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von Metternich posted:Seconding the Aching God trilogy. If Game of Thrones is "This is how awful social structures brutalize people and make them into monsters", AG is "Everyone in the adventuring guild is chill and sexually liberated and generally modern. Then they go into tombs and terrible things happen to them." There's also a political subplot about the Queen, who's been ruling for a hundred and fifty years and it's TOTALLY NORMAL YOU GUYS NOTHING SINISTER OR CREEPY IS OCCURING THERE. The author also seems to have a thing about spooky toads I just finished the first book in the trilogy and I thought it was pretty good. The world it built was really well conceived and had an pervasive essence of rot and decay. The setting of the empire gave me the feeling of what I expect the dark souls worlds were like right before things really went to poo poo. I want to see where it goes and how/if it all falls apart. My biggest complaint is there's a real 'When are they going to get to the fireworks factory?' issue with the temple itself. They only enter the thing at 70% through the book. Also I just have a personal distaste for overused dream/memory sequences. I liked it well enough that I'll almost surely continue on to book 2, but not enough that I feel the need to dive right in immediately.
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Nov 8, 2023 04:33
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Slyphic posted:I've got Ritual in my short pile of horror stuff. Cool, the Nevill Last Days looks good. Agreed on the Evenson one, though I thought the novella version was better. It felt like a skit that turned from absurd and funny - a murder mystery set in a cult of amputees, with two blokey amputee kidnappers! - to deeply uncomfortable and Kafkaesque as it went on. The Elder Sign podcast did a good two parter on it recently.
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Nov 8, 2023 09:28
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GhastlyBizness posted:Just finished Adam Nevill's The Reddening and holy poo poo it was good. Excellent deep time prehistoric horror, all red-stained creeps with flint hand axes, and some excellent evocation of an eerie Devon landscape. I quite liked his Wyrd and Other Derelictions, which is all odd little dialogue-free static vignettes, like little camera surveys of a horror scene while the blood is still cooling. I enjoyed The Reddening well enough but actually found it one of the weaker of his books so if you liked it I definitely recommend trying some others. Last Days was probably my favourite, but The Ritual (more so the first half) and No One Gets Out Alive were both good too - the latter being a pretty unpleasant read in places though.
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Nov 9, 2023 02:54
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I like it when authors with odd phobias are able to convey their fear in their writing. Interesting to see something innocuous described in monstrous terms. Any good examples I could look at?
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Nov 9, 2023 10:50
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FPyat posted:I like it when authors with odd phobias are able to convey their fear in their writing. Interesting to see something innocuous described in monstrous terms. Any good examples I could look at? Thomas Ligotti and his immense fear of being alive.
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Nov 9, 2023 12:34
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His thing with puppets (which is a common enough fear, I guess, but he takes it to the next level) is what prompted me to ask the question.
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Nov 9, 2023 12:56
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Ramsey Campbell and British motorways
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Nov 9, 2023 13:07
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FPyat posted:His thing with puppets (which is a common enough fear, I guess, but he takes it to the next level) is what prompted me to ask the question. I love when he’s like “puppets are similar to clowns because you think they’re living humans but they’re not”
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Nov 9, 2023 13:10
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value-brand cereal posted:Hi thread it me. I've been making two bookshelves themed around similar, niche themes and was wondering if anyone had suggestions. I recommend the anthology Lost Films edited by Max Booth III and Lori Michelle. Shorts stories about lost and cursed media. One of my favorite stories in it is This Cosmic Atrocity, a kinda riff on that old creepypasta about the lost Simpsons episode where Bart dies. It's better than it sounds
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Nov 9, 2023 13:50
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FPyat posted:I like it when authors with odd phobias are able to convey their fear in their writing. Interesting to see something innocuous described in monstrous terms. Any good examples I could look at?
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Nov 9, 2023 19:07
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Slyphic posted:I'm struggling with that a bit in Thomas Olde Heuvelt's second novel, Echo. I'm only a quarter of the way in, and it's really scattershot with the horror elements; disfigurement, insanity, change of personality, wilderness, heights/falling, ghosts, guilt, and only some of those are resonating with me while the others aren't eliciting much trepidation. And I don't think those are at all spoilery, that's back of the book and the first chapter stuff. It's not gripping me like Hex did, but I'm still reading it (also been super busy with life stuff and barely squeezing in a chapter a day). Yeah, Echo has sort of a slow folk-horror type of build-up if I had to categorize it. I liked it, but it meanders around in a way that Hex definitely did not.
