I have never made any secret of the fact that I enjoy a gothic novel. I appreciate the bleakness, darkness and writing style. They have always been to my taste and so I search them out and read them.
Some are marvelous even when dark and disturbing, others simply a pastiche made to sound gothic. There are so many excellent novels in the gothic genre I could recommend that the list would be, let us say, extensive. Alas, you wish only for fantasy novels in a gothic world which took a little more thought. I suppose all gothic novels are set in a fantasy world, but I decided to recommend only those set in a “fantastical” gothic world was what you were looking for. If I am wrong, please let me know. There are many, many others I could recommend.
The Shadow of the Torturer. By Gene Wolfe.
Severian is a torturer, born to the guild and with an exceptionally promising career ahead of him . . . until he falls in love with one of his victims, a beautiful young noblewoman.
Her excruciations are delayed for some months and, out of love, Severian helps her commit suicide and escape her fate. For a torturer, there is no more unforgivable act. In punishment he is exiled from the guild and his home city to the distant metropolis of Thrax with little more than Terminus Est, a fabled sword, to his name.
Along the way he has to learn to survive in a wider world without the guild - a world in which he has already made both allies and enemies. And a strange gem is about to fall into his possession, which will only make his enemies pursue him with ever-more determination . . .
Winner of the World Fantasy Award for best novel.
Matter. by Iain M Banks.
The intricate structure of a Shellworld - an artificial planet of spheres-within-spheres - is matched only by the machinations of its inhabitants.
On the eighth sphere of Sursamen, a man witnesses the murder of his father and flees, searching for the one - maybe two - people who could clear his name. For his brother, this means a life lived under constant threat of treachery, while for their sister, Djan Seriy Anaplian, it means returning to a place she'd thought abandoned forever.
Anaplian is not who she once was. She has become an agent of the Culture's Special Circumstances section, charged with high-level interference in civilisations throughout the greater galaxy.
Concealing her new identity - and her particular set of abilities - might be a dangerous strategy. In the world to which she returns, nothing is quite as it seems; and determining the appropriate level of interference in someone else's war is never a simple matter.
The Many Coloured Land. By Julian May
In the 22nd Century, a group of misfits and mavericks are preparing to leave behind everything they have known. Advanced technology has created a one-way time portal to Earth’s Pliocene Era – six million years ago. Those seeking a better life are drawn to the promise of a simple utopia, far from the civilised Galactic Mileu. But no one could have predicted the dangers on the other side.
For the group will enter the battleground of two warring alien races, exiled from a distant planet. And these races not only have potent mind powers, but seek to exploit and enslave humans for their own needs. The travellers are about to discover that their unspoilt paradise is far from Eden.
Dracula Unbound. By Brian Aldiss.
When Bram Stoker was writing his famous novel, Dracula, at the end of the 19th century he received a visitor named Joe Bodenland. While the real Count Dracula came from the distant past, Joe arrived from Stoker’s future – on a desperate mission to save humanity from the undead.
Following on from Frankenstein Unbound, this is a dramatic reworking of the vampire myth in a way that only Brian Aldiss can.
I hope that you have enjoyed my suggestions, should you wish for more or those on general gothic fiction I am happy to help. Just let me know.
Raymond.
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