this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2024
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Asklemmy

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Definitely House of Leaves. A story inside of a story, inside of a story, with all narrators being just a bit crazy. Text of different fonts, going all over the place and even upside down based on the story. Just make sure to get the physical copy.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

House of Leaves feels like reading some sort of forbidden text.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 weeks ago

I'm pretty sure that was the intent.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

Just finished this one. And honestly, it broke my brain and how I interpret other written narratives.

2nd on the physical copy. This text doesn't work otherwise.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I've been meaning to get his latest work which he predictably didn't finish. Have you read it?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Oh I didn't know about this. You're talking about The Familiar, right? I don't know if I'm up for another 5 books like this but now I really want to try.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (6 children)

Not a book, but a webcomic: https://elan.school/

Be careful what you wish for OP, this is THE WILDEST shit you will ever read (at least top 5, guaranteed) and the worst/best part is that it's all true.

Also, its VERY addictive so clear your schedule.

You've been warned.

You've ALL been warned.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I remember reading through the entire thing in one sitting... it is LONG. You can't look away

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 weeks ago

Yup, I started reading out of curiosity from a suggestion on a thread just like this one, then found myself 10 hours later feeling like I'd come down from an acid trip.

I'm jealous of the people who can take that ride now, but also glad my ride with it is over. If that makes any sense.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

You know I'd rather not read about that "school" again.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

Exactly, but not knowing it exist is even worse.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

No it's NOT all true. It begins true, like the first couple chapters, then it spirals into 100% creative fiction. Please do not trouble your brain & emotions over fiction.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

The best fiction can be quite troubling, the trick is knowing the difference and/but allowing the troubles. Good art can move you. Great art compells you to move yourself.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

I went into Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? blind. Hadn't seen the movie, hadn't read any other Dick, hadn't even had it hyped to me by a friend. What a series of mindfucks.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Lies, Inc. is another by PKD that will leave your head spinning.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago

I love pkd but haven't read that, thx.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

The only Philip K. Dick I've read is Flow my tears the policeman said (epic title for a book). It's pretty linear and coherent until one point towards the end where, without question, 'ol Dick popped some acid.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago

If you want something really wild by him you can try Valis. Going in blind or not won't really make a difference.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 weeks ago

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is an obvious but nonetheless relevant answer. What a ride.

Also Infinite Jest.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'd say the first book of The Chronicles of Thomas covenant the unbeliever was a wild trip.

In the story, Thomas covenant has leprosy. Due to the leprosy he is numb from the neck down even though he can still walk. He has no sensation when he touches anything and he cannot engage in his chosen profession which is writing. In a fit of pique he rescues a girl that almost gets hit by a car and gets isekaied.

This was written in the late '70s so it was not a common trope at the time.

He arrives in a world of magic on top of a mountain covered in Giant steps, he crawls his way down the mountain and encounters a girl who uses the magic of the land to heal him of his leprosy.

Believing this is all a dream and trying to prove to himself that this is not real, he rapes the girl.

The girls seems very distraught but pulls herself together and guides him into town and that is when he discovers that the white gold wedding ring on his finger is the source of wild magic.

There is a great evil on the land that plans to destroy everything and he is the chosen person, the only person who can stop it.

He has to fight against his disbelief of the world while reconciling his abhorrent actions with his own internal sense of morality in order to have a chance to go home again.

This book spawned a 10 book series covering hundreds of years of history in the land with Thomas Covenant's battle with the forces of evil and the lives of the people of the land resting in his leprosy numbed hands.

It's an amazing work but it is a rough read.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

Have read the first 6 books at least a half dozen times since my local librarian suggested Lord Foul's Bane to 12 year old me in the early 80s. Little heavy for a pre teen, so I'm pretty sure she hadn't read it herself...But those books ignited a lifelong passion for fantasy adventure stories. Saltheart Foamfollower is one of my absolute favorite characters of all time. Sooo many wild parts in those books. Good call!

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

China MiΓ©ville - The City & the City is one that I don't think I'll ever forget. Wild because as far out as it feels, it's also a pretty accurate portrayal of how we've trained ourselves to intentionally not see. I find myself thinking of the book often.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

The premise for this book was so strange I often had to reread passages to fully understand the differing perspectives of people standing next to one another and yet be in two different realities.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 weeks ago

The Road. Still think about it a lot.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 weeks ago

Philip K Dick - The three stigmata of palmer eldritch.

It's like a dream, where you forget where you came from, but at the same time there are powerful themes that are personally and emotionally affecting. Like an acid trip or religious experience, you aren't the same person after you've finished it, whatever lesson you got from it.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

The Book of Rack the Healer by Zach Hughes was pretty wild.

It's 'New wave' sci-fi from the 1970's, and revolves around these mutated humans in a deeply poisonous and radioactive world where it's forbidden to dig into the earth.

The humans have evolved a carapice and internal air sacks that they fill to hold their breath before leaving their safe organic dome homes that change color depending on their mood. Some of the domes have women in them that don't seem capable of complex thought, and live purely through sensory input, are telepathic, and are basically constantly edging themselves all day.