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Nov 9, 2023 20:03
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FPyat posted:I like it when authors with odd phobias are able to convey their fear in their writing. Interesting to see something innocuous described in monstrous terms. Any good examples I could look at? Adam Nevill and stick-thin arms
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Nov 10, 2023 00:57
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fez_machine posted:Ramsey Campbell's The Grin of The Dark takes a while to build up but very good at rearranging your brain to make the scares impactful. Also Ancient Images Thank you! I'm not familiar with Campbell's discography, I'll add it to the list. Big Mad Drongo posted:The video in The Cipher by Kathe Koja isn't the impetus for or focus of the story, but it's very cursed and very memorable. gently caress it, I'll take it. We can have honorable mentions in the list imo. Giragast posted:More subliminal than cursed/occult film, but Mmm I'll give it a go, thank you! elpaganoescapa posted:I recommend the anthology Lost Films edited by Max Booth III and Lori Michelle. Shorts stories about lost and cursed media. One of my favorite stories in it is This Cosmic Atrocity, a kinda riff on that old creepypasta about the lost Simpsons episode where Bart dies. It's better than it sounds Wait thank you for this! I legit thought I bought it but it turns out it was Lost Signals!
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Nov 10, 2023 03:12
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So I finally got around to reading Mariana Enriquez Things We Lost In The Fire... That was great. I loved the stories, I loved her voice. So much so that I am now a few stories into The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, her other short story collection.
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Nov 10, 2023 03:57
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FPyat posted:I like it when authors with odd phobias are able to convey their fear in their writing. Interesting to see something innocuous described in monstrous terms. Any good examples I could look at? I feel like whatever's going on with Laird Barron and older women (particularly fat ones) might qualify here
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Nov 11, 2023 01:47
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Antivehicular posted:I feel like whatever's going on with Laird Barron and older women (particularly fat ones) might qualify here  PROCEDE WITH CAUTION!  GhastlyBizness posted:I love when he’s like “puppets are similar to clowns because you think they’re living humans but they’re not” Fawver captured this flavor perfectly with one story in We Are Happy, We Are Doomed
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Nov 11, 2023 20:41
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I’m listening to an audiobook version of The Book of Cthulhu, a mythos anthology, and one of the stories (Nethescurial) went off on a tangent about how the people involved are helpless puppets reenacting a doomed narrative, and I had to immediately go back and confirm that it was in fact Ligotti. I wonder if he’s actually irl terrified of puppets, or just finds them a potent metaphor for the particular brand of dread he experiences 24/7. Edit: Okay yeah now there’s puppets ALL up in this piece Kestral fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Nov 11, 2023 |
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Nov 11, 2023 21:49
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Bilirubin posted:
I'm just saying, I read two Barron short stories and both of them involved descriptions of large naked old ladies that sounded like Lovecraft describing a penguin. Maybe that was a coincidence? The vibes were weird.
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Nov 12, 2023 00:31
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He is kinda weird. The last story in The Beautiful Things That Await Us All seems to call out some authors by name, and the story feels mean spirited. Ellen Datlow I remember is called out. It's been a while since I read it. Does anyone know about wtf was up with that one?
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Nov 12, 2023 02:22
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escape artist posted:He is kinda weird. The last story in The Beautiful Things That Await Us All seems to call out some authors by name, and the story feels mean spirited. Ellen Datlow I remember is called out. From a Laird Barron AMA: "The lampooning is more directed at a subset of horror lit culture, but yes. Very involved. I do not know TL personally." There have been a bunch of stories like this over the years. Nick Mamatas wrote a whole novel in this vein. It's just a thing some authors do when they see a person or group of people habitually crossing a line in some fashion. In this particular example, there were a lot of very tiresome Ligotti fans that would butt their way in to most any discussion of horror literature and be generally insufferable, so Barron took a swipe at them. If you weren't deeply involved in both the horror genre and the social media circles where Barron and these folks were active circa 2010, the story seems weird at best, or meanspirited.
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Nov 12, 2023 04:30
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NGL, putting your "swipe at some guys I know on Twitter in my tiny subculture circle" story in a mass-market collection feels like a weird move. Maybe some things can stay on your Twitter.
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Nov 12, 2023 05:03
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Some writers can make it work. "The Tower" by Mark Samuel's is the same sort of story, but better executed so it doesn't stick out nearly as much. And the Mamatas novel I mentioned, I Am Providence, is a legitimately good book even if he spends the whole time taking the piss out of the Lovecraft fandom.
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Nov 12, 2023 13:49
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What’s up with the lovecraft fandom that it needs the piss taken out of it and please don’t tell me it’s racism?
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Nov 12, 2023 17:56
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from what I’ve seen it’s more getting mad if you talk about racism. but I don’t really hang around HPL-type places, I’ve just seen folks taking shots at S.T. Joshi on discussion boards lol
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Nov 12, 2023 18:09
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We do not talk about the orangutan.
