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KillerQueen posted:One of my favorite genres of story is the small-town mystery that turns into a weird supernatural horror/thriller. Stephen King comes to mind, but I find his tropes really predictable and cringy. Any suggestions for some spooky summer reading? Two Shirley Jackson recommendations: The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle.
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# ? Jul 7, 2018 02:16 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 08:52 |
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chernobyl kinsman posted:Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel This sounds great, any particular translation I should look for?
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# ? Jul 7, 2018 04:10 |
Bullet Proof posted:This sounds great, any particular translation I should look for? Whoever did the Penguin one, since a) it's the only one I've read and b) I think all the others are weird old public domain translations. Also, it's actually 5 novels that span one great story, so if you get bored you can stop after the first couple (the first two are the best and most famous, anyway). Most of what it's satirizing is medieval stuff, so if you like (or think you'd like) Don Quixote at all, then you'd like this.
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# ? Jul 7, 2018 06:45 |
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KillerQueen posted:One of my favorite genres of story is the small-town mystery that turns into a weird supernatural horror/thriller. Stephen King comes to mind, but I find his tropes really predictable and cringy. Any suggestions for some spooky summer reading? Let the Right One In is awesome. Dean Koontz's Fear Nothing and it's sequel Seize the Night are pretty fun despite a few eye-rolling aspects. Also, I don't recall 'Salem's Lot having many cringe-inducing moments, but it's been ages since I've read it. Oh, and Thomas Olde Heuvelt's Hex is rad, if maybe a little light on the mystery side. I guess Welcome to the Night Vale would work, although it didn't really do much for me.
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# ? Jul 7, 2018 11:19 |
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I enjoyed Stephen King's newest The Outsider although it could have done without the Mr. Mercedes crossover imo
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# ? Jul 7, 2018 21:26 |
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Hey buttholes As some of you know, I am an esl teacher. The current curriculum has them read an adult novel in English as a part of their reading curriculum The default novel is the alchemist but gently caress that poo poo book. I gave everyone a survey to see what they are interested in, and I got a lot of people saying they liked horror/dark fantasy stuff. Unfortunately, I am more or less illiterate in this genre. Was hoping I could get some good recommendations. Looking for something in the 200 page range and not YA (not my choice, curriculum requirement)
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# ? Jul 8, 2018 02:45 |
Mel Mudkiper posted:
quote:A Night in the Lonesome October is narrated from the point-of-view of Snuff, a dog who is Jack the Ripper's companion. The bulk of the story takes place in London and its environs, though at one point the story detours through the dream-world described by Lovecraft in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. Though never explicitly stated, various contextual clues within the story (the most obvious of which being the appearance of Sherlock Holmes or "The Great Detective") imply that it takes place during the late Victorian period.
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# ? Jul 8, 2018 04:02 |
Mel Mudkiper posted:Hey buttholes neil gaiman's the ocean at the end of the lane
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# ? Jul 8, 2018 04:51 |
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Hey buttholes Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle is the right length and nicely creepy -- I like it much better than The Haunting of Hill House.
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# ? Jul 8, 2018 06:26 |
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Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, maybe. Stephen King's The Running Man is also in that ballpark pagewise.
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# ? Jul 8, 2018 20:14 |
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thanks guys I went with some of the recs except for alloy's because I am not giving non-native speakers a book about 300 pages of Lovecraftian metatext with a bunch of 19th century literary figures you loving nerd
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# ? Jul 9, 2018 16:06 |
Mel Mudkiper posted:thanks guys It's narrated by a dog, so the vocabulary is fairly straightforward, and all the literary figures are internationally famous, everyone knows sherlock and frankenstein etc :P I made it a BOTM lo these many years ago: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3669218&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1 quote:I am a watchdog. My name is Snuff. I live with my master Jack outside of London now. I like Soho very much at night with its smelly fogs and dark streets. It is silent then and we go for long walks. Jack is under a curse from a long time ago and must do much of his work at night to keep worse things from happening. I keep watch while he is about it. If someone comes, I howl. quote:I got the idea for that story in May of 1979. I didn't know what it was going to be; I just thought it would be neat to write something about Jack the Ripper's dog, and ask Gahan Wilson to illustrate it, partly because of the fact that a dog is such an unusual person. No matter who owns a dog, if that person is nice to the animal, the dog is going to love him. I thought at the time, if you take a really despicable person, a serial killer or someone like that, and tell a story from his dog's point of view it would make him look pretty good. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Jul 9, 2018 |
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# ? Jul 9, 2018 17:21 |
I'm not ESL and as such am not a great judge of this, but I actually think it might be the easiest book to read of all of the titles mentioned (except maybe the Gaiman, but for all I know that was chernobyl trolling). All of them are pretty approachable though.
