Satanic panic edition. Old >>24736100
>>24776661Newborns are not that big c'mon.
>solves horror
>>24776699I used to be a fan of Ligotti but he’s admitted he doesn’t even read novels. He says he just watches television.
>>24776699I got my copy. What story should I start with?
>>24776720Purity
>>24776714based. Most novels are overbloated af, short stories and novellas mog them lmao
>>24776723That story isn't even in that collection dawg.
>>24776740>>24776720Nyctalops Trilogy is his best
>>24776714Dostoyevsky said the exact same thing
Check this cover out brosNasty stuffSurprisingly hard to find as well
Which secondary literature is best to learn about Lovecraft?
>>24776769I wonder what Dostoyevskys favorite show was
>>24776777It's hilarious how a jeet is nominally Lovecraft's biggest and most publicly visible fan.
>>24776857Joshi's a very nice man and knowledgeable. Why disparage him?
>>24776877Well Lovecraft was quite disparaging of Indians, is what I'm saying...
>>24776880He also dedicated a lot of his works to Sarnath. He even has a story about "Hindoos". His racist beliefs barely figured into his creative work.
>>24776889You don't know what you're talking about.
>>24776891I've read Lovecraft's entire corpus. Outside of Red Hook, there is barely any racist content in Lovecraft's stories or poems. His letters are where the racism surfaces.
>>24776932Huh. What about Herbert West: Reanimator?
>>24776938Is that the only other story of his you have read? It's not even an important work. It was written as a joke for a comedy zine.
>>24776952
>>24776956Very nice, anon.
>>24776967not mine sorry >.<just googled first edition of GGP and thought it was a lovely looking book
>>24776971Awh, too bad.
>>24776961Charlatan.I'll go away and listen to Christopher Lee recite me stories from the master of Boston.
>>24776975I mean that's cool and all, but you're still wrong.
>>24776932"He", "The Terrible Old Man", "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", "Medusa's Coil", "On the Creation of N*****s", "New-England Fallen", "The Call of Cthulhu", and "The Street" all have obvious racist themes and/or remarks (not even mentioning the cat in "The Rats in the Walls"), on top of the already mentioned "The Horror at Red Hook" and "Herbert West: Reanimator".
Thor by Wayne SmithWerewolf vs family dog
need feminist horror to impress the QTs at my book club
>>24777435Rosemary's Baby and The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin are great classics, as well as the short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
>>24776956Machen’s ‘The Hill of Dreams’ is the most “literally me” meme next to Ignatius Reilly.
>>24776889>>24776932>>24777028>Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family
This seems like a decent list of space horror:https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/17148.Space_Horror
>>24777435Angela Carter's 'The Bloody Chamber' retelling of fairy and folk tales, particularly The Company of Wolves
>>24778022Seconding The Bloody Chamber, it's a fantastic collection.
>>24777718He’s right tho. The “racism” in Lovecraft work is largely overblown and exaggerated by progressives or lefties with an agenda. If you actually read other writers of his era (or were familiar with media and society of the 20s/30s) you’d know that his views were fairly normal. Remember in ww2 American soldiers were surveyed and a majority were more comfortable with losing the war than ending segregation. George Wallace ran on an explicitly racial platform in 1968! (Decades after Lovecraft death) and he did better than any other third party candidate since.
Anyone else love Conjure Wife?
>>24776795Thank you
>>24778418You're missing the point. It's not that it's not overblown, but it is there, whereas the other anon said there's virtually none. Anyways, this is a very trite and pedantic thing to quibble over, so I'm done talking about it.
>>24776720Last Feast of Harlequinn
>>24778469I haven't read anything by Leiber yet. Any of his other works you'd recommend?
>>24777610Yeah and i'm surprised it doesn't get more traction on /lit/
>>24779578The Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stuff is a lot of fun. In terms of his other horror writing I love his short story The Smoke Ghost.https://anilbalan.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/smoke-ghost1.pdf
>>24778681It makes it a better read, more gritty more real. He is the undisputed master of horror GOAT.
I need you help /hfg/. I'm looking for some good horror fiction that features romantic/sexual relationships of a disturbing or transgressive nature. Preferably not erotica or romance. I've already read and looking for more stuff like:>Carmilla>Interview with the Vampire>Let the Right One In>The Haar>The Exorcist>The Bloody Chamber>Clive Barker's work>Poppy Z Brite's workwhere do I go from here?
>>24780834The works of Tanith Lee.
I enjoyed this one quite a bit
>>24780489Undeniably true. >>24778702Read that one already. Very mid imo. I'll check out the Nyctalops Trilogy like >>24776760 suggested, thanks. I'm thinking I might read Michelle Remembers sometime very soon, but idk yet. I wanna finish Lovecraft's Dream Cycle first.
Finished The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell yesterday and it was just okay. Probably Evenson's weakest collection, there weren't any stand out stories for me like in Windeye or A Collapse of Horses.
post score /hfg/https://www.mentalfloss.com/quizzes/match-opening-line-to-horror-novel-quiz
What's some good sci-fi horror that's more on the hard SF side and less on the soft/weird side, similar perhaps to I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream?Also, opinions on the book Ubik by Philip K. Dick? In my opinion it fits neatly into the weird fiction category, and is an unlikely existential horror novel. It's honestly terrifying, on a certain intellectual level.
>>24782034Ubik, and PKD in general, is great. If you like that kind of existential terror, then Three Stigmata and Flow My Tears by him hit the same highs.