It's a drug fueled fever dream, for sure.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

That sounds a bit like "The Prince in Waiting" by John Christopher (more famous for "The Tripods"), it's a trilogy also set in the distant future after a nuclear war, where all machines have been outlawed and humans exist alongside dwarfs and mutants. Over the course of the trilogy, the protagonists (living in fairly alright areas) venture deeper into more and more radiated areas and encounter grotesque stuff.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Naked Lunch. It's a dark strange read but it suck with me.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

At some point I stopped trying to make sense of it and let the general feelings carry me forward. It's bizarre and dark, but in a captivating way.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Strange new world by Heinlein.
Martian Jesus comes back to earth and is like, wtf guys?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago

Do you mean Stranger In a Strange Land? Because that's one of mine.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

I’m not sure if it’s the wildest but the first that comes to mind is β€œJohn Dies at the End”

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

The book is better but the movie was pretty good.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago

Pearl by Josh Malerman (Bird Box).

It's about a pig on a small farm that can seep into your mind and make you do and see terrible things. I picked it up after reading Bird Box and a few other books of his, which I enjoyed. I expected to give up on it based on the silly 80s horror movie premise, but the book is truly demented and creepy and I felt existentially weird after reading it

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago

The one that included the most wildlife might be hard to know exactly, but 'The Lost World' by Arthur Conan Doyle might be a contender.

One of my favourite books, and one that gave me lots to think about was His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman.

The most 'different' setting for a book that I've read might be The Planiverse by AKA Dewdney, which takes place in a 2d world with thought out and realistic physics and societies.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. I into it blind.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago

Infinite Jest - just the part about video conferencing is wild and is even mire wild when you realize it was written in the 90’s before video conferencing really existed:

β€œGood old traditional audio-only phone conversations allowed you to presume that the person on the other end was paying complete attention to you while also permitting you not to have to pay anything even close to complete attention to her. A traditional aural-only conversation […] let you enter a kind of highway-hypnotic semi-attentive fugue: while conversing, you could look around the room, doodle, fine-groom, peel tiny bits of dead skin away from your cuticles, compose phone-pad haiku, stir things on the stove; you could even carry on a whole separate additional sign-language-and-exaggerated-facial-expression type of conversation with people right there in the room with you, all while seeming to be right there attending closely to the voice on the phone. And yet β€” and this was the retrospectively marvelous part β€” even as you were dividing your attention between the phone call and all sorts of other idle little fuguelike activities, you were somehow never haunted by the suspicion that the person on the other end’s attention might be similarly divided.”

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

NOFX: The Hepatitis Bathtub. Wildest because it’s an autobiography, and they spill it all.
Edit: find the audiobook if you can

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Wild Animus

It's about a Berkeley graduate who takes a bunch of acid and then dresses up like a mountain Ram in Alaska and becomes increasingly more deranged.

It was on a reading list for a college class. Pirate the book if you decide to read, because the author is a raging asshole.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted is the first thing which popped into my head.

It's a 'diegetic' anthology, the context is reminiscent of Sartre's No Exit in many ways, but taken to Palahniuk's particular style of extreme.

There's one short story in it which caused furor back in the day, but I honestly found the meta-context to be even more philosophically gruesome.

Edit: may be biased, I got the book as a gift from a girl I used to like a lot, but she... well, let's just say she was living that book at the time.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Currently reading The Illuminatus trilogy. It is a trippy, psychedelic thriller, which assumes many conspiracy theories, both well-known and obscure to be true.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

The Metamorphosis of a Prime Intellect.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

In elementary school I read this book called "Flawed Dogs" and it was unforgettably wild. It's about a dog who escapes some kinda confinement by jumping over a barbed wire fence and loses his back legs in the process, and then joins a dog gang and does dog gang activities. Also one of the dog gang members was a cat in disguise.
Honestly I should see if I can find a copy of it and reread it. It was pretty wild.

edit: I looked it up and maybe I have a lot of the details wrong but it's still pretty wild

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

Dhalgren by Samuel Delany

(Close race with House of Leaves, but ultimately House of Leaves was telling a specific story, whereas Dhalgren is a semi-incoherent drug trip. Loved both books, though.)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

I don't know about wild, but UNSONG has been a very weird trip. It's like science fiction, except instead of science its Jewish kabbalah. There's angels, demons, alt history American politics, religious references that are truly esoteric, and puns... lots and lots of puns.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

Gary Jennings' Aztec. Come for the historical accuracy of pre-columbian exchange Central America, stay for the depressing twisted sickening outlook.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

Santa Steps Out was wild.

'Sex, Death, and Santa Claus

His generosity is legendary. He has a devoted wife, a crack team of sky-borne reindeer, hordes of industrious elves, and the love of good little boys and girls around the globe. But what unholy desires now propel him into the lascivious clutches of a certain fairy? And who was he before the sleigh and workshop, in times forgotten?

She munches on molars, summons drowned sailors to her pleasure, and recalls, sharp as a pinprick, her life as the most savage of ash nymphs. Why then is she stuck, night after night, hovering above pillows to leave coins for gap-toothed brats? More important, how quickly can she captivate the jolly old elf to the north?

He's huge, fluffy, lonesome, and unbearably horny. On his Easter rounds, he contrives, as often as possible, to get a grip on himself and peer into interesting bedrooms. But who in the world will throw him down and ravage him as the lovers under his gaze ravage one another?

Deadite Press is proud to bring back the ultimate erotic Christmas story from Robert Devereaux'

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Clockwork Orange

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

"The teachings of Don Juan" by Carlos Castaneda. Read it in highschool and it put me off psychedelics for more than two decades.

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