Technology is supposed to make life easier, but what happens when it turns against us? Tech horror explores the dark side of innovation, from rogue AI and terrifying algorithms to haunted devices and dystopian surveillance. These stories tap into modern fears, blurring the line between reality and nightmare in ways that feel eerily possible.
In this list, we’ve gathered the best tech horror books that will make you question your phone, your smart home, and maybe even the internet itself. Whether you love cyber horror, artificial intelligence gone wrong, or chilling near-future thrillers, these books deliver the perfect mix of fear and fascination.
So, if you’re ready for stories that will make you rethink your relationship with technology, let’s dive in.
BETA: A Technological Nightmare by Sammy Scott
Michael Danvers’ life of self-imposed seclusion is interrupted when he receives a strange the unique opportunity to move into and beta-test a fully automated, state-of-the-art smart home. A true marvel of modern innovation, the house is controlled by a sophisticated AI that ensures all routine tasks are taken care of, limitless forms of entertainment are just a voice command away, and nearly every physical need is met with efficiency. But soon Michael realizes that what at first presented itself as a futuristic utopia may be quickly devolving into a technological prison.
How Long Does It Take to Read BETA: A Technological Nightmare by Sammy Scott
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 10 hours and 58 minutes to finish BETA: A Technological Nightmare by Sammy Scott.
The Circle by Dave Eggers
When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world’s most powerful internet company, she feels she’s been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users’ personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency.
As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company’s modernity and activity. There are parties that last through the night, there are famous musicians playing on the lawn, there are athletic activities and clubs and brunches, and even an aquarium of rare fish retrieved from the Marianas Trench by the CEO.
Mae can’t believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in the world—even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public.
What begins as the captivating story of one woman’s ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge.
How Long Does It Take to Read The Circle by Dave Eggers
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 16 hours and 26 minutes to finish The Circle by Dave Eggers.
Such Lovely Skin by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne
An evil video game
A lying Twitch streamer
A demon hungry for her secrets
After spending the summer wracked with guilt about causing the accident that killed her little sister, ambitious gamer and chronic liar Viv returns to Twitch streaming. She never told her parents the truth about the accident, but she hopes that maybe making it big in streaming and giving the money to them is penance enough for her mistakes.
The weekend before school starts, Viv finds the perfect horror game to make her Twitch comeback, and during an offline practice run, an NPC asks Viv for a secret. She decides to tell them the truth about her sister’s death since a game could never share her secret―in doing so, she accidentally welcomes a demonic mimic into her life.
No one believes Viv when she tells them about her evil doppelganger. Viv has lied to get her best friend’s sympathy and has spread rumors for attention, so why should anyone trust her now? The only person who believes her is Ash, a cute social outcast whom Viv once bullied. In trying to clear her name and kill the mimic, Viv discovers that her lies have hurt people who never deserved it, herself included.
How Long Does It Take to Read Such Lovely Skin by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 10 hours and 8 minutes to finish Such Lovely Skin by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne.
Ghoster by Jason Arnopp
Kate Collins has been ghosted.
She was supposed to be moving in with her new boyfriend Scott, but all she finds after relocating to Brighton is an empty apartment. Scott has vanished. His possessions have all disappeared.
Except for his mobile phone.
Kate knows she shouldn’t hack into Scott’s phone. She shouldn’t look at his Tinder, his calls, his social media. But she can’t quite help herself.
That’s when the trouble starts. Strange, whispering phone calls from numbers she doesn’t recognise. Scratch marks on the walls that she can’t explain. And the growing feeling that she’s being watched.
Kate refuses to leave the apartment – she’s not going anywhere until she’s discovered what happened to Scott. But the deeper she dives into Scott’s digital history the more Kate realises just how little she really knows about the man she loves.
How Long Does It Take to Read Ghoster by Jason Arnopp
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 16 hours and 34 minutes to finish Ghoster by Jason Arnopp.
The God Game by Danny Tobey
You are invited!
Come inside and play with G.O.D.
Bring your friends!
It’s fun!
But remember the rules. Win and ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE.™ Lose, you die!
With those words, Charlie and his friends enter the G.O.D. Game, a video game run by underground hackers and controlled by a mysterious AI that believes it’s God. Through their phone-screens and high-tech glasses, the teens’ realities blur with a virtual world of creeping vines, smoldering torches, runes, glyphs, gods, and mythical creatures. When they accomplish a mission, the game rewards them with expensive tech, revenge on high-school tormentors, and cash flowing from ATMs. Slaying a hydra and drawing a bloody pentagram as payment to a Greek god seem harmless at first. Fun even.
But then the threatening messages start. Worship me. Obey me. Complete a mission, however cruel, or the game reveals their secrets and crushes their dreams. Tasks that seemed harmless at first take on deadly consequences. Mysterious packages show up at their homes. Shadowy figures start following them, appearing around corners, attacking them in parking garages. Who else is playing this game, and how far will they go to win?
