Recs if you like Invisible Cities...

Shorter books (under 200 pages) that are part of at least one quest. Many are also in the public domain, making them easily accessible when you want to grind for that next badge.

coined by phil ford and jf martel, co-hosts of “weird studies,” zonal literature is a term that refers to narratives set in reality-bent spaces. in these liminal zones, ordinary life is suspended, altered, other. the rules here are different, even if things may look the same.

Based on the list/book published in 2006, general editor Peter Boxall.

a non-exhaustive collection of works

Weird Fiction Starter Pack

Inspired by Chelssicle’s list ‘The Cities We Deserve’. How might we build urban spaces that care for both people and the planet? Fic and nonfic.

This list includes works and authors that influenced the game as well as others with similar themes and writing.

books with an experimental structure or narrative choices, metafiction, oulipo, postmodernism, etc.

I guess you could call it liminal...

For when you want to live inside the brain wrinkle that Anna Maria Volkova folded for you while you read her novel, Games.

Books that exhibit key traits of, or helped develop, the Postmodern literary movement, many of which are experiemental. Not including criticism or theory. Research trigger warnings before reading.

(Recommendations welcome)

A list published by The Guardian on 5/16/2026, as voted on by authors, critics, and academics worldwide.

The Guardian Top 100 Best Novels

litfic books where the city plays a big role

Unconventional and experimental novels that play with syntax, style, narrative and structure Tristram Shandy - the grandfather of experimental Pale Fire - intertwines a poem and commentary Dictionary of the Khazars - in the form of a dictionary Man Eating typewriter - written in Polari Exercises in style - 99 retellings of the same story Hopscotch - designed to be read in multiple ways If on a winter’s night a traveller - a story within a story within a…

Books featuring strong architectural themes, love of cities, setting as character, weird buildings, etc.

Fiction that uses every means at its disposal to detail the Deity. MLA Formatted.

recommendations from the wife worm herself (source: naddpod)

Works that use different narrative layers and blur boundaries between genres to explore perception, reality and the human condition.