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# ? Jul 9, 2018 17:31 |
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it ended up being a four way tie between Ocean at the End of the Lane, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Brave Dragons, and West.
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# ? Jul 9, 2018 18:08 |
I knew I should have spoken up earlier about how Ocean at the End of the Lane should be retitled Coraline over again, except worse. Gaiman's creative wells are running dry.
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# ? Jul 9, 2018 19:39 |
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I knew I should have spoken up earlier about how Ocean at the End of the Lane should be retitled Coraline over again, except worse. Gaiman's creative wells are running dry. yeah but that still barely registers even a 2.5 on the King-o-meter
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# ? Jul 9, 2018 20:10 |
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Almost all of Gaiman's novels follow a nebbishy, somewhat useless British man (or boy) who falls into a fantastical underworld lurking under the British countryside, where he meets a no-nonsense woman (or girl) with far more knowledge of the fantasy underworld, who protects and guides our hero until he learns enough to fulfill his destiny and be a white male savior for the fantasy underworld. Along the way she may or may not call him "idiot" and "dunderhead," first in exasperation, later with affection. There, you've now read almost all Gaiman novels.
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# ? Jul 12, 2018 20:54 |
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Time Cowboy posted:Almost all of Gaiman's novels follow a nebbishy, somewhat useless British man (or boy) who falls into a fantastical underworld lurking under the British countryside, where he meets a no-nonsense woman (or girl) with far more knowledge of the fantasy underworld, who protects and guides our hero until he learns enough to fulfill his destiny and be a white male savior for the fantasy underworld. Along the way she may or may not call him "idiot" and "dunderhead," first in exasperation, later with affection. There, you've now read almost all Gaiman novels. I'm not saying you're wrong, but the only two Gaiman books I've read, Coraline and Good Omens, do not follow this pattern.
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# ? Jul 12, 2018 21:04 |
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Franchescanado posted:I'm not saying you're wrong, but the only two Gaiman books I've read, Coraline and Good Omens, do not follow this pattern. The human characters of Good Omens are almost the exact blueprint of what I described. Coraline is solid, though.
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# ? Jul 12, 2018 21:26 |
I don't remember there being a magical girl amanuensis in Graveyard Book but that could be my own memory lapse.
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# ? Jul 12, 2018 21:33 |
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I don’t remember Gaiman having characters, but maybe that’s just me
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# ? Jul 12, 2018 21:39 |
Hieronymous Alloy posted:I don't remember there being a magical girl amanuensis in Graveyard Book but that could be my own memory lapse. there isnt one in American Gods, either
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# ? Jul 12, 2018 22:54 |
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chernobyl kinsman posted:there isnt one in American Gods, either Dead wife, kinda but not really, I guess? That's been more true in the TV show but less so in the book. Plenty of other Gaiman works where it's not a thing; Anansi Boys or Odd and the Frost Giant or Norse Mythology or most of his short stories. It's a thing he does, sure -- Neverwhere, Stardust (kinda), Death in Sandman -- but it's definitely not the only thing he does.
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# ? Jul 13, 2018 01:04 |
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Heading out on a flight tomorrow and need something to read. I mostly love genre stuff, science fiction and fantasy are the two big ones but I'm not terribly particular. I've read pretty much all the big name stuff, so recommend me your favorite genre sleeper.
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# ? Jul 13, 2018 04:49 |
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Agent355 posted:Heading out on a flight tomorrow and need something to read. I mostly love genre stuff, science fiction and fantasy are the two big ones but I'm not terribly particular. I've read pretty much all the big name stuff, so recommend me your favorite genre sleeper. Lovecraft County: a lovecraft story but the unknowable horror is institutional racism. Cloud Atlas : a lot of people bump this in literary fiction but it has some incredible six film ideas and themes. Also includes some Herman Melville rear end sea voyaging and the best airport thriller you’ll ever read.
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# ? Jul 13, 2018 04:53 |
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Just finished Lovecraft Country It's a solid romp of a family fighting racisim, cults It's great but soured a bit since reading Blackwater recently
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# ? Jul 13, 2018 06:02 |
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Agent355 posted:Heading out on a flight tomorrow and need something to read. I mostly love genre stuff, science fiction and fantasy are the two big ones but I'm not terribly particular. I've read pretty much all the big name stuff, so recommend me your favorite genre sleeper. You've read Bridge of Birds, right? I mentioned it itt fairly recently but Rob Reid's Year Zero is imo underrated comedy SciFi. Blake Crouch's Dark Matter would be a good one for a plane. Ken Grimwood's Replay is a 90s scifi that I really liked and never hear mentioned. Kathrine Addison's Goblin Emperor is political, not-grim-dark fantasy. Not sure how many of these count as big name. Also, yeah, Lovecraft Country was really good if you haven't read it.
