|
Lil Mama Im Sorry posted:anyone have any despair horror gems i may have overlooked? or maybe arent that well known? (i’ve read Ligotti’s collected works several times over to save you some time recommending anything by him) I didn't like it much at the end of the day but by god The Ruins is so continuously depressing
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2022 05:19
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 29, 2024 09:31 |
|
|
The Polish Pirate posted:I didn't like it much at the end of the day but by god The Ruins is so continuously depressing The ruins is a fun one. Super depressing for sure
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2022 08:00
|
|
|
The Polish Pirate posted:I didn't like it much at the end of the day but by god The Ruins is so continuously depressing The guy who wrote The Ruins, Scott Smith, wrote another dark depressing book (not horror tho) called Simple Plan. I do remember it as a pretty good book (I read it back in the 90's), and it was made into a Sam Rami movie with Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton. I also really liked The Ruins. What is depressing about Scott Smith is he has written 2 really good books, but those are the only books he has written in the last 30 years. He is even worse than Donna Tartt since she has at least written 3 books in the last 30 books. I did just google him (I was wondering if he was a pen name for some other writer) and there is a Christmas horror collection called Hark the Herald Angels Scream with one of his short stories in it. I am going to buy and save it for the holidays. nate fisher fucked around with this message at 13:47 on Aug 5, 2022 |
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2022 13:44
|
|
|
they also made it into one of those Warped Tour bands
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2022 14:47
|
|
|
What about the horror genre lends itself to shorter forms over longer ones? Sci fi used to be the realm of short stories, but now everything is a 6 part doorstopper series. Not to say that there aren't horror doorstoppers, the most famous horror writer of all time churns them out, but it seems like the best stuff - or at least the most recommended stuff- are short story collections. Do y'all think that's because of the rules and style of the genre itself or is it to do with marketing and other business-side aspects of publishing?
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2022 16:19
|
|
|
zoux posted:What about the horror genre lends itself to shorter forms over longer ones? Sci fi used to be the realm of short stories, but now everything is a 6 part doorstopper series. Not to say that there aren't horror doorstoppers, the most famous horror writer of all time churns them out, but it seems like the best stuff - or at least the most recommended stuff- are short story collections. Do y'all think that's because of the rules and style of the genre itself or is it to do with marketing and other business-side aspects of publishing? No ghost story should be of any length. [...] The authentic note of horror is struck in the eerie suggestion which, as we have noticed, is of intent left ill-defined. Nothing could be more crude than an explanation, and it is this banality that often ruins a story which otherwise might be of the very first order. […] it is well-nigh impossible for a story which deals with the supernatural or the horrible to be sustained to any great length. Elements which at first are almost unendurable will lose their effect if they are continued, for the reader’s mind insensibly becomes inured to fresh emotions of awe and horror. --Montague Summers, The Vampire: His Kith and Kin, 1928
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2022 18:01
|
|
|
Well, that's an outstanding answer.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2022 18:26
|
|
|
This is tummy feels based off of my own (terrible) attempts at writing and from running a bunch of horror tabletop games, but I always felt like a big part of horror is tension. Building, and even more so maintaining, tension is a lot like playing a tune on an instrument ; it's not that it's hard per se (although it can be, depends), but you have to keep doing it the whole time and you can't stop ; if you gently caress up and play the wrong fret you done hosed up. And the longer your story/tune goes on, the more likely you are to gently caress it up, especially if you're not good. This puts a big stonking filter over everything, so there's going to be a lot more good short stories or 16 measure fiddle-tunes than there are going to be good sweeping novels or entire symphonies ; they're just inherently more difficult by nature of doing the same task but longer.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2022 18:53
|
|
|
Pretzel Rod Stewart posted:they also made it into one of those Warped Tour bands Took me way too long to get this.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2022 21:03
|
|
|
