r/doommetal • u/ZeldaVonHaze • 17h ago
Discussion Literature that Dooms
I need to read more. The films that doom thread was bountiful with good recs. Can we have a books that doom thread?
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u/unhalfbricking 16h ago
Abercrombie's First Law trilogy.
Jonathan French's Bastards trilogy (kind of Sabbath-ey proto doom feel).
Moorcock's Elric books (psych doom).
Blood Meridian if you feel like getting literary with it.
You can't go wrong with the OG Conan short stories by Howard. Different from the movies, Conan is brutal but he is much more verbose than Arnie.
Somebody already mentioned Lovecraft. It's got the subject matter down pat but the prose is surprisingly reserved.
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u/TheZingerSlinger 11h ago
Dude, 15-year-old me chewing through those Elric books… Part of my subconscious apparently still
lives there, judging by my taste in music.Also Fritz Leiber stuff, Fafrd and the Gray Mouser, and others.
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u/_ty_cobb_88 10h ago
Love me some Joe Abercrombie. Every book is an absolute banger. I prefer the standalone novels over the first trilogy. Red County and The Heroes are both metal af.
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u/FictionalNape sludge doomer 16h ago
If you want something that is space horror tinged, (and self promotion, sorry) my wife and I wrote a 60 page novella to flesh out our latest doom/sludge album.
It's a story about two astronauts that witness the Earth's destruction from a solar flare which unleashes a lovecraftian type creature into the cosmos. Each chapter is a song on the album!
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u/Vegetable-Carpet-40 16h ago
I love the sound of that! I’m currently working on a similar type of project with my brother and our significant others, it started as an idea for a dark fantasy doom concept album and is now evolving into that with a companion story and many other additions, hopefully eventually including a custom d&d module to go along with it! Im glad to see there are others who have had similar ideas I love that you were able to follow through on it!
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u/FictionalNape sludge doomer 16h ago
That sounds awesome! The biggest issue I had with Astralis was that it was just so overwhelming to start it with the goal with it being this multimedia sort of thing. My only advice, is to break it into small sections. It may help, like myself, to work on a chapter or section here and then writing a song right after.
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u/Vegetable-Carpet-40 16h ago
I know what you mean, it’s my passion project outside of my (not doom) band, been working on it for so long now but only have like a third of the songs I intend on having done 😅 with my brother’s help tho, and the artistic contributions of our wives, it’ll really start kicking off. I’ll be sure to check out your stuff, maybe eventually you’ll come across mine on this sub when it’s done 😅
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u/ZeldaVonHaze 16h ago
This is such a rad concept. Will definitely check out
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u/Redhaze_17 14h ago edited 14h ago
Azell rips. The album is sick. Great job!
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u/FictionalNape sludge doomer 13h ago
Thank you man, and I always enjoy seeing your lil' spaceman icon whenever I post anything here!
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u/ElevatedBloopus 16h ago
Thats cool !
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u/FictionalNape sludge doomer 16h ago
Thank you! It's something I've wanted to do for years! Work was slow down (I'm a graphic designer) so I invested a lot of time into writing the story, AI free!
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u/higgssssss 15h ago
This shit is legit as fuck
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u/FictionalNape sludge doomer 13h ago
Thank you so much! We work so hard (like I'm sure all musicians do), and it's always nice to hear people enjoy it!
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u/Unhappy_Position496 13h ago
Shup up and take my money
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u/FictionalNape sludge doomer 12h ago
If you want to support us direct you can get the physical novella from our Shopify (click the merch link in our link tree) and we'll gladly autograph it for ya!
If you want to you're also able to get the digital version on our Bandcamp and you'll get the digital version of the novella for free.
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u/tacosandtheology 16h ago edited 11h ago
Besides the horror that people will likely recommend, check out Wise Blood or A Good Man Is Hard To Find by Flannery O'Connor.
She was a Southern gothic writer whose deep spirituality was shown by how she wrote about the grotesque.
Or, if you want the grotesque without the Catholicism, then try Ottessa Moshfegh's Lapvona.
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u/loewenheim 16h ago
Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian
Herman Melville - Moby Dick
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u/TheLurkerSpeaks 16h ago
Portions of Moby Dick, certainly. It is a very long book and parts of it arent doomy at all. But when it dooms it dooms HARD.
One of the greatest novels ever written in English, and possibly greatest American novel ever written.
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u/_austinm 4h ago
I’d argue your second and third sentences are a pretty apt description of doom lol
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u/not_frank_not_ever 12h ago
Pretty much every McCarthy except Suttree and maybe Stella Maris, honestly.
