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I'm going to recommend Michael Shea's The Color Out of Time because it's basically the Cosmic Horror Jaws or Piranha. Not exactly the same beats, but near enough to imagine it as the summer hit of 1982. If you enjoy scenes of people screaming at other people to get out of the water, the police drastically underestimating the threat, and a small band of men going out into the water to confront the menace of an indistinct blob color at the risk of their lives, then maybe consider read this.
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Jul 23, 2014 08:58
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Halloween Jack posted:I hate this more than Thomas Ligotti hates being alive. If you like the style of that story, you'd probably want to check out the Teatro Grottesco collection and My Work Is Not Yet Done, both of which are available in paperback and ebook.
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Jul 23, 2014 19:15
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Ornamented Death posted:Damnit, man, I warned against doing that! You could say that in my foolish quest for forbidden knowledge I sought out a monstrous book and read it, and in the process I paid a ghastly price. Seriously that thing was like nine bucks.
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Jul 25, 2014 03:34
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Rough Lobster posted:You could say that in my foolish quest for forbidden knowledge I sought out a monstrous book and read it, and in the process I paid a ghastly price. Oh I know, I have a copy. Get The Book of Cthulhu and/or the sequel. They are much better.
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Jul 26, 2014 02:01
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This just in. Reading a bunch of Laird Barron the week before going on a solo camping trip in the mountains is a terrible, terrible idea.
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Jul 27, 2014 20:37
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Since there is no general horror thread, I'll ask here. What's a good wilderness/mountains/woods horror? Like some dude going on vacation or moving to the middle of nowhere and bad poo poo happens? A Winter Haunting is kinda like that (dude moves to an old house in his hometown, it's haunted), The Shining, some of Lovecraft's stuff.
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Jul 27, 2014 20:40
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Laird Barron's Mysterium Tremendum was stuck in my head pretty bad last night, so I'll recommend that one.
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Jul 27, 2014 20:46
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ravenkult posted:Since there is no general horror thread, I'll ask here. Adam Nevill's The Ritual is probably one of the ultimate bad supernatural poo poo happens while camping in the wilderness novels.
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Jul 28, 2014 21:57
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Poutling posted:Adam Nevill's The Ritual is probably one of the ultimate bad supernatural poo poo happens while camping in the wilderness novels. Good point, I've read that one.
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Jul 28, 2014 22:00
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Dan Simmons' "The Terror". Some of the stories in Clive Barker's "Books of Blood".
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Jul 29, 2014 02:23
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Poutling posted:Adam Nevill's The Ritual is probably one of the ultimate bad supernatural poo poo happens while camping in the wilderness novels. I've heard it becomes really poo poo in the second half. How true is that?
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Jul 29, 2014 04:22
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Hedrigall posted:I've heard it becomes really poo poo in the second half. How true is that? 100% true. I'd probably give the first half 5 out of 5 and the second 1 out of 5.
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Jul 29, 2014 04:36
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I didn't think the variance was that huge. The first half is definitely superior but I thought the second was tolerable.
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Jul 29, 2014 04:58
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Neurosis posted:I didn't think the variance was that huge. The first half is definitely superior but I thought the second was tolerable. The second half was tolerable, yes but the issue is the first half was *so* good and had so much promise it made the second half crappier in comparison. It's still a worthwhile book to read though. I find that Nevill's earlier books really suffer greatly in the ending department. It wasn't until Last Days that I felt like everything clicked and he got it right from start to finish.
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Jul 29, 2014 15:44
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It's not that the writing turned bad or anything, but just the actual plot turned into the ridiculous/hilarious.
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Jul 29, 2014 15:45
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Hey, so I finally got and read The Croning by Laird Barron. I enjoyed it and I have to admit that the ending put me in an existential funk for the rest of the day. I do have a question on a part that confuses me. Near the end when Don and his son with their friends go camping, Don's son admits that there was more to the ghost story he told earlier in the book. The son says that the ghost he saw was "her". I know the son described the ghost as being a "Witch" but I'm not sure who "her" is suppose to be. I feel like I'm missing something. Can anyone answer this?
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Aug 13, 2014 22:17
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phenom64 posted:Hey, so I finally got and read The Croning by Laird Barron. I enjoyed it and I have to admit that the ending put me in an existential funk for the rest of the day. His mother.
