Clark Ashton Smith editionNotable Authors: H.P. Lovecraft, Thomas Ligotti, Robert Aickman, Clive Barker, Edgar Allan Poe, Algernon Blackwood, Shirley Jackson, 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, Richard Laymon, Brian Lumley, 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?
Lovecraft is dogshit
>>25125217Finally getting some recognition here
>>25125219post ur own work, now
>>25125230Don't have any. :^)
>>25125217The premise of this is the gayest thing known to man, it's entirely about how the Innsmouthers were good actually. I am convinced Alan Moore was the only guy to do a Lovecraft critique in a way that didn't feel like seething hatred from a retard
>>25125217What's the worst horror novel/story any of you have read?
>>25125273>stunned and aghastYou can just tell what this person looks like before googling them.
>>25125217What is it about pulp horror (in the modern sense not horror in pulps) that makes Joshi seethe so much
>>25125217Why isn't Long as talked about as the others in the Lovecraft circle
A few random stories to recommend: >Who Goes There? by John W Campbell*>The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis by Clark Ashton Smith*>The Empire of the Necromancers by Clark Ashton Smith*>The Return of the Sorcerer by Clark Ashton Smith*>Guts by Chuck Palahniuk >The Father-thing by Philip K Dick>Faith of Our Fathers by Philip K Dick>Procession of the Black Sloth by Laird Barron*>Pickman's Modern by Lawrence Watt-Evans>The Black Stone by Robert E Howard >Jerusalem's Lot by Stephen King >Autopsy in Room 4 by Stephen King >The Man in the Underpass by Ramsey Campbell*The authors^^^ with a star beside their name, those titles are all I've read by them and I could use some recommendations for other stories to read those authors in particular. I want to read more Laird Barron but his short stories are really more like novelettes in length and while I liked Black Sloth I find it hard to convince myself to just pick up the collection it's in and read the rest of it front to back.
Don't believe anyone who shills Colin Wilson. He's a boring writer and he does not really understand horror.
>>25125217>Clark Ashton Smith editionI've read a few stories of his recently, The Second Interment, The Chain of Aforgomon, and The Dark Eidolon. The first one was very predictable and the weakest story of his I've read so far, also the darkest. The second was alright, I see why it's one of the more popular stories of his but I liked The Chain of Aforgomon more.
>>25125217I bought some Wrath James White books recently, what am I in for?
>>25125867>and I could use some recommendations for other stories to read those authors in particular.Dark Eidolon, Xeethra, Morthylla, The Isle of the Torturers, The Colossus of Ylourgne and The end of the Story are all pretty good stories from CAS
about to readwhat i getting into
I've been dabbling in writing short horror stories, but I end up just veering into horror comedy. Nothing scares or disturbs me.
>>25125433The second half of the The House on the Borderland tbqhdesu
>>25125867PKD wrote horror?
>>25127228Not explicitly horror, but definitely stories that are terrifying. I highly recommend his novella Faith of Our Fathers, while I don't think PKD ever said he read Lovecraft or was inspired by him, Faith of Our Fathers reads like a really good Lovecraftian story.Also, his short story Upon a Dull Earth is also pretty terrifying. Ramsey Campbell included it in an anthology of stories that scared him personally.
I made a theoretical table of contents for an anthology for the best American short horror stories of the 20th century. One story and author for one year. >1900: The Affair at Grover Station by Willa Cather>1901: The Seal of Solomon the Great by Wardon Allan Curtis>1902: The Dead and the Countess by Gertude Atherton>1903: The Shadows on the Wall by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman>1904: The Furnished Room by O. Henry>1905: For Blood Is the Life by F. Marion Crawford>1906: The House of the Nightmare by Edward Lucas White>1907: The Moonlit Road by Ambrose Bierce>1908: The Jolly Corner by Henry James>1909: Secret Chambers by Mrs. Wilson Woodrow>1910: Afterward by Edith Wharton>1911: The Informal Execution of Soupbone Pew by Damon Runyon>1912: The Scarlet Plague by Jack London>1913: Fishhead by Irvin S. Cobb>1914: The Substitute by Georgia Wood Pangborn>1915: The Third Eye by Robert W. Chambers>1916: Almost Immortal by Austin Hall>1917: The Woman at Seven Brothers by Wilbur Daniel Steele>1918: Absolute Evil by Julian Hawthorne>1919: Wolf of the Steppes by Greye La Spina>1920: The Ship of Silent Men by Philip M. Fisher>1921: The Post-Mortem Murder by Sinclair Lewis>1922: The Salamander by William B. Seabrook>1923: The Thing from – “Outside” by George Allan England>1924: The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Edward Connell>1925: The Stranger from Kurdistan by E. Hoffmann Price>1926: The Woman of the Wood by A. Merritt>1927: The Canal by Everil Worrell>1928: The Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft>1929: The Hounds of Tindalos by Frank Belknap Long>1930: A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner>1931: Mr. Arcularis by Conrad Aiken>1932: The Thing in the Cellar by David H. Keller >1933: Revelations in Black by Carl Jacobi >1934: The Jest of Warburg Tantavul by Seabury Quinn>1935: The Treader of the Dust by Clark Ashton Smith>1936: The Graveyard Rats by Henry Kuttner>1937: The Black Stone Statue by Mary Elizabeth Counselman>1938: Pigeons from Hell by Robert E. Howard>1939: Cross of Fire by Lester del Rey>1940: It by Theodore Sturgeon>1941: Nightfall by Isaac Asimov>1942: Mimic by Donald A. Wollheim>1943: The Geezenstacks by Frederic Brown>1944: The Jar by Ray Bradbury>1945: Miriam by Truman Capote>1946: The Cocoon by John B. L. Goodwin>1947: The Extra Passenger by August Derleth>1948: The Lottery by Shirley Jackson>1949: The Girl with the Hungry Eyes by Fritz Leiber(1/2)
>>25127455>1950: Born of Man and Woman by Richard Matheson>1951: Heartburn by Hortense Calisher>1952: An Egg a Month from All Over by Margaret St. Clair>1953: It’s a Good Life by Jerome Bixby>1954: Upon the Dull Earth by Philip K. Dick>1955: The Affair at 7 Rue de M– by John Steinbeck>1956: Poor Little Saturday by Madeleine L’Engle>1957: Small World by William F. Nolan>1958: That Hell-Bound Train by Robert Bloch>1959: The Howling Man by Charles Beaumont>1960: The Comforts of Home by Flannery O’Connor>1961: Sardonicus by Ray Russell>1962: An Incident on Route 12 by James H. Schmitz>1963: The Faceless Thing by Edward D. Hoch>1964: You Never Believe Me by Davis Grubb>1965: The Roaches by Thomas M. Disch>1966: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates>1967: I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison>1968: Passengers by Robert Silverberg>1969: The Empty Birdhouse by Patricia Highsmith>1970: The Encounter by Kate Wilhelm>1971: Among the Wolves by David Case>1972: The Events at Poroth Farm by T. E. D. Klein>1973: Dollburger by Lisa Tuttle>1974: Sticks by Karl Edward Wagner>1975: And Don’t Forget the One Red Rose by Avram Davidson>1976: There's a Long, Long Trail A-Winding by Russell Kirk>1977: Allal by Paul Bowles>1978: Collaborating by Michael Bishop>1979: The Dead Line by Dennis Etchison>1980: The Autopsy by Michael Shea>1981: On 202 by Jeff Hecht>1982: The River Styx Runs Upstream by Dan Simmons>1983: One for the Horrors by David J. Schow>1984: The Night of White Bhairab by Lucius Shepard>1985: Penny Daye by Charles L. Grant>1986: Tattoos by Jack Dann>1987: The Pear-Shaped Man by George R. R. Martin>1988: The Juniper Tree by Peter Straub>1989: Buckets by F. Paul Wilson>1990: Lord of the Land by Gene Wolfe>1991: Incident on and Off a Mountain Road by Joe R. Lansdale>1992: Calcutta, Lord of Nerves by Poppy Z. Brite>1993: The Last Crossing by Thomas Tessier>1994: The Man in the Black Suit by Stephen King>1995: The Rifle by Jack Ketchum >1996: Teatro Grottesco by Thomas Ligotti>1997: Prairie by Brian Evenson>1998: The Specialist’s Hat by Kelly Link>1999: The Long Hall on the Top Floor by Caitlin R. Kiernan(2/2)
>There's an actual anti WMAF horror novel now
>>25125669Seems like Joshi has a very specific criteria for himself on what makes good horror and a lot of modern authors don’t fit into it.
