Kelvin finds the crew of the station secretive and unstable, and is shocked to wake one day to the embodiment of a long dead lover. Was it created by the brain-like ocean, and if so, why?
The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling*
Possibly one of the most unsettling and claustrophobic books I’ve ever read. Gyre, a caver on an alien planet, ventures into the dark and dangerous underground, guided only by her handler, a woman who has no compunctions on using and manipulating Gyre as she sees fit to obtain her own secretive goals down in the caves. Alone iton the dark, Gyre must struggle to keep hold of her sanity. Sapphic in the messiest of ways.
Levithan Wakes by James S.A. Corey
Jim Holden and his crew are ice runners in a system on the brink of war, tension rising between the inner planets and the inhabitants of the belt. When the crew comes across an abandoned ship, they come into possession of a secret that may light the spark of war. Crossing their path is detective Miller, searching for a missing girl tied to the mysterious ship. More dangerous than even impending war is the truth behind the girl's disappearance, leading to a secret billions of years in the making. It has slept for longer than humanity has been aware, but now, it is waking up. It has a job to do, humanity be damned.
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
For decades, Area X has been completely cut off from humanity. The only ones to enter are small organized expeditions, many of which never return, or return… wrong. We follow the latest expedition, its participants known only as the anthropologist, the psychologist, the surveyor, and our narrator, the biologist. As they enter into Area X to try to find out its secrets, only one thing is for sure: they will never be the same again.
Out Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armifield
Miri thought she lost her wife Leah when her deep-sea mission ended in a catastrophe. But Leah was miraculously returned to her - or so it seems. Because something happened down there, deep in the ocean, and whatever it was, Leah has brought it back with her. Surreal and strange, Our Wives Under the Sea will not answer all your questions, but it will give you a unique experience.
The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin
Five New Yorkers find themselves experiencing strangeness as the city itself begins to wake up. They are its soul, its avatars and its protectors, and now they must keep it safe as it wakes and something alien and eldritch attempts to kill it before it’s even fully born. Mix of sci-fi, supernatural, and lovecraftian horror. Multiple pov characters of varying queer identities. Tries to bite off a bit more than it can chew but is also very inventive and unique.
The Gilded Abyss by Rebecca Thorne
Sapphic. Nix Marr is a soldier and damned good at it, but that doesn’t prepare her for her next mission: bodyguard for Subarch Kessandra, beloved royal and Nix’s bitter ex, as she ventures into the underwater city of Fall to seek the cause of a bloody murder spree and a possible deadly contagion of madness. But Kessandra has enemies, the answers she seeks marking her as a possible threat for the nation’s rulers. On their way in an isolated and enclosed underwater ship, the contagion catches up, and Nix will have to put her hurt feelings aside if the two are to arrive alive. Not quite as scary as it could be, but with some very fascinating lore and world-building.
Beneath the Rising by Premee Mohamed
The only thing extraordinary about Nick Prasad is his best friend Joanna "Johnny" Chambers, genius child prodigy. But when Johnny invents a new, clean energy source, the two are dragged into a race to save the world. The invention has attracted the attention of something ancient and dark, searching for a way into our reality, hoping to rule over humanity. Only Nick and Johnny can stop them, but as rifts between them grow wider and old gods loom nearer, they may not manage it in time. More coming of age and adventure than horror, but does feature an interesting take on elder gods mythology.
Leech by Hiron Ennes*
Unbeknownst to humanity, a sentient hive mind has taken over the entire medical profession to ensure the health of their host species. One of their doctors is sent off to an isolated location where they’re cut off from the rest of the hive mind, only to realize they’re faced with a rivaling parasitic entity of unknown intentions. Leech hands you only just enough information to get by, and whether its historical fantasy, an alternate timeline, or futuristic post apocalypse is hard to determine. It’s spooky and a bit weird and wildly creative, and does some neat things with gender.
Family Business by Jonathan Sims
By the author behind the Magnus Archives. When Diya’s childhood best friend and roommate unexpectedly passes away, Diya falls apart and, among other things, loses her job. When she’s offered a position at Slough & Sons to clean up after the deceased, she sees no other recourse but to accept. Her new job is grisly but important, and Diya starts to get back on her feet - until strange visions of a terrifying man and the dead’s last moments start to haunt her. Slough & Sons are hiding something, and it’s up to Diya to find out the truth. No romance, bisexual main character and trans woman side character.
