>TQWhat is your favourite 80s horror paperback?
>>25517283The House Across the Way by Brian McNaughton
>>25517283It's hard to choose between The Elementals by Michael McDowell, In a Lonely Place by Karl Edward Wagner, and Books of Blood by Clive Barker.
>>25517462Books of Blood is a excellent choice. For me it's cabal.
This was extremely good
>>25517522I haven't read Cabal yet; only Books of Blood and The Hellbound Heart (and they're both great). I do want to read Cabal at some point, and I've got a copy of The Damnation Game I want to read sometime this year.
>>25517667
Not misinterpreting OP as "favorite horror novel" like everyone else, I got this at a used book store for a buck and found it quite charming
Splatterpunk/Extreme Horror is disgusting and I lump the same sort of people who read it with those who only read "romantasy" garbage, but with worse things on their hard drives
People think I'm just being a contrarian faggotlord, but really, ITMOM is a terrible Carpenter flick, and his greatest achievement remains Prince of Darkness.
>>25518199But what about horror books, though?
>>25518199Prince of Darkness sucks. but don't take my word for it!
>>25517283>In the mouth of madness>Down in the darkness>No more tomorrow>Down in the hollow
Bleh!
>>25517558I started Sleeping Beauties today. It's good so far. You can really tell which parts were written by Stephen and what ones were by Owen. I'm getting back into King lately after taking a long sabbatical but I heard Revival was one of his better newer ones.
I just finished Intimations of Death (1910), by Felix Timmermans. It's originally written in (Belgian) Dutch, and it's recently been translated and published by Valancourt, which is sick.It's a small collection of tales regarding death, and it is very similar to the style and atmosphere of Poe, with nature and buildings reflecting the mental state of the protagonist, etc. It's a great short read, and I definitely recommend it!
Bump in the night
>>25517283I hope you know a real ITMOM book was released last Halloween, anon. And yes, it's good.
Any recommendations for weird atmospheric horror like Annihilation, Short Stay in Hell, or There Is No Antimemetics Division?
Is Robert Aickman any good? Where do I start with him?
>>25525715Algernon Blackwood's stories, or Malpertuis by Jean Ray.For something more recent, A Collapse of Horses by Brian Evenson.>>25525930I haven't read him yet, but it's generally agreed upon that Cold Hand in Mine is the best collection to start with. They're slow, atmospheric, subtle horror stories; a bit like Walter de la Mare, but more modern.
Shall be reading House of Leaves in October with a book club.
The Fungus by Harry Adam Knight.
>>25527960What about it?
Time for crab
>>25518031Ok but nobody asked about splatter punk.
>>25528732These need to be turned into a full cast audio production.
Graph bump!
>>25529955Rolling
Has anyone else read Unutterable Horror by ST Joshi?
>>25528732DNF the first one.How one can make a story about giant fucking crabs interesting is beyond me. It's pretty short, too.I know there's a new edition with extra material. I wonder if it improves the story flow.
>>25530938I haven't heard much about the Straub collection, but it seems really interesting!>>25530970I haven't. What's your opinion of it? Can you post more/the rest of the Campbell section? I'm very interested in what he's got to say about him.
>>25531020I thought it was good, I usually go in and out of it to check on authors I’m thinking of studying. And it’s good to see how they figure into the history of horror lit.
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>>25531062
>>25531065
>>25531067
>>25531069
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>>25531074Thanks a lot, sick read. I've read Alone with the Horrors, and have copies of Incarnate, Midnight Sun, and Ancient Images that I'm planning on reading. Good to hear he's pretty positive about all three!
>>25529955That's a lot of short story compilations.
>>25531692I've read about 23 of them so far.
I've been watching interviews with contemporary writers that I like, people like Barron, Evenson, Balingrud etc, those you might call established genre figures. It's all for some webcam camera / mic combo podcasts, none breaking few thousand views. Oftentimes they're all together in a call, yapping for a few hours, so there's interesting stuff out there. It got me thinking about how unprofitable this all horror writing thing is even for those you know about. You have people like Evenson work a cozy job at University, Barron taking on working nights at a hotel despite being compared to Ligotti (likely supported by his brother) etc. I asked algorithm to compile a list of earnings of major genre figures and I don't know how reliable its estimates are, but per year, gross, none of those writers have a chance of breaking 100k, and most estimates put them in 30-50k range. Seems that literary horror is a genre on its last legs commercially despite movies experiencing a surge in popular interest.
