Going to channel my disappointment in iwtv/tvl into recommending non-disappointing bipoc and/or queer horror. First up, Rivers Solomon
Do you like NB autistic authors and protagonists who explore the horrors of anti-black racism through sci-fi, horror, and fantasy? Well, Rivers Solomon is for you. I don't know if I've connected as much with a character as I do with Rivers Solomon characters. The subtle ways that they explore autism and being NB really hit me hard. I hadn't even given my gender much thought before reading their writing (mostly thought of myself as a brain in a jar).
They explore difficult themes but the writing isn't cynical. The characters are respected and even though there is great tragedy, there is still hope in the writing and for the protagonists. Rivers Solomon is also a great follow on Instagram. They are (obviously) progressive and constantly post about issues going on in the world and participate in local activism. Not that we need to put artists on pedestals but it's a nice change of pace from everything I see/learn about the S3 TVL writing team.
Model Home: What if the haunted house gothic horror took place in the suburbs? What if it explored the ways in which a black family has to assimilate to an all white wealthy Dallas neighborhood? The main character, a transmasc/NB/autistic parent returns to the home they fled from for their parents' funeral. Horrific memories resurface. There are discussions of CSA but no actual scenes. There are scenes of grooming. Discussions of racialized violence. The protagonist's struggle to know what horrors are real reminds me of what I like best about Shirley Jackson's Haunting of Hill House.
An Unkindness of Ghosts: Sci-fi/Dystopia/Horror. The story takes place on a space ship organized with class and slavery much like the Antebellum South. The main character Aster, is an enslaved person secretly training to be a doctor. Aster is hinted at being autistic and slowly discovers they are transmasc. This one is a brutal read. Very violent and triggering. I felt like it was worth it but definitely take care. There is a sweet T for T romance slow burn that helped me get through the horrors. Similar content warnings to the last. Discussions of SA without actual detailed scenes. The main character will just bluntly say that it happened (reminds me of how Octavia Butler describes SA and violence in the Parable of the Sower series). Lots of racialized violence (but with an actual point to it).
Haven't read these yet but they are on my list:
Sorrowland: A former religious cult member goes on the run with their twin children.
The Deep: Fantasy story about the mermaids descended from enslaved pregnant women thrown off slave ships. The audiobook is narrated by Daveed Diggs and others. Yeah the Hamilton guy.
(Sorry to clog up iwtv/tvl tags but thought some ppl might want recs to queer/bipoc horror/genre fiction that isn't racist or homophobic.)
We all know of The Last of Us, but that franchise isn't the only example of fungal invasions. We've got zombies and apocalypses, we've got gothic horror, we've got fantasy, we've got romance, we've got space - no genre is safe from having their characters become the home of fungal organisms.
For more details on the books, continue under the readmore. Titles marked with * are my personal favorites. And as always, feel free to share your own recs in the notes!
If you want more book recs, check out my masterpost of rec lists!
The Girl with all the Gifts (The Girl with All the Gifts series) by M.R. Carey
Want another fungal zombie apocalypse? Then I come bearing great news! The Girl with All the Gifts is a post apocalyptic novel following a group of characters fleeing across an infested wasteland, trying to stay alive and hoping to find a cure. One of the characters is Melanie, a young girl who carries the contagion inside of her and hungers for flesh, but like many children of the apocalypse has kept her humanity. Is she and children like her the answer to the cure we are looking for? Or are they the start of something entirely new? This book has also been adapted as a movie!
Cold Storage by David Koepp*
Years ago, a quickly growing fungal organism capable of wiping out humanity came dangerously close to spreading. It was contained and kept in cold storage underneath a military repository. Since then, a larger storage facility has been built on top, the dangers on the lower floor being largely forgotten. That is, until it makes a new attempt at escape. Now, two unsuspecting security guards might be all that stands in the way of complete extermination. This book is both funny and genuine in its characters, and genuinely creepy in its portrayal of body horror.
Salvaged by Madeline Roux
Rosalyn Devar is on the run from her famous family, and has run so far she ended up in space. Now she works as a "space janitor", being sent off to clean up the remains of failed research expeditions. But in trying to cope with her problems, she has fucked up on her job multiple times, and is now close to losing her position. Her last chance is the Brigantine: a research vessel gone silent, all crew presumed dead. But when she arrives to salvage it, Rosalyn discovers the crew isn't as dead as presumed. But are they still human - and will Rosalyn be able to keep her own humanity?