I’m currently reading the folk horror novel Fellstones by Ramsey Campbell. It’s pretty new (from 2022).It’s a bit of a slow burn of a novel. There has been only a few scary parts. Also, a lot of references to classical music and composers so if that’s your thing I’d recommend it.Not sure if I would recommend it overall yet. I’m going to finish first before I give my final thoughts.
Shout out to Asterism Book Occult fiction anthologies. Great way to read occult horror stories from older authors and contemporary ones.
>>25127228>>25127368UBIK is also pretty scary, in a (mostly) existential kind of way.
>>25125669He likes authenticity and conceptual originality. He hates writers who are just juggling cliches or who are overly time-serving (VanderMeer).
Might as well link the previous threads we had for a horror general:https://warosu.org/lit/thread/25029046https://warosu.org/lit/thread/24929884https://warosu.org/lit/thread/24919376https://warosu.org/lit/thread/24843382https://warosu.org/lit/thread/24776647https://warosu.org/lit/thread/24736100https://warosu.org/lit/thread/24702117https://warosu.org/lit/thread/24385173https://warosu.org/lit/thread/24379166https://warosu.org/lit/thread/24200898https://warosu.org/lit/thread/24157946https://warosu.org/lit/thread/24036985https://warosu.org/lit/thread/23952664https://warosu.org/lit/thread/23930576https://warosu.org/lit/thread/23910101https://warosu.org/lit/thread/23896956https://warosu.org/lit/thread/23867635https://warosu.org/lit/thread/23816288https://warosu.org/lit/thread/22573566https://warosu.org/lit/thread/21918564https://warosu.org/lit/thread/21420013https://warosu.org/lit/thread/21278469https://warosu.org/lit/thread/21252982https://warosu.org/lit/thread/21240316https://warosu.org/lit/thread/21213365https://warosu.org/lit/thread/21202202https://warosu.org/lit/thread/21202202https://warosu.org/lit/thread/21036391https://warosu.org/lit/thread/20976838https://warosu.org/lit/thread/20950937https://warosu.org/lit/thread/20919234https://warosu.org/lit/thread/20916892https://warosu.org/lit/thread/20911947https://warosu.org/lit/thread/20890888https://warosu.org/lit/thread/20876614https://warosu.org/lit/thread/20851186https://warosu.org/lit/thread/20052441https://warosu.org/lit/thread/19757838https://warosu.org/lit/thread/18893545https://warosu.org/lit/thread/18673030https://warosu.org/lit/thread/18530220https://warosu.org/lit/thread/18365391https://warosu.org/lit/thread/18174458https://warosu.org/lit/thread/17616533https://warosu.org/lit/thread/17249312https://warosu.org/lit/thread/16884006https://warosu.org/lit/thread/16485279https://warosu.org/lit/thread/15810843https://warosu.org/lit/thread/15793667https://warosu.org/lit/thread/15773272https://warosu.org/lit/thread/15767545https://warosu.org/lit/thread/14743797https://warosu.org/lit/thread/13385436https://warosu.org/lit/thread/13177070https://warosu.org/lit/thread/13063718https://warosu.org/lit/thread/9981048https://warosu.org/lit/thread/9233795https://warosu.org/lit/thread/8086095https://warosu.org/lit/thread/7832882https://warosu.org/lit/thread/7250450https://warosu.org/lit/thread/6776186https://warosu.org/lit/thread/6776171https://warosu.org/lit/thread/6634591
>>25127887Also these:https://warosu.org/lit/thread/10428296https://warosu.org/lit/thread/10388845https://warosu.org/lit/thread/10188580https://warosu.org/lit/thread/11862935https://warosu.org/lit/thread/14061262
>>25127887Found some more:https://warosu.org/lit/thread/24350289https://warosu.org/lit/thread/24103256https://warosu.org/lit/thread/23071816https://warosu.org/lit/thread/20769289https://warosu.org/lit/thread/20250875https://warosu.org/lit/thread/18726734https://warosu.org/lit/thread/17592262https://warosu.org/lit/thread/11887742https://warosu.org/lit/thread/11787706https://warosu.org/lit/thread/11733590https://warosu.org/lit/thread/11219906https://warosu.org/lit/thread/8946619https://warosu.org/lit/thread/7832882https://warosu.org/lit/thread/7812235https://warosu.org/lit/thread/7354269https://warosu.org/lit/thread/7250450https://warosu.org/lit/thread/7156404https://warosu.org/lit/thread/7114729https://warosu.org/lit/thread/7074787https://warosu.org/lit/thread/7021813https://warosu.org/lit/thread/6948089https://warosu.org/lit/thread/6872486https://warosu.org/lit/thread/6836049https://warosu.org/lit/thread/5636870https://warosu.org/lit/thread/5481923https://warosu.org/lit/thread/5478457https://warosu.org/lit/thread/5233027https://warosu.org/lit/thread/4926262https://warosu.org/lit/thread/4602573https://warosu.org/lit/thread/4596978https://warosu.org/lit/thread/4484508https://warosu.org/lit/thread/4035001https://warosu.org/lit/thread/4012589https://warosu.org/lit/thread/4000950https://warosu.org/lit/thread/3907707https://warosu.org/lit/thread/1469740https://warosu.org/lit/thread/1148373https://warosu.org/lit/thread/584449
>>25127890https://warosu.org/lit/thread/19920516https://warosu.org/lit/thread/16597767https://warosu.org/lit/thread/17163952https://warosu.org/lit/thread/13112090https://warosu.org/lit/thread/10949440https://warosu.org/lit/thread/11998944
Has anyone read Laird Barron's latest collection that came out late last year?Is it any good?