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Nov 12, 2023 19:22
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Maybe I'm hanging out with different Lovecraft fans but we all love mocking ol' Howie over here.
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Nov 12, 2023 19:49
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Pretzel Rod Serling posted:from what I’ve seen it’s more getting mad if you talk about racism. but I don’t really hang around HPL-type places, I’ve just seen folks taking shots at S.T. Joshi on discussion boards lol ST Joshi does seem to have a knack for feuding with other folks in the scene in general, even apart from his big thing about Lovecraft 100% Not Being Racist Actually. Didn’t read the Mamatas story but I was under the impression from discussion at the time that it was more of a playful in-joke sort of swipe? Feel like I’ve seen similar elsewhere. Like all the quips when a story’s protagonist is a horror author.
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Nov 12, 2023 22:56
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ScreenDoorThrillr posted:Adam Nevill and stick-thin arms Adam Nevill is successful now but spent years living pretty grimly and that really bleeds through into his writing. It's a really common theme in his books that his protagonists get into the situations they do either because they're trapped by poverty or desperately chasing the promise of money. I remember from his first novel, where the protagonist is a depressed security guard who lives in a damp, dingy room above a dodgy pub where there's blood stains on the wall from past violence and a previous occupant molested his daughter there and I was like: "Ok Adam, I get it: this dude's life sucks, do you HAVE to lay it on so thick?" Then I read an interview with him where he said that was basically the room he actually lived in when he was doing dead-end jobs and trying to establish his writing career lol.
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Nov 13, 2023 10:58
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GhastlyBizness posted:ST Joshi does seem to have a knack for feuding with other folks in the scene in general, even apart from his big thing about Lovecraft 100% Not Being Racist Actually. Not to start poo poo, but do you have more on this? I only have some anthologies he edited so I'm curious if I should expect stupid racist poo poo instead of the usual stupid not intentionally racist poo poo. I mean, it is lovecraft based lore, after all. [It's ok if you don't, randomly archiving stupid poo poo on the internet is usually not a person's first inclination.]
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Nov 13, 2023 18:46
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I wish Nevill could end a book. I often really enjoy the first third of his stuff and then it kind of falls apart.
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Nov 13, 2023 20:27
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value-brand cereal posted:Not to start poo poo, but do you have more on this? I only have some anthologies he edited so I'm curious if I should expect stupid racist poo poo instead of the usual stupid not intentionally racist poo poo. I mean, it is lovecraft based lore, after all. If you search "ST Joshi racism" you'll find a lot of stuff, much of it centred around a meltdown he had when the World Fantasy Award changed its physical trophy from a bust of Lovecraft to something more abstract. He tried to start a boycott, one of a few he's tried, but it didn't take. Otherwise, here's a piece on Joshi flipping out at Brian Keene: https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/s-t-joshi-is-feuding-over-lovecraft-and-racism-again I've come across similar rants on his blog but also he tends to go after his 'enemies' in a weirdly personal way in his reviews. Nick Mamatas, Brian Lumley. Jeff Vandermeer, Joe Hill, Laird Barron, Paul Tremblay... Those are the authors I can remember off the top of my head but as I understand it, he's even harsher to other editors and anthologisers, as well as anyone who writes on Lovecraft without his approval. It's all a bit 'in-scene' kind of stuff among folks who see each other at cons but tbh he just seems like a nasty old rear end in a top hat. Obviously he's a prolific figure in Lovecraft scholarship and I should say that the only critical work of his I've read (besides reviews) was his stuff in the penguin edition of Machen's The White People. It wasn't very impressive, just lots of superficial biographical annotations and fan minutiae.
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Nov 13, 2023 20:28
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Not sure if this is the best thread to ask, but what are some good spooky books for kids? My niece (about to turn 8) just started reading Goosebumps and is loving them, is there anything else along those lines out there?
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Nov 13, 2023 20:31
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gey muckle mowser posted:Not sure if this is the best thread to ask, but what are some good spooky books for kids? My niece (about to turn 8) just started reading Goosebumps and is loving them, is there anything else along those lines out there? I really liked these as a kid. You can pick up the one from your state to check it out assuming you're American. Edit: forgot link https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Chillers
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Nov 13, 2023 20:39
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gey muckle mowser posted:Not sure if this is the best thread to ask, but what are some good spooky books for kids? My niece (about to turn 8) just started reading Goosebumps and is loving them, is there anything else along those lines out there? I haven't read them myself but my nephew really liked John Bellairs' Lewis Barnevelt series. Recommended age seems to be 8 & up.