The Annual Migration of Clouds by Premee Mohamed
Novella. Reid is a young woman living in a small community after a climate collapse. Resources are scarce, but Reid's biggest problem is Cad, a mind-altering fungal parasite that lives inside her body. When she is offered a rare chance at attending a far-away university in a secluded dome community, Reid must decide whether to leave or stay to help support her community.
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia*
Noemí Taboada is a glamorous and well-off young woman, but when she receives a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin, Noemí must leave her glamorous life and travel to find out what is wrong. As she arrives at High Place, a mansion on the Mexican countryside, Noemí is met with mysteries and her cousin's new English family. As she tries to find out the truth behind High Place and its inhabitants, Noemí's only ally is the youngest son of the family. But will she be able to find out what so scared her cousin before it's too late for all of them?
Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon
A young pregnant woman flees a cult that left her body strange and changing in terrifying ways. Hiding from both a world wanting to oppress her and the cult seeking to force her back, she does her best to raise her children while trying to find out the truth of the cult and being pursued by a hunter in a dangerous game of cat and mouse. Bleak and scary, Sorrowland is a book that will creep under your skin with horrors both fantastical and very, very real.
What Moves the Dead (Sworn Soldier duology) by T. Kingfisher
Novella. Alex Easton, retired soldier, travels to visit their childhood friends, siblings Madeline and Roderick Usher, after finding out that Madeline is dying. In the siblings' rural, ancestral home, Madeline walks in her sleep and looks to be fading away, while around it wildlife seems to be possessed by a strange force. With the help of a mycologist and an American doctor, Alex attempts to save Madeline and reveal the truth of her illness.
Wanderers (Wanderers duology) by Chuck Wendig
A strange illness has struck the United States: with no warning, random people with seemingly no connection simply get up and start walking. They do not eat, do not sleep, do not communicate, and they do not stop - and if you try to force them, they literally explode from the inside. Teenaged Shana isn't one of these sleepwalkers, but her little sister is. Unwilling to leave her sister on her own, Shana accompanies the growing flock of walkers, protecting them as one of many "shepherds". And this protection proves necessary, as the sleepwalkers is only the first step toward what might very well be the extinction of the human race. An 800 page epic, Wanderers is a slowburn apocalypse story with a multitude pov characters and plot threads, from fungal pandemics and all-knowing AI to the all too real portrayal of radicalization and bigotry.
The Dawnhounds (The Endsong series) by Sascha Stronach
The Dawnhounds is a book where you just kind of have to let the story and the world wash over you. It skirts the line of scifi and fantasy, with a futuristic world of environmentally friendly mushroom houses and deadly fungi bio weapons next to literally god-given superpowers and near-immortality. It’s really cool and unlike anything else I’ve ever read, but also a bit confusing. Bonus: it’s also sapphic!
Agents of Dreamland (Tinfoil Dossier trilogy) by Caitlín R. Kiernan
Novella. A government agent known only as the Signalman; a cult preying on the young and vulnerable, promising to usher in a new age; a woman who exists outside of time, searching for a way to save humanity. Agents of Dreamland is short, but includes many spooky elements, among them an alien and possibly world-ending fungi. The narrative is non-linear and a bit strange, but also fascinating.
The Genius Plague by David Walton
Soon after landing his dream job at the NSA, things get weird for Neil Johns. His brother Paul, a mycologist, returns from a trip to the Amazon, carrying a nearly lethal fungal infection and a strangely sharpened mind. At work, Neil starts picking up mysterious messages originating out of South America, where cases similar to that of Paul starts occurring. And strangest of all: all the infected seem to be working towards the same goal. Recommended with the caveat that, while the fungal stuff is really cool, The Genius Plague is also happy to idolize American intelligent agencies and demonize environmentalism and anti-imperialism.
Little Mushroom: Judgement Day (Little Mushroom duology) by Shisi
An Zhe isn’t human. He’s a mushroom who absorbed the DNA of a dying man, allowing him to take on human guise and leave the wilderness. Entering one of the last human bases, a place struggling to keep out the mutated and dangerous creatures of the wilds, An Zhe must keep his identity secret as he searches for something which was taken from him. While not my cup of tea (frankly, I need more female characters), Little Mushroom is an undeniably unique m/m romance novel.