>>25127887>>25127890>>25127910>>25127913No one is going to read these lol c'mon.
>>25127910>https://warosu.org/lit/thread/584449>c. 2010>every comment is pornLol why? I began my 4chin journey in 2012 so that's a little before my time.
>>25127939Sorry, just wanted a central hub/thread to put all the previous generals. I want to make /hfg/ a more regular general like /sffg/
>>25127949No sorry needed brother, I'm just bantering.
>Remember this blog called the Plutonian that had a lot of good articles and interviews with horror authors I liked.>Was also a small press that published anthologies occasionally.>See the website is gone: http://www.theplutonian.com/>Find out the person who ran it got exposed for sending rape threats to a random women (Not even in the horror fiction field)https://old.reddit.com/r/WeirdLit/comments/1mumxj4/warning_to_the_weird_lit_community_scott_dwyer/Well this sucks.
>>25127455>>25127458Now do one for British horror stories
Valancourt needs to print more of the Paperbacks From Hell books>>25127767For as much as Joshi hates Keene, at least Keene doesn't have the sheer disrespect for Lovecraft that Vandermeer does
>>25127977>>Find out the person who ran it got exposed for sending rape threats to a random women (Not even in the horror fiction field)awful but love the implication that this would be less bad if she was a horror fiction writer
>>25128626I mean it was just weird some random women was his target and not someone known in the horror community.
Why are British horror writers so much better then American ones?
>>25127459>Crying in H-Mart meets My Sister, the Serial Killer in this feminist psychological horror about the making of a female serial killer from a Korean-American perspective.>Ji-won’s life tumbles into disarray in the wake of her Appa’s extramarital affair and subsequent departure. Her mother, distraught. Her younger sister, hurt and confused. Her college freshman grades, failing. Her dreams, horrifying . . . yet enticing.>In them, Ji-won walks through bloody rooms full of eyes. Succulent blue eyes. Salivatingly blue eyes. Eyes the same shape and shade as George’s, who is Umma’s obnoxious new boyfriend. George has already overstayed his welcome in her family’s claustrophobic apartment. He brags about his puffed-up consulting job, ogles Asian waitresses while dining out, and acts condescending toward Ji-won and her sister as if he deserves all of Umma’s fawning adoration. No, George doesn’t deserve anything from her family. Ji-won will make sure of that.>For no matter how many victims accumulate around her campus or how many people she must deceive and manipulate, Ji-won’s hunger and her rage deserve to be sated.>A brilliantly inventive, subversive novel about a young woman unraveling, Monika Kim’s The Eyes Are the Best Part is a story of a family falling apart and trying to find their way back to each other, marking a bold new voice in horror that will leave readers mesmerized and craving more.
>>25128906This is one of the worst plots I've ever read, an actual farce
>>25128946And on top of that, race based serial murder portrayed as a good thing is bizarre. Can you imagine if there was a book called The Hair Is The Best Part and it was about a white man who killed black people to assemble a patchwork golliwog doll? People would be shitting themselves
>>25127949I want that too, a few years ago this general thrived for a while, and I'm hoping it can pick up steam again. >>25128010 ...but anon Ramsey Campbell is included in that list
>>25128818Brits live horrific lives
>>25128966>...but anon Ramsey Campbell is included in that listHe's talking about this list>>25127455>>25127458And I checked, all American authors.
>>25127476Okay, just finished Fellstones. It was alright I guess. Feels like it could be adapted into a tv movie of the week. I'd only recommend it if you're also a big fan of classical music, it has a ton of references to different composers. So far, the best Ramsey Campbell novels I've read are Ancient Images and The Darkest Part of the Woods. Need to read more though.
There was this YouTube channel that did good audiobooks of horror stories called Eldritch Archives, and they seemed to have taken down everything from their channel. https://www.youtube.com/@TheEldritchArchives
>>25128997The Grin of the Dark looks like one of his best
>>25129001Are you a fan of HorrorBabble?
Just checking in to say Blindsight sucked.
>>25129060I heard Starfish is better
>>25129176does he just write books about my ex gfs lol
>>25129002Yeah I want to check that one out.
Song of Kali is a little bit racist, isn't it
>>25130002It's true to life is what it fucking is.
>>25130002Need to read that and Carrion Comfort since Dan Simmons just died.
>>25125273>Alan Moore was the only guy to do a Lovecraft critiqueyes where he gets his oc to literally fuck lovecraft in the ass.
>>25130769Lol what's the title?
>>25130002>>25130475Kek that introduction could never be written today
>>>At least 90% of the "horror" in Song of Kali is just pointing out how fucking filthy, disgusting and smelly a major Indian population center is
I read two Clive Barker books, Weaveworld and The Great and Secret Show. Are his other books better? I found those two to be interesting thematically but meandering and bloated otherwise. They didn't need to be 700 pages each, not nearly.
It's not "horror" in the sense this general intends, but sometimes true crime just rises to that level. Picrel being a legitimately scary book. Another nonfiction book that gets genuinely scary is Programmed to Kill by David McGowan; actually, you had might as well pair that with Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon since they overlap a lot and both have a lot of scary and disturbing stories/details. I'm gonna make a thread in this vein actually.
>>25131178It could but it'd never be published or at least watered down heavily
>>25128906This must be how it feels to be a fat woman reading Silence of the Lambs.
>>25125217This any good?
>>25133056>Miranda Crabtree spends her time running contraband for the preacher Billy Cotton and sheriff of her local area, as it is the only way she can provide for herself. It also helps her keep an old woman and a child safe, as they had fled from Cotton's home eleven years prior. Miranda's troubles come to a head once she is asked to make one last run, this time to bring a child to the insane Cotton. Looks interesting. I don't know any contemporary Southern Gothic writers, so this might be worth looking into.
The Road by McCarthy is basically a horror novel isn't it?
>>25128906>Her dreams, horrifying . . . yet enticing.Fuckin' 'ell, couldn't make it past this tbqhwuf.
>>25134632Basically, along with Blood Meridian and Outer Dark I would say.
I read a Poppy Z Brite story for the first time ever recently and it was just an obvious and shitty rehash of The Hound by Lovecraft. Incidentally this was the first time I had ever read anything by a transgender author before and I'm definitely unimpressed. Is this the best they've got, a gay and black and trans remake of an early Lovecraft story? Fuck off.
What Stephen King books have you readI've read>Carrie>Pet Sematary>The Shiningand>MiseryI got pretty far into IT as well as The Stand but couldn't finish them.
>>25135177Read Caitlin Kiernan
>>25135177Read Exquisite Corpse or Lost Souls, also by him. Or go for The Very Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan, like the other anon said.
>>25135788>>25136012Exquisite Corpse looks kind of cool but it's obviously degen sex-addled bullshit just like the short story I just read. I'm a true crime geek too and I don't know if I'm going to get anything unique out of it. It looks like it pulls heavily from the sordid (and well-known) stories of Jeffery Dahmer and Dennis Nilsen.
>>25133056I liked it.
