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Shitstorm Trooper posted:Haven't read NALM, Wounds is kinda eh. I haven't finished it yet. Whatever you do don't watch the movie!
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May 21, 2022 23:53
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Shitstorm Trooper posted:Haven't read NALM, Wounds is kinda eh. I haven't finished it yet. NaLM is much better fwiw
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May 22, 2022 00:30
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sephiRoth IRA posted:NaLM is much better fwiw Whatever you do don't watch the TV series!
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May 22, 2022 00:41
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Monsterland was fine. Not as good as the book but I mean the book was top tier poo poo. The show is a solidly "okay" anthology
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May 22, 2022 00:43
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Wounds was pretty hit or miss but goddamn did I love The Butcher's Table. Give me more of that please, universe
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May 22, 2022 00:54
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Less Fat Luke posted:Whatever you do don't watch the movie! Oh man, that's disappointing to hear lol. But i've been on a Stephen king binge, reading and watching adaptations, I bet it an't be worse than that lol. Also, everyone go watch Cat's eye, underrated.
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May 22, 2022 03:28
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I felt the opposite about Wounds and NALM. I'd like a novel length Butcher's Table please.
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May 22, 2022 03:42
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NALM lives rent-free in my head. The first and last stories especially
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May 22, 2022 04:13
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Chas McGill posted:I felt the opposite about Wounds and NALM. I'd like a novel length Butcher's Table please. Agreed on all accounts. Wounds is just on another level to me.
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May 22, 2022 04:20
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Chas McGill posted:I felt the opposite about Wounds and NALM. I'd like a novel length Butcher's Table please. I read Wounds first and fell in love, then checked out NALM and was bored shitless by it.
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May 22, 2022 16:12
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oh gosh the monster is 'toxic masculinity' again??
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May 22, 2022 16:13
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From NALM, the first story is the one that stuck with me. That line about how you can have a new life, but you have to cut the old one off first just got lodged in my brain.
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May 22, 2022 17:37
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In NALM I had multiple stories stick with me - The Monsters of Heaven, Sun Bleached, and (oh my god) The Good Husband (absolutely wrenched my heart out). Wounds really only had The Butcher's Table that stuck with me, even though I loved the experience of reading the whole collection.
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May 22, 2022 19:03
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Finished Between Two Fires today. Solid finish. I was expecting it to fizzle at the end, but the choices of imagery and the specific metaphors behind the story were great. Easily in my top three favorite horror, best book I've read in a long while. Really recommend.
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May 22, 2022 19:15
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MockingQuantum posted:Wounds was pretty hit or miss but goddamn did I love The Butcher's Table. Give me more of that please, universe Same but the Love Machine. And skullpocket
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May 22, 2022 23:56
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I just found The Butcher's Table more fantasy than creeping horror and it didn't grab me, but I can see how folks would really dig it because it does that well.
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May 22, 2022 23:58
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Anyone looking for a more affordable edition of Bob Leman's Feesters in the Lake, Centipede has their edition up. I'd act quick, I suspect what copies are left will sell out in a handful of days.
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May 23, 2022 04:09
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sephiRoth IRA posted:Finished Between Two Fires today. Solid finish. I was expecting it to fizzle at the end, but the choices of imagery and the specific metaphors behind the story were great. Easily in my top three favorite horror, best book I've read in a long while. Really recommend. I also enjoyed it a lot. Has anyone read the same author's other works to completion? I read the preview of The Blacktongue Thief (fantasy) on Amazon and wasn't really impressed with the beginning, though the reviews are profuse in praise. First-person POV and a more standard fantasy setting don't really suit his writing style I think. The bleak, phantasmagorical not-kidding-Catholicism of B2F was a lot more charming.
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May 24, 2022 01:27
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What is the thread attitude about “extreme horror”, or “extreme splatterpunk”, or “extreme transgressive literature”, or whatever you want to call it? I read a horror book recently that was the grossest thing I ever read (i actually enjoy being disgusted most of the time), but I feel like if I shared the name of the book I could be banned, or if I even shared the name of the author. If I admitted to liking reading that kind of stuff, I would be immediately ostracized and banned shortly afterwards, right? Like, I would assume the book was illegal in probably 9 out of 10 countries, the rest just haven’t heard of it yet. Edit: I was extremely depressed, and reading about somebody being horrifically tortured, and it wasn’t me, and they got away safe, helped me to think “Well, at least I’m not being raped by a cannibal hillbilly right now”.