>>24782052I know man, lol. Still need to read VALIS someday. I actually purchased a copy of picrel recently for not too too bad a price, so maybe I'll read it soon.
>>24782034Blood Music by Greg Bear The Legacy of Heorot, by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Steven BarnesBlindsight by Peter Watts
>>24782109I've heard Blindsight is good, but it seems so...self-published, if that makes any sense.
Quitters Inc is the only Stephen King I’ve genuinely enjoyed
So I'm reading Lovecraft's Dream Cycle right now right. Oftentimes the imagery makes me think of this Cathedral album in particular, for some reason.
I made this a few years back as my horror reading list. Pretty good picks as it turns out.
>>2478189984%, I haven't read Fledgling or most contemporary novels mentioned in the quiz.>>24782401Which ones have you read since then? What'd you think of them?
>>24782401Made a quick one. What do you think?
wrong thread mb, pg 8 bump at least
What are some good examples of horror poetry?
>>24783339I don't know much about this at all, but I've heard that Clark Ashton Smith is pretty good with horror poetry.
>>24776699Ligotti sucks and I will die on this hill.
>>24779578Smoke Ghost
>>24782414Fledgling is weird. I wouldn't call it good and recommend it, but it had some off the wall loli vampire episodes, which is apparently ok because woman author. Wasp Factory was a bit too tryhard. The big standouts for me were The Exorcist, Blatty's ability to draw out the reveal works even when you've seen the movie. He invests so much in making the reactions to the problem natural, that they try all the sane solutions first, before reaching the insane ones, and even then covering it all with layers of doubt, which is of course the main point of the antagonist.And also Blackwater, which reads like a long familial saga, and isn't so much horrific as consistently unsettling. You're so close to the horror's POV in the story, without really learning all that much about it. It doesn't neatly fit into something you've read before in format or as a creature feature so it remained creepy.
Not sure if it counts but I’ve been reading my wife a chapter of A Night In The Lonesome October by Zelazny every day this month and it is so cozy bros
>>24783435I've read The Wasp Factory, but it was a long time ago.The Exorcist is fantastic, like you say. I haven't read Blackwater, but I did read The Elementals, which was also great.
This might be a good place to ask.Does anyone know the name of this American horror/dark writer?She was white, dark hair, goth, probably lesbian or gender fluid something like that.I remember there's a picture of her sitting next to a dinosaur statue.She never made it into the mainstream, but she was more "popular" in the 2000s.
>>24783497That's Caitlín R. Kiernan.
Read To Walk The Night by William Sloane
>>24783574Protip: get The Rim of Morning, which has both To Walk the Night, and The Edge of Running Water (and it's currently in print and not overly expensive).
>>24783619Fair, this is the version I read. I just wanted to post a more aesthetic cover
>>24783624Very fair, that cover is sick.
>>24783339I would hope everyone ITT has read Poe's 'The Raven', go do so right now if not. a few others>Coleridge 'Christable'https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43971/christabel>Byron 'Darkness'https://allpoetry.com/poem/8511087-Darkness-by-George-Gordon-Byron>Lovecraft 'Nemesis' and many othershttps://pulp-lit.com/assets-bundles/28-Fungi/LOVECRAFT-FungiFromYuggoth.pdf>Clark Ashton Smith 'The Hashish Eater'http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/572/the-hashish-eater--or--the-apocalypse-of-evil
Books written before 2000 are not scary.
>>24781055thank you, any book in particular I should start with?
>>24783729Night's Master is a perfect introduction to her style, a great blend of fantasy, horror and erotiscism.The Book of the Dammed is also another good one to start.
>>24783703What books do you find scary, then?
>>24783836Ones written after 2000.
>>24783703This but the opposite.
What else would I like if I liked Aickman's brand of subtle horror more than the "woahh it has like a million eyes and a billion teeth and omfg I'm going cuhrayzeee!" brand of horror that is popular nowadays?
>>24784679For older, M.R. James, for newer, Reggie Oliver. You could also check out Walter de la Mare for another older author, but I found his prose dry and difficult to get through.
>>24784679Dark Gods by T.E.D. KleinDark Companions by Ramsey CampbellSongs of a Dead Dreamer by Thomas Ligotti
>>24776932It's not racist in content but in essence. "Evil aliens invading" and "ancestral curses" are just niggers invading and niggers passing on their shit genetics.
I finished Vampire Hunter D vol 2 Raiser of Gales. It was alright. I think I liked the first one more. This was set in a small rural town in the Frontier again but didn't go as much into the world as history as vol 1.I will move on now to Demon Deathchase, it is the one the Bloodlust movie is based on. After I probably will stop the series there and move to some other works after it.
>>24783703I think we’ve gone down on scariness the last 20 years. A hesitation to offend doesn’t help. Adjusting for sensitivities and self censorship is killing the online space. But sure if you go back to Poe and Stoker it’s not exactly hair raising anymore, it’s so proper it’s almost prissy. I guess that makes the peak horror era somewhere between the 50s to 90s. Paperback horror era in full swing. Magazines still existed and published weird writing. Some people came in from the zine and underground sphere. The early internet had no filters compared to now, usenets distributed nature made it fucking impossible to kill. Early hosts didn’t give a fuck.
>>24785447Which ones are some of your favourites?
