Disturbing Tech-Themed Books

Far be it for me to explain the attraction, but perhaps because I’m a steadfast member of the cell phone generation, I have a real weakness for horror or thrillers that center around technology, screens, the Internet, anything of the sort. This goes for both books and movies. I am almost always in to watch those horror movies that take place entirely on a computer screen and recently watched an indie film called Deadware that was kind of bad but in an awesome way and threw it back to the era of browser games, the early days of webcams, and—wait for it—AIM as plot devices. Truly some earl 2000s gems and even though, yeah, it was a little shlocky at times, the thing is—I loved it. 

But I digress. 

The point is, I’m a sucker for that kind of thing, so without further adieu, I give you: disturbing tech-themed books that might make you put down your phone. Maybe forever. 

Okay, more realistically, maybe for like five or ten minutes. Let’s be serious here.

You can watch the accompanying reel here:

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and then read on to find out more about each of these books!

Screens by Christopher Laine 

This novel starts out as a story about a mysterious manuscript that people have been posting about on the dark web, a mysterious manuscript containing some kind of dark secret that causes those who read it to disappear and go off grid. The book then turns into the tale of a madness that infects people through their screens. Almost no one is safe, because everyone nowadays is surrounded by screens and technology. 

This was really scary, especially thinking about how hard it is to get away from tech in our every day life and how doomed we would be if something like this really happened so I really liked reading this one and found it super creepy. 

This is also apparently part of a series called Seven Coins Drawing, but it’s important to note that this book can be read as a standalone. I’ve never read any of the others and this one stood up perfectly well by itself. 

Slenderman by Anonymous

I love these books published under the anonymous bylines sometimes, especially when relating to Internet horror, because it really adds to that creepy air of where did this come from? Where did this originate, and why? 

Everyone knows Slenderman, and if you were a kid or teenager who was online during the heyday of the spooky figure, you probably have some creepypasta nostalgia like I do. So I really liked reading this story of a teenager’s journey down the rabbithole of the Slenderman lore. It’s kind of a mixed media book with some narrative, some instant messages and emails and message boards, which really helps to make it immersive for the reader. It definitely reads like YA, and after watching the Slenderman movie and then reading this book, I like to say that this book is what the Slenderman movie wanted to be. Or rather, this book is what I wanted out of the Slenderman movie and didn’t get. And with a villain that originates entirely online, it fits the category of tech horror perfectly. 

Wounds/The Visible Filth by Nathan Ballingrud

A lot of you are probably familiar with this one by now, especially after the film adaptation came out. The movie adaptation is titled Wounds but is specifically based on the story The Visible Filth housed within the collection. The Visible Filth follows Will, a bartender who picks up a cell phone left behind by a couple of patrons who leave the bar in a hurry after a fight breaks out one night. But he ends up bringing the phone home with him, and then starts getting increasingly disturbing messages and photos from someone, and as strange, terrifying, and at times, downright gross experiences seem to follow him, he starts to wonder what the hell he accidentally got himself involved in and how he’s ever going to get out of it. 

The Girl in the Video by Michael David Wilson 

In a somewhat similar experience, The Girl in the Video also centers on a main character who gets a mysterious message to kick things off. This one starts with a teacher receiving a message containing a link titled “belated birthday present”. When he clicks the link and finds himself watching a disturbing and entrancing video of a young woman in a Hello Kitty mask, he thinks that will be the end of it. But then he continues getting messages, and then comments, emails, Tweets, DMs, a nonstop barrage that indicates he has clearly unleashed something disturbing and that he cannot undo. The videos keep coming, and they keep getting worse and worse. Soon the disturbing aspects start leaking into his off-screen life, and it becomes apparent that this isn’t just some random spam—this is a targeted personal attack. 

This is a rough one. Truly a lot of disturbing material for such a short book, and will definitely freak you out and leave you wondering. 

We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets 

We Had to Remove This Post differs from the other books on this list in the sense that it is much more subdued and more of a psychological fiction/lowkey psychological thriller than horror or sci-fi. It’s based in very real things: a woman gets a job as a moderator at a big social media company. Her and her colleagues spend their days looking at the worst of the worst: the posts that get flagged or reported for violence, hate speech, death, graphic content. The horrific part of this book is the examination of how looking at something like that day in and day out can have a severe psychological impact on someone. The main character begins a relationship with another woman at her job, and over time, the impact of what they see at work begins to seep into their day to day life, their interactions with one another, and they even sometimes find themselves blurring lines they know they shouldn’t be going anywhere near. 

It’s a disturbing read in a very different way than an out and out horror book is, and really makes you think about the people who deal with things like this on a day to day basis and how awful it must be, and I have to say, my heart was nearly in my throat at the ending. 

The Circle by David Eggers

The Circle is a dystopian sci-fi novel starring Mae, a young woman who starts working for a huge tech company called, of course, The Circle. Everything starts out great as she moves up through the company quickly and enjoys the many perks of working there—in true Google fashion they have a huge campus with gyms, food, classes, recreation, parties, and even rooms you can spend the night in if you can’t make it home. But things get increasingly dark and twisted as The Circle encourages people to give up their privacy by wearing tiny cameras that constantly record everything they do and delving deep into their personal lives and matters, even instituting a slogan that “privacy is theft”. Gradually but suddenly, there is no privacy for anyone who works for The Circle or even anyone who uses The Circle technology. This one reads like a really scary interpretation of what could be, and having debuted in 2013, almost seems like it was ahead of its time.