Gormenghast

My initial thought is that Tim Burton should've made a movie out of this. A quick check of IMDB turns up this production instead, which looks brilliant: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0197154/

Gormenghast isn't so much horror–although if you mediate for a few minutes on the lives these people are trapped in you'll find plenty of that–as it is a grotesque, the literary equivalent of an old-style circus freak-show, which it's characters all pushed to the far extremes of caricature. Peake manages for all of that to make them human, although I found none sympathetic.

This book really wasn't my cup of tea, but that's not it's fault: if you enjoy rich, often funny, grotesque historical fiction, it's worth a look. And I can't really compare it to anything because it really isn't like anything. It's original. The love-child of Lovecraft, Dickens and Poe is probably the closest comparison. I get the impression Peake has been an influence on Pratchett: Stearpike or Flay or Swelter would be well at home in Anhk Morpork, but Pratchett doesn't quite have the cruel streak required for Gormenghast, and that's just fine by me.