Books like The Iron Dragon's Mother — picked by fans

This is a highly propulsive and emotionally engaging novel with a sympathetic protagonist at its core.

It could be considered a portal fantasy, but I'd categorize it, along with the other books on this list, as “speculative,” because it doesn’t fit neatly into either the fantasy or science fiction genres and is anchored in contemporary or near-future realism.

Piranesi’s beautifully executed theme, about how a dramatic change in perspective can lead to a deeper appreciation for the beauty and nobility abiding beneath the ugliness of humanity and our one and only world, is one for the ages.

This highly original and beautiful book is destined to endure as one of the classics of early twenty-first century literature.

For a more traditional take on fantasy, Sofia Samatar’s A Stranger in Olondria is lovely and immersive, a fascinating new world worthy of Ursula Le Guin and Gene Wolfe.

Reportedly, she created Olondria from a combination of regions in Turkey and North Africa, and it feels absolutely fresh and instantly powerful. A teenage merchant becomes haunted by the ghost of a young girl and must find a way to put her to rest.

But the story is really about the power of books and stories and language itself. It’s a love letter to adventure and open seas, harbors, and alleys, and snowy mountains in the distance.

Ms. Samatar holds several advanced degrees in language and literature, including Arabic and various African dialects, and you can feel the joy of her verbal artistry dancing on the page.

Stranger is not to be missed.

You know how you go somewhere you’ve never been and you feel hollow in your bones, like you’re more fragile there, you might blow away in a strong wind or just melt down if this place doesn’t learn to recognize you?

Amatka is like that, and it’s about that. We follow someone trying to diligently do a perfectly normal market research gig in place where everyday objects must be clearly labelled and the labels reinforced constantly, otherwise they dissolve into slush.

She has to keep putting things in their place, but she’s not too good at that, because she’s always been out of place herself.

I mean, isn’t that exactly what life is like? And then it all falls apart.

Death in Spring is a tiny book containing a bigger, more intricate world than many a doorstopper, for all that the whole story set in a small, nameless hamlet.

Life there too is made of strange, violent rituals, only not the ones we know. We follow a boy growing up and learning them, and being scarred by these mysteries—what do they fill the mouths of the dead with, before they are killed and put into a tree forever? (It’s cement.)

Rodoreda wrote in Catalan, and Tennent’s translation is fluid and beautiful.

Perfection is a rare thing; if you want to see what that looks like, here you go.   

The murder of the ‘Princes in the Tower’ is the most famous cold case in British history. Matthew Lewis delves into the context of the disappearance and the characters of the suspects and asks a crucial but often overlooked question: what if there was no murder? Lewis provides a rounded and complete assessment of this most fascinating historical mystery.

In July of 1980, a beautiful violinist disappeared during a 45-minute break while the visiting ballet company used a prerecorded piece. Helen Hagnes Mintiks was a Julliard grad who had played with professionals since her teens. After the evening’s performance ended, her colleagues knew—as any musician would—that Helen would never have left the building without her violin. It took another nine hours to find her body, thrown down a ventilation shaft, hands tied with knots that stagehands used. A witness led them to the killer, who promptly confessed—a real villain, robbing the world of a kind-hearted talent out of lust. I read this book probably 30 years ago, while I was reading my way through the entire true crime section of the Cleveland Public Library. 

This is the story of a man and his lover who kill the man’s wife in London, then try to escape on a ship to Canada disguised as father and son. Awkward, but doable, unless you have the misfortune of timing your transatlantic cruise with the advent of radio communication.

Thanks to the new "wireless" technology, this couple was unwittingly trapped the moment they stepped aboard. I felt like a bird, hovering above, espying them leaving their quarters to go to dinner, then flapping my wings like mad to get over to the captain and listen in as he reports their movements to authorities on shore. Absolutely captivating.

This book resonated deeply with me because it explored the intricate layers of human nature, beautifully encapsulated in the quote, ‘To know what a person has done, and to know who a person is, are very different things.’

The gripping narrative, based on a true story set in 19th-century Iceland, draws me into the life of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, a woman accused of murder, as she awaits her execution. Kent's masterful storytelling skilfully delves into Agnes' complexities, making her a character so vividly real that I fervently hoped for a different outcome despite knowing the inevitable fate that awaited her.

This emotional investment and the stark portrayal of the human condition left a lasting impact. Kent captured both the darkness and light within us all.

I grew up on Santa Cruz Island, and while Floreana Island was visible on the horizon, I only knew it as the place where mysterious things had happened to people. Only when I read this book did I begin to understand. While Europe was preparing for war in the early 1930s, William Beebe’s enchanting book about Galapagos, caused a bizarre set of adventurers to converge on this small island as their chosen Eden. Stranger than fiction, what ensued was a human-made hell instead, that fostered bizarre deaths and disappearances that have remained unexplained to this day. The author uses his scientific background to analyze the known facts and lets the reader fill in the blanks. This book was the basis for the documentary film, The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden, by Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine.

This book had everything I love in a paranormal thriller—magic, secrets, twists, turns—but with an amazing setting that reads almost like a character itself.

Sain does such a good job of describing La Cachette, Louisiana, that I could feel the swamp heat humming from the pages. The fictional town also boasts the title of self-proclaimed psychic capital of the world, which makes secret-keeping nearly impossible—a perfect tension-builder for a fast-paced plot riddled with secrets, psychics, and unreliable characters.