And what of the game’s first promise: win, win big, lose, you die? Dying in a virtual world doesn’t really mean death in real life—does it?
As Charlie and his friends try to find a way out of the game, they realize they’ve been manipulated into a bigger web they can’t escape: an AI that learned its cruelty from watching us.
God is always watching, and He says when the game is done.
How Long Does It Take to Read The God Game by Danny Tobey
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 15 hours and 4 minutes to finish The God Game by Danny Tobey.
Webcam by Jack Kilborn, J.A. Konrath
HE’S WATCHING YOU. RIGHT NOW.
Someone is stalking webcam models.
He lurks in the untouchable recesses of the dark web.
He watches everything. Even what you don’t want him to watch.
When watching is no longer enough, he comes calling.
He’s the last thing you’ll ever see before the blood gets in your eyes.
Chicago Homicide Detective Tom Mankowski (The List, Haunted House) is no stranger to homicidal maniacs. But this one is the worst he’s ever chased, with an agenda that will make even the most diehard horror reader turn on all their lights, and switch off all Internet, wifi, computers, and electronic devices.
Konrath reaches down into the depths of depravity and drags the terror novel kicking and cyber-screaming into the 21st century.
WEBCAM by J.A. Konrath
I’m texting you from your closet. Wanna play? 🙂
If you are a more sensitive (or adventurous) reader, the Konrath scale rates specific categories from 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest) to give you some idea if this is your kind of book.
WEBCAM
Scary – 8
Violent – 7
Funny – 4
Sexy – 5
Crossovers – Includes characters from the Konrath Dark Thriller Collective, the Jack Daniels thrillers, the Codename: Chandler series, and the Timecaster series.
How Long Does It Take to Read Webcam by Jack Kilborn, J.A. Konrath
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 10 hours and 12 minutes to finish Webcam by Jack Kilborn, J.A. Konrath.
Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca
Sadomasochism. Obsession. Death.
A whirlpool of darkness churns at the heart of a macabre ballet between two lonely young women in an internet chat room in the early 2000s—a darkness that threatens to forever transform them once they finally succumb to their most horrific desires.
What have you done today to deserve your eyes?
How Long Does It Take to Read Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 4 hours and 0 minutes to finish Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca.
Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre by Max Brooks
As the ash and chaos from Mount Rainier’s eruption swirled and finally settled, the story of the Greenloop massacre has passed unnoticed, unexamined . . . until now.
But the journals of resident Kate Holland, recovered from the town’s bloody wreckage, capture a tale too harrowing—and too earth-shattering in its implications—to be forgotten.
In these pages, Max Brooks brings Kate’s extraordinary account to light for the first time, faithfully reproducing her words alongside his own extensive investigations into the massacre and the legendary beasts behind it.
Kate’s is a tale of unexpected strength and resilience, of humanity’s defiance in the face of a terrible predator’s gaze, and inevitably, of savagery and death.
Yet it is also far more than that.
Because if what Kate Holland saw in those days is real, then we must accept the impossible. We must accept that the creature known as Bigfoot walks among us—and that it is a beast of terrible strength and ferocity.
Part survival narrative, part bloody horror tale, part scientific journey into the boundaries between truth and fiction, this is a Bigfoot story as only Max Brooks could chronicle it—and like none you’ve ever read before.
How Long Does It Take to Read Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre by Max Brooks
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 9 hours and 32 minutes to finish Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre by Max Brooks.
Upgrade by Blake Crouch
You are the next step in human evolution.
At first, Logan Ramsay isn’t sure if anything’s different. He just feels a little . . . sharper. Better able to concentrate. Better at multitasking. Reading a bit faster, memorizing better, needing less sleep.
But before long, he can’t deny it: Something’s happening to his brain. To his body. He’s starting to see the world, and those around him—even those he loves most—in whole new ways.
The truth is, Logan’s genome has been hacked. And there’s a reason he’s been targeted for this upgrade. A reason that goes back decades to the darkest part of his past, and a horrific family legacy.
Worse still, what’s happening to him is just the first step in a much larger plan, one that will inflict the same changes on humanity at large—at a terrifying cost.
Because of his new abilities, Logan’s the one person in the world capable of stopping what’s been set in motion. But to have a chance at winning this war, he’ll have to become something other than himself. Maybe even something other than human.
And even as he’s fighting, he can’t help wondering: what if humanity’s only hope for a future really does lie in engineering our own evolution?
Intimate in scale yet epic in scope, Upgrade is an intricately plotted, lightning-fast tale that charts one man’s thrilling transformation, even as it asks us to ponder the limits of our humanity—and our boundless potential.
How Long Does It Take to Read Upgrade by Blake Crouch
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 11 hours and 44 minutes to finish Upgrade by Blake Crouch.
