Books like “The City We Became”

What to read after “The City We Became” by N. K. Jemisin: 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 Ballad of Black Tom
Victor LaValle · 2016
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Cosmic
- 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.
2
Her Majesty's Royal Coven
Juno Dawson · 2022
From the same world: “Urban Fantasy”
- Urban Fantasy
Four friends once swore an oath to Her Majesty's Royal Coven, the secret department of witches protecting Britain. Decades on, one runs the coven and one has left it, and whispers of a prophecy and a young warlock of frightening power force them to choose between tradition and what is right.
3
The King in Yellow
Robert W. Chambers · 1895
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Cosmic
- 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.
4
The Fisherman
John Langan · 2016
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Cosmic
- 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.
5
Perdido Street Station
China Miéville · 2000
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Urban Fantasy
- Creeping Dread
In the vast industrial city of New Crobuzon, the scientist Isaac agrees to restore flight to a creature who has lost its wings. The experiment releases something that feeds on dreams and minds, and the city is soon sliding toward disaster.
6
Annihilation
Jeff VanderMeer · 2014
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Cosmic
- Creeping Dread
Four women cross into Area X, a coastal region sealed off for decades, to survey it as the twelfth expedition. The biologist records the abandoned bunker, the writing on its walls and the animals that seem almost aware. She also knows her husband went in before her and came back changed.
7
The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories
H. P. Lovecraft · 1999
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Cosmic
- 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.
8
Slade House
David Mitchell · 2015
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Urban Fantasy
- Creeping Dread
Behind a hidden door in a narrow London alley waits a house that appears only every nine years. Guests are drawn inside and never come out the same. Linked over decades, their stories reveal what feeds the house. A haunting dark-fantasy tale about appetite and illusion.
9
Legendborn
Tracy Deonn · 2020
From the same world: “Urban Fantasy”
- Urban Fantasy
- Chosen One
After her mother's death, Bree Matthews joins an early college program at UNC and witnesses a demon attack that no one else remembers. Pulled into a secret society descended from King Arthur's knights, she hunts for the truth behind the magic that erased her memory.
10
Anansi Boys
Neil Gaiman · 2005
From the same world: “Urban Fantasy”
- Urban Fantasy
Fat Charlie Nancy learns that the father he barely knew was the spider god Anansi, and that he has a brother he never met. Spider is charming, magical and trouble, and he turns Charlie's careful life upside down while Charlie tries to bury a past that will not stay buried.
11
Storm Front
Jim Butcher · 2000
From the same world: “Urban Fantasy”
- Urban Fantasy
Harry Dresden is Chicago's only professional wizard, listed in the phone book and usually broke. When the police consult him on a double murder, he finds a sorcerer using black magic in a city where vampires and crime bosses all want a piece of the investigation.
12
Sunshine
Robin McKinley · 2003
From the same world: “Urban Fantasy”
- Urban Fantasy
Rae Seddon, a baker called Sunshine, is captured by vampires at her family's lake cabin and learns she carries magic of her own. Bound to a vampire who should be her enemy, she is pulled into a war among the Others, the supernatural beings living beside humans.