Probably just Books of Blood like some other anons. 1-3 specifically, I didn't think 4-6 were as good as the first set. I'm reading some of the Vampire Hunter D books from the 80s right now, but they're objectively not very good.>>25518031Yeah, I've tried "extreme horror" once or twice and have just been disgusted at the quality. I assume there aren't many actually good authors who are willing to spend the time writing something too gross for real publishers to pick up.>>25528732372 Pages We'll Never Get Back did a series on the first book a summer or two ago. Recommend that podcast if you've never heard of it.
>>25518199>>25518291Both movies are great
>>25531985That's just literature in general, it's not unique to horror.People can't read now, it's sad but true.>>25531931What have been you're favorites?
>>25533595These are the ones I've read. I've read a decent amount of Kafka stories, and for Le Fanu I've read In a Glass Darkly. (I've also read like 6 Poe stories)My absolute favourite is North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud. An absolutely phenomenal collection of dark/bleak psychological stories with a hint of supernatural. It mainly focuses on how people (are unable to) deal/cope with supernatural things and the fallout of that. One of my favourite horror books in general. (I've also read Wounds, but I wasn't that into the fantasy horror aspect of that collection. "The Visible Filth" is fantastic though, an easy standout of that collection - but maybe that's just because it feels strongly like a NALM story.)Some other ones I thought are very strong collections:> M.R. James - Collected Ghost Stories (He's the ghost story goat, highly recommend if you're interested in it)> Robert W. Chambers - The King in Yellow (It's only 4 stories, but they're all very strong)> Robert Louis Stevenson - Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Stories (I read the Alma Classics version, fantastic prose)> Clive Barker - Books of Blood (Definitely check out volume 1-3, very varied stories, consistently great)> Angela Carter - The Bloody Chamber (Beautiful prose, not a bad story in that collection, basically the original horror rewrites of fairy tales)> Karl Edward Wagner - In a Lonely Place (Thank god this got reprinted a few years ago. Very varied and strong stories)> Ray Russell - Haunted Castles (Incredible modern gothic collection. Every story is written in prose of the time it's set in. Blew me away)
>>25532591>I'm reading some of the Vampire Hunter D books from the 80s right now, but they're objectively not very good.Kikuchi is a textbook example of a bad writer with big ideas.
Considering reading The Haunting of Hill House very soon. The Haunting (1999) was probably the first real horror film I ever saw and I remember being impressed w/ it: just dl'd it actually. It only took 6 hours! Also thinking of reading MR James' stories too.Anyways I'm glad this general has been revived & that spooky season is gearing up agin, esp when it's still warm outside (during the day anyway).>>25523691Pet Sematary scared the fuck out of me when I was 17.>>25527783Extremely based. Don't let 4chan dissuade you, it's a great book.
>>25517283>What is your favourite 80s horror paperback?It's got to be this tb h.
Another graph bump!
>>25529955Lmao I made this years ago and I definitely need to update it. Also need to use a better way to chart it.
>>25530970I have read and disliked it. Wasn’t a fan of it being less history and more Joshi giving a run down of what he thinks of each author and their work. Also, I know it’s such a broad topic that even just looking at English language horror literature is going to be long, but it sucks he decided to skip the Southern Gothics.
>>25531985Yeah sadly it’s incredibly difficult to be any type of writer and do it full-time.Evenson got a tenured professor job at fucking Brown University but he was still doing commercial work writing Dead Space novels and movie novelizations (I’ve actually heard they aren’t that bad). Barron is sadly in a bad spot due to his health and lack of a college degree. The best you can hope for is hopefully getting a university professorship and even that’s hard without being a noteworthy writer and usually you have to have an MFA.