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May 24, 2022 02:42
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It's fine if you aren't a big weirdo about it
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May 24, 2022 02:52
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Opopanax posted:It's fine if you aren't a big weirdo about it Oh thank Christ. Edit: I always empathize with the victims, not the mentally handicapped cannibal hillbillies that make up the antagonists.
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May 24, 2022 02:53
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I'm also curious if splatterpunk or extreme horror would fly in this thread if I should just start a thread for it. Edit: Oh sick.
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May 24, 2022 02:53
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Nigmaetcetera posted:What is the thread attitude about “extreme horror”, or “extreme splatterpunk”, or “extreme transgressive literature”, or whatever you want to call it? I read a horror book recently that was the grossest thing I ever read (i actually enjoy being disgusted most of the time), but I feel like if I shared the name of the book I could be banned, or if I even shared the name of the author. Sounds like an Ed Lee book. Or one of the newer authors writing in the Ed Lee tradition.
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May 24, 2022 02:54
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Nigmaetcetera posted:What is the thread attitude about “extreme horror”, or “extreme splatterpunk”, or “extreme transgressive literature”, or whatever you want to call it? I read a horror book recently that was the grossest thing I ever read (i actually enjoy being disgusted most of the time), but I feel like if I shared the name of the book I could be banned, or if I even shared the name of the author. By the description Im guessing Edward Lee or maybe Jack Ketchum. As far as I know that kind of stuff is fair game here. Not everyone here is a fan but they get discussed. Personally I like extreme horror but mostly just find Lee to be regular gross E: lol that within minutes of that being posted more than one person is like ‘yeah that sounds like Ed’
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May 24, 2022 02:54
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Ornamented Death posted:Sounds like an Ed Lee book. Or one of the newer authors writing in the Ed Lee tradition. It was a guy named Aron Beauregard. He wears disguises mostly when being photographed for his books, presumably so his friends and family don’t realize he has dedicated his life to really gross fiction.
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May 24, 2022 02:57
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I spent way too long trying to find a copy of the movie of Header and I finally found it.
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May 24, 2022 02:58
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Nigmaetcetera posted:It was a guy named Aron Beauregard. He wears disguises mostly when being photographed for his books, presumably so his friends and family don’t realize he has dedicated his life to really gross fiction. Oh yeah he comes up every once in a while and is supposedly a super nice guy. Some goon got a bunch of signed books from him a while back. I liked All smiles until I return
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May 24, 2022 03:00
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Good Citizen posted:Oh yeah he comes up every once in a while and is supposedly a super nice guy. Some goon got a bunch of signed books from him a while back. I liked All smiles until I return He seems like a good guy to me. At least from his writing. It’s more concerned with the feelings of the victimized than the feelings of the hillbilly cannibals, that’s what separates his writing from non-consensual erotica, it’s supposed to be horrifying, not sexy. Edit: I mean as far as I know, it’s not like I’m friends with the dude or whatever. Nigmaetcetera fucked around with this message at 06:20 on May 24, 2022 |
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May 24, 2022 03:03
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Good Citizen posted:Oh yeah he comes up every once in a while and is supposedly a super nice guy. Some goon got a bunch of signed books from him a while back. I liked All smiles until I return Yeah I'm that goon, he's a really nice guy, and chatted with me for a while about writing splatterpunk under a pseudonym (which I also do). I really like both Slob books, and REALLY like Nightmare Nirvana.
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May 24, 2022 18:45
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Is his book Scary Bastard any good? That one seems the most fun/palatable. I'd read the Slob, but if it's got a lot of rape, that's probably gonna keep me away from it for a while.
