recommend me some books. I really like weird and profound, but will settle for weird and funny, or just weird.
Tim Powers is one of my favorites in the “weird but profound” fantasy genre.
Declare is probably my favorite, concerning a British spy’s adventures in both 1940 and 1960 to secure the co-operation (or, failing that, prevent the Nazis/Soviets from doing the same) of several supernatural creatures living in and around Mount Ararat. Also works as a good bio of real-life British turn-coat Kim Philby, who serves as one of the book’s villains.
Last Call is also good, about a supernatural poker game that’s periodically played to determine who is going to be king of the world. That one has two sequels, one of which features a young boy possessed by the ghost of Thomas Edison, and the other revealing the mystical roots (as it were) of the Californian wine industry.
He’s also done pirates (On Stranger Tides - no actual relation to the Johnny Depp movie beyond the title), time travel and Victorian poetry (The Anubis Gates), and the role of a particular make of beer in preventing the Ottoman Empire from overrunning Europe (The Drawing of the Dark.)
I’ve only seen the JDatE movie, but maybe:
Christopher Moore
Kurt Vonnegut
Terry Pratchett (I hear he’s popular around here)
Neil Gaiman
Maybe some of the other authors at Cracked. Haven’t read any either, but one shilled a brand new one recently.
for varying degrees of weird.
Try Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim series. Smart, funny, hip and nasty filthy urban fantasy noir with a terrifically realised escatology. The Dresden Files with big hairy tattooed balls.
Try Ready Player One. Not as weird, but just as fun, in my opinion, as John Dies at the End.
How to Succeed in Evil by Patrick McLean
Redshirts by John Scalzi
NPCs by Drew Hayes
At least some of the suggestions here are pretty good.
Here are a few that it’s been a long time since I’ve read, so I don’t remember them real well, but they might be somewhere in the general ballpark of what you’re looking for:
Fool on the Hill by Matt Ruff
Buddy Holly Is Alive and Well on Ganymede by Bradley Denton (e-book available free)
and from a hundred years ago, maybe The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton
Thanks for all the replies. Can’t wait to begin reading!
Tim Powers and Neil Gaiman I am very, very familiar with and glad to see them mentioned here. I spent several weird, sleep deprived days at a con back in the day, and kept ending up running into Neil in the strangest places, for a total of about 20 times. I am sure he thought we were stalking him, but it was pure coincidence. He is, or at least was then, a really humble, almost self-deprecating personality that is very incredible to his fans.
Tim Powers I always describe as the best author no one is reading. He is also super awesome, and I conversed with him by phone and email some time back. I bought a first edition On Stranger Tides, and shipped it to him. He did a very nice personalized signing for a friend, and shipped it back at his own expense. The friend has since passed, and I now have the book again as a memento of our friendship, and of my short relationship with one of my favorite authors.
Soon I will be Invincible by Austin Grossman, is a novel told from the POV of a comic book super villain.
Another possibility: 14 by Peter Clines. Less of the exuberant, comic, wall-to-wall weirdness of John Dies at the End and more of a mysterious, slowly building weirdness; but I suspect the Venn diagram of people who like both books has significant overlap.
John Dies at the End most reminded me of Buckaroo Banzai, so maybe try some of Earl Mac Rauch’s comics.
Maybe more of a stretch, but you might be interested in Fight Club. Not a ton in common, but my mental library puts them on the same shelf.
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore might be worth a look, too. Quite a bit in common with John Dies, actually. First-person narrative, protagonist meddling with conspiracies, postmodern pop-culture jokes. Much less B-movie inspiration, though.
The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny. One of my favorite series of books, and way way out there. IMHO, vastly underrated.