Notable Authors: H.P. Lovecraft, Thomas Ligotti, Robert Aickman, Clive Barker, Edgar Allan Poe, Algernon Blackwood, Shirley Jackson, Richard Matheson, Stephen King, William Peter Blatty, Robert Bloch, Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, Edogawa Rampo, Arthur Machen, Ambrose Bierce, M.R. James, Sheridan Le Fanu, Brian Evenson, William Hope Hodgson, Clark Ashton Smith, Frank Belknap Long, Ramsey Campbell, Caitlin R Kiernan, Laird Barron, Jack Ketchum, Stefan Grabinski, Peter Straub, and many many moreDiscuss your favorite horror tales in both short and long form. What have you read lately? What do you want to read? What's a work of horror fiction or an author who you want to recommend?
>>24702117I recently read Ligotti’s The Sect of the Idiot and loved it immensely. I also recommend Stephen Graham Jones’ The Only Good Indians. I want to read JG Ballard’s Crash which isn’t classic horror but has the carnivalesque and grotesque elements of medieval and Gothic fiction—which horror also draws from.
>What's a work of horror fiction or an author who you want to recommend?Ramsey Campbell. He’s a great writer and talks to fans. I’m an upcoming weird fiction writer and feel grateful that Campbell talks to small fries like me.
>>24702117I thought Ligotti wrote philosophy
I read The Red Tower recently. It was aight. Really prefer the first person style of Lovecraft. I'm reading The Great God Pan right now though and it's pretty cool. I feel like it's apt to read it at this time of year when summer is fading into autumn, just shy of the Hallowe'en season.
Anyone else read Let the Right One In? I read it 15 years ago but I remember there was way more to it than either the American or Swedish film adaptations.
>>24702232That’s just his foray into non fiction to create debates and filch pseuds. He was a fiction writer first.
Booml
>>24702227What’s the best Campbell? I’ve read a few short stories and The Face That Must Die so far
>>24704077Read pic rel if you havent yet, it's works both as a retrospective and a best of collection, a perfect introduction to his works.
>>24702227what's your definition of weird fiction genre?
>>24702221>Stephen Graham JonesI haven’t read The Only Good Indians yet but it’s on my shelf. I did just finish The Buffalo Hunter Hunter though and quite enjoyed it
I kind of loved this book? Wonderful mix of horror and noir in post-WWII New York
Any fellow fans of satanic panic shtuffs?
I hate how if you want to get into horror fiction your options are basically Stephen King or short story collections, and you have to really dig to find anything worthwhile that isn't either of those. Seriously, why so many short stories?
>>24704900>Seriously, why so many short stories?"I think it’s safe to say that I will never write a novel. The reason is this: I really don’t like fiction, and novels are what fiction is all about. The only fictional works that I’ve ever admired are those which have their formal basis in essays (Borges), poetry (Bruno Schulz), monologues (Thomas Bernhard), or all three (Poe and Lovecraft). I want to hear a writer speaking, not see a movie in my mind that takes days or weeks to get through rather than 100 minutes or the time it takes to watch a multi-part mini-series. Why would anyone want to read The Silence of the Lambs when they could see the movie?" – Thomas Ligotti interviewed by Mark McLaughlin at Horror Garage "People will accept a short horror story that ends badly. They won’t accept this in a horror novel… not after they’ve read so many hundreds of pages. Horror stories in the short form are like campfire tales or urban legends that are just a way of saying “Boo.” They have nothing to do with the real world in the minds of most readers. Nevertheless, I think there’s a great potential in horror fiction that isn’t easily available to realistic fiction. This is the potential to portray our worst nightmares, both private and public, as we approach death through the decay of our bodies. And then to leave it at that — no happy endings, no apologias, no excuses, no redemption, no escape." – Thomas Ligotti interviewed by Neddal Ayad at Fantastic Metropolis
This is one of my favourites. I think the anon's analysis above^^^ is a keen observation too. It's rare to find a truly great horror novel of the slim or concise variety. Perfume however is one of those. It's really excellent.
QOTT: Have you ever read something so scary you shat yourself?
>>24704943True Detective(Rust's monologues which were plagiarized from Ligotti) genuinely gave me panic disorder which lead to a nervous breakdown. I have never been the same since.
>>24704943Yes Pet Sematary by Stephen King made me shit my pants.
im finishing off a collection each of mark valentine, mark samuels, reggie oliver this month
The Bricks That Ate
>>24702227>Ramsey Campbellbuy an ad. he is amateur and shit. faggot
>>24702117Recently finished The Golem by Gustav Meyrink, currently reading The Atlas of Hell by Nathan Ballingrud. I have the two longest stories still to go, but so far North American Lake Monsters feels way better.After this, I'm going to read The Best Tales of Hoffmann. (And I'm planning on reading The Devil's Elixirs as well at some point this year.)As for recommendations, Stefan Grabinski's The Dark Domain, and Jean Ray's Malpertuis are both criminally underrated. Hanns Heinz Ewers' Alraune is also a great read that is almost completely unknown.>>24702236I read Let the Right One In, and I think it's pretty good. Easy to read, pretty fucking bleak at times, and there is way more in the book than in the Swedish film adaptation (haven't seen the American one). Hakan is absolutely terrifying in the novel.>>24704940Perfume is also one of my favourites, absolutely fantastic read.>>24704964Which ones, and what did you think of them?
>>24704927>People will accept a short story that ends badly. they won't accept this in a horror novel.Bullshit, people still read King slop, despite the fact that the nigga can't write a good ending to save his life.