>>24776699Based >>24776714You are retarded. Ligotti has read literally EVERYTHING in his middle, read his interviews. He said that only NOW he doesn't reads novels. But still based of him for not reading novels. >also not separating art from the artist
>>24785363Demons Deathchase is widely regarded as inferior to the movie in almost every way.It's not until volumes 4 and 6 that the series really finds its footing.
>>24785459Ligotti is a hack
>>24785703>t. filtered zoomer from creepcast
>>24785710Ligotti appeals to zoomers who get filtered by BASED M.R James
>>24785718Lol
>>24785718I'm 32 and I enjoy both Ligotti and M.R. James.
I’m still pretty early on but so far I like this better than Between Two Fires. Maybe I’m just more into vampires in 1970s New York than I’m into medieval France with a child Joan of Arc stand in.
>>24783779sounds interesting! Thanks anon
>>24782148It's incredibly good, I'd put it in my top 5 of all time. The sequel, Echophraxia, is pretty good
Just finished Malpertuis, very goodCurrently reading The Elementals by Michael McDowell and am enjoying it greatly.What spooky book should I read next? I'm behind in my October reading so I'm trying to catch up and chug through some horror novels.
>>24782401Hex fucking sucks
>>24787060Very glad to hear you liked Malpertuis; it's one of my all time horror favourites. I've coincidentally read The Elementals recently, and also thought it was great.It might be a bit big, but M.R. James' Collected Ghost Stories is a spooky must read. If it's too much, just read Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, which is the first of his 4 smaller collections. If you prefer a novel, William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist is a classic and holds up very well, even if you've seen the film.
>>24782109>>24787048I should also mention Starfish is also fantastic.
>>24787136Thanks! I just ordered Ghost Stories of Antiquary. For some reason, I have a hard time with collected short story books. I end up losing interest even if the stories are great, I think the starting and stopping of plotlines wears me out and makes it hard to keep reading. I'm going to definitely read this one and, if I'm into it, I'll order the full collection.I read The Exorcist last Halloween and thought it was a good one, I wish I had read it before watching the film. The movie's one of my favorites of all time and it's hard for any book to compete with a film like that.>>24787141It's on my bookshelf right now and I'm excited to read it, I think I'm going to start it immediately after Halloween
thoughts on pic?>>24787136>William Peter Blatty's The Exorcisthow does it hold up to The Case Against Satan
>>24785549>Demons Deathchase is widely regarded as inferior to the movie in almost every way.I expected and prepared myself as much. Still I think it'll be worth the read since I like the movie so much. Plus the first two volumes kept me interested >It's not until volumes 4 and 6 that the series really finds its footing.I can see that. Maybe next year I'll look at volume 4-6. Don't want to spend all October on one series
>>24787482Hated it. Felt very Reddit for lack of a better word.
HorrorBabble is a fucking Godsend.
>>24787482In my opinion, I think it expanded and improved on the story of The Case Against Satan. They're both good books, but The Exorcist elevates it to a different level.
whats the best Lovecraftverse fanfiction?
>>24787815I remember the blog posts being very cringe. And I hate Tremblay. Every story is the same: did that scary stuff happen or was it just MENTAL ILLNESS?!?!
Bump
I need you guys to tell me what I should think about Ramsey Campbell. What is the board consensus on him? Is Joshi right to rank him as a top tier?
>>24786128I didn’t like itI liked BTF but more because I loved the concept; he’s not a particularly good writer
>>24790084Yes. Everything Joshi says about him is true. He’s one of the greatest horror writers ever. He isn’t more well known because he wasn’t always published well or consistently (especially in the states) unfortunately too much of his catalogue is out of print or not being put out by people that care.
>>24790502Any specific books of his that you'd recommend? I have Alone With the Horrors, but other than that I'm a bit in the dark when it comes to his stuff.
>>24790084>>24790502>>24790757Fuck off Joshi.
>>24790757His other more recent short story collections, like Told by the Dead, Just Behind You and By the Light of My Skull are all great.He's pretty hit or miss when It comes to novels though, but some of his books like Hungry moon and Midnight Sun are really good.
>>24790757>>24790807Like what the other anon said his recent collections are all really good. As for novels? The Parasite, The Nameless, and the hungry moon are all really soild
Your opinion on MR James?I read the Mezzotint and while the story was fairly creepy, the writing style is a bit bland.Do you suggest that I read more of him?
>>24791492I think "The Mezzotint" is one of his strongest stories. I'd say read "'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'", which is generally seen as one of his best (and has some great dry humour), and if you still don't like it then maybe James' writing style isn't for you.
>>24777435Tanith Lee
>>24790084>>24790502>>24790757Alone with the Horrors is a good place to start. >>24791003The Nameless I read and wasn't super into. I read Ancient Images and The Darkest Part of the Woods and they were both very good!
>>24787482I thought it was a fun read.
bump
>>24791507Personal favourite is The Diary of Mr Poynter but it feels pretty tongue in cheek. Probably not what anon is looking for.
>>24792249Why bump if you have nothing to add?
>>24792431He wants the thread to stay alive because he sees value in it? That’s pretty much the only good reason to bump. >>24783684Vincent Price does great readings of Poe. Christopher Lee as well. Whine if you must about >not books, they were passionate about the material and elevate it in audio. https://youtube.com/watch?v=znOfeeI26Y0&pp=0gcJCfwAo7VqN5tDhttps://youtube.com/watch?v=7U_l854Q778&pp=ygUZQ2hyaXN0b3BoZXIgbGVlIHJlYWRzIHBvZQ%3D%3D
Bump!