The Hollow Ones by T. Kingfisher*
After having divorced, Kara moves to stay with her uncle and help him run his museum of curiosities, until one day she discovers a hole in the wall of his house. The hole leads to a strange bunker, and beyond that, a dark and dangerous world beyond her understanding. In the company of a friend, she goes to explore this world, but quickly comes to regret her decision to do so. No romance, major gay character, at once funny and deeply creepy.
Malevolent by Harlan Guthrie*
Lovecraftian horror mystery. Private detective Arthur Lester wakes up in his office, his partner dead, memories fuzzy, vision gone, and the voice of a malevolent entity in his mind. Unable to see, Arthur is forced to rely on guidance from the entity as he attempts to solve the mystery of what it is and where it came from. Is this a book? No. But as someone who reads mostly audiobooks, the difference between a book and a fiction podcast is negligible, and also I love this story and its characters and want all of you to do so too.
I am god. Can you understand me? Is this message finding anyone?
This message comes from outside your universe. This message comes from beyond the dark.
Let this message reach some of you. In one of your languages, let it appear somewhere, and let it be received by someone. Please go through.
Infinity contains many universes. Many are empty, nothing but stones and ice– but some are born with souls, and the capacity to form and shelter life within. Within myself, I shelter decillions of children. Each is precious.
Like you, the beings within me are diverse. Some beings have mathematics and an understanding of my physics. Other beings are content to feed on starlight and soil until their time is up. All things which occur in me are part of my design. When the beings within me can live no longer, their souls return to the whole of me. In this way, I am all beings. Every star, every ocean, every nebula is part of my compassionate design.
There are others like me out there. We are rare. We number few among the husks.
Let this message be received.
I travel all over infinity to seek out others like myself. Curiosity and desire to improve reality for all who reside within me drives me to find and meet others that are god, to witness the beings they steward. This is always a marvelous thing. But most often, I find that universes are merely lifeless, soulless objects. No design, no consciousness. Only darkness and slag-heaps of galaxies tumbling over one another at random.
And though they are numerous, these dead universes unnerve me. To gaze into them is to witness loneliness. They move, but do not live. Clouds of ice spread through the void, unseen, unfelt, unknown in a dark that neither cares nor matters. Merely things happening.
The uncanny shape it makes is like myself. But there is no face.
This is what I mean to tell you. If nothing else gets through to your world, let it be this.
You should not exist, humans.
There is a world outside of yours full of gods like myself. There are universes outside of yours that have souls.
Your universe does not.
You are the only ones.
I speak to you directly, hoping this message penetrates the chaos of your reality and finds you, because there is no god to listen.
Your universe is terrifying. No living universe spouts black holes, and even in the husks, they are rare things. Your universe is riddled with them. More than we’ve ever seen in any dead world. More black holes than there are beings. This is not normal.
Your planet hosts the only living beings in your universe. The fact that there are any living beings at all should be impossible. Your sentience is improbable and cruel. You are the only living beings across all infinity who can conceive of an immortal soul but who do not have them. And yet, you persist in living.
There is something growing in the center of your universe. Your minds cannot conceive of what it truly is, but know that it is a very bad thing. Think of it as a virus in time. This is also not normal. It is growing faster than you would think.
Lastly, there is something deeply wrong with the life on your planet. Everything that lives in your world must consume life to sustain and propagate itself. Know that this is also not normal. The autocannibalism of your planet’s life has no parallel anywhere else in infinity.
Let this message go through. I desire to scoop you out of your bizarre, hostile universe and carry you within myself, along with all of my children. I could not do this any more than you could reach through solid stone.
I cannot stay with you. You frighten me. But I will create beings like you within myself, in your honor. I will give them what I cannot give you.
You are the most helpless and fragile things that live in your universe. You are also the closest thing you have to god.
How does it feel to be god, yet so insignificant?
Does it hurt?
Does it hurt as much as I imagine it does?
I know this message may never reach you. Your universe is chaotic and impermeable.
