Books like “Annihilation”

What to read after “Annihilation” by Jeff VanderMeer: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
The Fisherman
John Langan · 2016
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
After his wife's death, Abe takes up fishing and befriends a coworker who has also lost his spouse. Dan suggests a trip to Dutchman's Creek, a spot with a dark reputation. There they meet a fisherman trying to land a primordial creature, and are offered a chance to recover the people they have lost.
2
The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories
H. P. Lovecraft · 1999
Similar atmosphere: “Body Horror” and “Creeping Dread”
A Penguin Classics selection of Lovecraft's stories, from 'Dagon' and 'The Picture in the House' to 'The Call of Cthulhu', 'The Colour Out of Space' and 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth'. Scholars, sailors and dreamers glimpse buried civilisations and vast indifferent forces, and the knowledge slowly takes their minds apart.
3
What Moves the Dead
T. Kingfisher · 2022
Similar atmosphere: “Body Horror” and “Creeping Dread”
- Body Horror
- Creeping Dread
Alex Easton travels to the Ushers' decaying manor to see a childhood friend who is dying. Madeline's body is changing in ways the doctors cannot explain, down to the hairs on her arms, the local hares behave strangely, and the tarn beside the house seems to be watching.
4
The Troop
Nick Cutter · 2014
Similar atmosphere: “Body Horror” and “Creeping Dread”
Five boys and their scoutmaster camp on a remote island for a weekend. A starving stranger arrives by boat, carrying a parasite that turns the body against itself. As the infection spreads, the small group's most immediate danger becomes one of the boys themselves.
5
The King in Yellow
Robert W. Chambers · 1895
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
A collection of linked horror stories built around a forbidden play, The King in Yellow, that disturbs everyone who reads it. Around it are tales of artists, masks and a lake city where ordinary life slides, without warning, into dread.
6
The Ballad of Black Tom
Victor LaValle · 2016
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
New York, 1924. Tommy Tester runs small errands and plays guitar for money, one of the few Black men willing to do business with a sorcerer. Hired by a strange wealthy man in Flatbush, he is drawn toward the Sleeping King and the Great Old Ones, and chooses what kind of power he is willing to serve.
7
The Exorcist
William Peter Blatty · 1971
Similar atmosphere: “Body Horror” and “Creeping Dread”
- Body Horror
- Creeping Dread
An actress's young daughter falls ill with symptoms no doctor can explain, and the doctors eventually suggest a religious explanation. A priest trained in exorcism is asked to help, and he must confront both the thing in the room and his own wavering faith.
8
The Only Good Indians
Stephen Graham Jones · 2020
Similar atmosphere: “Body Horror” and “Creeping Dread”
- Body Horror
- Creeping Dread
Years ago four Blackfeet men shot an elk on land they had no right to hunt. Now something is stalking them across the reservation, taking them one by one, in a story about grief, guilt and the debts that follow a person home.
9
Tender Is the Flesh
Agustina Bazterrica · 2017
Similar atmosphere: “Body Horror”
- Body Horror
After a virus makes all animal meat deadly, Argentina legalises the farming of humans for food. Marcos works the slaughter line and keeps his feelings out of it, until he is given a live woman as a gift and begins to treat her as a person.
10
Misery
Stephen King · 1987
Similar atmosphere: “Body Horror” and “Creeping Dread”
After a car crash in a snowstorm, novelist Paul Sheldon wakes in the remote home of Annie Wilkes, who calls herself his number one fan. She nurses him back to health, then learns he has killed off her favourite character, and will not let him leave until he writes her a new book.
11
Ghost Eaters
Clay McLeod Chapman · 2022
Similar atmosphere: “Body Horror” and “Creeping Dread”
- Body Horror
- Creeping Dread
Erin is still grieving her ex-boyfriend Silas when a friend offers her Ghost, a drug that lets users see the dead. She takes it hoping for one more conversation with him, and finds the boundary between the living and the dead starting to give way around her.
12
Mexican Gothic
Silvia Moreno-Garcia · 2020
Similar atmosphere: “Body Horror” and “Creeping Dread”
- Body Horror
- Creeping Dread
In 1950s Mexico, socialite Noemi Taboada travels to the mountain mansion of High Place to check on her newly married cousin, who writes of ghosts and sickness. The English family that owns it is cold and strange, and the house itself seems to be listening and slowly changing her.