Bonaventure posted:No ghost story should be of any length. [...] The authentic note of horror is struck in the eerie suggestion which, as we have noticed, is of intent left ill-defined. Nothing could be more crude than an explanation, and it is this banality that often ruins a story which otherwise might be of the very first order. […] it is well-nigh impossible for a story which deals with the supernatural or the horrible to be sustained to any great length. Elements which at first are almost unendurable will lose their effect if they are continued, for the reader’s mind insensibly becomes inured to fresh emotions of awe and horror. Honestly the one of hers that has always stuck with me the most is one in The Lottery where it's just a little kid interacting with a creepy dude on a train for like, 5-6 pages.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2022 21:28
|
|
|
Punkin Spunkin posted:Yeah this does a good job of explaining why Shirley Jackson's short stories resonate so much with me (other than like, her just being a fantastic writer). Oh that one is so good. Really all of The Lottery is a masterclass in creepy implication, so many of the stories are not in any way what you'd think of as traditional horror stories but they're creepy or unsettling in a very effective way, imo. And a lot of them sound like nothing if you just sat down and explained the plot to someone.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2022 22:21
|
|
|
MockingQuantum posted:Oh that one is so good. Really all of The Lottery is a masterclass in creepy implication, so many of the stories are not in any way what you'd think of as traditional horror stories but they're creepy or unsettling in a very effective way, imo. And a lot of them sound like nothing if you just sat down and explained the plot to someone.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2022 23:06
|
|
|
zoux posted:What about the horror genre lends itself to shorter forms over longer ones? Sci fi used to be the realm of short stories, but now everything is a 6 part doorstopper series. Not to say that there aren't horror doorstoppers, the most famous horror writer of all time churns them out, but it seems like the best stuff - or at least the most recommended stuff- are short story collections. Do y'all think that's because of the rules and style of the genre itself or is it to do with marketing and other business-side aspects of publishing? The best sci-fi stuff is still being published at short lengths it's just that nobody wants to read or talk about it. Even here in the horror thread, mostly people recommend novels.
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2022 01:45
|
|
|
I can drop some short story recs (available online) if there's interest.
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2022 12:33
|
|
|
ravenkult posted:I can drop some short story recs (available online) if there's interest. Please do!
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2022 13:14
|
|
|
My favorite horror author is laird barron, and some of his stuff is available online. https://www.baen.com/Chapters/1597801461/1597801461.htm This has three from The Imago Sequence. Procession of the Black Sloth is a fever dream and one of my favorites. https://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/frontier-death-song/ Frontier Death Song is another one of my favorites.
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2022 14:38
|
|
|
read Lisa Tuttle or you’re cringe!!! Valancourt republished A Nest of Nightmares (and a second one of her collections in their Monster She Wrote line) and they’re great—really sticky and strange and dark. the latter in particular, The Dead Hours of Night, I can’t get great swaths of it out of my head. “Food Man” and “Closet Dreams” were both done on the Pseudopod podcast and “The Dream Detective” is available for free on Lightspeed magazine’s website if you need a sampler
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2022 18:12
|
|
|
I guess that it's true the thread has mostly been talking about novels recently but I feel like it's probably not true overall that we're focused on them over short stories, there are just so many good collections out there. Though I may be conflating this thread with the Cosmic Horror thread that sort of preceded it. Some short story collections I'd recommend, though not many of these would be available online I imagine: The Lottery though it was just mentioned, also just about anything from Aickman. Nothing he writes is straight-up horror in the modern sense but he definitely fits the bill of the thread's general preferences, I think. I can never remember what is in which collection, but IIRC both Cold Hand in Mine and Dark Entries are good. The Weird is massive and has taken me literal years to get through but there's some amazing stuff in there that's extremely hard to get anywhere else. There's a couple of stories that are must-reads for anybody that likes nautical-ish horror (think "The Butcher's Table" but less hellish), though the names of both escape me. Brian Evenson's Collapse of Horses and Windeye are both great. I imagine anyone posting here is familiar with Ligotti but if not, Songs of a Dead Dreamer, Grimscribe, and Teatro Grottesco are all good. Teatro might be the most varied collection? I can't remember anymore. Matthew Bartlett is also one that comes up a bunch and he's got a very distinct style, I've only read Gateways to Abomination but it was great. Nathan Ballingrud is another thread favorite, either North American Lake Monsters if you want beautifully written, soul-crushing horror stories, or Wounds for more traditional (still very well written) horror