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Anybody have a burning need to write a good OP, or part of one, for general horror books? I could do one but hell if I know when I'll actually get around to finishing it.
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Jul 23, 2016 02:04
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Ornamented Death seems to keep abreast of what's happening in horror better than anyone that posts here, I nominate him to at least write the recommendations part. ^^
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Jul 24, 2016 06:48
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Neurosis posted:Ornamented Death seems to keep abreast of what's happening in horror better than anyone that posts here, I nominate him to at least write the recommendations part. ^^ Thanks man  . The next few days are kind of crazy, but I can handle it after that.
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Jul 24, 2016 15:16
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Neurosis posted:Ornamented Death seems to keep abreast of what's happening in horror better than anyone that posts here, I nominate him to at least write the recommendations part. ^^ I second this heartily. I can probably poo poo out a decent post and handle formatting and what not, but my horror knowledge is mostly limited to Lovecraft, King, and haunted house stuff at the moment, so I'd be tapping a pretty small well or random internet recommendations.
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Jul 24, 2016 22:50
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I got The Imago Sequence by Laird Barron and "Procession of the Black Sloth" was crazy. He's in Buddhist hell, I got it. Not all of the things that happened to him were horrible, he got to bone that hot girl and drink with some semi-nice people. A hell where you just live your lovely life over and over until you reincarnate doesn't seem so awful. I wonder what happens in the Chamber of the Black Sloth. I wish there were more discussions of his stories online. I can't find any, but I'd love to read some analysis from others in case there was something about a particular story I missed.
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Jul 25, 2016 01:21
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I didn't like that particular story, but I agree that some of his stories are worthy of analysis. Proboscis in particular had me scratching my head and puzzling over it. His more straight up cosmic horror stories don't merit that treatment, of course, though I find the comnections putting things in the same world as the Old Leech stories - which I think are consistently good and scary - cool.
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Jul 25, 2016 11:09
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MockingQuantum posted:Anybody have a burning need to write a good OP, or part of one, for general horror books? I could do one but hell if I know when I'll actually get around to finishing it. I wouldn't do the whole OP, but it should be divided into three sections - Classical 1816-1920, Pulp 1921-1973 and Modern 1974- with brief bios for a number of the most important authors and lists of others to look at. I could probably give a starting point for Classical and some British authors you might miss, at least.
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Jul 25, 2016 12:15
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Jedit posted:I wouldn't do the whole OP, but it should be divided into three sections - Classical 1816-1920, Pulp 1921-1973 and Modern 1974- with brief bios for a number of the most important authors and lists of others to look at. I could probably give a starting point for Classical and some British authors you might miss, at least. 'Contemporary' would be better, so that the good name of Modernism isn't further debased
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Jul 25, 2016 12:38
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Jedit posted:I wouldn't do the whole OP, but it should be divided into three sections - Classical 1816-1920, Pulp 1921-1973 and Modern 1974- with brief bios for a number of the most important authors and lists of others to look at. I could probably give a starting point for Classical and some British authors you might miss, at least. That would be really helpful. I've only ever read the big classical horror novels (Frankenstein, Dracula, Poe stories) and The Monk.
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Jul 25, 2016 14:53
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Ornamented Death posted:I will when I'm not phone posting Ornamented Death posted:Title change is probably the best option.
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Jul 25, 2016 17:37
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Skyscraper posted:Cool, I'll check them out! Thanks! I think there's a 90% chance that if we start a second thread, they will both die in a matter of months. Plus shy of a small handful of authors, the gap between cosmic/weird horror and "traditional" horror has become so minimal it feels a little silly to arbitrarily separate them into two threads. There's no secret that the vast majority of modern horror writers owe a lot of inspiration to Lovecraft and his contemporaries and immediate followers.
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Jul 25, 2016 18:05
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MockingQuantum posted:Plus shy of a small handful of authors, the gap between cosmic/weird horror and "traditional" horror has become so minimal it feels a little silly to arbitrarily separate them into two threads. There's no secret that the vast majority of modern horror writers owe a lot of inspiration to Lovecraft and his contemporaries and immediate followers.
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Jul 25, 2016 18:55
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Skyscraper posted:That's not true but I wish it was. Maybe it's stopped, but last I checked "traditional" horror was being blown up by zombies, vampires, fairies, and ripoffs of Harry Dresden. The books your'e talking about are minimally horror, at best. When doing write-ups and recommendations, the mid- to late-80s and early 90s almost demand being separated out and discussed on their own, rather than lumped in with "modern" (or "contemporary") horror. That time period was a magical wonderland of people making boatloads of money off of every random, insane idea they could dream up. Also, die-cut covers. 
