There's a sort of thriller, and I don't know if they do this any more or if things have changed so radically since their heyday they're simply unrecognisable, that takes the research-driven mechanics of its plot profoundly seriously, such that much of it is the meticulous working out of practical solutions to obstacles that are either physical, financial or even philosophical. Hence, we have an Indian clerk in Malaysia who finds a cache of arms and has to work out how best to turn them into capital for his endearingly modest dream of owning and running a bus service. It's the financial side of things that draws in an American tourist to act as a broker in name only, and it's tricky dealings over getting a cheque signed that sends him and his wife into danger, because, of course, practical solutions are all very well until they meet various unavoidable imponderables to do with human nature, politics and prejudice. Intelligent, sly, and rich in setting, milieu and assorted colourful characters. 

Well, with the great Christopher Tolkien gone, there's no better man than Brian Sibley to take up the torch. This gathers together the various narratives around the rise and fall of Numenor, and given how much coherent stuff was completed, it all hangs together very well. 

Things in the Loop get downright Lovecraftian, as the narrator relates more incidents from his youth, providing glimpses into a larger and ever darker tale of science gone awry and seeping into the world. More amazing illustrations, more vignettes from an ordinary life surrounded by extraordinary things.

Enthralling, filled with strangeness and atmosphere, the extraordinary illustrations and the ordinary story of a young person growing up in the detritus of an abandoned future make this unique and disturbing and imbued with a sinister nostalgia for a past that never was.

Back when I started listening to audio drama podcasts, Victoriocity was always there in lists of reccomendations, and for good reasons. A steampunk comedy detective series set in a vast Greater London spread out across the lower bit of Englend ruled by Queen Victoria transformed into some sort of mechanical biologcial behemoth after several succesful assasinations and equally succesful resurrections. These are the adventures of a stoic police inspector and a rather enthusiastic journalist as they solve various mysteries and uncover various dastardly plots. This is a novel, to which the series is a prequel, and an excellent read it is too. I listened to the audio book, and though I missed the familiar voices, the reader is superb and the personalities of all the characters and the witty dialgoe shine through. Loads of fun. 

Science and religion work differently in Night Vale, but that doesn't mean a scientist and a cultist have the smoothest of paths to either teaming or hooking up as they try to do something about all the holes appearing and swallowing houses and people. 

Offbeat PI series set in California as two unlicensed but not unlovable detectives follow a series of cases to a weirdwellness centre and lots ond shady shenanigans. Real good. There better be a season two.

This starts out - well, about two hundred pages in, I think, but it's an eight hundred page book - bringing together threads from the previous volumes to create a credibly intractable knot of conflicts, loyalties, passions, obligations and enmities which shape the various storylines that follow as much as the plot does, then it all goes rocketing off to battles, tragedies, bad marriages, forbidden unions, religious zealotry, magic-learning, magical conspiracies and dark secrets and hidden heritages revealed. Yes, there's a lot and it's still only the third volume in a seven volume series. 

Absolutely loved a return trip to the Fractured Europe setting for another twisted tale of disparate converging stories. An ex-courier is brought back to investigate the death of her old lover, and what a tangled mess that turns out to be. Written like LeCarre meets William Gibson, wonderfully narrated, these are almost cosy tales of mystery, deception, intrigue, betrayal and murder set in an apparently prosaic near-future that always turns out to be deeply weirder than you expect.