>>25135196I really liked Dreamcatcher. I never really managed to get into King, despite trying, but I picked up Dreamcatcher and I was hooked- I feel like it's much more stream-of-consciousness than his other books, and a little more light-hearted.
>>25136585It makes sense that older queers write a lot of stories about degen sex bullshit. They lived through the aids crisis, and the works seem spiteful and angry. It's a natural response to that kind of societal trauma.
>>25128906Have there even been any recent horror books that tackles racism is a non-stupid way
>>25128906>>25127459I was shocked to see the author was actually kind of hot
>>25136866I just stalked her social media (Instagram with barely any posts), and surprisingly, no white boyfriend that I expected. Or at least one she doesn't post publicly.
>>25136866>>25137743Hawwwwwwwttttt.
>>25129053Never heard of them
Is pic related horror or nah?
Best horror fantasy novel?
>>25139685Night Winds
>>25131476Barker's books tend to either be really short and high-concept or bloated and ornate as fuck. I like both personally but you might enjoy the Books Of Blood anthologies, The Hellbound Heart or The Damnation Game (his best imo). If you don't enjoy the '8 gorrillion pages of fruity surreal gibberish' then I would really stay away from Imajica, Sacrament or Gallilee. Even I got sick of Galillee and I live that shit. Also>tfw Thomas Ligotti has become by far my favourite author>tfw no longer really enjoy anything else>tfw the bleakness has ruined my brain like a gooner who can't go back to non-extreme porn
>>25139700By Karl Edward Wagner?
>>25139902yes
>>25125217Is early Ligotti and later Ligotti really that different? It seems to me that every trait people associate with his work is already present full force in Songs of A Dead Dreamer
>>25134632>horror is when bad stuff happens
>>25140395What is and isn't horror is an interesting conversation to have. The Girl Next Door and Psycho are horror but are Thomas Harris novels?
>>25140390It's hard to pin down but Teatro Grottesco is a lot more, I dunno, straight-faced overall? Songs and Grimscribe still had a bit of lyricism and playfulness, like there was a cackle in there somewhere. Teatro is just fucking punishing. It's like being beaten with a wet sock full of depression. The little 'Sideshows' series of vignettes in it might be the most upsetting thing I've ever read even though nothing happens in them.
>>25139683no. tried to read it and dropped it after only a few pages. It's a manifesto of an insufferable loser.
>>25140390Later Ligotti, especially Teatro Grottesco, is more influenced by abstract literature. Especially Kafka and other Eastern European writers.
>>25140481That sounds harrowing. What stories in Songs of A Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe are closest to the tone of Teatro Grottesco if any? Alice's Last Adventure was relentlessly grim.
>>25141019On top of this, I Have A Special Plan For This World didn't feel much different from Ligotti's early work to me so would I really notice the difference
>>25141019Off the top of my head I'd say 'Dr. Locrian's Asylum'. Not so much about the payoff as a lot of the earlier ones, just a really sickening, downer atmosphere. But having said it's 'hard to pin down' Teatro is actually very different now I think about it more. I don't know if you've read 'The Conspiracy...' but it's like the themes of that book distilled down into stories that often don't even really have any plot. 'Nightmarish' is about the most useless thing you could possibly say about any horror fiction but it really does apply here, and not just as a way of saying 'it's weird' or 'bad stuff happens'. The pessimism and depression sticks to everything in it so strongly it really does have that feeling of a terrible stress dream where the events are bad enough but your mind is also losing its shit over what it's trying to process in the background. The prose is also really unusual, kind of verbose and repetitive but really dry at the same time rather than 'purple' in a typical cosmic horror way. I could easily see it being tedious as fuck to someone with no taste for it but if you like it you'll love it.
>>25141055I like the pacing of what I've read so far, it takes you on this slow, winding, atmospheric journey and you don't know where you're being led, and then everything falls into place in the most horrific way possible
>>25139700That's a short story collection. I want a novel.
>>25139685Do you necessarily want Fantasy fantasy with elves and shit, or any fantastical horror? Imajica by Clive Barker is an absolute treat if you like alternate worlds, gore and shape-shifting tulpa bussy
>>25141091Gormenghast maybe.
>>25125217What did we think of it?
>>25127486thanks for the suggestion anon. this is what i was looking for
>>25127887>>25127910Based I love my horror friends. Best people on /lit/
>>25131178Kek
>>25135196Desperation is the best one, some good spooks and it's not rammed with padding
>>25141349I'd always heard it was Revival
Why is Noctuary by Ligotti so impossible to find without paying several hundred dollars for it? Why is that one still out of print?
>>25141530Yeah I’m not sure. I was hoping Penguin would republish it but I guess not.
>>25141530>>25142510Enjoy anonshttps://chiropterapress.com/collections/noctuary-the-spectral-link-by-thomas-ligotti/products/noctuary-and-the-spectral-link-by-thomas-ligotti-1
>>25125217What do we think of Edward Lee?
Did anyone miss the free week of The Chemical Divorce? I just uploaded a new and expanded version. If anyone from /lit/ wants one, I'll gift you a copy.
Laird Barron's writing style is insufferable.
>>25125217Anyone here read Mahcen? I'd say he's the most underrated foundational horror author. I read his novel the three impostors a while ago, and it's crazy how much Lovecraft borrowed from him
How do you write horror?
>>25126335I need a raccoon as cute as this. When I do horror it just turns into a bad mystery or action story.
>>25143074You just do, also Ligotti has a story about this
>>25143048who here hasn't read machen
>>25127368Deus Irae has some really dark, creepy passages in it. But it's post-apoc sci-fi/fantasy.
>>25135196Running Man is arguably better cyberpunk than Neuromancer. Shame it got butchered by both film adaptations.Duma Key is a really comfy atmospheric ghost story. Like a more optomistic version of Ligotti after he moved to Florida.
>>25140390Very. Old Ligotti is way less consistent and even derivative in parts. Still some gems though.
>>25141100gormenghast is hardly horrorit is an outstanding work though
>>25143428I'm interested in knowing what makes a horror story work. I have a vague understanding that horror is about taking a mundane situation and making it disturbing, but I'd like to understand the anatomy of this.
>>25131487I've been keeping an eye out for true crime stuff that reads totally malignant or horrifying. I've read some Peter Sotos' Pure scans or Simon Whitechapel but the edgelordism is a bit puerile after awhile. I want the kind of shit Rust Cohle would read in True Detective.
>>25126656Unbearably SHIT TASTE oh my fucking GOD. Rope. Now.
>>25143838The Franklin Scandal by Nick BryantChaos by Tom O'Neil
>>25143730I very much recommend Lovecraft's short essay Notes on the Writing of Weird Fiction for his very simple formula of writing a horror short story.
>>25142995Explain why.
>>25125217I hate that most zombie books aren't actually about the undead but generic post-apocalypse survivalist slop. Where are my Fulci and Return of The Living Dead books?
>>25127458No Clive barker? Wtf
>>25131476Weaveworld is 583 pages, pleb. Also you got filtered, although I’ll admit the last 100 pages dragged on.
>>25135196The long walk was his best book. Other than skeleton crew and night shift.
