Recs if you like The Futurological Congress: From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy...

"Turn me over, I'm done on this side!" —St. Lawrence, whilst roasting on a spit

Gallows humor, black comedy, l'humour noir — whatever you call it, this is the place for it. This list includes André Breton's seminal anthology of dark humor, a number of the works excerpted in this anthology, and beyond. You can find a link to the complete contents of Breton's anthology in the comments.

Want more weird humor? Check out my list Nitpicky Neuroticism (Comedy Edition)!

"Allegory of the Cave", a story inside "The Republic", is about prisoners chained inside a dark cave with shadows of puppets on the wall. The prisoners mistake these shadows for reality. When one prisoner escapes into the outside world, the sunlight hurts his eyes, but he eventually sees real objects and the sun. When he returns to free the others, they reject and mock him. This story has inspired several books, which focus on ignorance of society, followed by discovery of truth.

Wait! What? If it’s not about spaceships and aliens and strange new worlds, what is sci-fi about?

It’s about what’s going on here, now, to us— just like other genres. Setting the story centuries in the future is a way for the author to view our world from a different perspective. Which is cool. But not necessary.

Here are some sci-fi and speculative fiction works set in the author’s own time. Some old, some new. Some not even sci-fi. But all will give you a new perspective on the world.

You understand and respect science, you really do. You appreciate good tech and revile the crap. And you cringe when politicians, news readers, pundits, journalists, even friends, get it wrong.

But damn, you wish you could go faster than light! What can you do?

You can read well-written, cool as hell, hard sci-fi with unbelievable but unforgettable characters.

Here you go. This is a work in progress. Check back for updates as I grow the list.