How About Some Examples?

Here are some books and series that fit the genre really well, even if they weren’t all written with “dreampunk” in mind. I’ve tried to select works that deal in some way with the internal/illusory/mystical world of dreams and are punk/transgressive/subversive in some way, or at least sympathetic to outsiders and underdogs.


White Light (1980) by Rudy Rucker

Credit: Rudy Rucker

The Dark Tower series (1982–2004) by Stephen King


Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985) by Haruki Murakami


The Sandman series (1989–1996) by Neil Gaiman


Snow Crash (1992) by Neal Stephenson


The Vurt series (1993–1997) by Jeff Noon


The Newford series (1993–2004) by Charles de Lint


Fight Club (1996) by Chuck Palahniuk


Neverwhere (1996) by Neil Gaiman


Perdido Street Station (2000) by China Miéville


The Scott Pilgrim series (2004–2010) by Bryan Lee O'Malley


A Monster Calls (2011) by Patrick Ness


The Darkening of the Light (2012) by Tessa B. Dick


Secret Cages (2012) by Barry Hale


Wolf in White Van (2014) by John Darnielle


Letters to the Black Underground (2016) by Yelena Calavera


Storm Dreams (2016) by Jeb R. Sherrill


Hoodoo (2016) by Ronald L. Smith


Jerusalem (2016) by Alan Moore


The Roam series (2016–2017) by Dez Schwartz


Mis(h)adra (2017) by Iasmin Omar Ata


The Strange the Dreamer series (2017–2018) by Laini Taylor


The Soul Sleep Cycle (2017–2019) by David Michael Williams

Credit: Mary Christopherson

Exit (2018) by Crispian Thurlborn


The Dreamscapers Trilogy (2018–) by Kurt Wagner


Urban Gothic (2019) by Stephen Coghlan


The Gay Wizard series (2019–) by V. S. Santoni


The Mirrors series (2019–) by Sonya Deulina Williams


The Dream Phaze series (2019–) by Matt Watters


The Dream Chasers series (2019–) by Martin Matthews


Steggie Belle and the Dream Warriors (2020) by Elias Pell


Mirrormaze: A Dreampunk Anthology (2020) edited by Cliff Jones Jr.


Legend of the Mind (2021) by Jeffrey Hopp


Next: Dreampunk in Film