Novels, Stories, or Movies Like Planescape: Torment

September 4, 2011 5:43 PM

Which novels, short stories, or movies have the same "feel" as the CRPG Planescape: Torment? I loved that game when it was released, played it through multiple times, and I'm jonesing for a more-of-the-same experience.

I've poked around elsewhere and seen the following recommended, all of which I've read or am planning on reading:

Vance's Dying Earth books
Bakker's Prince of Nothing books
Perdido Street Station
Planescape novelizations
The fan-made 250K word "novelization" ripped from the game's text files
Planescape gaming material
The Amber books ("What can change the nature of a man")
Discworld, for the humorous-but-not-necessarily-light tone
Gene Wolfe's New Sun books

I might also throw VanderMeer's Ambergris in there, or Alan Campbell's Deepgate. I haven't read The Etched City, but I've heard enough to think there may be some similarity when I get to it.

What am I missing?

posted by cupcakeninja to Media & Arts (7 answers total)

Richard Kadrey's Sandman Slim novels are about a guy who comes back from hell to get revenge on the people who sent him there, and comes complete with a severed head sidekick, much like the skull in Planescape. You may enjoy those.
posted by dortmunder at 5:50 PM on September 4, 2011

Haven't played Planescape, but knowing something about the Outer Planes, I think I can recommend Clifford Simak's Goblin Reservation and Jack Chalker's "Wellworld" series (starting with Midnight at the Well of Souls).

They both involve trips through fantastic locales that are more fantasy than science fiction. You should be able to find used paperback copies easily. The ending of the first Wellworld novel in particular has some parallels.
posted by Nomyte at 6:03 PM on September 4, 2011

Lots of Neil Gaiman and Micheal Moorcock, as well as M John Harrison's Virconium
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 7:20 PM on September 4, 2011

China Mieville's New Crobuzon novels definitely fit the unrelentingly bleak and irrevocably doomed feel of that video game, but it's steampunk with a healthy dose of magic as opposed to swords and sorcery.
posted by bardic at 12:29 AM on September 5, 2011

I actually think the Harry Potter films (books as well I presume) have many elements in common with Torment. Portals, transforming architecture, lots of weird sort of scary creatures with odd alliances.

The Hellboy comics come to mind as well.
posted by Anything at 1:02 PM on September 5, 2011

Memento!
posted by Addlepated at 6:46 PM on September 5, 2011

Thank you, folks! I'm going to leave this question open, so's to encourage further comments if people stumble across it.
posted by cupcakeninja at 3:38 AM on September 8, 2011