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May 24, 2022 18:48
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Ceramic Shot posted:I also enjoyed it a lot. I have, and I enjoyed them all. But mostly they are nothing like Between Two Fires. All are set in the 20th century. Those Across the River is kind of Southern gothic, set just after WW1 in deep south Georgia where something fishy is going on in this small and weird town... Lesser Dead and Suicide Motorcycle Club take place in the same world, the first in the early 80s the latter in the 60's. They involve underground vampire societies. I liked Lesser Dead more than SMC but they're both good. The Necromancer's House is pretty good, though I think the world it's built on is a bit thin. Modern magic battles. I only started Blacktongue Thief, and was enjoying it, but I'm gonna shelve it until the series is done because I hate reading incomplete series. I will say that while there is some humor in all of his stuff, it was dialed way up in Blacktongue Thief. (Of those I think only Lesser Dead is 1st person) If you want something like Between Two Fires, that is to say, set in the 100 years war, Catholicism is real, angels, devils, and demons all exist and fulfil their roles, check out Son of the Morning by Mark Alder. It's not horror, rather more of an English class satire, so if you enjoyed BTF strictly because of its horror elements, it may not fit the bill. But if what you liked was a "realistic" look at how medieval religious dogma and worldview would play out if they actually existed and historical fiction set in that era then it's a strong recommend. And if it was the historical aspects you enjoyed above all, then I'd recommend Bernard Cornwell's Grail trilogy (Archer/Vagabond/Heretic) that follows an English archer through the major battles of the first half of the 100 years war. Any supernatural stuff in these are ambiguous so you don't know if something was divine intervention and not just serendipity. It's straight historical fiction, so don't expect any horror elements that aren't thriller-adjacent. zoux fucked around with this message at 18:56 on May 24, 2022 |
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May 24, 2022 18:51
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Franchescanado posted:Is his book Scary Bastard any good? That one seems the most fun/palatable. I'd read the Slob, but if it's got a lot of rape, that's probably gonna keep me away from it for a while. Haven't read that one, but unfortunately sexual assault seems to be one of the most common tropes in splatterpunk/extreme horror, so that's a totally valid concern. Catching up on recent conversation, thanks for the opinions on Winterset Hollow after I brought it up! I think there was some really good and valid critique of the themes in the book. I still love it, but now that the post-book-high is over, its dropped from maybe a 5/5 for me to a 4.5/5. Still a wonderful book. I read Between Two Fires last month and really really liked it. I haven't read this yet, but Howls From The Dark Ages: An Anthology of Medieval Horror just came out, it's only $3, and it has a forward by Christopher Buehlman, so I'm really excited about it. Finally, I just finished up Tender Is The Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica and... hoo boy. Imagine a mix between Slaughterhouse 5 and ... I dunno, Soylent Green? A Modest Proposal? I'm sure you see where I'm going with this. I'm not sure that it'll be one of my top books of the year, but it was a really quick read and pretty enjoyable, so if the theme strikes you, I can recommend it.
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May 24, 2022 19:09
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Count Thrashula posted:Finally, I just finished up Tender Is The Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica and... hoo boy. Imagine a mix between Slaughterhouse 5 and ... I dunno, Soylent Green? A Modest Proposal? I'm sure you see where I'm going with this. I'm not sure that it'll be one of my top books of the year, but it was a really quick read and pretty enjoyable, so if the theme strikes you, I can recommend it. I really dug Tender Is The Flesh! Just really gross and nasty but (and I don't know how much of this is due to it being in translation or if it's a pretty 1:1 with the original style) it kept a sort of clinical distance from everything at the same time that I think made it both easer to digest (heh) and in a way more horrifying. A couple other interesting recent reads (all of them novellas incidentally) were: Wingspan of Severed Hands by Joe Koch (though I think the copies currently in print still have his deadname on them), which is a really interesting hallucinatory body horror story mixed with a more scientific horror story reminiscent of an SCP sort of setting (sort of an A and B plot that converge in an interesting way). The body horror sections are really lyric and dreamlike where the science-y parts are more grounded. Since it's short, nothing really overstays its welcome. One Hand to Hold, One Hand to Carve by M. Shaw. It's also a Weird (New Weird? I guess?) story about a corpse that wakes up split in half and each half is its own independent person. A lot of body horror as the background obviously, but it's mostly about the two halves making the most of their new lives together, and it becomes more of an interpersonal/domestic sort of horror. The last chapter (or maybe it was an epilogue?) didn't quite stick the landing for me (I thought it explained too much maybe), but I thought it was really solid overall. Low Kill Shelter by Porpentine Charity Heartscape. A really gross but interesting take on pandemic horror. There's a saliva-transmitted disease that essentially rewires your brain into thinking that you're a animal (and also basically rabid). The main character is trying to find a cure, even though the lab he works for isn't really trying that hard. He ends up secretly keeping his co-worker's rabid boyfriend locked up in a closet in his apartment and ends up using him as a test subject for cure attempts. Definitely not for everyone, but might appeal to the gross-out/transgressive/splatterpunk fans.