>>24776889Shh. These are people from /pol/ who are larping in /lit/ because le epic racist author. They don't actually read.
>>24776889>His racist beliefs barely figured into his creative work.I like Lovecraft but the constant theme of everyone devolving into bestial ape-like forms, is especially on the nose.I would say the most surprising story he wrote which was anti colonial was that one about aliens, on another planet and that invisible maze. Forgot the name.
>>24793617In the Walls of Eryx, but that was also a posthumously published collaboration with Kenneth Sterling
>>24782401Add The Books of Blood and/or Hellblund Heart>>24787048What are your other top 4?
What am I in for?
>>24792431Holiday spirit
>>24790761Unless he molested you as a child, imma need you to put some respect on that name. Joshi crawled through the microfiche archives and library holdings so we could walk the halls of weird horror literature
Is this horror?
Rather you like Joshi or not he’s right about a lot of writers. Most of the big paperback kings of the 70s/80s wrote subpar hackslop that’s been completely forgotten by everyone. When’s the last time you sat down on a plane and saw someone next to you reading Bentley Little? I slightly disagree with him on King (I think his first five or so novels, and a lot of his earlier short fiction are essential) He’s also gay as fuck for being so petty about Bairon. But he is a jeet after all, there entire culture is based around spite.
>>24797208>He’s also gay as fuck for being so petty about Baironhe's wrong about a lot of things but right about barronnever seen the appeal to his stories
>>24796961My condolences on the molestation
>>24797208I'd agree that at least Night Shift and Skeleton Crew are essential short fiction, but are there any specific novels you're referring to? Rage is one of the first 5, and there's no way that's an essential novel.
>>24797208I'm a big fan of Brian Keene, he writes great pulp horror slop. Joshi eviscerated him in an article and I just remember being shocked at how MEAN it was. Like, it was personal. Joshi is an asshole.
>>24797778Sorry first five minus the Bachman stuff (I sort of see those books are there own thing) I think Carrie, salems lot, the shining, the stand (it’s too long but it’s good) and the dead zone are readings. After that it’s mixed, pet semetary, Christine and misery are good. I also like the talisman, tho I think it’s more Straub’s book than kings.
>>24798274I wanted to like the Dead Zone but found it lacking.
>>24777131I liked the movie adaptation a lot
>>24798274All of those books are way too fucking long
>>24799671All of them? I thought The Shining and Misery are not too long at all for the plot they are trying to tell. 'Salem's Lot is a bit long, but the plot is structured as a slow burn, and it works in the book's favour to see a normal town long enough to notice all the small changes that slowly start to snowball.I do have to say that Pet Sematary was excruciatingly slow and predictable, and it has a rushed slasher ending? What a fucking stupid decisionI haven't read Carrie, The Stand, The Dead Zone, or Christine, but aside from Carrie they are all long as hell.
>>24799727>All of them?Yes, King shrimply cannot write long form stuff, he should stick to only write short stories and making collections of themOr get a good editor that eliminates all the chaff
>>24799727>>24800471Reminder that for every Stephen King book, someone already wrote a better version of It, see:>Burnt Offerings > The Shining>Swan's Song > The Stand>Floating Dragon > It>Jerusalem Man series > Dark Tower series
LRH here once again reminding you to read my novella Fear.Yeah, that’s right — read it. Don’t just sit there pretending you’ve explored “the roots of psychological horror” because you skimmed The Call of Cthulhu once in high school. You haven’t seen real terror until you’ve followed Professor Lowry through the fog of his own missing hours.Stephen King — the man who built a career on nightmares — called Fear “a classic tale of creeping, surreal menace and horror.” You think he hands that kind of praise out for free? No, he recognizes game when he sees it.Wrote it back in 1940, when most “weird tales” were about swamp monsters and tentacles. I went deeper. I wanted the kind of horror that eats reason itself. It’s lean, mean, and nasty in all the right ways — not a single wasted word, not a single monster you can hide from. By the end, you’ll understand why I say it out-Lovecrafts Lovecraft. His endings dissolve into cosmic mumbo-jumbo; mine hits you like waking up from a dream you wish you hadn’t understood.You want creeping dread? You want the taste of madness that lingers for days? Then stop handwringing about which “edition” or “printing” to buy. Just get Fear.Find a copy, turn off the lights, and prove you can handle it. Most can’t.
>>24800490Now do the rest of his bibliographyAlso >already, Swan Song came out 9 years after The Stand
>>24799727>Pet Sematary was excruciatingly slowOh fuck, yes, I couldn't agree more with you. It only got good (ie scary) at the point Louis went to exhume Gage . The Shining was almost as slow but it did have a lot more scary bits compared to Pet Sematary. Misery is more of a psychological thriller but it is way better than the former two. The Stand was too long to finish, I couldn't do it.
Algernon Blackwood is so much better than hacks like ligotti and barron it's unreal
Currently halfway through E.T.A. Hoffmann's Best Tales of Hoffmann. Read The Golden Pot, Automata, and The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, none of which are gothic or horror, and I read A New Year's Eve Adventure and The Sandman, both of which definitely count for this thread.New Year's Eve is a classic Faustian bargain story, and The Sandman is surprisingly deep psychologically, dealing with what it means to deal with PTSD and the fear of losing grip on reality. You can clearly see how this influenced authors like Poe and Dostoyevsky.Up next is Rath Krespel!