>>25142512>$53 USD LOL, no.
>>25143921Chaos is excellent. Still need to read The Franklin Scandal (I have a copy of the John deCamp one but I feel the Nick Bryant one would have more up to date info since it's relatively newer). BTW I've read Procession of the Black Sloth by Laird Barron and I'm wondering if anyone has a suggestion for the next story I read by him. I only have The Imago Sequence so it has to be from that collection.
>>25144840>>25144809What about Mr. B. Gone, is it worth reading?
>>25130002>>25130753Summer of Night is best.
I've begun working my way through the King in Yellow stories and I've been enjoying it. It's been a while since I actively read anything more challenging than shitty fanfiction so some of the prose takes a while to digest and understand especially with some of the longer run on sentences. Does anyone have any recommendations on what to read next after I've finished?
>>25145426Nick Bryant is much more reliable. John DeCamp is a bit more cranky.
I have an weird question for you guys.Has anyone read Koko by Peter Straub? Good book. The first part of his Blue Rose Trilogy. I'm going to spoil a part of the book, so skip to the next post if you don't want to know. There's a part in the novel where a character is wandering through Bangkok, and he ends up going to an underground snuff show where he witnesses a women getting killed. Before the show, he is taken there by a Thai guy, and the Thai guy says something that to the character sounds like "telephone". It's only after the character gets away from the snuff show that he realizes what the Thai guy meant by "telephone", its treated like a grand revelation but not explained. What was meant by telephone or what it was supposed to be?
>>25144809American authors only for that list.
I'm the only guy on /lit/ that genuinely enjoys Laird Barron's work apparently.
>>25127915No and no.
>>25127915Aside from Swift to Chase, it's his weakest collection to date imo, I'll give the guy some slack because he almost fucking died while he was trying to write it and might actually be fucked for the rest of his life health wise.
>>25147540The Colour Out of Space, The Dunwich Horror, The Call of Cthulhu, and The Shadow Over Innsmouth
>>25147613But then who was phone?
>>25147637I don't think so.
>>25127915The short story Tiptoe from it is absolutely fantastic and one of his top 5 individual stories. However, the rest of the collection feels a little weak, and overall it's not as good as Imago, Occultation, and Beautiful Thing.
Very overrated.>not really scary for 90%+ of the story>the modern day woman in the framing device is fucking unbearable and the book spends an unnecessarily long time with her in the end>the depictions of good-stab slaughtering poachers/trappers gets super repetitive, fast>a lot of the good-stab / arthur confessional sections are ramblyThe concept of a vampire slowly becoming the type of people/animal they feed on was pretty cool though.
>>25147942Yeah, I know lolBut seriously, what was telephone?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHALigotti bros we eating good.
>>25148960We getting new stuff or is it because current events are fuel for pessimism?
>>25147679What's wrong with Swift To Chase, it's pretty much unanimously considered his worst collection but is it just because he shifted away from weird fiction to more traditional horror?
>>25148960Is there a new book announced or something?
>>25125217What is your favorite Brian Evenson novel or collection?
>>25150328I've read all 4 of those books.>Last Days was actually pretty funny in a very dark way.>Father of Lies was horrific in a way that's all too real.>The Open Curtain is an interesting look at the dark side of Mormonism.>A Collapse of Horses is hit or miss when it comes to his short stories.
>>25150328His first collection Altman's Tongue is also really good.
>>25149074Having read, it's very deconstructist of horror in a very smary, annoying way.
>>25150572>A Collapse of Horses is hit or missHence the lack of introduction by a good writer?
>>25140496No that would be diary of an Oxygen Thief
>>25150814I know Joshi started seething at Barron over the story with the Ligotti parody in The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All
>>25151046Joshi is a poo.
2spoopy5me
>>25151098I like when he runs defense for Lovecraft, but he can be such a vindictive little shit about the people he deems "paperback authors"
>>25151208The fuck is a paperback author?
>>25151685People like Brian Keene and Richard Laymon, he has some weird hatred of Keene in particular
>>25151046Honestly I thought it was a pretty good parody.Also, if you read that story, Ligotti isn't even the writer Barron hates the most in it. He portrays Mark Samuels as a woman hating killer.
>>25151788>Keene is one of the few writers who has spoken inside the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in several closed sessions.[13]That's pretty good for a paperback writer.
>>25128906>>25127459Lmao why are Asian American women always like this
>>25125669I don't know. He fucking tore apart Brian Keene, a pulp author I love and who seems like a genuinely nice guy. Joshi has a mean streak a mile wide.
>>25153118> ‘Meanwhile, the antics of my enemies continue to provide rich amusement. Their staggering inferiority to me, in intellect and achievements, is becoming more and more apparent with each passing day; but what is now becoming increasingly obvious is that they are really not very nice people. Stupidity is one thing – a condition that is perhaps unalterable, and one that is more deserving of pity than anger; but duplicity, mendacity, hypocrisy, petty vindictiveness, and a host of other moral failings – well, I suppose these can only be attributed to bad upbringing and an insufficient exposure to civilised values.’ (stjoshi.org, 22 November)
>>25131178R*ddit hates this book lol. It's a minor masterpiece imo.
Surprised no one's posted about this yet.>A.I. Is Writing Fiction. Publishers Are Unprepared.>Book publishing has few safeguards in place to prevent the unwitting publication of a novel heavily generated by artificial intelligence.>For months, speculation has been building online that a buzzy horror novel, “Shy Girl,” was written with the help of A.I.>The novel, about a desperate young woman who is held hostage by a man she met online and forced to live as his pet, was self-published in February 2025. The book quickly found an audience among horror fans, and Hachette published it in the United Kingdom last fall and planned to release it in the United States this spring, billing it as “an unapologetic, visceral revenge horror novel.”>Earlier this year, Max Spero, the founder and chief executive of Pangram, an A.I. detection program, heard of the claims about “Shy Girl” and decided to run a test of the full text. Its results indicated that the book was 78 percent A.I. generated.>“I’m very confident that this is largely A.I. generated, or very heavily A.I. assisted,” said Spero, who posted his research on X in January.>The Times also analyzed passages from the novel using several A.I. detection tools and found recurring patterns characteristic of A.I. generated text, like gaps in logic, excessive use of melodramatic adjectives and an overreliance on the rule of three.>In the months since “Shy Girl” was released in Britain, more readers voiced their suspicions online that the writer relied on A.I., citing nonsensical metaphors and odd, repetitive phrasing. As a chorus of allegations built online in late January that the novel was A.I. generated, Hachette stayed silent.>In response to questions from The New York Times about the A.I. allegations against “Shy Girl,” Hachette told The Times that its imprint Orbit has canceled plans to release the novel in the United States and that Hachette will discontinue its U.K. edition.>The author of “Shy Girl,” Mia Ballard, who according to her author bio writes poetry and lives in Northern California, has very little social media presence, and doesn’t appear to have addressed the allegations of A.I. use on her feeds. In an email to The Times late on Thursday night, Ballard denied using A.I. to write “Shy Girl,” contending that an acquaintance she hired to edit the self-published version of the novel had used A.I.>The decision to cancel the publication came after a lengthy and thorough analysis, Hachette’s spokeswoman said, noting that the company values human creativity and requires authors to attest that their work is original. Hachette also asks its authors to disclose whether they are using A.I. to the company.
