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I just finished reading Lovecraft's short story 'the Alchemist' and holy lmao, the final line was so clearly intended to be a ghastly revelation but it felt so obvious it turned the whole story into a weird joke? The thick gothic atmosphere, the dread, the fear, the loneliness, all of it giving me the chills as he explores this utterly abandoned place - and instantly pierced by the final line. I cannot tell if Lovecraft did that on purpose or not! I don't know much about him outside of the basics so I don't know if he was trying to make it funny on purpose or not... but boy, that was a good short story.
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Feb 12, 2024 02:12
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Lol the Blue Oyster Cult song is based on it.
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Feb 12, 2024 02:53
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StrixNebulosa posted:I just finished reading Lovecraft's short story 'the Alchemist' and holy lmao, the final line was so clearly intended to be a ghastly revelation but it felt so obvious it turned the whole story into a weird joke? The thick gothic atmosphere, the dread, the fear, the loneliness, all of it giving me the chills as he explores this utterly abandoned place - and instantly pierced by the final line. Lovecraft wrote that one when he was 17, so it was almost certainly an accident.
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Feb 12, 2024 11:13
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StrixNebulosa posted:I just finished reading Lovecraft's short story 'the Alchemist' and holy lmao, the final line was so clearly intended to be a ghastly revelation but it felt so obvious it turned the whole story into a weird joke? The thick gothic atmosphere, the dread, the fear, the loneliness, all of it giving me the chills as he explores this utterly abandoned place - and instantly pierced by the final line. You should read Imprisoned With The Pharoahs next: "HIPPOPOTAMI SHOULD NOT HAVE HUMAN HEADS AND CARRY TORCHES!!?!" makes me crack up every time.
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Feb 14, 2024 18:33
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escape artist posted:Suddenly want to read a kid's horror book called The Long Boi Commeth that's about a dachshund The Viper is coming. He's come to vipe the vindows
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Feb 14, 2024 19:55
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I was at Barnes and Noble and almost bought that new Weird Tales book people were talking about, but saw that a lot of it was reprints of old stories. It looks amazing, and it'll one day be one of the centerpieces on my bookshelf of the other dozen-plus collections that also have The Call of Cthulhu in it. But I also saw North American Lake Monsters for half the price and grabbed that instead. I'm halfway through it and have been gripped by every story so far. Wild Acre is my favorite werewolf story of all time, I think. If it were half as long, it'd be a cliche story but still full of gruesome and creepy detail, but then it goes into the PTSD/survivor's guilt angle in a great show of humanizing the situation. And that's what I think Ballingrud does best. Sometimes I feel upset that there isn't more to (general theme spoilers to all the stories) the story of the monsters, but he does an amazing job at using the monsters to magnify human experiences in a way that isn't just "the real monster is man!" kind of cliche. $15 well spent. And I just found out there's a show on Hulu based on some of these stories? drat.
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Feb 15, 2024 17:33
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North American Lake Monsters loving rules. The angel story still sticks with me.
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Feb 15, 2024 17:41
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Wild Acre was definitely my favourite one of that book, i absolutely adore the ending. I love how it sets up this big finale fight, but then the werewolf just isn’t there and has moved on, and he’s just sitting there screaming into the void, unable to redeem himself.
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Feb 15, 2024 19:16
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Opopanax posted:Wild Acre was definitely my favourite one of that book, i absolutely adore the ending. I love how it sets up this big finale fight, but then the werewolf just isn’t there and has moved on, and he’s just sitting there screaming into the void, unable to redeem himself. There's all the mentions of the full moon in the build-up, and the teachers talking about a kid who is set up to make us believe he's the werewolf. He could be, or he could just be a messed up kid, but he's more of a were-red-herring. Edit: Two episodes in to Monsterland. It's terrible. I appreciate what the second one was going for, but it pulled too many punches. LifeLynx fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Feb 16, 2024 |
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Feb 15, 2024 19:48
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LifeLynx posted:but he does an amazing job at using the monsters to magnify human experiences in a way that isn't just "the real monster is man!" kind of cliche. That's incredibly well put and yes that is also I think what Ballingrud does best.
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Feb 15, 2024 22:59
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I read most of NALM in one sitting on a plane, and I think it didn't do the book a lot of favors. I really wish the angel story in particular hadn't spent so much time on the cheating subplot -- it felt like the most stock way to depict a disintegrating marriage, and also felt like a weird invocation of the idea that the worst possible horror is female infidelity? I found that to be an offputting running theme in the whole collection, tbh, with the teen skinhead story where the big reveal is that the girl is loving him on orders, and of course the title story and the wife's questionable fidelity while the MC was in prison.
