You may absolutely loathe them if you are firmly against dragons and fantasy but I loved China Melville's first two novels. Smelly dystopia city, weird psed-science, torture, horrible monsters with a smattering of socialism. Great stuff.
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Was one of these King Rat (I'm pretty sure that's his first novel)? Really didn't enjoy it (though the descriptions of music were actually excellent) but thought it showed potential and always meant to check some of his other stuff (Perdido Street Station, UnLundun). He seems like an all-around good guy too.
King Rat was awful. But Perdido Street Station and the Iron Council are really really great. there's a part of Iron Council where I cheered as I read it. lots of horror influence, really visceral but out-there.
in a way maybe the opposite of what this thread was supposed to be about. But I do love those books.
What about Pat Barker's bleaker stuff? I like all of it (although the reading club was ambivalent about her "regeneration" series) and it doesn't remotely fit the disliked genres listed. Union Street and Blow Your House Down are unrelentingly bleak and harsh, but kind of amazing.
Or Sherman Alexie? He's a pretty interesting writer.
The Invisible Man? That's some of the toughest shit I know.
Other tough stuff - lots of people like William Vollman. I think he's got chops but something about it puts me off too...
There's a collection of short stories by John Sayles (the filmmaker) that is really good, called The Anarchist's Convention. Every one focuses on a different regional dialect/idiomatic style, like CB radio slang, aging jewish anarchists, boston working-class.. and many of them are also really funny.
Or there's always Lanark, by Alasdair Grey. Truly weird. No dragons though. My taste tends away from the minimal and more towards the maximal, I'm seeing. Pauline Melville, Haruki Murakami, Angela Carter.