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Jul 25, 2016 19:21
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Ornamented Death posted:The books your'e talking about are minimally horror, at best. Brian Hodge writes some really great cosmic horror too. Like, if anyone here hasn't read Worlds of Hurt you definitely should asap.
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Jul 25, 2016 19:24
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For what it's worth, that cover has absolutely nothing to do with the actual book. Dark Advent is an end of the world story, similar to The Stand, but almost completely devoid of supernatural elements and in general a lot darker.
Ornamented Death fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Jul 25, 2016 |
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Jul 25, 2016 19:26
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Ornamented Death posted:For what it's worth, that cover has absolutely nothing to do with the actual book. Dark Advent is an end of the world story, similar to The Stand, but almost completely devoid of supernatural elements and in general a lot darker. I should probably read the rest of his books, I loved his cosmic stuff that I've read (Worlds of Hurt, Without Purpose, Without Pity, and Whom the Gods Would Destroy, ).
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Jul 25, 2016 19:48
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Jedit posted:I wouldn't do the whole OP, but it should be divided into three sections - Classical 1816-1920, Pulp 1921-1973 and Modern 1974 That's an odd cutoff for your Pulp era, seeing as how the Pulps were dead by '55. Is there any reason you picked '73?
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Jul 25, 2016 19:52
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Xotl posted:That's an odd cutoff for your Pulp era, seeing as how the Pulps were dead by '55. Is there any reason you picked '73? Horror was in the doldrums during the 1960s thanks to a combination of the death of the pulps, the optimism of the hippy era and a looming threat of Armageddon that trivialised fictional boogeymen. There were a few people writing good horror in the 60s - Bradbury and Ira Levin, for example - but the modern era of horror novels didn't begin until the publication of Carrie in 1974. It's the same reason I ended Classical at 1920 instead of, say, 1923 when Weird Tales first came out: Lovecraft in many ways defined the Pulp era, and 1920 was the first publication of The Statement of Randolph Carter, his first major mythos work.
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Jul 25, 2016 23:43
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I'm having an autistic moment, would it be useful if I went through the thread and added every cosmic horror book mentioned to a Goodreads list? We can stick it in the OP.
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Jul 28, 2016 21:14
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ravenkult posted:I'm having an autistic moment, would it be useful if I went through the thread and added every cosmic horror book mentioned to a Goodreads list? We can stick it in the OP. I've nearly done that a handful of times and got bored about a quarter of the way through. If you think it'd be useful to you, I know it'd be useful to me, so I imagine there's at least a few other people who might be curious to see all the recommendations. In particular I want to see what anthologies have been mentioned. I remember a lot of the individual authors that have come up, but anthologies kind of drop out of my memory.
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Jul 28, 2016 23:58
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I almost did something like that a while ago, but was too lazy to follow through. A list of stuff mentioned in this thread would be awesome.
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Jul 29, 2016 01:18
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A list would be great, yeah. I find myself scrolling back through the thread to find stuff I missed or skipped when I'm looking for reading material as it is.
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Jul 29, 2016 01:57
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I'd caution against it just because a lot of imitators are schlock. It's easy to ape H P's style, it's hard to get down the imagination.
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Jul 29, 2016 11:15
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Neurosis posted:I'd caution against it just because a lot of imitators are schlock. It's easy to ape H P's style, it's hard to get down the imagination. Huh? He's talking about putting together a goodreads list of books mentioned in this thread, most of which are straight recommendations.
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Jul 29, 2016 12:31
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hopterque posted:Huh? He's talking about putting together a goodreads list of books mentioned in this thread, most of which are straight recommendations. Are they? I recall a lot more 'I read this, and it was kind of poo poo' statements than in other threads. I could be wrong.
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Jul 29, 2016 13:11
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Yeah if ravenkult or someone does this, don't just grab titles from my posts because I'm sometimes warning against books.
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Jul 29, 2016 14:04
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Avshalom posted:i bought an old used copy of midnight sun online from britain and even though it wasn't advertised, it's been signed by ramsay campbell I would definitely want this.
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Jul 29, 2016 14:57
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Neurosis posted:Are they? I recall a lot more 'I read this, and it was kind of poo poo' statements than in other threads. I could be wrong. I think it'd be more useful just to get a set of those one-paragraph or one-line summaries like that in the OP so we can get the warnings too.
