Best fucked up books

[Chan Fan]

I read this, there was also a 10 second rule? I don't quite remember, but the one death that stuck out was the one boy trying to take a shit and it took too long. But fuck, that ending.

Yeah you were allowed three warnings if you stopped but if you walked a certain number of hours the warnings would be expunged

 

[cactus]

Yeah you were allowed three warnings if you stopped but if you walked a certain number of hours the warnings would be expunged

Oh yeah, now it's coming back to me. I read it a few years ago, so the details were hazy.

 

[Drive-by punster]

I read this, there was also a 10 second rule? I don't quite remember, but the one death that stuck out was the one boy trying to take a shit and it took too long. But fuck, that ending.

TBH the ending still confuses me. Kind of sounds like he actually lost his mind. The entire last chapter feels like a fever dream or something. For a while I thought maybe the MC actually had died and the ending was just his brain giving him a bit of solace before turning out the lights.

 

[AnOminous]

Also, have you read anything that really caught your eye lately?

Not really. I'm really disillusioned with nearly anything coming out these days. It seems like it's virtually impossible to publish anything that isn't complete garbage without being swarmed by angry mongoloids somehow offended by it. I'm sure there is something good out there.

Most of Ambrose Bierce's short stories are pretty fucked up. They're generally very short, dense, and somehow, at the same time, so painfully terse that they barely seem to contain narrative, like concentrated ideas in short story form. Nobody else has written the same kind of short stories.

 

[BrunoMattei]

I forgot to mention a key book by Georges Bataille that being his The Trial of Gilles de Rais.

The Trial of Gilles de Rais

Georges Bataille presents the case of the most infamous villain of the Middle Ages: Gilles de Rais. Fascinated with the depths of human e...

www.goodreads.com

A pervert monarch who served under Joan of Arc and was also a pederast and necrophiliac. He's been compared as a male counterpart to Elizabeth Bathory. It's one of Bataille's more accessible books for those new to him.

Edit: I was looking at his wiki page and apparently there's an organized group trying to prove Rais was innocent all along. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_de_Rais

This is without seeking the advice of any professional. Holocaust Deniers and now Pedophile/Murderer apologists. "He was framed!" Fuck off you NAMBLA faggot.

 

[AnOminous]

I forgot to mention a key book by Georges Bataille that being his The Trial of Gilles de Rais.

The Trial of Gilles de Rais

Georges Bataille presents the case of the most infamous villain of the Middle Ages: Gilles de Rais. Fascinated with the depths of human e...

www.goodreads.com

A pervert monarch who served under Joan of Arc and was also a pederast and necrophiliac. He's been compared as a male counterpart to Elizabeth Bathory. It's one of Bataille's more accessible books for those new to him.

Wow, I've actually read that. I'm pretty sure it's all I've read by that author, though.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Wow, I've actually read that. I'm pretty sure it's all I've read by that author, though.

Bataille was a very interesting writer. I highly recommend his Tears of Eros and his The Accursed Share series. He's one of the great voices behind death and eroticism.

 

[I can't imagine]

TBH the ending still confuses me. Kind of sounds like he actually lost his mind. The entire last chapter feels like a fever dream or something. For a while I thought maybe the MC actually had died and the ending was just his brain giving him a bit of solace before turning out the lights.

I think the ending is intended to be ambiguous. I mean, clearly he went nuts, but exactly how nuts is pretty up to interpretation.

 

[kekstern]

The Road is an excellent book, but it has some fucked up shit in it.

 

[BrunoMattei]

I've only seen the film adaptation of The Road and need to read it.

 

[AnOminous]

I've only seen the film adaptation of The Road and need to read it.

I've had it sitting on my shelf since 2012 or so and haven't felt like that much concentrated depression yet.

 

[BrunoMattei]

I've had it sitting on my shelf since 2012 or so and haven't felt like that much concentrated depression yet.

You have Corona and this isn't the time?

 

[JackDonaghysSecretLover]

I guess I didn't interpret "fucked up" to necessarily mean "dark" (but I also don't equate dark and edgy, either). My assumption was that "fucked up" could span the range of "whoa really trippy" to "is the author trying to assault my senses and make me unbearably angry?" to "splatterpunk gore"... We even got an excellent list of insane Sovereign Citizen literature, which is more of a genre than I was aware.
I think Illuminatus! and Robert Anton Wilson have a place ITT cuz I bet a lot of younger people who wanna find cool books don't know who he is. And his books are gleefully fucked up. I agree that endless nihilism and especially cynicism get stale, fast. And becoming uninspiring, which is really the last thing you'd want in a book, right?
Also, have you read anything that really caught your eye lately?



Please suggest to me the book you can call "devastating", you have good taste...