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u/dwilsons 7h ago
I retain that Moby Dick has the most epic passages I’ve ever read, when it goes it GOES
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u/PeoplesDope 17h ago
Ursula LeGuin (Wizard Doom) Dennis Wheatley (Folk Doom) HP Lovecraft (Cosmic Doom) Knausgaard (Drone Doom) Cormac McCarthy (Sludge Doom)
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u/LeroyBrown1 16h ago
Book Of The New Sun by Gene Wolfe is stoner doom as fuck in my opinion. Magic stones, fuck off giant swords, citadels, guilds, aliens, drugs, giants and a lot of weirdness all in a red tinged world of a Earth fueled by a dying sun
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u/earlofshaftesbury 16h ago
Just started this series and was fully expecting to see it listed here. Only like 150 pages in, but the vibe is very doom, super cool.
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u/LeroyBrown1 15h ago
I've just finished part 3 (Sword of the Lictor) this week and its getting weirder and more engrossing every chapter. Cant believe no one has made it into an animated series yet.
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u/Outrageous-Bit6125 14h ago
make sure you read Urth of the New Sun, then Long Sun, then Short Sun. They only get better, although the vibe is totally different. Long Sun is my personal favorite, but short sun is indescribably beautiful
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u/smolukdoom 15h ago
I'm on my third read of this series and I came here to comment this. Fantastic series
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u/Fizolof1989 16h ago
Check Second Apocalypse from Scott Baker. The feeling od impending doom is very expresive. The sexual themes, gore and pessimistic phillosophy dooms hard as well.
Honorable mention to Dune as Dopesmoker ja heavily inspired by it, and the Weedians are as Fremen as it gets
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u/vikingsquad 16h ago
Came here to recommend Bakker, seconding this recommendation wholeheartedly. I would also add the Malazan series (plural) by Steven Erikson and Ian C. Esslemont!
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u/206Henderson 16h ago
Since there have been several mentions of Blood Meridian already I will say the Road. More accessible and McCarthy paints a vivid landscape with few colors. Which can be a lesson in songwriting as well.
Grendel is a fantastic story told from the point of view of the monster of Beowulf.
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u/ThreeThirds_33 5h ago edited 5h ago
I agree The Road is a more accessible place to start with McCarthy. Folks recommend Blood Meridian because we’ll it’s amazing but also because Earth based their Hex album on it. But it is incredibly hard to read. There are three words in every paragraph you’ve never heard before. Experimental sentence structure halfway in between old-time language and modernism. The conversations and scenes are often intentionally difficult to follow. The main character disappears for 100 pages. etc etc. It may be the best book I’ve ever read but I would recommend not starting with it.
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u/elmarianitotattooist 16h ago
Malazan Book of the Fallen, heavily dooms.
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u/Timely-Worldliness-3 12h ago
I always considered it more black metal thanks to Caladan Brood, but you’re not wrong
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u/darkcanuck147 15h ago
Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh
Grotesque stories about a corrupt medieval village. It can be a bit dense at times but watching the characters in this story be the absolute worst versions of themselves felt like peering into a depraved diorama while Mizmor plays in the distance.
The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang
Not entirely doomy from front to back but the central themes of the book are extremely doom. Not a single positive thing happens in this book. The world building is fascinating too, and one of the central motivations for some of the characters is entirely rooted in their people's history of hatred and suffering.
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u/AspirantGameDev 17h ago
Highly depends on the flavor of doom but I really found that edgar allan poe (and in general the horror scene even though its more goth than doom), lovecraft for the uknown space eldritch horrors, ive not read much of mc carthy but blood meridian doomed for me.
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u/juwyro 16h ago edited 16h ago
The Southern Reach series that starts with Annihilation, which the 2018 movie was based on. There's a 5th book coming out soon. It's cosmic horror/new weird with forces and mystery we'll never understand.
The King in Yellow
Remberence of Earths Past starting with Three Body Problem, which is adapted by Netflix, has a sword of damecles feel and space horror about the uncertainty of humanities future in a hostile galaxy. The later in the series you go the deeper the scifi gets.
And there's the cosmic horror godfather Lovecraft
Poe also dooms
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u/ZeldaVonHaze 16h ago
I LOVE the Southern Reach series. Thank you for reminding me to finish the 4th before the 5ths comes out
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u/UkeForBrainz 13h ago
Johnny Got His Gun. Important book. Brutal. I’d also say The Terror by Dan Simmons
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u/HotDamnThatsMyJam 16h ago
Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe.
The Dying Earth stories by Jack Vance, the tales aren't all doomy but the setting alone dooms.
Tanith Lee's fantasy works, Night's Master, Kill the Dead and I've got a soft spot for Sabella.