>>25153590https://archive.fo/lxTHc>“Shy Girl” appears to be the first commercial novel from a major publishing house to be pulled over evidence of A.I. use. Its cancellation is a sign that A.I. writing is not only appearing in cheap self-published e-books that are flooding Amazon but is seeping into even traditionally published fiction>The stunning fact that “Shy Girl” got so far into the editorial process, and was even released in the U.K. before publishers thoroughly investigated the claims of A.I. use, is a sign of how unprepared many in the book world are to deal with the rise of A.I. It also signals the dawn of an uncertain new era for the book world, as editors and readers alike are increasingly left wondering whether the prose they are reading was written by a human or a machine.>Few publishers or editors would talk on the record about how they are handling A.I. because its writing uses are so divisive and ethically murky. But some publishing executives worry that there is little that can be done to stop the A.I. incursion, especially as the technology rapidly becomes more sophisticated.>“It’s like with plagiarism — you’re at the mercy of the author,” said Morgan Entrekin, publisher of Grove Atlantic. “We have to have confidence in our partners.”>For now, the most obvious disruptions from A.I. are hitting the self-publishing sphere, where authors say the ecosystem has been flooded with A.I. slop. But some in the industry believe that it’s only a matter of time before more books written with A.I. slip past editors at major houses. The technology has become increasingly widespread — as has the practice of picking up self-published books and rereleasing them through traditional imprints.>“It’s not merely inevitable,” said Thad McIlroy, a publishing industry consultant who has urged publishers to clarify their policies around the technology. “We’re in the midst of it.”>After McIlroy learned of the allegations about “Shy Girl” from an employee at Pangram, he got a copy of the book and requested reports from Pangram and two other A.I. detection programs, GPT Zero and Originality.ai. All three found the text likely to be largely or partly generated by A.I., with Pangram’s report flagging certain phrases — including “the pause feels like a knife in my chest, sharp and unyielding,” and later, “I press the phone to my lips, the screen cool and unyielding” — as bearing the hallmarks of chatbot writing.>It’s nearly impossible to gauge how much A.I. writing is getting published, but there’s evidence that the technology has led to a surge of books. Last year, more than 3.5 million books were self-published, up from 2.5 million in 2024, according to Bowker, which collects book industry data. Traditional publishers released more than 642,000 books last year.
>>25153595>Tuhin Chakrabarty, a professor of computer science at Stony Brook University, used Pangram to check more than 14,000 self-published novels on Amazon for A.I. writing. The program found that nearly 20 percent of the novels had been substantially written by A.I. Looking mostly at novels released between 2024 and 2025, Chakrabarty saw a 41 percent jump year-over-year in how many novels in his random sample contained a large amount of A.I. generated text, he said.>A.I. detectors sometimes mistakenly flag human writing as computer generated. Still, Chakrabarty said he was confident that Pangram was picking up chatbot language. The program was built to detect linguistic patterns that are frequently used by large language models like ChatGPT and Gemini, and has a false positive rate of around one in 10,000, Spero said. It’s also designed to catch human efforts to cover up A.I. use through editing.>After compiling a list of self-published novels that Pangram showed to be heavily A.I. generated, Chakrabarty zeroed in on books that were resonating with readers, based on their number of Goodreads ratings and the average number of stars.>When he ranked the books according to the highest number of reviews, “Shy Girl” was among the most highly and widely rated, with more than 4,840 ratings and an average of 3.5 stars.>The first review on the page, however, awards it one star, from a reader who wrote, “I am quite certain that this was written by ChatGPT.”>The author Olivie Blake, who wrote a blurb praising “Shy Girl,” wrote in an email to The Times on Friday that it was “truly disheartening to hear that A.I. may have been involved,” asserting that “it has no place in art.” When she read the book, she continued, “I took it in good faith that the story was authored by a human, and I genuinely found it to be audacious, inventive, and uniquely horrifying.”>“That being said,” she added, “Mia Ballard occupies a highly vulnerable position in the publishing industry as a Black female author, so I don’t want to leap to any conclusions.”>Many publishers don’t explicitly prohibit authors from using A.I. in their book contracts. Instead, they rely on longstanding contractual clauses that require writers to affirm that their work is “original,” which many people in the book business now interpret as effectively banning the use of A.I. for text or image creation.>Publishers are also wary of A.I. content because currently, A.I.-generated text and art can’t be protected by copyright. Still, given the widespread uses for A.I. during research, outlining and other parts of the writing process, there’s little clarity on what constitutes its appropriate use. Many in the industry worry that publishers are leaving themselves vulnerable to scammers — or even writers who believe their A.I. use doesn’t cross any lines.
>>25153600>One problem in regulating authors’ A.I. use is that most corporate publishing houses don’t want to ban it outright. Editors recognize that authors use A.I. in a range of ways short of writing with it. And publishing executives want to ensure that their employees can use the technology for tasks like creating marketing copy, audio narration and translation.>The fact that publishing companies generally haven’t drawn a hard line around A.I. use is sowing confusion about what is permissible. Could a novelist ask A.I. to suggest plot twists, propose an alternate ending or polish a draft and still claim it as original work? At what point does the work stop being human?>Widespread suspicions around authors’ A.I. use have put publishers in a precarious position. Many still see traditional publishing as the only remaining fortress for original fiction that is handpicked and polished by discerning editors. If A.I. is capable of producing gripping fiction, and readers and editors are unable to discern its origins, it could erode publishers’ status as literary tastemakers.>“It’s a real problem, and we do have to find some guardrails,” said Mary Rasenberger, the chief executive of the Authors Guild, which is leading a class-action copyright lawsuit on behalf of authors against OpenAI and Microsoft, charging that ChatGPT was illegally trained on writers’ copyrighted works. (The New York Times has sued OpenAI, ChatGPT’s maker, and its partner Microsoft for copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. Both companies have denied those claims.)>“There are publishers and authors who think the quality of A.I. is at a level that it’s not going to compete with them, and I don’t think that’s the case with the new large language models,” Rasenberger added.>Writing with A.I. remains wildly divisive among authors and readers. Some see it as a form of cheating, particularly if readers don’t realize that the book they’re reading includes passages generated by a chatbot. To others, it feels like theft: Many generative A.I. programs were trained on unlicensed copies of authors’ copyrighted works.>Seth Fishman, a literary agent, said the authors he represents are largely opposed to using A.I. for writing.>“For authors, this is not just a technology, it’s a moral issue,” he said. “Authors feel their work has been stolen.”>Even before “Shy Girl,” rumors circulated in the book world about near misses as publishers caught A.I. use before a book was released.>In one case, an editor at a major publishing house, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the editorial process is private, questioned a writer about why some passages in his latest book were so flat and bland. The author acknowledged that he had used A.I. for revisions.
