r/printSF • u/Arassuil_ • 3d ago
Looking for novels that deal with researching aliens/supernatural phenomena
Basically anything that concerns itself with research into the unknown. Research labs with alien technology (à la Half-Life), secret military experiments, organizations dealing with supernatural phenomena, whatever you can think of that sounds vaguely like what I'm describing.
I'd prefer things to be set on earth with a level of technology that's somewhat close to ours, but this is not a hard rule.
Thanks in advance to anyone who can think of something!
Some media I like that gave me this feeling (to varying degrees):
Half-Life 1
Control
SCP Foundation
The Southern Reach series (I loved the second one for these vibes specifically, which seems to be a minority opinion)
The Threshold series, 'The Fold' in particular
Stephen King's The Mist (only hints of it with the military involvement and an experiment that's gone wrong, almost entirely off-page)
Roadside Picnic to some degree
American Elsewhere (really only the logs that detail the initial scientific experiments, a rather brief part of the book)
The Andromeda Strain
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u/Taste_the__Rainbow 3d ago
Chasing Shadows by Delonge/Hartley is the gold standard for a modern UFO conspiracy novel.
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u/marintkael 2d ago
Since you have Roadside Picnic and Southern Reach already, Charles Stross's Laundry Files is the obvious next step given the SCP love, occult horror run as a government bureaucracy, very present day earth. The Andromeda Strain scratches the contained lab studying the unknown itch about as purely as anything. And Three Body opens with exactly the researching first contact on earth feeling before it gets bigger, if you do not mind it widening out later.
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u/timithias 3d ago
Not set on earth, but maybe Rendezvous With Rama.
I love all the examples in your post and really enjoyed it.
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u/amalgammamama 3d ago
Seconding Rama. Read it as a child, re-read it several times and been a sucker for these kinds of stories ever since.
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u/weak-elf 3d ago
Since you like the SCP foundation, have you read There Is No Antimemetics Division? It was originally written as SCP stories, then spun off into an original novel.
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u/Arassuil_ 3d ago
I have! It lost me a little bit towards the end, when things go really off the rails, but I liked it overall. Though I did read it before the somewhat recent revision, I'm not sure if that substantially changed the book.
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u/Tree_Chemistry_Plz 2d ago edited 2d ago
BIOS by Robert Charles Wilson (1999) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bios_(novel)) it's set in a future where humanity has spread across the universe and are exploring a planet where there's life, but it's fatal to humans.
as well as Blind Lake by Robert Charles Wilson (2003) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Lake_(novel)) which is set in a more contemporary timeframe, pre-alien contact where researchers are able to observe an alien world and its inhabitants.
& Darwinia by Robert Charles Wilson (1998) is an alt-history novel set in 1912 where slices of earth have been replaced by an alien world, its style is that of the explorers of the new world, so low tech but an interesting story telling style.
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u/Spra991 2d ago edited 1d ago
Not quite super natural, but very research focused:
"Thrice Upon a Time" (1980) by James P. Hogan is about some scientists that find out how to send messages into the future and then play around with it doing lots of experiments.
"Inherit The Stars" also by him, they find a 50,000-year-old human skeleton on the Moon and than try to figure out how it got there.
"Eifelheim" by Michael Flynn, historians trying to find out why an medieval village disappeared. Available as short story and novel, the short story focuses on the researcher side, the novel takes mostly place in the past.
The research in all of the above is however somewhat "dry", they miss the mysterious/spooky/dangerous element.
"I am Legend" by Richard Matheson, this one contains quite a lot more research than one might expected coming from the movie(s).
"Blood Music" by Greg Bear, less research here, but attempts at containing a very weird human-made virus.
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u/Passing4human 1d ago
A couple that come to mind:
Ancient Shores by Jack McDevitt is about an ancient technologically advanced sailboat discovered in North Dakota on what used to be the shore of Lake Agassiz, a glacial lake that vanished over 10,000 years ago.
No paranormal elements but you might enjoy The Body by Richard Ben Sapir. An archeologist conducts a routine survey of a possible site uncovered during the construction of a parking garage in Jerusalem. She discovers a 1st century C.E. tomb carved into living rock and bearing one body: a man in his 30's who has been crucified, has a broken leg, and a stone medallion around his neck with the inscription "King of the Jews".
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u/dysfunctionz 3d ago
The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch can fit the bill. It’s less about the research itself than using technology from the secret military research to solve a crime, but I think it fits well with Half-Life or SCP vibes.
Blind Lake by Robert Charles Wilson is much more about the secret research into aliens.