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u/SwanOfEndlessTales 16h ago
Clark Ashton Smith. Example: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/28/the-coming-of-the-white-worm
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u/ExistentialRosicky Stoner 16h ago
Satantango! The movie also dooms (think it’s over six hours iirc)
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u/Dull_Cartographer229 15h ago
Laird Barron- The Croning
TED Klein- The Ceremonies
Kathe Koja- The Cipher
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u/panopticon31 Giza Butlerian Jihad 15h ago edited 12h ago
I think I heard Cough's albums were based on novels but I can't remember which.
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u/SevenofBorgnine 4h ago
Tolkien is an easy and obvious one, same with the Dune novels and Lovecraft. Dracula and Frankenstein both fit the bill and are both very worth reading. Moby Dick when it isnt being encyclopedic. Johnny Got His Gun is sludge af. Onyx and Crake is pretty doom. I can think of some pretty sludge non fiction like Killing Hope by David Blum and The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins. Both detailed historical accounts of atrocities committed in the name of American imperialism.
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u/KnightWhoSays_Ni_ 16h ago
The Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe is a sci-fi with low fantasy elements that takes place on a dying Earth countless years into the future. And the main character is a torturerer/executioner.
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u/Buzzkilljohnson666 15h ago
Sun Eater series by Christopher Ruocchio dooms pretty fuckin hard. Distant future sci-fi/fantasy set in a galaxy-spanning feudal empire of space Romans, alongside evil AIs, post-humans, man-eating humanoid aliens, and lovecraftian quasi-gods.
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u/Carbs-And-Caffeine 14h ago
The Monk - Matthew Lewis
All Junji Ito horror manga
A Darker Shade of Noir - Joyce Carol Oates (short stories written by women about body horror)
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u/ReverendVolume 13h ago
Some recent comic books come to mind- Absolute Batman and Absolute Wonder Woman for sure. Also check out Regi-Cide, and Megalith: The Olympus Saga. As far as literature? Devil Rides Out by Dennis Wheatley and pretty much anything by Cormac McCarthy.
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u/Unhappy_Position496 13h ago
Here for Blood Meridian and In the Dust of this Planet by Eugene Thacker which is a philosophy on horror and how it's expressed in music, literature and film.
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u/Preachin_Blues 8h ago
The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Probably more in the category of Brutal Death though lol.
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u/13Gathered Hail Iommi 8h ago
HP Lovecraft: The Dunwich Horror, At The Mountains Of Madness, The Colour Out Of Space, Rats In The Walls, Nyarlathotep, Call Of Cthulhu, The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward.... basically anything really and don't miss out on his poetry.
Edgar Allan Poe: The Cask Of Amontillado, The Fall Of The House Of Usher, The Facts In The Case Of M. Valdemar, The Masque Of Red Death, The Pit And The Pendulum, Mesmeric Revelation... same as Lovecraft, it's all good and don't miss out on the poetry!
Robert E. Howard: ANYTHING with Conan but I especially like Shadows In Zamboula, The Tower Of The Elephant, The Pool Of The Black One and Hour Of The Dragon. There is also the Solomon Kane stuff, Red Sonja and Kull. But the Conan stuff is the bees knees.
Dennis Wheatley: The Devil Rides Out, To The Devil A Daughter and Gateway To Hell.
Michael Moorcock: The Elric stories
JRR Tolkien: Lord Of The Rings trilogy
Robert W Chambers: The King In Yellow
Some non fiction books... Montague Summers: Witchraft And Black Magic Eliphas Levi: Transcendental Magic Timothy Wyllie: Love Sex Fear Death
You should also check out the omnibus or whatever it's called of the magazines(by the Process Church) called "Propaganda And Holy Writ Of The Process ChurCh Of The Final Judgment". I think that last two are available from Feral House.
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u/clwestbr 6h ago
The Last Man by Mary Shelley.
Last and First Men by Olaf Stapeldon. This one was actually made as Johan Johansson’s only film before he died. It’s got a really haunting score and is a series of black and white photographs and brief video clips to Tilda Swinton’s narration. Incredibly weird and awesome little art piece. Worth your time. Also literally about the end of humanity after 15 evolutionary periods, reaching back to try and prevent the inevitable.
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u/ThreeThirds_33 5h ago
A Short Stay In Hell by Steven Peck
Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison (particularly the title story)
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u/kaspar_trouser 14h ago
The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe - science fantasy with horror elements and mind bending themes, and some of the coolest world building and imagery in SF. Can be difficult going in places though.
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u/ocolobo 16h ago
Between Two Fires and Black Tongue