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May 25, 2022 00:39
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I picked up Tender Is The Flesh and the premise seems....possibly too silly for me to continue. I am fairly certain I am the wrong one here with terminal scifi reader brain but the stacking things that are set up in the first 20 pages for the narrative angle of the novel to exist kept pushing and pushing my silliness boundary. How did ya'll find the way the premise was constructed? Trying to keep an open mind based on how I can personally have very weird sticking points. Recently read Carrier Wave and was very engaged from the beginning to the end - it's gripping in a way that didn't feel played out. The scenarios weren't necessarily all unique or devoid of tropes but it has a touch of comedy that I appreciate in horror for that nice tension-release-tension rollercoaster. I wasn't really a fan of The Unnoticeables so I was surprised at how much I loved this novel. It does have a trope (?) that I'm not a big fan of though: once the apocalypse is said and done with, the survivors vow to themselves and their children to never again do anything that could provoke such an apocalypse again. To me this feels tropey because throughout human history, we've been far more motivated to fighting back and revenge and there are pretty practical steps that could be taken to have their cake and eat it too. Probably I just want the ending and the genre to be something they're not. Overall highly recommend, the premise is frankly very hard to suss out without spoiling a lot of the fun, but if you're a fan of weird/otherworld horror with a dash of humour it's a fun ride. Finished Armageddon House based on recommendations in this thread and it was great - finished it in one sitting. I'm a bit too simple for a deep interpretation of the ending but I had fun the whole time. Ended up abandoning A God of Hungry Walls as it felt very needlessly cruel with seemingly no development of any narrative, characters, or themes. Curious if somebody else has tried it.
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May 25, 2022 20:12
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thumbs up to the rec for Low Kill Shelter
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May 25, 2022 21:06
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day-gas posted:I picked up Tender Is The Flesh and the premise seems....possibly too silly for me to continue. I am fairly certain I am the wrong one here with terminal scifi reader brain but the stacking things that are set up in the first 20 pages for the narrative angle of the novel to exist kept pushing and pushing my silliness boundary. How did ya'll find the way the premise was constructed? Trying to keep an open mind based on how I can personally have very weird sticking points. It mostly stops trying to explain or justify the situation after the very beginning, which I thought was the right move. Honestly I think it probably would have avoided a lot of the "this premise is silly/unrealistic" criticism I've seen it get if it just didn't try to explain things as much at the start? But it's an extreme premise, so it's hard to set it in what is, ostensibly, our world, without some sort of explanation. All that to say, the premise does break down if you think too hard about it being literal (but you could argue that 99% of genre fiction does when you're too literal about it - it just depends on your tolerances). You kinda just have to roll with it. I went into "I am more or less reading magical realism, I don't care if the reason for the premise 'makes sense' because it's really not the point of the story" mode. It's really about how horrifically selfish and exploitative even "good" people can be anyway.
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May 25, 2022 23:02
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This might be silly but I’m having trouble finding a reasonably priced copy of Between Two Fires rn and it’s not in the NYPL library system (wtf)… does anyone in this thread want to sell me their copy, or have an extra they can send my way? All the talk in this thread makes me want to read it really badly!
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May 25, 2022 23:03
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Conrad_Birdie posted:This might be silly but I’m having trouble finding a reasonably priced copy of Between Two Fires rn and it’s not in the NYPL library system (wtf)… does anyone in this thread want to sell me their copy, or have an extra they can send my way? All the talk in this thread makes me want to read it really badly! PM me.
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May 26, 2022 02:07
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DurianGray posted:It mostly stops trying to explain or justify the situation after the very beginning, which I thought was the right move. Honestly I think it probably would have avoided a lot of the "this premise is silly/unrealistic" criticism I've seen it get if it just didn't try to explain things as much at the start? But it's an extreme premise, so it's hard to set it in what is, ostensibly, our world, without some sort of explanation. Don't have a ton of experience with magical realism honestly, which is probably a decent part of my issue. Figured it was my own neckbeard-ism so thanks for confirming - I'll suck it up and go back.
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May 26, 2022 16:17
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I wish Amazon wasn't so...Amazon. I want to read Carrier Wave but near as I can tell it's only available off the kindle store, and while removing DRM and converting is possible, it's such a pain in the rear end I'd really rather not. Such a stupid system if I buy a book I should be able to read it on whatever device I have
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May 26, 2022 19:35
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