I read this lately and found it to be an excellent although thoroughly nauseating book. This one is wickedly fucked, it's not a gorefest but this is one that made my skin crawl in a different, atypical way. The main character reminded me a lot of Ellis' Patrick Bateman, without the murder and rambling about clothes---but the single-pointed, sharp focus on her victim, her intent, her lust. There's certain passages in that book that legit made my skin go clammy, I audibly said "Eww..." under my breath. I think this book is probably a hard read (or maybe unfinishable, according to some reviews I've seen) for a lot of people, but I think it's an important one. That is, it explores a side of women that people don't seem to think exist. While men and women surely have their differences, they aren't "from two different planets" as that ancient trope says. Anyone can be an extreme narcissist, or extreme sexual deviant. The author must've spent good time researching abnormal psychology, personality disorders, etc. I read that she actually interviewed pedophiles and the guards/COs that work with them, her thorough dive into that type of psyche duly paid off in her writing.
I felt the last little chunk of the book, and the ending, were a bit rushed, but I can forgive that since the rest of the book remained gripping and engaging as we're strung along with Celeste and her...antics. I am keen on finding more of Alissa Nutting's works.

Has anyone else read this one? What did you think of it?

Yeah Tampa is a great book but very very uncomfortable. I have her other book, about sex dolls, but i haven't read it yet

 

[Jason Wynn]

Blood Meridian. This makes The Road look like a Ramona Quimby book in comparison. Tell 'em, @Judge Holden

 

[Overly Serious]

I think Illuminatus! and Robert Anton Wilson have a place ITT cuz I bet a lot of younger people who wanna find cool books don't know who he is. And his books are gleefully fucked up.

I read both of the Illuminatus trilogy and the Shroedinger's Cat trilogy as a child because they were in the Sci-Fi section and I liked reading Sci-Fi and it never occurred to the adults looking after me that you'd find a shamanistic sex-romp in the Sci-Fi section. Contrary to cliches about kids reading adult books about sex it wasn't so much titilating as disturbing. However, I didn't have much money and I'd spent nearly £10 on that book, I think, so I stuck with it. Took me several attempts to get through it because of all the disturbing stuff about sex machines and such.

As an adult, however, the entire Illuminatus trilogy becomes a male fantasy about being able to have sex without responsibility. Even the two women the main character falls in love with and struggles to decide between turn out to be two manifestations of the same woman (who is herself a third and further sex fantasy) and therefore are fine him dating both of them.. It's entirely predicated on the idea fnord that a liberated woman has the same attitude towards sex as men and everything becomes a hyper-sexual open society once the repression has been removed from people. There's not many things I say this about but Illuminatus trilogy could only have been written by a man.

---

Now, my own disturbing recommendation: Blindsight by Peter Watts. The author was good enough to share it for free on his website but don't let lack of cost devalue it, it's the only vampire story in any medium (film, prose, whatever) that I've ever actually found scary. The author is a biologist (marine) by profession and the premise of the vampires is that they were another branch of humanity / hominid now resurrected through genetic science and the novella relates to autism (a KF favourite), epilepsy and language. Please, to anyone who's read it spoiler responses because the surprises in this novella really got to me. It's short but incredibly unsettling. Made a very strong impression on me.


Separately, I'm going to share a really old and obscure SciFi novel called Too, Too Solid Flesh by Nick O'Donohue.

It's pre-Internet so some of the concepts are hokey but he actually does a very, very good job of projecting forward into the future, imo, with his sort of equivalent to the web that exists within the novel. It's not quite how things turned out but he understood that with increasing knowledge and communications there was going to be some sort of pooled knowledge/environment come into existence even if he didn't know what it was going to be called. He also nails the way people might misrepresent themselves online and use such tech. The author's not psychic but he's an excellent student of human nature and how tech would be used, as well as the repetitive and unoriginal nature of modern mass media entertainment. For example, he anticipates Deep Fakes and that's part of the premise in that technology can now recreate almost any actor in any role. You want to see Marlon Brando playing MacBeth? Like Indiana Jones movies but have a thing for Kiera Knightly in the main role? Dial it up. Real, modern theatre is dead as is almost any form of local, real entertainment which just can't compete with the glossy, globalised entertainment business. Again, he's writing this back in the early Eighties!

The set-up sounds like a hokey attempt at humour: The characters are android actors in the last live-action theatre troupe in existence, their creator dies and Hamlet (one of the androids) becomes convinced that the death was murder and sets out to uncover the truth / seek retribution. The conceit is that the androids are their characters - Claudius is conniving, Polonious a ditherer. Was their creator really murdered or is Hamlet just acting his nature? It's shockingly well written, the author seems to actually know his Shakespeare and what sounds like a knock-about parody is played straight and thoughtfully. It's like Blade Runner met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. You can still find old copies out there and I strongly recommend it to anyone who can handle the retro-futurism of speculative fiction since surpassed by real life.

 

[Bravefart]

I want to second how good Blindsight is. If you are in the mood for some old fashioned profound hard sci-fi you will get really into it, and it will stay with you.