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Feb 16, 2024 00:37
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Opopanax posted:Wild Acre was definitely my favourite one of that book, i absolutely adore the ending. I love how it sets up this big finale fight, but then the werewolf just isn’t there and has moved on, and he’s just sitting there screaming into the void, unable to redeem himself. This is one story in the collection that truly stuck with me. There was something special about how it depicted a world that owes nobody any sort of meaning, closure, or recognition after it chews them and their community up. I concur that Ballingrud is great at not making people who’ve read decades of nihilistic and man-is-the-real-monster stories groan.
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Feb 16, 2024 02:58
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A bit belated, but thanks to the folks who recommended books for my niece. She really liked The House with a Clock in Its Walls. And extra thanks to escape artist for the illustrated kids’ horror book, that was a hit too! She’s a funny kid, for Valentine’s Day today all her classmates wore like red and pink clothes with hearts and stuff and she went to school dressed in all black. Gotta introduce her to The Cure next
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Feb 16, 2024 04:45
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gey muckle mowser posted:And extra thanks to escape artist for the illustrated kids’ horror book, that was a hit too! Oh that makes me happy!  You're very welcome.
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Feb 16, 2024 20:20
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Any cosmic horror recommendations that fit the Twin Peaks type of cosmic horror? Less tentacled monster and more ominous grandmas eating creamed corn. Or Dossier style "alt-history/supernatural conspiracy" stuff like the Mark Frost books that accompanied the series?
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Feb 16, 2024 21:10
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Idle Amalgam posted:Any cosmic horror recommendations that fit the Twin Peaks type of cosmic horror? Less tentacled monster and more ominous grandmas eating creamed corn. Or Dossier style "alt-history/supernatural conspiracy" stuff like the Mark Frost books that accompanied the series?
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Feb 16, 2024 21:56
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Declare is a cold war spy novel with some sorcery, it's one of my favorite books but I'm not sure it fits that vibe. I'd recommend American Elsewhere by RJ Bennett, I don't know if it's intentionally a Stephen King pastiche but it's very much in that vein with a woman inherits a house in a weirdo small town in New Mexico where not everything is as it seems...
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Feb 16, 2024 22:26
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The Southern Reach trilogy, but mostly just the second one
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Feb 17, 2024 00:22
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Oh poo poo there's a new weird tales!? Is it good I should maybe get it
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Feb 17, 2024 02:18
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value-brand cereal posted:fSo I've been reading stuff. Hey speaking of euro dystopia fuckery! I bought this a while back on your rec and it finally reached the top of the pile. Finished it in one sitting since it was a quick read but I kept hoping for it to tie up all the overlapping narratives and it just never quite gets there. The writing and imagery was good but I walked away feeling like the it was missing something. Maybe a chapter or two from the perspective of the night police that went beyond the one guy who was a know nothing contract killer for them? It was also a bit weird in the transitions where one chapter it’s like why can’t the secret police just leave us gentle creatures alone and the next it’s like yeah I eat lots of babies, it’s our Saturday tradition. It’s a decent read but if you get half way through hoping for some greater resolution then abandon that hope, it gonna be more of the thing it has been the rest of the way through.
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Feb 20, 2024 08:33
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I’m in the mood to be spooked and I was going to read The Elementals again but decided to post here to see if anyone can recommend something new to scratch my itch. I’ve posted this before years ago but my favorite horror novels take place in secluded places people would normally find chill and meditative; a snowed in mountain resort like The Shining, the cool 3 houses on the sometimes-inaccessible beach in Elementals, Hill House with its big pretty house on a nice bit of land and some spooky poo poo going on. Loved them. So something supernatural in like a small Alaska town, a camping trip somewhere with great imagery or anything remotely similar would be much appreciated if anyone has anything. Edit: I realize I’m just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks with this post but I do appreciate a lot of the recs I’ve gotten over the years. Rolo fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Feb 22, 2024 |
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Feb 22, 2024 04:02
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I wanted to write a review of Wounds by Nathan Ballingrud, but then I finished Wounds and I'm still speechless. That was even better than North American Lake Monsters. Not a single bad one in the book, though I can see Skullpocket might be devisive. It's much more whimsical than anything in either anthology. Gonna be thinking about that one for a while.
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Feb 22, 2024 14:38
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LifeLynx posted:I wanted to write a review of Wounds by Nathan Ballingrud, but then I finished Wounds and I'm still speechless. That was even better than North American Lake Monsters. Not a single bad one in the book, though I can see Skullpocket might be devisive. It's much more whimsical than anything in either anthology. Gonna be thinking about that one for a while. I am using your post as an excuse to repost this. This is what he wrote in my copy after I told him The Butcher's Table is one of the best stories I have read in the last 20 years.  Edit: Like an idiot I asked him, why isn't The Butcher's Table a movie right now? It needs to be made. In response he said way too expensive for anyone to make. I was like duh. nate fisher fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Feb 22, 2024 |
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Feb 22, 2024 16:43
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Dang I have Wounds and I’m only on the second story cause I wanted to space it out. Guess I’ll read a few more while deciding what to read next.