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Nov 13, 2023 20:52
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I think mine were 9 and 10 when they read them, but they quite liked Lockwood & Co. series, starts with The Screaming Staircase, though more of a supernatural thriller than horror story. It's been 29 years since I read a goosebumps book, I can't recall how actually scary they were.
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Nov 13, 2023 21:02
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gey muckle mowser posted:Not sure if this is the best thread to ask, but what are some good spooky books for kids? My niece (about to turn 8) just started reading Goosebumps and is loving them, is there anything else along those lines out there? I have "The Big Book of Horror" which is truncated versions of classic tales... there's Dickens, Lovecraft, Poe... along with plenty of illustrations. 21 short stories total I DMed you since you are my very favorite customer on here... and I don't want to blow this thread up with sales chat. I'll just give it to you if you are interested / think your niece will actually like it. I picked it up for 75 cents. https://www.amazon.com/Big-Book-Horror-Tales-Tremble/dp/B0046LUS7Y Dunno if you can see much into the book... I'll take pictures if you want. took some photos for you: vvv Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark was amazing. Definitely a formative read when I was a kid. The illustrations are legendary. escape artist fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Nov 14, 2023 |
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Nov 13, 2023 21:17
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I honestly don't know what the proper age range is for Scary Stories to Tell in The Dark but those are the formative horror books from my childhood. They're definitely more in the fully "I want to be scared" type of horror than the kind of weird fantasy of Goosebumps, but it's still a great mix between light and folksy and downright bone-chilling. The first one has a simplified retelling of The Wendigo that terrified me as a kid and is probably single-handledly responsible for my love of horror and weird fiction. Also the illustrations are creepy as gently caress so it's a pretty good indicator if a kid can handle the book if they aren't turned off by that.
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Nov 13, 2023 22:16
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Thanks for the suggestions everyone, I will check these out!
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Nov 13, 2023 23:17
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Ror posted:I honestly don't know what the proper age range is for Scary Stories to Tell in The Dark but those are the formative horror books from my childhood. They're definitely more in the fully "I want to be scared" type of horror than the kind of weird fantasy of Goosebumps, but it's still a great mix between light and folksy and downright bone-chilling. The first one has a simplified retelling of The Wendigo that terrified me as a kid and is probably single-handledly responsible for my love of horror and weird fiction. I knew that at one point they put new (less scary) illustrations in, but apparently there was so much backlash they went back to the classic Gammell illustrations for all the printings afterward. e: I also remember reading them in my elementary school library if that's an age range indicator.
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Nov 13, 2023 23:39
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Traxis posted:I haven't read them myself but my nephew really liked John Bellairs' Lewis Barnevelt series. Recommended age seems to be 8 & up. Big, big seconding on Bellairs. I came to his books as an adult after hearing that they were formative for one of my favorite horror RPG designers (Kenneth Hite), read The House With the Clock in Its Walls and fell instantly in love. I'd categorize it as "spooky" rather than outright horror, and while it's perfectly tuned for an eight-year-old, it's also enjoyable for anyone who can still read and enjoy something like Prydain. For adults, Bellairs' The Face in the Frost is fantastic: a pair of anachronistic wizards in the mode of T.H. White's Merlin are hunted by a nameless malevolence that has crept in under the skin of the world: The Face in the Frost posted:In the roadside towns, the wizards picked up stories and rumors. One man told how frost formed on the windows at night, though it was only the middle of September. There were no scrolls or intricate fern leaves, no branching overlaid star clusters; instead, people saw seasick wavy lines, disturbing maps that melted into each other and always seemed on the verge of some recognizable but fearful shape. At dawn, the frost melted, always in the same way. At first, two black eyeholes formed, and then a long steam-lipped mouth that spread and ate up the wandering white picture. In some towns, people talked of clouds that formed long opening mouths. One man in the town of Edgebrake sat up all night, staring at a little smiling cookie jar made in the shape of a fat monk; it stood on a high cupboard shelf, smiling darkly amid shadows. The man could not tell anyone what was wrong, or what he thought was wrong. Doors opened at night inside some houses, and still shadows that could not be cast by firelight fell across beds and floors. People who lived near forests and groves dreamed that the trees were calling to their children; in the daytime, pools of shadow that floated trembling around the trees seemed darker than they should have been, and when the children showed an unusually strong desire to play in the woods, panicked parents locked them indoors. Voices rose from empty wells, and men locked their doors at dusk. Again, not actually horror, but a fun adventure with sharp writing and some chilling imagery and creeping dread in the M.R. James ghost stories vein.
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Nov 13, 2023 23:41
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