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Jul 29, 2016 16:07
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This has probably been posted about a dozen times but Lovecraft's commonplace book is pretty good: http://www.wired.com/2011/07/h-p-lovecrafts-commonplace-book/ "148 Vampire dog." cracks me up.
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Jul 30, 2016 20:09
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please, someone recommend an anthology or collection that doesn't suck. anything like graham jones, or aickman, or ballingrund. anything not like strantzas.
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Jul 30, 2016 21:17
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I went through the thread and picked out what I thought were strong recommends. I'll organize it a bit and post a list (and also do the Goodreads list). It's not a big list, it seems most books get brought up again and again.End Of Worlds posted:please, someone recommend an anthology or collection that doesn't suck. anything like graham jones, or aickman, or ballingrund. anything not like strantzas. A book I'm in just came out, it's called Lost Signals. Has stories by Matthew M. Bartlett, Tony Burgess, Damien Angelica Walters, Paul Michael Anderson, and James Newman. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1943720088/ref=cm_sw_su_dp Shameless.
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Jul 30, 2016 21:29
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End Of Worlds posted:please, someone recommend an anthology or collection that doesn't suck. anything like graham jones, or aickman, or ballingrund. anything not like strantzas. what's wrong with strantzas?
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Jul 31, 2016 02:10
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End Of Worlds posted:please, someone recommend an anthology or collection that doesn't suck. anything like graham jones, or aickman, or ballingrund. anything not like strantzas. Kind of weird to ask for things like Aickman but not like Strantzas, but ok. Any of Brian Hodge's collections, though read the blurbs as they all tend to have themes (The Convulsion Factory has a lot of stories that include weird, hosed up sex stuff). Either of John Langan's collections. Blue World by Robert McCammon Any of Norman Partridge's collections. Any volume of Ellen Datlow's Year's Best Horror anthology The Mammoth Book of Short Horror Novels edited by Mike Ashley (probably not in ebook, but should be dirt cheap for a physical copy)
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Jul 31, 2016 02:44
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Ornamented Death posted:Kind of weird to ask for things like Aickman but not like Strantzas, but ok. I gotta find Wide, Carnivorous Sky and give it another try. I think I read one or two of the stories in it and didn't feel like it was that strong, but maybe I just picked the wrong ones to start with.
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Jul 31, 2016 03:24
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MockingQuantum posted:I gotta find Wide, Carnivorous Sky and give it another try. I think I read one or two of the stories in it and didn't feel like it was that strong, but maybe I just picked the wrong ones to start with. I find Langan to be really hit or miss personally, but a lot of people love everything he does.
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Jul 31, 2016 05:19
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MockingQuantum posted:I gotta find Wide, Carnivorous Sky and give it another try. I think I read one or two of the stories in it and didn't feel like it was that strong, but maybe I just picked the wrong ones to start with. The best stories are towards the middle, The Shallows and Technicolor are both great.
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Jul 31, 2016 13:43
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I'm reading Langan's The Fisherman at the moment, about halfway through and it's been good but not great so far. There's a really long flashback / backstory bit, but because the book is in first person, the protagonist ostensibly hears it from another character. However, it's just way too detailed to ring true as a story told after the fact. Langan sort of acknowledges this with a "there were surprising details he couldn't have known" caveat suggesting supernatural elements, but I still find it a bit grating.
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Jul 31, 2016 19:46
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thanks much for the recs. i just had a bout of despair after downloading samples to a dozen or so collections onto my kindle and finding nothing i liked re:strantzas - yeah i dont know, he just doesn't do it for me. he feels like he copied bits of aickman, mixed them with lovecraft, and created a mush that i dont enjoy. mostly i dislike his prose, and i dont think he succeeds at all in creating the kind of nebulous surrealism that aickman does. ravenkult posted:A book I'm in just came out, it's called Lost Signals which one are you chernobyl kinsman fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Jul 31, 2016 |
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Jul 31, 2016 20:40
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Ornamented Death posted:I find Langan to be really hit or miss personally, but a lot of people love everything he does. I admit I have yet to find an anthology, even by a single author, to be anything but hit and miss. In non-cosmic news, I just picked up Tremblay's Head Full of Ghosts and I'm extremely excited to dig into it.
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Aug 1, 2016 01:36
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MockingQuantum posted:I admit I have yet to find an anthology, even by a single author, to be anything but hit and miss. John Ajvide Lindqvist's Let The Old Dreams Die is very close to 100% quality. You really need to have read some of his books first though, as it has coda stories for both Let The Right One In and Handling the Undead.
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Aug 1, 2016 10:16
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