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Aug 14, 2014 05:50
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This may not fit this thread all that closely, but I think it's pretty relevant. I really have to plug this book somewhere and it kept making me think of this thread. If you liked The Conspiracy Against the Human Race and Ligotti in general, and enjoy the existential themes in cosmic horror, definitely pick up Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death. It's a classic of non-fiction and mostly about anthropology and culture, but I'm positive it had to be a huge influence on Ligotti writing Conspiracy. Even if Becker comes away from it all with ultimately life-affirming conclusions, he has the same kind of visceral-yet-florid sensibility as many cosmic horror writers when it comes to prose. I mean, check this out: quote:The child emerges with a name, a family, a play-world in a neighborhood, all clearly cut out for him. But his insides are full of nightmarish memories of impossible battles, terrifying anxieties of blood, pain, aloneness, darkness; mixed with limitless desires, sensations of unspeakable beauty, majesty, awe, mystery; and fantasies and hallucinations of mixtures between the two, the impossible attempt to compromise between bodies and symbols. ... To grow up at all is to conceal the mass of internal scar tissue that throbs in our dreams. quote:The man of knowledge in our time is bowed down under a burden he never imagined he would ever have: the overproduction of truth that cannot be consumed. It goes way deeper and can become tough reading at times, but it's a delight to read. The core thesis is that terror, the kind you experience when something forces you to confront your mortality, weakness and irrelevance (and the kind cosmic horror tries to evoke in the reader) is the driving force of all human activity. I'm not sure I agree, but if you want a scholarly book that goes to many of the same really, really dark places as CH, and is also steeped in that odd vibe of counterculture-era psychoanalysis, definitely read this.
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Aug 14, 2014 13:21
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Neurosis posted:His mother. That was who I expected. Thanks.
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Aug 14, 2014 15:53
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Neurosis posted:It's (Worlds of Hurt) very pessimistic and creates not just an indifferent world as with cosmic horror, but one where the big players have an extremely malignant attitude towards humanity. I finished this today and you aren't loving kidding. I'd easily put Worlds of Hurt against anything Ligotti has written.
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Aug 20, 2014 02:04
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Hodge said he plans to write more stories in the same setting this year. That makes me happy. I liked all the stories in Worlds of Hurt, although I thought the first one and the title story were the strongest. This has reminded me I need to check out Without Purpose, Without Pity by Hodge. I really like his prose. His other short stories are good, too, although I feel he's at his strongest when he's mythos-building rather than writing pure idea pieces. Neurosis fucked around with this message at 11:49 on Aug 21, 2014 |
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Aug 21, 2014 11:46
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So I've always been wanting to try out some Lovecraft and recently picked up a book containing a collection of his works:
The Statement of Randolph Carter Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family Nyarlathotep The Picture in the House The Outsider The Music of Erich Zann Herbert West--Reanimator The Lurking Fear The Rats in the Walls The Festival The Shunned House Cool Air The Call of Cthulhu Pickman's Model The Case of Charles Dexter Ward The Colour out of Space The Dunwich Horror The Whisperer in Darkness At the Mountains of Madness The Shadow over Innsmouth The Thing on the Doorstep The Shadow out of Time The Haunter of the Dark As someone who's never touched any lovecraftian works, which ones do you recommend I read and in what order? (I don't really want to read through all of it at once)
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Aug 22, 2014 20:19
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Of that selection, the following are usually listed as his most accessible/best stories. The Dunwich Horror The Shadow over Innsmouth The Colour out of Space The Call of Cthulhu After those, you could try turning to some of the following, which are just a little less ideal, for assorted reasons: At the Mountains of Madness The Case of Charles Dexter Ward The Music of Erich Zann The Rats in the Walls The Whisperer in Darkness The Haunter of the Dark The Thing on the Doorstep ... but they're all good, one way or another 
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Aug 22, 2014 21:00
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Herbert West is awesome, and it's the closest Lovecraft ever got to writing a horror comedy. Also, the movie is really great.
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Aug 22, 2014 21:13
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Guildencrantz posted:...The Denial of Death... Thanks for that. I had seen it mentioned before but never thought to check it out until now.
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Aug 24, 2014 01:15
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I have always wanted to like Lovecraft, and I've read all those top recommended stories and some of the slightly less recommended ones. However, the only Lovecraft story I can definitely say I LOVED and has stuck with me since is The Rats in the Walls. What a fantastic story. The rest of what I've read hasn't lived up to it. Worthwhile, but nothing fantastic.
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Aug 24, 2014 07:33
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Phanatic posted:Does Tim Powers get much love in this thread? _Declare_ is one of the best novels I've ever read, if you liked _A Colder War_ you should love it. Powers does secret histories so well; the more you know about the actual events the cooler his novels are.  And because Declare was a recommendation from this thread, I'll also mention The Void by Brett J. Talley, also recommended in this thread. My recommendation is, you throw your copy of the book as far as you can. Then you get the person who recommended this book to you to pick it up and also throw the book as far as he can, in the same direction. Then you never talk to that person again. gently caress that book and gently caress Talley. The Void approaches internet fiction levels of clichéd, predictable storytelling, the usual roundup of characters we've seen a million times in straight-to-video scifi movies, and writing that's so bad, it's not even good. My copy had the added bonus of absolutely awful typesetting. Seriously people, if you can find any book mentioned in these threads second hand or in a library, do that.
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Aug 24, 2014 10:15
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Pickman's model is one of the better introductions to Lovecraft. It's short, introduces the new reader to several of HPL's hobbyhorses, and has a pretty classic ending.
