I don't mean actual Planescape books, but other fiction with similar themes, settings or characters.
It could be books with:
- A protagonist who suffers from amnesia and/or is immortal and views his immortality as a curse, or someone who sells/damns his soul in order to become immortal.
- A protagonist who is, in another way, similar to the Nameless One. It could be someone who has been extremely evil in the past, but is now consumed with regret and/or knows he's bound for hell when he dies.
- A setting that feels similar to Planescape in terms of athmosphere, races, world-building, etc.
Here's what I've come across:
- Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Robert Maturin
The protagonist makes a deal with the devil. He gets 150 extra years of life, but before the years are up, he must find someone who will take over the pact for him or the Devil will take his soul to hell. Knowing that almost no one would want to risk their soul, he wanders the Earth seeking out the most desperate and tormented people. Set in the real world, with the exception that hell is a real place.
- The Scavenger Trilogy by K.J. Parker
The protagonist wakes up on a battlefield without any memory of who he is of what he's doing there. He soon finds that he's being pursued by mysterious enemies, and that he may have been someone extremely evil or dangerous before he lost his memories. The world is medieval-ish, and quite dark.
- Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
A family discovers a spring which makes them immortal when they drink from it. This book is the furthest on my list from being similar to Torment in terms of mood, being a kid's fantasy novel, but it deals entirely with immortality as a curse.
- All men are mortal by Simone de Beauvoir
The protagonist discovers an elixir that makes him immortal, but after centuries of immortality he has come to realize how pointless life is without death. His tragic relationships with women (caused by his condition) especially reminded me of the Nameless One.
- The Kane Books by Karl Edward Wagner
Kane has been cursed by a god to wander eternally and can only be slain by "the violence he himself has created". He also regenerates wounds very fast, and he is often completely amoral and cruel, but also intelligent. He reminds me of the Nameless One's nastier incarnations. He's also weary of his immortality, and searches for ways to end or give meaning to his existence.
- Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
Not similar to Torment in terms of story, but the setting reminded me a lot of Sigil. New Crobuzon is a huge and chaotic city in the center of the world Bas-Lag, and it's full of strange races and beings, such as ant-headed women, vodyanoi and people that have had their bodies altered by magic or surgery (they often end up looking like tieflings). The lifestyles of the inhabitants seem very similar to Sigilians, and New Crobuzon has slums and lots of crime as well as scholarly quarters. The political intrigue also reminded me of the factions in Sigil.
- The San Veneficio Canon by Michael Cisco
Another setting that reminds me of Planescape. The protagonist isn't immortal, but he does die and become resurrected. It's also very morbid in a way that reminded me of Torment. For example, the protagonist has to collect corpses and (by using magic) dip into their memories in order to find something he's looking for.
Some obvious classics that could also fit the bill would be:
- Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (resurrection, Frankenstein's wish to find a cure for death, the monster having no memories after waking from the dead)
- Goethe's Faust (making a deal with the devil in order to obtain the true essence of life)
- Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (obsession with staying young and living forever, resulting in becoming a monster).
I hope it's okay to make a post about books despite this being a game forum. I've really been itching to ask fellow Torment fans this question, and I thought the chance of finding readers on a Torment forum was bigger than the chance of finding Torment fans on a book forum. I apologise in advance to the moderators if this isn't considered on-topic enough.
Aside from being interesting to me personally, I felt this topic might be helpful to anyone suffering from Torment withdrawal as well