Bonus AKA these don't technically involve any fungi but have similar vibes of parasites and nature corrupting the human
Parasite (Parasitology trilogy) by Mira Grant*
In the near future, a great leap in medical science has improved human health by leaps and bounds: a genetically engineered tape worm. Within a few years, almost every human has their own personal parasite implanted. But now, something is happening to the parasites - they want more, whether their hosts want to share or not.
Annihilation (Southern Reach trilogy) 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.
Wilder Girls by Rory Power
Young adult. Over a year ago, the Raxter School for Girls was hit by the Tox, a strange disease that killed off many and left the survivors' bodies slowly changing in terrifying ways. The island the school is on has been in quarantine since then, and the girls dare not leave the school grounds lest they become victims of wild animals changed by the Tox. But as they wait for the promised cure, one of the girls goes missing, and her friends are willing to do anything to find her. Unsettling, spooky, and sapphic, this is a unique read featuring body horror and messy, dangerous girls.
(Second) Bonus AKA I haven't read these yet but they seem really cool
City of Saints and Madmen (Ambergris trilogy) by Jeff Vandermeer
Ambergris, a city created by a mushroom-like people, is now the home of humans, but the original inhabitants are still there, residing beneath the city.
Creatures of Want and Ruin (Diabolist's Library series) by Molly Tanzer
It’s the prohibition era, and while Ellie does fishing during the day, at night she bootlegs moonshine in Long Island. But unbeknownst to Ellie, some of the booze she smuggles has a strange source: distilled from mushrooms by a cult, it causes those who drink it to see terrible things, such as the the destruction of Long Island.
Bloom by Wil McCarthy
The inner solar system has been overtaken by fast-reproducing, fast-mutating technogenic life. Humanity has fled to the outer solar system, hiding beneath the ice of Jupiter's moon, but even here they aren't safe from possible incursion of mycospores, which lead to deadly blooms. Now a group of astronauts venture back to an infected Earth.
For the book recs: eldritch horror, but like, sci-fi
Another tough one! Thank you. Not going to do pictures just for time reasons.
Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause - I think about as accurate to eldritch sci-fi as I can get. The werewolves are aliens. Blood, murder, and misogyny are present and interesting. Straight. It’s been a long time since I read it or saw the movie
Ubik by Philip K. Dick - Their reality is melting because somebody died. It’s really good but hard to describe a quarter because I think I only remember some of the finer details and 75% because it really is that weird. Period typical racism and misogyny but you can tell the writer was cool and somewhat using the language of the time. Death, mindfuckery, and the rest is escaping me. Only straight relationships appear if I remember correctly but romance is NOT the focus.
Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon - Cult victim escapes with her kids, only to find out she never left the experiment. Reminiscent of They Cloned Tyrone, if you’ve ever seen it. Pedophilia, sexual assault, racism, poverty, medical experimentation, birth, violence, fungi and ghosts appear. Sapphic and gendery. Read it either last year or two years ago
Also Alice Isn’t Dead I think would apply but I wanted to give you three new ones :)
Forgot to mention Rivers Solomon among good political sff writers..... Some of you "Babel is the most heartwrenching revolutionary educational political fantasy ever" girls would shit your pants and cry if you read Sorrowland, An Unkindness of Ghosts or The Deep. All of them are trans and sapphic btw.
Sometimes I pretend I'm artsy, and that my old Galaxy phone has a respectable camera. I wanted to show what a dark, despairing book Rivers Solomon's Sorrowland is at times, but also hopeful despite its bleakness. With the book is a favorite scope, MDF's Procardial Titanium cardiology scope in starry night/capridium. This one was a slow burn for me. It opens with Vern, a pregnant teenager who has escaped the cult that raised her, fleeing an amoral pursuer who will do whatever it takes to flush her out. When nothing immediately happened in what felt like the start of a depressing AF dystopian novel, I found myself reading it all too slowly. But then Vern (and the twins she gives birth to) make it to civilization. I had no idea what I was in for--science fiction, fantasy, history, politics, body horror. I was far too invested to get cute about reading horror, finishing over two hundred pages in an evening because I needed to know the ending. Oh, and if you love fungi like I do, trust me, you need to read this one.