>>24783339George Sterling fits the bill in places, especially his dramatic poem / closet drama Lilith. Joshi edited a collection of his poetry called The Thirst of Satan
bumping
Lovecraft, as a deeply racist Anglo of the best stock, took the Jewesspill. I can respect that.
>>24804688Racism is cringe.
>>24787136Got any more recs? I made my way through both Malpertuis and The Elementals since reading this comment, and both were fantastic. I'm making my way through The Reader's Bloch and James' Collected Ghost Stories, but I greatly enjoy interspersing my short story reading with sprints through novels.
>>24805890What's the explanation for Americans being head and shoulders above everyone else in horror lit?
>>24806197Thrill seekers of the new world
I started reading Between Two Fires. Do the religious figure references get explained explicitly eventually? For example I've gotten through the festival with the lion demon and also just finished the scene with the jew asking about if it was time. Now I can guess that the jew might be the wandering Jew and the lion demon the one from the intro that talked about famine but does the book ever give solid confirmation? Because there are other things I haven't been able to guess at that I'm curious about
Picrel is my tally of Lovecraft stories I've read. I think I may be missing a couple since I couldn't remember if I had read them or not. Right now I'm on Beyond the Wall of Sleep which somehow I don't think I've ever read before. What do I read next? Also I know HPL has a lot more stories not on my list that I got from Wikipedia years ago. Is there a site that will randomly generate Lovecraft stories for you to read, and you skip the ones you've already read? — I know there's a Stephen King website like that so why not Lovecraft too. The Del Rey trade paperback collections are really sexy, too.
Im a zoomie so my first meeting with Ligotti was through creepcast and imho its some of the best stuff they've read on the show.Why did people hate it? I thought it was awesome. Not really scary but the descriptors of magic really made it feel arcane and otherwordly in that story about glasses that turn you nuts.
>>24806173It kind of depends on what you're looking for, but I'm assuming something relatively close to Malpertuis and The Elementals?I already recommended The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty in a previous comment, but others that are fantastic (and solely novels) are:>Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin>The Tenant by Roland Topor>The Other by Thomas Tryon>The Shining by Stephen KingFor more unrelated horror novels I greatly enjoyed:>The Black Spider by Jeremias Gotthelf>Psycho by Robert Bloch>The Silence of the Lambs (and Red Dragon) by Thomas Harris>The Cipher by Kathe Koja>Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite>Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist>Fever Dream by Samanta SchweblinI hope it's not too much, and I hope it helps!
Another bump with graph
>>24785718I don't like Ligotti either. Anyway, Aickman "solved" horror.
>>24807150Fag.
>>24807150>Why did people hate it?Most of their audience are kids, obviously they have no patience for Ligotti.
>>24809218He just can't write, anon. Give it a rest.
Graph bump
>tfw no ghouless to throat your cock then bite it off and eat you aliveya'll really should read this
Graph bump!
>>24810996based graphposter
>>24810546I'm intrigued but I got so much to read, man.
Crabump
>>24812319Trash.
Any of you read Henry S Whitehead? I was only familiar with him by name for his association with Lovecraft but I just read "The Lips" in an old ghost story anthology and jesus christ that shit was genuinely horrifying.
>>24812560Are you an offended crab?
Is this book an outlier or are all of Trembley's books somehow both childish and pretentious at the same time?
>>24812982Yes.
>>24776932Read "Medusa's coil" which he ghost wrote
>>24813749Unfortunately, yeah
>reading Tender is the flesh>humans can no longer consume animal products cause deadly virus!>they resort to cannibalism in less than two decades, eating babies n shit for proteinlittle too soon says I
>>24816207more like too late lol
I just finished Between Two Fires. What Between Two Fires Explained video should I check out?
>>24817216What didn't you understand?
>>24817434Mostly if some of the monsters are original or pre existing legends. I know some of the demon names are real names but some stuff like the river monsters don't get names.
i want to get back into reading. can anyone tell me the best version of Lovecraft's work? preferably one with a jewish foreword about how he was a racist and blah blah blahthank you kindly saars
>>24817455Go for the Penguin modern classics ones. Start with The Call of Cthulhu and other Weird Stories, and follow it up with The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories if you want more. The Dreams in the Witch House and Other Weird Stories is mostly for completionists. Either way, these collections have great notes.
>>24817508sweet, thanks. i bought a version years back that had some bullshit intro which turned me off reading it. can't stand people putting their opinions in other people's books
>>24817455This one for sure.
Been listening to a lot of HorrorBabble lately.
>>24776785Melrose Place.
Anyone know of any more existential horror similar to Ubik and Never Let Me Go?
>>24783339>What are some good examples of horror poetry?Tales of Terror and Wonder
Any of you reading Laird Barron? I just finished The Imago Sequence and really enjoyed it. Didn't know it was possible to mix Lovecraft and James Ellroy, but he pulls it off.
>>24782444Is House of Leaves still worth reading if I had the twist spoiled for me on here?
>>24800490Swan Song is in many ways better than The Stand, but it owes so much to it that it's basically a rewrite of it.
>>24820117I like all of his stuff, but "Occultation and Other Stories" is easily his best work. I think he peaked somewhat early but he still writes great stuff.
Is Zothique horror like Lovecraft or is it more fantasy like Jack Vance?
>>24820125What twist are you talking about? It's been a solid decade since I've read it. You mean the part at the end where Johnny stumbles upon the book club reading House of Leaves?