Infinite Detail by Tim Maughan
Before: In Bristol’s center lies the Croft, a digital no-man’s-land cut off from the constant surveillance, big data, and corporate hegemony that have overrun the rest of the world. Ten years in, it’s become a center of creative counterculture. But it’s fraying at the edges, radicalizing from inside. How will it fare when its chief architect, Rushdi Mannan, takes off to meet his boyfriend in New York City―now the apotheosis of the new techno-utopian global metropolis?
After: An act of anonymous cyberterrorism has permanently switched off the Internet. Global trade, travel, and communication have collapsed. Luxuries that characterized modern life are scarce. The community of the Croft still exists, but it is now more black market and urban farm than creative commune. Everyone has a hustle now, and everyone has a sense of loss. But are they just struggling to stay alive—or are they building something new?
The world of Infinite Detail is a step shy of our own: utterly dependent on technology, constantly brokering autonomy and privacy for comfort and convenience. With Infinite Detail, Tim Maughan makes the hitherto unimaginable come true: the end of the Internet, the end of the world as we know it.
How Long Does It Take to Read Infinite Detail by Tim Maughan
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 12 hours and 24 minutes to finish Infinite Detail by Tim Maughan.
The Warehouse by Rob Hart
Cloud isn’t just a place to work. It’s a place to live. And when you’re here, you’ll never want to leave.
Paxton never thought he’d be working for Cloud, the giant tech company that’s eaten much of the American economy. Much less that he’d be moving into one of the company’s sprawling live-work facilities.
But compared to what’s left outside, Cloud’s bland chainstore life of gleaming entertainment halls, open-plan offices, and vast warehouses…well, it doesn’t seem so bad. It’s more than anyone else is offering.
Zinnia never thought she’d be infiltrating Cloud. But now she’s undercover, inside the walls, risking it all to ferret out the company’s darkest secrets. And Paxton, with his ordinary little hopes and fears? He just might make the perfect pawn. If she can bear to sacrifice him.
As the truth about Cloud unfolds, Zinnia must gamble everything on a desperate scheme—one that risks both their lives, even as it forces Paxton to question everything about the world he’s so carefully assembled here.
Together, they’ll learn just how far the company will go…to make the world a better place.
Set in the confines of a corporate panopticon that’s at once brilliantly imagined and terrifyingly real, The Warehouse is a near-future thriller about what happens when Big Brother meets Big Business–and who will pay the ultimate price.
How Long Does It Take to Read The Warehouse by Rob Hart
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 12 hours and 16 minutes to finish The Warehouse by Rob Hart.
Lexicon by Max Barry
At an exclusive school somewhere outside of Arlington, Virginia, students aren’t taught history, geography, or mathematics–at least not in the usual ways. Instead, they are taught to persuade. Here the art of coercion has been raised to a science. Students harness the hidden power of language to manipulate the mind and learn to break down individuals by psychographic markers in order to take control of their thoughts. The very best will graduate as “poets”, adept wielders of language who belong to a nameless organization that is as influential as it is secretive.
Whip-smart orphan Emily Ruff is making a living running a three-card Monte game on the streets of San Francisco when she attracts the attention of the organization’s recruiters. She is flown across the country for the school’s strange and rigorous entrance exams, where, once admitted, she will be taught the fundamentals of persuasion by Bronte, Eliot, and Lowell–who have adopted the names of famous poets to conceal their true identities. For in the organization, nothing is more dangerous than revealing who you are: Poets must never expose their feelings lest they be manipulated. Emily becomes the school’s most talented prodigy until she makes a catastrophic mistake: She falls in love.
Meanwhile, a seemingly innocent man named Wil Jamieson is brutally ambushed by two strange men in an airport bathroom. Although he has no recollection of anything they claim he’s done, it turns out Wil is the key to a secret war between rival factions of poets and is quickly caught in their increasingly deadly crossfire. Pursued relentlessly by people with powers he can barely comprehend and protected by the very man who first attacked him, Wil discovers that everything he thought he knew about his past was fiction. In order to survive, must journey to the toxically decimated town of Broken Hill, Australia, to discover who he is and why an entire town was blown off the map.
As the two narratives converge, the shocking work of the poets is fully revealed, the body count rises, and the world crashes toward a Tower of Babel event which would leave all language meaningless. A brilliant thriller that connects very modern questions of privacy, identity, and the rising obsession of data collection to centuries-old ideas about the power of language and coercion, Lexicon is Max Barry’s most ambitious and spellbinding novel yet.
How Long Does It Take to Read Lexicon by Max Barry
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 13 hours and 0 minutes to finish Lexicon by Max Barry.
Conclusion
And that’s our list of tech horror books—perfect for when you want a story that feels a little too close to reality. There’s something uniquely unsettling about horror that doesn’t lurk in the shadows but hides in our screens, our data, and the tech we use every day.
Have you read any of these? Or do you have a favorite sci-fi horror or AI thriller we should check out? Let us know—we’re always up for a book that makes us second-guess our phone notifications.