For fucked up books recommends, I would suggest trying Steve Harris. Adventureland is great and it only gets better and more disturbing from there.

 

[Chan Fan]

Just read Revenge by Yoko Ogawa, 11 short stories about getting revenge on someone - in the most bizarre ways possible, and sometimes just for bizarre reasons

 

[Overly Serious]

I want to second how good Blindsight is. If you are in the mood for some old fashioned profound hard sci-fi you will get really into it, and it will stay with you.

Have you read Starfish, as well? I've started it and it's atmospheric and imaginative. (Again - FFS, avoid all spoilers and summaries completely anyone who is interested in reading it.). I started it but real life got in the way. I want to get back to it sometime because it was horribly wonderful.

Will check out Steve Harris works. What I tend not to like in a disturbing book is gore. It doesn't put me off per se, but doesn't do anything to disturb or frighten me and authors that use it tend to rely on it doing so.

 

[frozenrunner]

I recently re-read The Road, just before the pandemic was starting to ramp up, and tonight I re-watched the film again.

The book was better than I had remembered, and the film (which is good) wasn't as good as I had remembered. But I wish I could read/watch both again for the first time. Familiarity drains some of the beauty from art.

McCarthy is a genius, for as long as we still have him. Finish The Passenger you hack fraud!!!

I've had it sitting on my shelf since 2012 or so and haven't felt like that much concentrated depression yet.

It's a hard read in places, but it's arguably not McCarthy's most fucked up novel. You can handle it.

And it's a genuinely beautiful book. People can't see past the premise for some reason. Probably because they didn't finish it.

 

[Crunchy Chick]

I read both of the Illuminatus trilogy and the Shroedinger's Cat trilogy as a child because they were in the Sci-Fi section and I liked reading Sci-Fi and it never occurred to the adults looking after me that you'd find a shamanistic sex-romp in the Sci-Fi section. Contrary to cliches about kids reading adult books about sex it wasn't so much titilating as disturbing. However, I didn't have much money and I'd spent nearly £10 on that book, I think, so I stuck with it. Took me several attempts to get through it because of all the disturbing stuff about sex machines and such.

As an adult, however, the entire Illuminatus trilogy becomes a male fantasy about being able to have sex without responsibility. Even the two women the main character falls in love with and struggles to decide between turn out to be two manifestations of the same woman (who is herself a third and further sex fantasy) and therefore are fine him dating both of them.. It's entirely predicated on the idea fnord that a liberated woman has the same attitude towards sex as men and everything becomes a hyper-sexual open society once the repression has been removed from people. There's not many things I say this about but Illuminatus trilogy could only have been written by a man.

---

Now, my own disturbing recommendation: Blindsight by Peter Watts. The author was good enough to share it for free on his website but don't let lack of cost devalue it, it's the only vampire story in any medium (film, prose, whatever) that I've ever actually found scary. The author is a biologist (marine) by profession and the premise of the vampires is that they were another branch of humanity / hominid now resurrected through genetic science and the novella relates to autism (a KF favourite), epilepsy and language. Please, to anyone who's read it spoiler responses because the surprises in this novella really got to me. It's short but incredibly unsettling. Made a very strong impression on me.


Separately, I'm going to share a really old and obscure SciFi novel called Too, Too Solid Flesh by Nick O'Donohue.

View attachment 1209605

It's pre-Internet so some of the concepts are hokey but he actually does a very, very good job of projecting forward into the future, imo, with his sort of equivalent to the web that exists within the novel. It's not quite how things turned out but he understood that with increasing knowledge and communications there was going to be some sort of pooled knowledge/environment come into existence even if he didn't know what it was going to be called. He also nails the way people might misrepresent themselves online and use such tech. The author's not psychic but he's an excellent student of human nature and how tech would be used, as well as the repetitive and unoriginal nature of modern mass media entertainment. For example, he anticipates Deep Fakes and that's part of the premise in that technology can now recreate almost any actor in any role. You want to see Marlon Brando playing MacBeth? Like Indiana Jones movies but have a thing for Kiera Knightly in the main role? Dial it up. Real, modern theatre is dead as is almost any form of local, real entertainment which just can't compete with the glossy, globalised entertainment business. Again, he's writing this back in the early Eighties!

The set-up sounds like a hokey attempt at humour: The characters are android actors in the last live-action theatre troupe in existence, their creator dies and Hamlet (one of the androids) becomes convinced that the death was murder and sets out to uncover the truth / seek retribution. The conceit is that the androids are their characters - Claudius is conniving, Polonious a ditherer. Was their creator really murdered or is Hamlet just acting his nature? It's shockingly well written, the author seems to actually know his Shakespeare and what sounds like a knock-about parody is played straight and thoughtfully. It's like Blade Runner met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. You can still find old copies out there and I strongly recommend it to anyone who can handle the retro-futurism of speculative fiction since surpassed by real life.

The end to Blindside is flimsy and a letdown.