>>25153602>Another publishing house found that a book it had acquired featured A.I. assisted prose and pulled it from publication, according to an employee who declined to elaborate or identify the author or the imprint, citing the confidential nature of publishing contracts.>There’s little consensus on what should be done to screen books for undisclosed A.I. text. Some agents and editors argue that publishers need to explicitly state their expectations around A.I., to prevent confusion or even fraud by authors who are not transparent about their reliance on the technology.>Penguin Random House, the largest publishing company in the United States, has created guidelines to set parameters around A.I. use for authors and illustrators that echo its contractual clauses stipulating originality. Representatives of other major publishing companies, including HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Macmillan, declined to elaborate on their A.I. policies apart from noting those originality clauses in their publishing agreements — although a spokeswoman added that Macmillan evaluates questions around A.I. use on a case-by-case basis.>Still, some worry that the ambiguity surrounding A.I., and the stigma the technology carries in the literary world, makes it more likely that writers might not be transparent about it.>“If it’s hush-hush, if you don’t want to talk about it, people are going to misuse it,” Chakrabarty said. “The shame around A.I. is causing more harm than help.”>Rubina Fillion, Juliana Castro Varón, Susan C. Beachy and Kitty Bennett contributed research.>Alexandra Alter writes about books, publishing and the literary world for The Times.
>>25153590>>25153595>>25153600>>25153602>>25153606It's clear as day they wanted to publish a horror novel debut by a black women and completely got rid of any editorial safeguards due to internal DEI policies.
What is the best Aickman collection?
>>25153833Cold Hand in Mine
>>25153590>>25153595>>25153600>>25153602>>25153606Btw, someone uploaded a good chunk of the novel (78%) to an AI-writing detection website and you can just read most of it.https://www.pangram.com/history/b956c422-5f5c-42ba-9a4c-eaf6c1999ed4?ucc=6JKYkTuRVIoAlso, even if it's not AI-generated, it's pretty shitty writing I got to say.
>>25154805Also, someone did a 2 hour YouTube video looking into the accusations:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbeKTa5xhZo
>>25153590>editors don't read a single page of books that get pushdd to publication>not a single person in the publication process read a single page of books pushed to publicationnot surprised in the slightestthe only way this could happen is if not a single soul read the story in question
>>25151046>>25152388Why does Barron hate on Ligotti?
>>25151098>Birthplace: POOna, Bombay State, India
Why isn't the horror general full of fucking schizophrenic lunatics like the science fiction and fantasy general is?
>>25155670It's been around for less time and is never really that popular.And t here isn't a group of insular circlejerking faggots who try to control what people post like the /sffg/ goodreads group does on /sffg/
>>25155554It's more of a philosophical difference than anything, Ligotti is a pessimist, Barron isn't. I don't think Barron actually dislikes Ligotti's work, I think he just wanted to challenge his philosophy
>>25155702>/sffg/ thread>control or orderlmao
>>25131476Read his short story collections, they're brilliant and I can't help but think he was made to write novels to satisfy his publishers or to exorcise ideas that had been floating around in his head for too long.
>>25139843Read some stuff from his acolytes like Jon Padgett, Kurt Fawver, and Gemma Files
Finally read this after seeing it was recommended everywhere. It was fine. Definitely Ligotti influenced but I don't think it really scratched that itch Ligotti does for me. Maybe a writer truly has to hate life like Ligotti does in order to create the fiction he writes. I would say that Slatsky will probably improve as he writes more but I've heard unfortunately he decided to retire from writing (He only published two collections).
>>25155708It's interesting, because I think Barron has had a harder life then Ligotti's growing up. Barron was born and raised in Alaska growing, he was from a poor family. Barron's also talked a few times about having near death experiences in the Alaskan wilderness (He used to dog sled).
Favourite weird fiction story not by Lovecraft?
>>25156992blackwood's the trod
>>25150919Not sure about that. Btw, I wouldn't say it's a bad collection. I think it's fine if you want a good introduction to his short stories. But I will say they aren't all that good, but there's plenty in it that are that make it worth it.
>>25156992The Willows
>>25156992Alice's Last Adventure by Ligotti is definitely up there
Any suggestions for good short story anthologies? I'm looking for older weird fiction since the only stuff I've read is the Yellow King stuff and the more popular Lovecraft stories.
>>25156982What a stupid title
>>25156999Bait post
>>25157400Was thinking of buying an EF Benson collection after reading the Horror-horn
Is there a good horror magazine? One with demanding critics not with corporate shills. I like to read Joshi's reviews but I guess there are other critics out there.
>>25157645Do you mean a literary magazine or just a general horror themed magazine? Vastarien is a publication dedicated to Ligottian horror and philosophy, and I'm sure you could dig up some old issues of Cemetery Dance.
>>25157423Lovecraft literally considered it the best weird fiction tale of all time.
>>25157973Uh-huh. See >>25125219
>>25157896Sadly Vastarien no longer publishes.
>>25157973Then tell us anon, who do you consider to be in the upper echelon of horror if your standards are so high
>>25157976Is Grimscribe Press falling apart?
>>25157973>DOOD, TREES SO HECCIN' SPOOKY N' LIMINAL AS FUCK!! HOLY HEEBY-JEEBIES!! This is why NO ONE will ever take weird fiction/cosmic horror seriously.
>>25125219>>25157974kill yourself faggot
>>25158069Lovecraft is entry level cosmic horror. If you think he's "the best of the best" you're legitimately fucking insane and retarded. Literally "babby's first"
>>25157896A general horror themed magazine, even if it's online. Thanks for the other recommendations.
>>25158078Without Lovecraft we wouldn't be talking about half the weird fiction and even horror writers we do now. As much as people like Vandermeer try to diminish his accomplishments, it's undeniable that without him, horror and weird fiction by extension wouldn't be where it is today
>>25158078He's the most influential pioneer of horror besides Poe, you cunt.
>>25158145I'd include M.R. James and Algernon Blackwood in that too (and possibly Ambrose Bierce), but besides that you're right on the money
>>25158141>>25158145lol, lmao, nah.
>>25158158>I'm a butt-hurt faggotk keep me posted
>I'm a butt-hurt faggotWe know you are.
>>25155670We have no one fighting Bakker shaped windmills here. The closest thing to an author spammer this thread has ever had is the guy who says Ligotti sucks and to read Wagner instead, and he doesn't even spam. F. Gardner doesn't count because that's transparent self promotion. We'll get a schizo eventually but there's not really that much shitflinging in /hfg/.
>>25158052I think they just straight up ran out of money or the costs outweighed their profit.
>>25158205What was the name of that schizo who stalked a bunch of horror authors for like 15 years? He was trying to become a horror author himself.
>>25158204>WeYou and the gerbil in your ass?
>>25145426Eye of the Chickenhawk
>>25158275That's a shame, I was under the impression their releases were doing well. Especially since Michael Cisco is a huge name and he put out something with them
I just finished reading The Sect of The Idiot and I love how it feels like a perfect blend between Lovecraft and Ligotti's own style, it's a really well done tribute
Fuck you guys for tricking me into reading The Loney and Starve Acre and they were both SHIT
>>25158456I don't think Michael Cisco is that big of an author unfortunately.