fare. Stephen Graham Jones is kind of hit or miss for me but honestly some of his short stories are better than his novel work, After the People Lights Have Gone Off has a couple of good stories. His writing tends to be a lot more low-key than out-and-out horror though. MR James is sort of the classic ghost story writer from before horror really established itself as a genre, you can find a bunch of his work online since it's all in public domain iirc. I like a lot of his stuff but if you only read one, "Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You, My Lad" is probably his best known story. That or "Casting the Runes". Similarly, Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood are good options for shorter works in the public domain, I absolutely love "The Great God Pan" from Machen and "The WIllows" from Blackwood, but there's other stuff out there. For multi-author collections, Ellen Datlow has a bunch but they're kind of hit or miss. The "Best Horror of the Year" collections tend to be pretty good though. Other than those and The Weird I actually haven't read a ton of collections, just the Books of Cthulhu which were both solid. And honestly, Stephen King isn't a bad rec if you want straight-up modern American horror writing. Skeleton Crew and Night Shift are both good. His son (Joe Hill) has a couple of good collections too, 20th Century Ghosts and Strange Weather. I know I'm forgetting a bunch that I really like but there's some!
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2022 18:19
|
|
|
Don't forget Books of Blood
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2022 18:24
|
|
|
Oh yeah I liked the first Books of Blood way more than I expected. I know Barker's a little more divisive today, and he definitely does read like he was trying to be deliberately provocative, which can come off a little contrived in comparison to modern horror, but it has some of my favorite horror stories I've ever read ("Midnight Meat Train" and "In the Hills, the Cities" mostly)
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2022 18:30
|
|
|
For multi-author anthologies I really liked both American Supernatural Tales edited by S.T. Joshi and The Dark Descent edited by David G. Hartwell. The latter is massive. Joyce Carol Oates writes fantastic short stories and I don’t see her name come up as often as it should. She has published quite a few collections (out of the handful I’ve read, I liked the stories in The Collector of Hearts the most) and I’ve read many of her work in various anthologies over the years and have always enjoyed it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 7, 2022 02:25
|
|
|
Any opinions on Philip Fracassi? A favorite local publisher of mine has translated and released two of his books (Behold the Void and Sacculina) and I'm thinking of pulling the plug.
|
|
#
?
Aug 7, 2022 21:49
|
|
|
Just finished Helpmeet by Naben Ruthman. Very good gothic body horror novella. Definitely recommend and will be looking for more by this author.
|
|
#
?
Aug 7, 2022 23:34
|
|
|
anilEhilated posted:Any opinions on Philip Fracassi? A favorite local publisher of mine has translated and released two of his books (Behold the Void and Sacculina) and I'm thinking of pulling the plug. I like him, having read a few chapbooks of his. I have a collection of his short stories (Beneath a Pale Sky) sitting on my shelf once I work my way through some others Nthing the Christopher Slatsky recommendation from earlier as well, reallly a strong collection of stories. I also like Gemma Files quite a bit I'm somewhat hit or miss on Jon Padgett but some of this works are excellent
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2022 16:23
|
|
|
nate fisher posted:The guy who wrote The Ruins, Scott Smith, wrote another dark depressing book (not horror tho) called Simple Plan. I do remember it as a pretty good book (I read it back in the 90's), and it was made into a Sam Rami movie with Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton. I also really liked The Ruins. Can confirm that his short story in that collection is awesome. It's the second one. I disliked Padgett's Secret of Ventriloquism. Found it too derivative and inconsistent. Fracassi's Beneath A Pale Sky is incredible though. escape artist fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Aug 9, 2022 |
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2022 02:15
|
|
|
Finished The Searching Dead and didn't like it very much. Ramsey's reaching for a lot of stuff but not quite grasping all of them. There's one or two core ideas that are good but could have been better at short length.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2022 12:29
|
|
|
So what was the thread consensus on Eric Larocca's Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke? Because, well uh, that definitely was a thing. I liked Lost A Lot of Blood better. Both felt kind of first draft-y to me.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2022 21:56
|
|
|
I like it less the more I think about it honestly.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2022 22:06
|
|
|
Same. I feel like I was expecting it to go much further than it did and the two characters weren't as interesting as they should have been
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2022 23:32
|
|
|
Great cover though!
