10 Incredible Books With Premises So Weird They Shouldn’t Work

A good book can take you anywhere, but only if you let it. But what if the journey begins with a man who can talk to cats, a spaceship crew filing workplace complaints, or an island where people forget things as they disappear? Ideas only possible in one's wildest dreams prove to make for some of the best stories, if executed well. In these books, the Devil visits Soviet Moscow, a young man disappears from a party in an America reshaped by civil war, and a woman hides her editor from the police in a world where memories vanish alongside everyday objects. These stories move between science fiction, fantasy, dystopia, and literary fiction, but they share a willingness to follow their strangest ideas all the way through. Sometimes the result is funny, sometimes unsettling, and sometimes hard to explain without sounding a little strange. That’s part of the fun: each book opens a door into a world that could only exist in fiction—and they make readers want to take a peek inside. Which kind of ‘strange’ story world are you most drawn to after reading this article? Quiet, unsettling dystopias where reality erodes slowly Quiet, unsettling dystopias where reality erodes slowly 0% Playful, absurd tales that mix comedy with the supernatural Playful, absurd tales that mix comedy with the supernatural 0% Philosophical, literary experiments that bend time, memory, or identity Philosophical, literary experiments that bend time, memory, or identity 0% High-concept sci‑fi settings like spaceships, colonies, or near-future worlds High-concept sci‑fi settings like spaceships, colonies, or near-future worlds 0% Kafka on the Shore (2002) Haruki Murakami Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore follows two characters on parallel journeys: fifteen-year-old Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home, and Nakata, an older man who discovers he can speak to cats. Their stories seem unrelated at first, but both lead toward questions about fate, memory, and the line between the ordinary and the impossible. Along the way, cats hold conversations, fish fall from the sky, and an unassuming stone may serve as a doorway. Murakami treats these events as part of the landscape rather than stopping to explain them, which makes the novel’s surreal world of magical realism feel strangely natural. Kafka on the Shore is a coming-of-age story, a mystery, and a metaphysical adventure all at once. Kafka on the Shore is available to purchase now with this link. The Employees (2018) Olga Ravn Olga Ravn’s The Employees takes place aboard an interstellar ship where human and humanoid crew members file reports about their working lives. Their found-footage-style statements describe routine tasks, shipboard tensions, and a group of strange objects brought aboard from a newly discovered planet. The crew becomes deeply attached to the objects, and the resulting reports start to blur the line between programmed behavior and human emotion. Ravn tells the story through brief, numbered testimonies, giving the book the peculiar feel of an investigation conducted by a committee. As the employees describe their jobs, they also reveal a workplace where every experience can be monitored, measured, or turned into productivity. The result is an eerie, thoughtful science-fiction novel about labor and what makes someone human. The Employees is available to purchase now with this link. Every Day (2012) David Levithan David Levithan’s Every Day centers on A, a consciousness who wakes up each morning in a different teenager’s body. A spends one day living as each person, then moves on, carrying the memories of every life with them into every body they inhabit. The arrangement has its own rules until A meets Rhiannon, the girlfriend of one of the people A inhabits, and falls in love. Suddenly, the premise becomes more than a supernatural thought experiment: how can a relationship work when one person changes in appearance, gender, and circumstances every day? Levithan uses this high-concept setup to explore identity, empathy, and the parts of a person that remain recognizable across radically different lives. Every Day is available to purchase now with this link. Exit Party (2026) Emily St. John Mandel Emily St. John Mandel’s Exit Party opens in 2031 Los Angeles, the first spring after the United States has collapsed. When the curfew is lifted, Ari Waker and her roommate go to a party. Then an uncanny double appears, and the host, Kareem, vanishes. Ari begins trying to unravel what happened on a night that seems to have broken the rules of reality. The mystery takes her through a future America splintered by civil war, a Greek resort hiding weapons dealers, a domed city in Paris, and a colony on the moon. Mandel builds a story around doubles, shadow worlds, and fractured timelines, while keeping its focus on the people trying to make sense of their changing world. It’s a literary puzzle with a premise that keeps expanding. Exit Party is available to purchase now with this link. The Master and Margarita (1967) Mikhail Bulgakov In Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, the