>>25156982Sell me on this. I'm slightly intrigued.
>>25160228It's very Ligotti-influenced.
>>25160599Uh-huh.. AND?
>>25125217Is Lansdale's horror as good as his crime fiction
I need an actually scary novel. One that will make it hard for me to walk around the house after dark. Only house of leaves managed to do that for me and I'm still chasing that high. Supernatural/haunted/cursed "the ring" vibe is what I'm going for.
>>25161536You know the Ring is based off a novel series.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_(novel_series)
>>25160910His writing is like a cross between Thomas Ligotti and Nathan Ballingrud.
>>25161854I know but the novels aren't actually scary and more thriller novels. I want the feeling of ring movies but in book form. House of leaves is the closest to "cursed feeling" I ever got from reading a novel and I'm seeking for something similar again.
>>25136866>>25137743highly sexable
>>25159032Were they really that bad?
>decide to read up on some modern creepypasta>90% of the monsters are lanky pale humanoids with sharp teeth/clawswendigo/skinwalker shit really hit the creepypasta scene like crack cocaine
>>25162880Yeah its been that way for awhile.
>>25162880I blame The Rake.
>>25161858What is Ballingrud's style exactly
>>25165314Horror stories with a very emotional edge to them.
>>25161002I haven't read any of his crime fiction but I read the Lansdale Essentials collection not too long ago, I thought some stories were pretty stellar. I'll definitely be reading more eventually. Standouts from the collection for me was the Hoodoo Man story, and Tight Stitches on a Dead Man's Back.
>>25156982I feel this way about the Secret of Ventriloquism by Jon Padgett, also Ligotti worship but in a kind of reduced way, with totally lifeless prose. It feels like Ligotti wrote for Silent Hill but had to stuff it with MFA cliches. Or maybe King-ified, commercialized Ligotti would be more appropriate. The one act play near the end is a genuinely cool idea though.I think the missing secret sauce is the seething hatred for existence plus the decadent / modernist prose style that only Ligotti can seem to pull off. I'm still looking to try more of these Ligotti-influenced people but so far I've been a bit disappointed. Will probably go for Antisocieties by Michael Cisco next, as he apparently has a unique style.
>>25150328His story collections all tend to blur together for me but I remember enjoying Windeye. I think his best stories are the highly ambiguous, abstract ones that don't just feel like generic horror stories with some details rubbed out. I remember enjoying the one about the western outlaw guy running into some sort of nameless entity that taunts him as he bleeds to death. The stiff minimalist prose is a turnoff for me but it does let him do some sort of Beckett-ish metaphysical stuff that fucks with perception. For better or worse I do think he's one of the more unique weird fiction writers active nowadays even if I'm ambivalent about his style in a lot of cases.
>>25125219BASED
Published horror author here, going to say that Ligotti is hit and miss, and I kinda hate the narrator of his audiobooks as well. Noctuary and Spectral Link are okay, but I don't get the same oompf as I did with Songs of a Dead Dreamer. I will be going onto Ramsey Campbell and Robert Bloch for their lovecraftian stories after finishing Spectral Link specifically.
>>25165869I would suggest Matt Cardin's To Rouse Leviathan. Like Padgett, he helped run the Ligotti website. His fiction his Ligotti-influenced but also has a lot of biblical/religious themes.
>>25166375Just word to the wise for Ramsey Campbell. His early fiction is very Lovecraft-influenced and he wrote them when he was 16-18 years old. It's good for someone that age, but their nothing special in the grand scheme of things.For his Lovecraftian stuff that he wrote when he was a much more experienced writer, check out his Visions from Brichester collection.
>>25165869I totally get that for Padgett, although I liked some of the stories in his books (20 Steps to Ventriloquism and The Indoor Swamp were the most like Ligotti for me, and to me the best stories). I forgot the name of the one story, but he tried to do a noir/hard-boiled style and it was pretty bad. Felt like a parody of hardboiled prose.
>>25166375Have you read Teatro Grottesco yet?
>>25166486Yes, by far my favourite collection of horror shorts of his, come to think of it. I think it's better than Songs of a Dead Dreamer, at least from how I remember enjoying it when I first read it. Thanks for reminding me. I think I read it 3 years ago when I was on a trip interstate, and it was very vivid and enjoyable. I'm not sure what I haven't read of Ligotti yet, probably his newer stuff out with Chiroptera Press or Centipede Press. E.g., Pictures of Apocalypse.>>25166476Thanks for that. I have Cold Print, and know a lot of that was written when he was young. But it's passable prose-wise and he's pretty funny, sardonic, and witty. Campbell also has this psychedelic quality to his writing that supposedly comes from living with his schizophrenic mother, where you begin to doubt reality itself.
Never understood ligotti worship. Good stories for sure but i've never understood the idolistic praise some in the more literary horror community have for him. Especially with the likes of Joshi and with people conflating Ligotti with Lovecraft given they are polar opposites in style,diction, literary tradition.
>>25166533Thomas Ligotti, go through your body like a twelve gauge shotty
>>25166575I like Ligotti thoughI just don't think he's better than lovecraft
>>25125217Can anyone recommend something in the vein of Lovecraft's Dunsany cycle? I'm looking for dreamlike fantasy with a bleak, doom-y, vibe, with lavish prose. I also adore Clark Ashton Smith and plan on reading everything he ever wrote.
>>25167038Try The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake.
>>25166533I think it's one of those things that either just speaks to you or it doesn't, there's not really any reducing it. And I don't mean that in a backhanded 'only sophisticated types such as myself get it ehe ehe', obviously it's fucking horrible to be completely miserable and creeped out all the time and it doesn't denote good taste either way. It's just a particular itch that nobody else can scratch
Finishing “Metaphysica Morum”, quite a kino story
>>25125433I recently looked at the horror section of my local bookstore and impulsively bought a book called The Bog Wife. It is single-handedly the worst horror book I've ever read. It shouldn't even advertise itself as "gothic horror" because it was more or less a slice-of-life family drama about 5 appalachian siblings
Just got a copy of The Hungary Moon by Ramsey Campbell at my library.What am I in for?
>>25127455This is pretty rad, thanks anon
>>25139685Slewfoot
I’ve been reading Brothers Grimm stories to my toddler and those fellows really cooked. Are there any stories like that but for grown-ups? I’m considering Fairy Tale by Stephen King but I’ve never read any of his books before.
Started reading Songs/Grimscribe last night. I'm almost sober enough to pick it back up again (did an edible earlier) so Imma grab a couple beers for the cotton mouth and hunker down to read. I've read the first two stories so far, plus The Last Feast of Harlequin which I read on its own last Fall. I really haven't read that much Ligotti yet to be honest. Between the three of them I like The Frolic best so far (the third one being Les Fleurs which I thought was so-so, and I thought Harlequin was really overrated but not BAD exactly). Overall what I've read is promising if imperfect in terms of my taste. I think the only other Ligotti story I've read is...The Red Tower, I think, because I saw those MeatCast fags were doing a read through of it (I read it myself online). It was creepy and creative but utterly unengaging.