>>25535944I would love to help you update it, if you'd like. Have you got any ideas of which collections to add/remove?
>>25536041Sadly I have little free time to work on a new one right now. I’d recommend choosing editions that are easily available on places like Anna’s Archive and libgen.
>>25536349So mainly updating the current collections? I'd love to hear about any ones you're thinking of adding (and I've got some ideas as well).
>>25535949It's because he doesn't like King, isn't it?
>>25536968I just want to go through and make sure the collections are available on Anna’s Archive and libgen. Other than that I have no idea. Again, don’t have much free time to do it over right now.
>>25537545No, he actually doesn’t like a lot of horror authors, like more than you think. I’m by no means a King fan, but I don’t think it’s a good history book when you spend most of the time complaining about their work instead explaining why they became a big author.
What about horror do you like? What are your favorite horror novels?
S.T. Joshi hates everything. That's kinda his thing.
>>25537635>why they became a big authorGood contacts in the industry.
Books I'm considering reading for spooky season:>The Haunting of Hill House>MR James' collected ghost stories>'Salem's Lot
>>25537791>The Haunting of Hill HouseYuck. Don't bother.
>>25537791All three are great books.>>25537638Some of my top favourite horror books are:Jean Ray - MalpertuisNathan Ballingrud - North American Lake MonstersStephen King - The ShiningThomas Harris - The Silence of the LambsStefan Grabinski - The Dark DomainAnne Rivers Siddons - The House Next DoorPatrick Süskind - Perfume (if that counts)
>>25537791Salem's Lot is so good. Read it on flights and trains last October and it was comfy and creepy at the same time.
I want a horror novel similar to industrial music or something that artists of that scene would read.
>>25538369The Cipher by Kathe Koja.
>>25537794Why, lad?
>>25537819I would absolutely call Perfume a horror novel.>>25538229Good to hear. I decided to pick up a copy while in Value Village and I realized it really is not that thick of a book (which is what my previous impression of it was). I just can't w/ King's doorstoppers, never been able to finish a single one of them. Never been able to get into The Dark Tower either for some reason. I've read Carrie; Pet Sematary; The Shining; and Misery (all of those I read as a teenager w/ the exception of Misery which I must have read as a young adult). That's all I've read (to completion) by King. I know 'Salem's Lot is an autumnal classick however so yeah I figure I'll give it a go in October.I do smth called "hybrid reading" now which is basically juggling both reading the book & listening to the audiobook as the feeling takes me. I've found doing this massively speeds up finishing difficult or boring books, in my experience. So yeah, I may be pleasantly surprised anyways. The copy of SL I've got is a kino vintage mass market paperback copy anyways :V
Been a King fan a good portion of my life but never read Koontz before so I grabbed a bunch of his novels today since they were pretty cheap. Any of these a good place to start with him? I get most of his novels are standalone and he doesn't have a huge, grandiose connected mythology in the way that King or Lovecraft do but I'm willing to keep an open mind. The ones I picked up are:Strange HighwaysVelocityWhispersThe Servants of TwilightThe Voice of the Night How'd more proficient Koontz readers here rank the works I grabbed from an S rating to an F rating
>>2554087Only read the novels written by a balding and moustache wearing Dean R. Koontz (notice the R). If they're written by a pedophile looking Dean Koontz, they're probably trash.
Any book recommendations that scared you enough to make it difficult to continue reading? I don't care for Stephen King and I'd prefer less supernatural.
>>25517462>world war zBro.
>i may be a brutal mob enforcer but at least i'm not racist!>if the kidnapped lovely, beautiful and intelligent black girl's retarded dumb priviliged white cunt whore std-ridden lying roomate was kidnapped instead, i bet people would care! (two instances of this sentiment so far, maybe more poignant social commentary is coming)this shit is gay as fuck, i was counting on something much less lame after reading the croning, which i liked
>>25542631Lmao imagine being mad about that
>>25542670what do you mean? idk maybe you're gen alpha but non-whites spent decades and decades complaining about how they're portrayed in media, and then when they were portrayed well they started complaining there wasn't enough of them in it. disliking the way your ethnicity's portrayed really shouldn't be a novel concept to an adult with access to the internet.
is elias witherow worth reading?