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2022 23:32
|
|
|
I'd never read The Passage by Justin Cronin and now I'm trying to fall asleep at 1am after realizing I just spent five hours straight reading the first third of the book I do realize this whole page is about short stuff but oh well! SSJ_naruto_2003 fucked around with this message at 07:51 on Aug 12, 2022 |
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 06:50
|
|
|
Jeremy Robert Johnson released a new novella recently, In the River it’s a dark man vs nature story that avoids most of the transmetropiltan-esque “new weird” stuff in a lot of his other stories. the prose verges on maudlin at points but overall it’s decent and has one particularly excellent passage
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 11:40
|
|
|
SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:I'd never read The Passage by Justin Cronin and now I'm trying to fall asleep at 1am after realizing I just spent five hours straight reading the first third of the book The first book is extraordinarily ambitious and I think largely accomplishes what it sets out to do very well. But by the third book I was constantly checking how many pages I had left and rolling my eyes at the introduction of huge new characters halfway into the final book of a trilogy and in the end I just gave up and read a summary. Your mileage may vary.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 16:51
|
|
|
zoux posted:The first book is extraordinarily ambitious and I think largely accomplishes what it sets out to do very well. But by the third book I was constantly checking how many pages I had left and rolling my eyes at the introduction of huge new characters halfway into the final book of a trilogy and in the end I just gave up and read a summary. Your mileage may vary. honestly the first third up to the inevitable breakdown was great, we'll see what happens afterwards
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 17:21
|
|
|
oh god oh gently caress posted:Same. I feel like I was expecting it to go much further than it did and the two characters weren't as interesting as they should have been 100% The motivations made little sense and both characters were fickle and cartoonish
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 21:48
|
|
|
Oxxidation posted:Jeremy Robert Johnson released a new novella recently, In the River I liked it the first time I read it, but now that I’m a parent I don’t think I could handle a reread.
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 06:49
|
|
|
You ever read a Lovecraft influenced novel and realize there's a specific Lovecraft story that this author got really hung up on? Because I feel like Lumley needs to put down The Tomb after reading The Transition of Titus Crow.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2022 17:19
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/MrHolness/status/1559829545519300609?t=K8lNx8PmSMWTIxL7jOdOsw&s=19
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2022 17:07
|
|
|
Why is Stephen King so drat horny? I’m rereading Bag of Bones and dear god. The story’s good and pretty chilling IMO, and I can see the theme of lust as an element of horror but it’s just everywhere.
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2022 17:43
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 29, 2024 09:31 |
|
|
DreamingofRoses posted:Why is Stephen King so drat horny? I’m rereading Bag of Bones and dear god. The story’s good and pretty chilling IMO, and I can see the theme of lust as an element of horror but it’s just everywhere. Because he's Stephen King and that's just what he do. That's like asking why everything is set in Maine and the protagonist is a horror writer with a substance abuse problem who got hit by a van. Apropos, I've actually been giving King some kind of mad trial-by-combat day in court again : I'm about halfway through IT and yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh. I'm waiting to post thoughts about it until I'm actually done, but jesus this book is the most mixed bag of pure King ever. There's a pretty good book in here, maybe several good books, but it is absolutely buried hat-deep in rolling waves of elemental yikes. Like, I've been on the internet my whole life, I didn't expect this book to teach me new racial slurs I'd never heard of before.
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2022 18:03
|
|