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Aug 24, 2014 13:46
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immolationsex posted:I picked up Declare on a recommendation from this thread and, to briefly paraphrase myself, somebody should buy Powers' editor a box of red pens with a little note saying "Go nuts." Declare is a slow burn, sure, but I found it beautiful, tantalising, and engrossing. If it's not your sort of thing then that's fine, but I can't accept that it needs editing. I had a look at the Void's Amazon sample though, and yes, the writing does seem ham-fisted. It's a lot less dire than 99% of stuff on the Kindle store, but that's not exactly a recommendation nowadays.
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Aug 24, 2014 14:38
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Colour Out Of Space is easily the best of HPL's stories, as far as I'm concerned anyway. I struggle with most of his other work, even the 'hits', but Colour Out Of Space was just an absolute pleasure to read. I find in the main it suffers from little of the purple prose that a lot of his other work contains, while still maintaining the idea of an unknowable, alien entity that he was famous for. Pickman's Model is good too though, as well as Herbert West, and the Picture In The House is pretty decent as well.
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Aug 24, 2014 15:14
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andelazo posted:Colour Out Of Space is easily the best of HPL's stories, as far as I'm concerned anyway. I struggle with most of his other work, even the 'hits', but Colour Out Of Space was just an absolute pleasure to read. I find in the main it suffers from little of the purple prose that a lot of his other work contains, while still maintaining the idea of an unknowable, alien entity that he was famous for. Pickman's Model is good too though, as well as Herbert West, and the Picture In The House is pretty decent as well. Yeah, if I'm going to recommend a story to someone trying to get into Lovecraft I will recommend The Colour of Space. It's really creepy while being entirely separable from his broader mythos.
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Aug 24, 2014 16:56
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andelazo posted:the Picture In The House is pretty decent as well. If this is the story that I remember, boy that ending sure was...something. (Note: Not a good something) The Shadow Over Innsmouth is the only Lovecraft story that really creeped me out. Rats in the Wall and The Whisperer in Darkness do a good job, too. Call of Cthulhu did nothing for me, but I love the opening few paragraphs since it sets a tone for the rest of his work.
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Aug 24, 2014 17:04
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The Colour out of Time is just about the most Lovecraftian Lovecraft story, I think- it exemplifies his cosmicism better than just about anything, though The Shadow Out of Time takes a good run at it. Picture in the House is IMO not a standout, though there's something about the phrase "hungry for victuals I couldn't raise nor buy" that's just delightfully chilling.
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Aug 24, 2014 17:08
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I think my recommendation for a Lovecraft sampler would be - The Colour Out of Space - The Whisperer in the Darkness - The Shadow Over Innsmouth - The Shadow Out of Time - Pickman's Model - The Rats in the Walls maybe At the Mountains of Madness if you like watching educated men grind themselves to pieces on the rocks of knowledge. The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath might be worth it too if you like really weird, colorful places. Narratively it's a trainwreck, like Lovecraft was all "wow all this Dunsany stuff I read gave me really cool dreams how do I link all this imagery together" and then spent his day writing some bullshit that tied it all together. But it's probably been 8 years since I read it and a lot of that imagery has stuck with me.
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Aug 24, 2014 17:41
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Venusian Weasel posted:The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath might be worth it too if you like really weird, colorful places. Narratively it's a trainwreck, like Lovecraft was all "wow all this Dunsany stuff I read gave me really cool dreams how do I link all this imagery together" and then spent his day writing some bullshit that tied it all together. But it's probably been 8 years since I read it and a lot of that imagery has stuck with me.
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Aug 24, 2014 17:49
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Venusian Weasel posted:I think my recommendation for a Lovecraft sampler would be Yeah, I pretty much agree with this list except for maybe Pickman's Model.
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Aug 24, 2014 18:15
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The Whisperer in Darkness was my favorite of Lovecraft's. The one part that genuinely creeped me out was when the old man was talking, and he says we where he should have said they when talking about the race from Yuggoth.
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Aug 25, 2014 03:17
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The Rat posted:The Whisperer in Darkness was my favorite of Lovecraft's. The one part that genuinely creeped me out was when the old man was talking, and he says we where he should have said they when talking about the race from Yuggoth. I love that story because there are so many aspects building the suspense that have become hackneyed from overuse in the modern day but they still work.
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Aug 25, 2014 05:47
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I always liked "The Rats in the Walls," "The Shadow out of Time" (a race of time-traveling researchers is something I can get behind), "The Dunwich Horror," and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" (as you may be able to guess from my username and avatar). Basically the stuff where I could relate to the characters.
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Aug 25, 2014 10:25
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Pththya-lyi posted:I always liked "The Rats in the Walls," "The Shadow out of Time" (a race of time-traveling researchers is something I can get behind), "The Dunwich Horror," and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" (as you may be able to guess from my username and avatar). Basically the stuff where I could relate to the characters. The Rat posted:The Whisperer in Darkness was my favorite of Lovecraft's. The one part that genuinely creeped me out was when the old man was talking, and he says we where he should have said they when talking about the race from Yuggoth. I like how the old man misspells "his" name in the letter where he talks about how everything is fine and Wilmarth has nothing to worry about.
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Aug 25, 2014 10:26
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