>>24820117Loved The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All enough to buy Imago Sequence. Read the first story of that and found it pretty good. Debating on whether or not to continue it or save it for later since a lot of the tales seem somewhat winter themed (or at least take place during).
>>24777610Can you explain the book to me, please? I've read it 3 years ago and didn't understand it at all.I just remember the book being>kid goes to the forest>finds some ruins>gets sleepy>experience something>withdraws from life>dies alone>corpse found by neighboursI assume there's more to it, but it eluded me entirely.
>>24820117I've read The Imago Sequence and Occultation, and although the prose can be very dense, the stories are pretty good. Occultation is way better than The Imago Sequence though; you really see the improvement in his writing when comparing these two collections.
>>24820181I’ve only read the Empire of the Necromancers but based on that I’d say it’s closer to Vance. Weird, dark fantasy as opposed to cosmic horror.
I’m currently writing a horror novel, but I’m afraid publishers will try and censor it because it covers touchy and transgressive subjects. Is there still a space for transgressive horror to be published?
>>24820799>transgressiveWhat is transgressive in this novel, anon...?
>>24776877He edits together public domain materials and sells them for high prices.
>>24820804Yes, we're literally in a renaissance for extreme horror with taboo subjects.
>>24820907meant to quote >>24820799
>>24820117Barron's great, even to the point in which I'd say he's easily one of the top modern day horror writers. The only stuff of his that kinda falls flat for me are the stories with Jessica Mace or related characters.Occultation and Imago are top tier, but Beautiful Thing and Croning are very good too.
>>24820837He revives interest in overlooked materials that have fallen into public domain and promotes them. Also his introductory essays and analysis are good
Done with ''Tender is the Flesh'' mediocre, with a retarded ending.>3.8 on good readswhat a load of horse shit
>>24776785Takopii no genzai
>>24821917I concede the world building has flaws but I liked the catalogue of horrors that is the industrial meat process applied to humans. Also, the ending is based.
>>24812560Which one is your least favorite?
>>24819176Fuck off AI
Reading The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath now!!
>>24822084>Le based endingYes going from puppy loving, bird enthusiast, father loving son to a cartel executioner in the span of 5 seconds made a lot of sense and it's totally not dog shit writting.
>>24820837All his Lovecraft editions have corrected manuscripts. They're not in the public domain.
>>24823097Nothing AI about that image or my post. That image I saved in 2022, and is older than that.>>24823162I hope you enjoy it, because I hate that story with a passion.
>>24823410You’re just mad you bought into the fake out. She was always a meat puppet surrogate for the wife he actually still loved. That’s the world of the story. He works in a human meat plant. Summertime and the living is easy anon.
>>24802516Best post in this thread.
Favorite Lovecraft story?I'm currently reading Rats In The Walls.
What's some good Sasquatch horror short stories or novels?
>>24824328It's hard to pick exactly one, but "The Rats in the Walls" is definitely one of my favourites, along with "The Music of Erich Zann", "The Call of Cthulhu", and "The Color Out of Space".
>>24823633The ending was rushed, and it fell flat.
>>24824422And you’re entitled to that opinion. For what it’s worth I really didn’t like her follow up book The Unworthy
Sheesh, bump
>>24824328I'm in the middle of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. completely insane that he thought this was unworthy of publication
>>24785549That's mainly because that movies director is a god damn legend.
I will now read The king in yellow.
I'm really enjoying The Shinning right now, I really like how the film and book are so different and both equally enjoyable for completely different reasons.
>>24781072Sturgeon is great, but I've never read this one, only his scifi and short stories.
>>24826637>The ShinningThis is the simpsons parody version
>>24824328>Long formDunwich. >Short formThe Outsider. Also have any of you read the story Lovecraft ghost wrote/co-wrote with Harry Houdini? It's pretty damn good. I love anything Egypt so it was a real treat. Did you know Harry Houdini was an elite undercover spy for the United States and Britain, by the way?
Anyone else read The Eyes? If you haven't, I wouldn't especially recommend it LOL.
Should I read EF Benson or MR James?
>>24827147If you need to choose between the two, go for M.R. James. His Collected Ghost Stories is fantastic and consistently great.
>>24827176In reality I'm looking to get the feeling/atmosphere of HPL's Dunwich Horror and Dexter Ward *but* with good writing.I still like Lovecraft bit wish his writing was better
>>24827192I would still recommend James. If you want to try a story or two, my personal favourites are "The Mezzotint" and "'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'", but every story in his first collection is top tier.
>>24827192>the feeling/atmosphere of HPL's Dunwich Horror and Dexter Ward *but* with good writing.Pic related is what you're looking for.
>>24827228I would choose Oxford World's Library collection, The Great God Pan and Other Horror Stories, over the Penguin collection, for the sake of a better collection of stories.
>>24827258*Oxford World's Classics
>>24823484>I hate that story with a passion.nta but why? I think most of the "Dream Cycle" is kino of the highest order. The one where the guy winds up becoming some transdimensional consciousness and beaming himself back to Earth was a trip to read, The Gates of the Silver Key?
>>24827321It is an unfinished and unrevised work, and it really shows. The prose is especially abysmal, with most of the story reading like "and then he went here, and it looked like this and like this and like this, and then he went there, and it looked like this and like this and like this" as nauseam. It is extremely rough to get through.