Devil arrives in Moscow with a group of advisers that includes a giant, talking cat named Behemoth. Their presence throws the city into chaos, exposing the vanity, fear, and absurdity of Soviet society. Running alongside the Moscow story is another narrative set in ancient Jerusalem, where Pontius Pilate faces the consequences of condemning Yeshua. The novel’s premise is already delightfully strange, but Bulgakov uses its supernatural antics to make a pointed satire of censorship, political oppression, and artistic freedom. The result is funny, fantastical, and unexpectedly moving, with a love story at its center. A talking cat and the Devil could easily make for a one-note comic fantasy, but Bulgakov turns them into part of a sprawling novel about power, belief, and the fate of art. The Master and Margarita is available to purchase now with this link. The Memory Police (1994; trans. 2019) Yōko Ogawa On an unnamed island in Yōko Ogawa’s The Memory Police, objects begin disappearing, taking the memory of those items with them, too. The Memory Police make sure the disappearances stay forgotten, arresting anyone who still remembers what has been lost. The story’s narrator is a novelist whose editor remains unaffected by the disappearances. When he’s in danger, she hides him beneath the floorboards of her home. Their secret refuge becomes a small act of resistance in a world where the past keeps shrinking. Ogawa builds an unsettling dystopia out of a simple question: what happens when a society can no longer remember what it has lost? The Memory Police is available to purchase now with this link. The Book of X (2019) Sarah Rose Etter Sarah Rose Etter’s The Book of X follows Cassie, a girl born with her stomach twisted into the shape of a knot. She grows up on her family’s meat farm before leaving for a desk job in the city, trying to understand her body, her relationships with men, and the world around her. Her life unfolds between everyday concerns and surreal images: rivers of thighs, men for sale, and fields of throats. Etter takes an impossible bodily contortion and lets it shape the book’s entire landscape. Cassie’s knot becomes part of a strange, dreamlike reality where the grotesque sits beside school crushes, bills, and family illness. The premise doesn't feel gimmicky in the way many do, rather it serves as a way to explore the discomfort of living in a body under constant scrutiny. The Book of X is available to purchase now with this link. Lincoln in the Bardo (2017) George Saunders George Saunders begins Lincoln in the Bardo with a historical account: after Abraham Lincoln’s eleven-year-old son Willie dies, the grieving president visits his body in a Georgetown cemetery. Saunders imagines that Willie’s spirit remains there, surrounded by a chorus of the dead who are not ready to move on. Their strange, crowded afterlife becomes the novel’s main setting. The book unfolds through a dizzying collection of voices, some historical and some invented, as the spirits talk, argue, and try to understand their place between life and death. Saunders takes a premise that could sound like a surreal ghost story and turns it into a moving meditation on grief, love, and how people cling to the world. It's strangeness and heart are what make many believe Lincoln in the Bardo is Saunders's first masterpiece. Lincoln in the Bardo is available to purchase now with this link. Several People are Typing (2021) Calvin Kasulke In Calvin Kasulke’s Several People Are Typing, Gerald, a mid-level employee at a public relations firm, gets uploaded into the company’s Slack channels. It's an idea ripped straight from a corporate stress dream. His coworkers assume he’s playing an elaborate joke, while his bosses are pleased that his productivity has skyrocketed. Gerald, meanwhile, is trying to figure out what happened to his body and how to escape his new life as a line of text. Told entirely through Slack messages, the novel turns a familiar office tool into the setting for an absurd workplace comedy and an unexpected existential crisis. As Gerald’s colleagues deal with their own client emergencies, their office chatter continues around the fact that one of them may be trapped online. Several People are Typing is available to purchase now with this link. The Hike (2016) Drew Magary In Drew Magary’s The Hike, Ben, a suburban dad on a business trip, decides to take a short walk in the woods before dinner. The trail quickly becomes impossible to leave, and Ben finds himself deeper and deeper in a fantasy world filled with man-eating giants, demons, colossal insects, and magical objects. Among his unlikely companions is a crustacean, with the mouth of a sailor, figuratively. Ben’s goal is to find the “Producer,” the force behind this strange world and the only one who can free him from the path. The setup sounds like an elaborate joke, but the stakes are high: Ben is desperate to get back to his family. Drawing on folk tales and video games, The Hike turns a routine afternoon walk into a surreal, funny, and sometimes frightening adventure about survival—and the long way home. The Hike is available to purchase now with this link.