Fantasy/Horror/Scifi Book Club - Conspiracies

Hello everyone

In August we had a meeting on the theme of Forests, a picture of some of the sci-fi and fantasy books we read is attached.

For September we are uncovering the theme of Conspiracies

So fiction that explores conspiracy theories, paranoid plots, hidden societies, cover-ups that go "all the way to the top” etc
While the word conspiracy immediately invokes government cover ups of assassinations and UFOs etc (standard X-Files stuff) it can easily expand to space operas, fantasy and horror - such as setting it on alien planets or a space ship, fantasy court intrigue, doomsday cults - anything where people are plotting or covering things up.

As always you are free to read whatever you wish, as strictly or loosely as it fits the theme, and come and tell us about it on the day and whether you’d recommend it.

Below are examples from our members (and goodreads) to set the mood and give inspiration, but you are not limited to them.

• 1984, by George Orwell (1949): A man traversing a dystopian future ruled by warring states that control not only information but also individual thought.
• Dreadful Sanctuary by Eric Frank Russell (1951): An early science fiction novel examining a perceived global quarantine rooted in a paranoid delusion
• The Manchurian Candidate, by Richard Condon (1959): A political thriller about the son of a prominent U.S. political family brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for China.
• A Scanner Darkly, by American writer Philip K. Dick (1977): Set in a dystopian, then-future, 1994, where a policeman goes undercover to investigate the drug "Substance D”.
• A Game of Thrones, by George R. R. Martin (1996): Low-fantasy example, where the new Hand of the King must discover who murdered his predecessor and why.
• The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (2003): A popular thriller centring on secret societies and hidden religious histories.
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Steig Larson (2005): Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden’s wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth.
• Conspiracies, by F. Paul Wilson (2008): Lead investigates the disappearance of leading conspiracy theorist Melanie Ehler, and attends a convention of bizarre and avid conspiracy theorists. This is an entry into a series of stand alone adventures featuring the character, but may reference the other books.
• Under the Dome, by Stephen King (2009): A town in Maine (naturally) finds itself cut off from the outside world by an impassable, invisible glass dome-like barrier that seemingly falls out of the sky.
• 11/22/63, by Stephen King (2011): A time traveler who attempts to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
• HEX, by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (2013 in Dutch, 2016 in English): A US town is cursed by a witch they once burned, and must keep their curse and the rules by which they line secret from the outside world.
• Planetfall, by Emma Newman (2015): A religious group set up a colony on a distant planet where they believe god will meet them.
• The Shaft, by Scott Delaney (2021): Winner of Next Generation Indie Book Awards. In 2017 a religious movement sweeps America, and a secret society starts assassinating their leaders.