Just finished The Great God Pan. Bit of a confusing tale, that. What other stories in this collection are good?>>24705104Hakan literally turns into a deathless kind of vampire-zombie and gets beaten to a pulp by one of the teenagers that were just hanging around on the fringes of the novel till the end.
>>24705177The White People (seen as his best and I tend to agree), The Lost Club, The Shining Pyramid, The Three Impostors (especially the substories The Novel of the White Powder and The Novel of the Black Seal), The Monstrance (a personal favourite of mine).And yeah, they cut a lot of insane Hakan shit from the film adaptation for obvious reasons.
>>24705170Ligotti is talking about real horror not horrorslop based on societal and political issues.
Been on a vampire kick lately since I read both Carmilla and The Vampyre, and wanted to get into the essence of what makes Vampires so scary. Enjoyed Carmilla, The Vampyre not so much. Picked up "Interview With The Vampire" by Anne Rice because I heard she's the go-to modern-day gothic horror writer to read, and I gotta say... I was not really impressed.
I ordered a few Lovecraftian-tier collections. The top one has really rave reviews on Amazon and contains one of Ligotti's most famous stories (The Last Feast of Harlequin – I've only read The Red Tower and that's it bt.w). Both volumes have a leetle bit of Lovecraft himself mixed in w/ Ligotti, Ramsey, Del Toro, King and others. By the way, I read one Ramsey Campbell story about 6 months ago on the suggestion of someone here but I can't remember its name. It was about a pedestrian tunnel in suburban England that was haunted by an Aztec god and raped one of the schoolgirls at the end. I was intrigued by that story so I hope the Campbell stories in these two collections are good.
>>24702227Ice cream nigga on the right
I recently reread Macbeth. It has a good horror atmosphere going for it in parts. What are some more of the same but with the horror being more of the main focus?Also stuff with Hecate. Hecate is one of those entities that always gets me with scary scenes.
I liked Fear by L Ron Hubbard so much I’m a little worried this is how you become a Scientologist
>>24705195> horrorslop based on societal and political issuesWhat does that have to do with Stephen King and his shit endings?
For me, it's/an/ horror.
>>24706189My rule of thumb for being scared of animals is "If I can solve the problem by accidentally falling on the animal" then it's not scary.I could accidentally fall on a cat and it'd die. Cats aren't scary.I could accidentally fall on a bear and it'd be fine. Bears are scary.I could accidentally fall on a wasp nest and a lot of the wasps would die, but some or most would still be alive. Wasps are scary.
>>24705310I know it's a big leap between Shakespeare and Mary Shelley, but maybe Frankenstein is what you're looking for.
>>24705310Perhaps Vathek by William Beckford
>>24705104It looks like Alarune is the second in a trilogy? Is it a direct sequel or can it be read as a stand alone?
So, horror really is done best in the short story format, right?
What would be the book equivalent of Dead Alive/Braindead?
>>24705310The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole was the first gothic novel, and took a lot of inspiration from Shakespeare.>>24707377While they are a trilogy, all three books can be read individually. They are basically three different stories involving the same main character, and Alraune is seen as the best of the three.
>>24705184>The White People Got it.
>>24704093This was fucking shit. It started as literal Lovecraft rip offs then was just poorly written schoolchildren focused slop. Fuck you.
>>24708070Nta, but I still want to read Alone With the Horrors. What are some of your horror favourites?
Is it /lit/?
>>24708496It's terribly written extreme horror where the author just wants to be as extreme/gross as possible just for the sake of shock value. I'd skip this one.
>>24708512I have yet to read some modern literature which surpasses Maldoror in terms of being transgressive and extreme/gross and also have high grip over the craft as well.
>>24708595Maldoror is a very unique book, but have you read The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum? Very well written, pretty extreme, very dark. For something slightly less bleak and brutal but still extreme, Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite is also great.
>>24708606No, I haven't. Thanks for recs.
Not a big horrorfag but I read a collection of Machen stories last year. He's great, feels like a middle ground between Lovecraft and Charles Williams despite preceding both. The twist in The Terror reminded me of the ending of That Hideous Strength; both deal with animals rebelling against a decadent humanity
>>24708657Yeah, Machen is fantastic. Any stories that were your favourites?
>>24709148The White People maintained an incredible otherworldly atmosphere throughout, as did The Novel of the Black Seal. The Inmost Light was probably the "scariest," although late 1800s British people investigating horrific supernatural occurrences is pretty comfy for me.
>>24708496I've never read a splatterpunk that was legitimately scary, or even interesting. It's just being as gross and over the top as possible and fans of the genre brag about how desensitized they are.
>>24709334I did enjoy Joe R Lansdale’s “Night They Missed the Horror Show”
>>24709258"The White People" is my favourite short horror story in general. Other ones from Machen I love are "The Novel of the White Powder", "The Lost Club", and "The Monstrance".
Any good horror books with awesome twists at the end that recontextualize the whole story?
>>24708606Poppy Z. Brite is a tranny.
>>24709400So?
>>24709402Just saying. Transmogrifying yourself from one sex to the other thru forced medical intervention and drastic plastic surgery is pretty horrific if you ask me.
>>24709406Oh boo hoo. Just read the novel or don't.
>>24709406It's cool if you ask me.
>>24709409What is it even about. She features in a Lovecraftian short story collection I bought so I'm planning on reading that but the fact she's a tranny (ftm) is pretty fuckin gross.>>24709417It's gross. In my opinion trannies should be shunned like the Lovecraftian horrors they are.
>>24709429Then don't read it, you whiny loser.
>>24709429Nah.
