authors / books / short stories / etc i personally enjoy or take inspiration from, in approximately chronological order of when i first read them
admittedly this list is from ~middle school and onwards, for two reasons: (1) i read a lot when i was younger and definitely couldn't recall every single title, and (2) my taste was pretty different at the time from what it is now.
if you click on the little star (★) after some of the list items, you can see my thoughts on it.
particularly: "the black cat", "the fall of the house of usher", "morella", "ligeia"
probably the biggest influence on my writing to date – of course my middle school self absolutely adored the gothic style and the pervasive themes of depression and despair and madness, and that clearly hasn't changed at all. as i get older i think i'm more capable of appreciating his writing.
particularly: "the thing on the doorstep", "the shadow over innsmouth", the case of charles dexter ward
really good prose coupled with really shit politics that make it hard to extol anything he's written.
impossible to describe (concisely) but i'll try: a complex and often confusing metafiction novel following the descent into madness of the primary narrator johnny truant, as he becomes more and more obsessed with a manuscript he's found of a book on the navidson record, a documentary by the titular william navidson showing his own descent into the depths of his family's spatially-impossible house.
personally i can't recommend this enough, if you're into that sort of thing. house of leaves completely rewrote my brain chemistry the first time i read it...
fiction's most beloved lesbian vampire... or at least mine <3
a group of greek classicist college students murder one of their friends out of "necessity", and things inevitably fall apart.
extremely well-written and surprisingly funny... another big rec from me!!
quite honestly i see this book as an aspirational figure for my own writing... this is what i want to write. i mean not exactly this but the elements of it, the style, the story, the characters (!!). also the font it's really beautiful
made me want to die
a modern retelling of carmilla, specifically focusing on the predatory undertones of the original.
the trigger warnings are there for a reason. 10/10
real quick i'll say i normally despise both modern retellings of classic novels and the implementation of the internet + online messaging into written fiction, but i think the author did really well here on both counts. maybe because the novel itself is hosted on the internet? maybe because they write with a clear and intimate understanding of these systems? idk but for sure i enjoyed the writing in part because of these elements, rather than in spite of them.
former law student raskolnikov loses his mind in crowded and stuffy st. petersburg and hacks up some innocent women with an axe
love nothing better than a neurotic protagonist. raskolnikov really spoke to my own experiences of "misanthropy born from extreme isolation"... the constant vacillating between moods of malice and benevolence towards friends and familiy and complete strangers, the depression, the ego, the paranoia, the disconnect from reality so potent it's nearly tangible.
and then he converts to christianity or whatever #jesussaves
. controversial epilogue nonwithstanding i really loved this book.
fantasy book series inspired by chinese cultivation novels, following wei shi lindon and co. on their journey to becoming Literally the most powerful people in the whole world
obviously sf/f isn't my mainstay but cradle is "fun" and i "like it" so it goes on the list
still not done with the series yet