>>24826373following up on this: the whole section where Ward is conducting increasingly bizarre experiments in his room at his parents' house is really comedic. they're concerned enough to call in a doctor but overall seem pretty lax about their son isolating himself from humanity and engaging in all this crazy shit he refuses to explain. makes for a good>and this is our son's roomscenario>>24827805I really dislike that one as well for the same reasons. reminds me a lot of certain portions of House on the Borderland in which it feels like you're reading someone's grocery list
>>24827805nta but I agree, it took me months to force myself to finish itThe only story by Lovecraft that I never finished now that I think about it was The Shadow Out Of Time. Don't actually know exactly why I didn't like it to the point that I dropped it if I was able to finish the garbage that was The Dream Quest
How are nick cutter books? I was thinking of reading The Troop and The Deep
>>24787223>>24787136Ghost Stories of an Antiquary was phenomenal, particularly The Mezzotint. Thanks for the recommendation, I'm absolutely going to read more of James' work.
>>24830123The Troop is great, a lot gnarlier than I expected considering it's about a bunch of kids. It doesn't pull any punches and the body horror is top tier
>>24831021I'm really glad you liked it! "The Mezzotint" and "'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'" are my favourites out of all his stories. James is the ghost story goat, and I'm sure you'll love the rest of his stories as well.
Favorite stories from this anthology? I just finished it after a year and a half or so of reading.
>>24824335I haven't read it yet but Devolution by Max Brooks (WWZ author) gets a lot of love.>>24830123The Troop is outstanding, The Deep sucks, Little Heaven is amazing and I haven't read the others yet
>>24831322nta, but Devolution was genuinely disappointing for me. I loved WWZ, but Devolution fell short in the second half. Good set up, some decently creepy and gory scenes, but goes downhill hard after the first few kills. Also, I found the ending to be both perplexing and frustratingly bad
>>24831095>& 99 othersHow long is this titanic volume?
>>24831780shorter than "The Stand" twin
>>24832359Wat.
Lovecraft had that JAP (Jewish-American Princess) fever. I respect that.
>>24832499The (uncut) version of the stand has more pages lmao. Google it, it’s long AF. Regardless “the weird” little has everything, I genuinely can’t think of a author off the top of my head who isn’t in it.
>>24832974Horacio Quiroga, Arthur Machen, Walter de la Mare, E.F. Benson, Sheridan le Fanu, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edogawa Ranpo, and John Langan are not present in the anthology. Probably more that, but you get the point. It does have a sick lineup though, great to see authors like Stefan Grabinski, Julio Cortázar, Jean Ray, Hanns Heinz Ewers, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, and Alfred Kubin, although I think it is a weird choice to include an excerpt from The Other Side.
Finna be bumpin
Bump, tho...
>>24833026There are some omissions no question. No idea how they could have included Beaumont, and no Matheson. Wonder if it was a copyright issue or something.
>>24783363same, he's mediocre as fuck and I can smell the twists and turns of his shit miles away.the more I think about it, I think the Ligotti hype is either botted or only held up by pseuds who read maybe 3 books a year and think they need to stan for their shit tier author because it's the only horror author they've ever read.
Continuing with reading E.T.A. Hoffmann's Best Tales of Hoffmann, and after reading a few more non-horror stories I read "The Mines of Falun" yesterday, which might be my favourite story so far. It's definitely horror, and I can highly recommend it alongside "The Sandman" (and "A New Year's Eve Adventure", although that one isn't as great as the other two). It's psychological, it's surreal, it's dark, and it's only 20 pages long.
>>24821009I greatly enjoy reading Barron, but sadly I've kinda come to the end of the rope here because once I've finished Wind Began To Howl, there's no Barron left for me to read. I fell in love with his stuff when I read Old Virginia at night and literally had to close the door to the hallway because I'm a fucking superimmersed pussy when it comes to horror novels or movies.The only book of his that I've only started but never finished was Swift To Chase, but maybe I'll give that one another chance.A while back I was listening to some spotify podcasts on a 3hr drive and an episode of Talking Scared with the charismatic brit guy whose name I keep forgetting popped up. He interviewed Laird Barron, was a good interview between two cool people and right at the time when I was reading the Croning.TL;DR good authors, knows his shit and creates some very memorable quotes along with his sometimes outright creepy writing. Also writes good characters and isn't afraid to try new stuff like austin-powers-esque over the top 80s spy movie cosmic adventure horror (X's for Eyes).If you haven't read his stuff, give it a chance and get a taste from his short stories first: For CIA spook creepy shit, try old Virginia. For well done creepy family member horror, try Tiptoe.
>>24835647What are your favourite works of Barron?
