List of Mind-Bending SF/F Books

Good list, I was especially happy that you included Richard Paul Russo's Ship Of Fools. I know this book as Unto Leviathan. A very good novel, and as you say, quite neglected. Got a big list of my own mind bending SF, comparable to yours, but not as succinct. I will try and get my thoughts together and list a few.

Good topic, thanks.
 
The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer

The Illuminatus Trilogy By Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea

White Light by Rudy Rucker

Ilium/Olympus by Dan Simmons

The Course Of The Heart by M. John Harrison

The Thing Itself by Adam Roberts

City At The End Of Time by Greg Bear.

And that's just the start.
 
zaltys13 said:
Good list, I was especially happy that you included Richard Paul Russo's Ship Of Fools. I know this book as Unto Leviathan. A very good novel, and as you say, quite neglected. Got a big list of my own mind bending SF, comparable to yours, but not as succinct. I will try and get my thoughts together and list a few.

Good topic, thanks.
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I remember that, back in the early 00s, it got a decent amount of critical buzz but then just sort of disappeared. Quite a good book. I also read his Carlucci novels, which are basically cyberpunk-ish detective stories.
 
Cool list. I've only read Neuromancer and Shadow of the Torturer out of those. Loved the first, shrug on the second.

The only SF/F work that's ever really bent my mind isn't a book, but rather a comic: The Invisibles.
 
zaltys13 said:
The Illuminatus Trilogy By Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea
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Loved it!:D
Nerds_feather said:
It's not an exhaustive list, just some books that really got under my skin.
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The ones I've read were all great, and I'll definitely check out some of the others, although Emily St John Mandel's contribution to the list was so beautifully written I nearly quit writing.:)

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
 
Anything by Philip K. Dick.

Reading his books is an exercise in trippiness and you feel almost high and definitely off-kilter.
 
The Dreaming Jewels by Theodore Sturgeon :)
 
Great list. I would mention Vernor Vinge‘s A Deepness in the Sky as a worthy addition.
 
How about Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock? That's a very strange fantasy novel where the fantasy world is part-generated by the myths of the people living near it.
 
I would throw in Cixin Liu's Remembrance of Earth's Past and The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. The former is just a mind-bending expansion of the fate of humanity, starting with The Three Body Problem, whilst the former takes on very strange but ultimately worthwhile premise of Jesuit Priests being involved in first contact with an alien species and well worth a read. Also, it's not a book, but Watchmen. Just because.
 
I second @The Bluestocking: Anything by Philip K. Dick, but especially Ubik and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.

A few others I thought I'd mention:

The Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons
More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon
Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
Ringworld by Larry Niven
 
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