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# ? Jul 13, 2018 14:47 |
Agent355 posted:Heading out on a flight tomorrow and need something to read. I mostly love genre stuff, science fiction and fantasy are the two big ones but I'm not terribly particular. I've read pretty much all the big name stuff, so recommend me your favorite genre sleeper. Presuming you've read Bridge of Birds, a few more esoteric titles: The Misenchanted Sword by Lawrence Watt-Evans (80's genre fantasy that is far better than it has any right to be) Harm's Way by Colin Greenland (one of the very few good wooden-ships-in-space novels I'm aware of) As above, A Night in the Lonesome October (Roger Zelazny's most fun book, narrated by Jack the Ripper's dog!) Scalzi's The Android's Dream is probably his best book so far Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay (A tale of Fantasy Reconquista-Era Spain and bros who find themselves divided by war and culture) Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees (we did it as a BotM a while back: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3781830 ) A review of Lud-in-the-Mist: "BravestOfTheLamps" posted:This might be the best fantasy novel I have ever read.
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# ? Jul 13, 2018 15:04 |
Agent355 posted:Heading out on a flight tomorrow and need something to read. I mostly love genre stuff, science fiction and fantasy are the two big ones but I'm not terribly particular. I've read pretty much all the big name stuff, so recommend me your favorite genre sleeper.
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# ? Jul 13, 2018 15:32 |
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anilEhilated posted:If you don't mind a bit of horror, have you read John Dies At The End? Why do you hate people? That book is dreadful.
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# ? Jul 13, 2018 15:38 |
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What's the best recent book about dinosaurs? I've got a hankering for 'em!
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# ? Jul 13, 2018 16:41 |
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StrixNebulosa posted:What's the best recent book about dinosaurs? I've got a hankering for 'em! Billy and the Clonosaurus by Seymour Skinner
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# ? Jul 13, 2018 17:37 |
anilEhilated posted:If you don't mind a bit of horror, have you read John Dies At The End? do not
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# ? Jul 13, 2018 19:13 |
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Agent355 posted:Heading out on a flight tomorrow and need something to read. I mostly love genre stuff, science fiction and fantasy are the two big ones but I'm not terribly particular. I've read pretty much all the big name stuff, so recommend me your favorite genre sleeper. China Mieville's Kraken.
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# ? Jul 14, 2018 00:50 |
I don't hate JDATE (at least not enough to have stopped reading midway through) but I didn't think it was very good and holy lord I've never encountered a book so wildly overhyped as it was.
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# ? Jul 14, 2018 01:00 |
MockingQuantum posted:I don't hate JDATE (at least not enough to have stopped reading midway through) but I didn't think it was very good and holy lord I've never encountered a book so wildly overhyped as it was. Ahem.
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# ? Jul 14, 2018 01:54 |
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TommyGun85 posted:Billy and the Clonosaurus by Seymour Skinner
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# ? Jul 14, 2018 02:16 |
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One of my favorite fantasy books is also one for kids (just like all fantasy books am I right?), but every American reader I've asked about has not heard of it. It's called "The Ogre Downstairs" by Diana Wynne Jones. I'm surprised there hasn't been a movie version of it yet.
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# ? Jul 14, 2018 03:41 |
Olive Branch posted:One of my favorite fantasy books is also one for kids (just like all fantasy books am I right?), but every American reader I've asked about has not heard of it. It's called "The Ogre Downstairs" by Diana Wynne Jones. I'm surprised there hasn't been a movie version of it yet. Everything by Dianna Wynne Jones is great Read Howl's Moving Castle and Dark Lord of Derkholm
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# ? Jul 14, 2018 03:46 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 08:52 |
yeah okay you have me there, I happened to read that one before I got drowned by the hype wave so I forget about it. it did have the effect of making me wonder if I was being gaslighted (gaslit?) because surely the book everyone was talking about wasn't what I read, and was in fact another, actually good book with an identical title, right? But seriously, I kinda feel like JDATE is the closest thing that horror has to Name of the Wind in terms of overhype, though it doesn't compare in terms of scale.
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# ? Jul 14, 2018 03:47 |