>>25542934I don't know about other works, but I've heard some mixed/bad stuff about Black Farm.
>>25537791MR James is great, get yourself a long wool coat, a scarf and go read it in a park/cemetery on a cloudy cool day for total immersion
Has anyone read The Monk?
>>25542631Filtered
>>25544426Yes! It's honestly great. The B-plot in the middle can be a bit meandering, but god damn this book goes hard at times, especially for a book from 1796.
>>25534940Is there an actual Alien/Xenomorph story in this or is that thing in the top right just some vague lookalike?
>>25545916>Is there an actual Alien/Xenomorph story in thisIn the Vaults of Yoh-Vombis inspired the face-suckers. That's about it I think.
>>25543565Fuck yeah.>>25542250>scared you enough to make it difficult to continue readingHasn't happened to me since I was a teenager, unfortunately.
>>25537791>No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against the hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.Hill House is great. This guy >>25537794 is a tastelet.
>>25544426I started it a few days ago and really enjoying it. Honestly, didn't expect it to make me laugh as much as it has.
>>25546194Based. I re-watched the 1999 film a few days ago for the first time since I was a kid. I get why it has bad reviews because it's not that great of a movie, and it probably seemed better/more impressive as a kid, but it was kino nonetheless. Also Owen Wilson seemed really out of place, casting-wise ahaha. >>25546315Nice, good to hear.
>>25542631>i may be a brutal mob enforcer but at least i'm not racist!I mean he’s half-Samoan, it would be kind of weird if he was racist.Also, you forgot to mention one of the villains is a gang of super violent Native Americans.
Should I read the short story collection don t look now by daphne du maurier for halloween season?
>>25546408I mean, why not? Do you have other horror books you were thinking of reading instead?
>>25517283>>25517462I love Brian EvensonAnyone got similar recs for short, weird horror stories? They don’t even necessarily need to be horror, just short and weird stories
>>25546800Have you read the short fiction of Ligotti, Barron, or Langan?Also, what are your favourite Evenson books? I've read A Collapse of Horses and Song for the Unraveling of the World, both of which were a bit uneven but definitely had some strong stories, and Last Days, the first half of which is pretty good, and the later added second half felt a lot weaker and unnecessary.
>>25546816I’ve done some Ligotti. I read Teatro Grottesco, My Work is Not Yet Done, and Songs of a Dead Dreamer. I remember loving a few stories but finding a lot of them to be slogs. I loved My Work is Not Yet Done though. I don’t know Barron and I didn’t really love the one story collection I read from Langan.
>>25525930I loved Cold Hand in Mine. Picrel was my soundtrack while listening to it and the association that created in my brain has honestly improved both the book and the album to me.
>>25529955roll
>>25546842>I didn’t really love the one story collection I read from Langan.Which one was it?
>>25546955Corpsemouth. It was a while ago I just remember finding it a little underwhelming. Not sure I finished it.
>>25546957I never finished it either, very hit or miss.
>>25546842For Barron, I think Occultation is a great collection to start with.I haven't read Corpsemouth, only Wide, Carnivorous Sky, and that was also a bit uneven ("Technicolor" is fantastic though).(Also, what are your favourite Evenson books? I'd love to hear more from an Evenson fan)
Highly recommend this.
>>25547318I've been meaning to check this out, a lot of people have spoken pretty highly of this collection.
Would you call Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro horror? I think in a sense I would.
>>25547057I'll add Occultation to my list. My favorite Brian Evenson book is A Collapse of Horses. I think the stories in it are just the best overall. Here's a good taste of it.https://theamericanreader.com/a-collapse-of-horses/
>>25547842Horror is a ghetto genre. everything too ugly for daylight ends up here, and so horror borders every other category of lit. Yeah, dystopian books are horror adjacent.
>>25517283Sutter kane was a horrorcore rap song back in the day. Now i know where it comes from. Nice.
>>25547888It's not "horror" because it's dystopian, you dolt.