>>24835651>What are your favourite works of Barron?impossible to decide, really.I've been literally inhaling the Coleridge novels. They easily stand on their own merit, but make even more sense against the backdrop of his other writing. He seems to have a thing for characters who buy haunted paintings or creepy old houses in the countryside and who feel drawn to exploring dark caves or the woods at night because they just heard a weird noise coming from there.Without spoilering anything, I can say that once you're aware of the lovecraftian aspects and undercurrents of his universe (especially anything relating to the black vastness of space), you will be able to make more sense of the everpresent gothic aspects in all his literature (see pic). He himself contributes certain "barronesque" elements to the mix, often time self medicating paranoid protagonists who feel watched by unknown entities, who against better judgement make the decision to stumble around in the dark to try and find the things that go bump in the night.That is basically the frame around which he seems to build most of his stories and novels.Depending on the series or universe you're reading, he adds different flavors to it, for instance noir detective/mafia novels (Coleridge series), corruption, body horror and evil from out space since the beginning of time (anything with a "Miller" character in it) or his short stories which sometimes explore completely different directions altogether.I can enjoy them all because the basic frame he's been crafting is so enjoyable to me, but here's a list of stuff I'd definitely recommend:1. Bulldozer (noir/western c.horror, hooks you right from the start)2. Proboscis (road trip/vaguely insect-related horror, even cosmic horror once you understand it in the context of his other works)3. The Croning and related to that, The Beautiful Thing. Reading them in order of their publication always makes more sense.4. Old Virginia (witch horror with cold war/CIA spy and american settler twist. very good, i found it super creepy)5. Blood Standard, which is the first Coleridge novel6. Tiptoe, as mentioned above. Felt like an exercise where he wanted to show that despite all he's written, he can do horror stories just fine even without any cosmic/lovecraftian or supernatural aspects to it.7. Hallucigenia (cosmic body horror2, 4 and 6 are short stories that you can easily read with a comfy cup of coffee in under 3 hours on a sunny afternoon.Every book has 1 or 2 references that I as an ESL have to look up in order to contextualize (sometimes they're inconsequential and meant as nods towards other horror writers), but his prose is very palatable.I also enjoy William Gibson, his prose and his way of painting the abstract/vague with words and to STILL end up being perfectly understood. Barron is similar to that, but more on a semantic than on a syntatic level, if that makes any sense. Just give it a try, you won't be disappointed.
>>24835694I myself have read The Imago Sequence and Occultation, so I mainly know about some of his short stories. I found Occultation to be way better and consistently strong compared to Imago Sequence. My favourites are "Hallucigenia", "The Imago Sequence", "Mysterium Tremendum", and "Strappado".I'm surprised you said that his prose is very palatable; I'm also and ESL but studied English, and I found his prose to be very dense most of the time.
>>24835694>Isaiah ColeridgeThose novels had the same fucking energy as webm. They were such mindbogglingly dumb Redditslop that I couldn't believe it was from the same guy who wrote Bulldozer and The Croning. Trump's election in 2016 literally drove him insane.>>24790807>>24791003Hungry Moon was awful. The entire plot gets resolved by a Mary Sue with inherited druid powers, who spontaneously goes on a psychedelic spirit journey at the climax for no reason and defeats the cosmic evil with Woodstock-tier "just be urself" Boomerology. Don't recommend that fucking trash.The Doll Who Ate His Mother was great though. Same author.
I'll read anything, what do you guys recommend that's come out in let's say the last 20 years? basically anything other than Stephen King, and anything that is self-published-low-reader-count on Amazon.
>>24836616North American Lake Monsters, by Nathan Ballingrud. Absolutely fantastic short story collection, the best horror book I've read that has come out after 2000.
>>24795804medical horror sort of, people repossessing organs, scary concept anyway, got turned into the repo men film i think
>>24824328the Arthur Jerymstory is a nice one, also like the temple (about the sub) and pickmans model also a fan of red hook even if its a bit racist
Anybody here read picrel? I bought it a while ago at the store because I saw Brian Evenson did the intro. But just got around to it for halloween. I'm about halfway through, but it's pretty cool. It's almost like Italian Silent Hill
>>24835647I've read all of Swift to Chase, but it is by far my least favorite work of his. idk if I'm too dumb to see what he's doing, but he lost me. Even not a speck of light I didn't care for too much (I prefer in a cavern, in a canyon to Tiptoe). There has been notable scenes in his stories that immersed me like no other work has been able to. The vhs tape in black sloth felt perfectly like a J-horror scene. The apparition of the dead occult guy in Mysterium Tremendum. And the story of the haunted department store in the Croning actually gave me chills like only the best ghost videos do.
>>24836780>North American Lake MonstersDidn't care for this, but Wounds was fantastic.
>>24836934For me, it was the other way around. The only story in Wounds that I thought was actually great was "The Visible Filth".
>>24836941>"The Visible Filth"Crazy that out of all of Ballingrud's stories, this one got turned into a movie.
>>24836877>And the story of the haunted department store in the Croning actually gave me chills like only the best ghost videos do.Yeah that was done so well, I almost shat my pants when they did the summoning ritual. It's funny that this is only a story-within-a-story and we don't even know of the person who's telling it is 100% serious, but its still so convincing and captivating.
>>24836812Arthur Jermyn is way more racist than Horror at Red Hook
>>24835651Certified short story kinos:TiptoeOccultationStrappadoOld Virginia Procession of the Black SlothGirls Without their Faces On
Still reading Kadath. Think I'm almost done.
If we’re still talking Laird Barron, I want to say his story The Broadsword is the first story I read by him and I still think it’s my favorite by him.It’s great introduction to his Children of Old Leech Mythos.
>>24839009Was it Jaws of Saturn that took place at the same hotel as Broadsword? I remember that one being quite good too.
This was pretty fun
Just finished The Buffalo Hunter Hunter.Good Stab's parts were very good, the preacher's sections were a chore at the beginning but paid off towards the end. The great-great-great--granddaughter's parts at the beginning and end were godawful, brought the whole experience down.
>>24839692oops
>>24839689I haven't read it myself, but I've heard from others as well that the entire story is fantastic, but that the original frame narrative (at the start and end) is kind of bad for some reason.