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Feb 22, 2024 17:03
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I've pasted so many recommendations from this thread into my to read notes that I'm starting to have a hard time finding things. After reading and enjoying Night Film, I'm in the mood for more film horror in that vein but digging through my notes I'm not seeing a huge standout. Burn the Negative looks a little campy, Dead Eleven I'm not 100% sure why I had filed in that pile. Thinking the Devil's Playground? EDIT: Oh or Experimental Film which seems like the most direct analogue maybe. Yarrington fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Feb 22, 2024 |
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Feb 22, 2024 17:45
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Rolo posted:I’m in the mood to be spooked and I was going to read The Elementals again but decided to post here to see if anyone can recommend something new to scratch my itch. The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons. It doesn't have everything you're looking for, but the I think you'll find the vibe is there.
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Feb 23, 2024 00:50
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High Warlord Zog posted:The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons. It doesn't have everything you're looking for, but the I think you'll find the vibe is there. This was something on my list! I was wondering if I could also get some opinions on We Have Always Lived in the Castle, House of Leaves and A Head Full of Ghosts. I liked Hill House as said but I’ve heard WHALINC is pretty different. I’ll check out House Next Door though, it’s exciting to have someone recommend something on my list of things to check out.
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Feb 23, 2024 01:50
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If you liked Hill House, you'll probably like WHALITC, but it's a different kind of horror -- more straightforwardly psychological. The setting is the main characters living in isolation in their once-stately family home now fading into decay, so it might hit some of the Hill House buttons or it might not, and I'm not sure I'd call it setting-based horror.
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Feb 23, 2024 02:16
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Rolo posted:This was something on my list! We Have Always Lived in the Castle is pretty much as painted above. It's more Southern Gothic than horror, but it's a work of genius and it's better than The Haunting of Hill House - which I do not say lightly. House of Leaves is at the other end of the scale. As far as I'm concerned liking it is a litmus test for spotting pretentious faux-intellectual wankers. I'll throw a +n on The House Next Door. That's a great book with the high concept of "What if a brand new house was haunted?" that would later be reused in movies by Poltergeist. It's pretty harrowing at points and needs at least one trigger warning.
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Feb 23, 2024 13:32
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Awesome thank you. That’s why I asked about Leaves, it seems polarizing online. A lot of the reviews are “best horror book ever” sprinkled with others that have the same view as you. I’ll skip it for now. House Next Door I’ll start today. A contemporary house haunting sounds fun because I absolutely love Poltergeist and spent like 100 hours playing Phasmophobia on PC when it was early access. I’ll read Castle after, I’m excited to read something else by Jackson after hearing your opinion on it.
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Feb 23, 2024 15:48
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House of Leaves is a phenomenal book and reading it was a formative experience, gently caress the haters leavez rulez.
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Feb 23, 2024 15:53
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House of Leaves is solid found footage horror with a fun if goofy gimmick and an overwritten framing device glued onto it. Like, the idea of Johnny Truant isn't bad but it spends too much time beating you over the head with the fact that he is an incredibly unreliable narrator, particularly early on. You could cut his early interjections by about half and still get what they're going for.
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Feb 23, 2024 16:20
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Big Mad Drongo posted:House of Leaves is solid found footage horror with a fun if goofy gimmick and an overwritten framing device glued onto it. Overall I really liked House of Leaves, but there's a core story there which is really propulsive and interesting and then a lot of guff around it that could be at least halved.
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Feb 23, 2024 16:30
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I'm of the opinion that if you like horror media, you should at least try House of Leaves. It's doing some real interesting things - and some of it doesn't work (JOHNNY I DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR SEX LIFE) but not many other writers are playing in that kind of liminal / found footage space in text and I love that stuff.
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Feb 23, 2024 16:35
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StrixNebulosa posted:I'm of the opinion that if you like horror media, you should at least try House of Leaves. It's doing some real interesting things - and some of it doesn't work (JOHNNY I DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR SEX LIFE) but not many other writers are playing in that kind of liminal / found footage space in text and I love that stuff. Can you recommend any other examples?
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Feb 23, 2024 16:37
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Head Full of Ghosts is really good and unique, as long as you can force your way through the blogger sections
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Feb 23, 2024 17:20
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Opopanax posted:Head Full of Ghosts is really good and unique, as long as you can force your way through the blogger sections Lol yeah the blog sections are almost too successful at capturing that extremely grating mid-aughts style of blogging.
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Feb 23, 2024 17:28
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Rolo posted:I was wondering if I could also get some opinions on We Have Always Lived in the Castle, House of Leaves and A Head Full of Ghosts. I liked Hill House as said but I’ve heard WHALINC is pretty different. WHALITC is one of my favorite novels of all time. Love the first paragraph: Shirley Jackson posted:My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead. I just read House of Leaves for the first time last year and enjoyed it a lot - some of the weirdly formatted sections feel a little gimmicky, but for the most part I think it works really well. I would suggest not worrying about reading every word of Zampano's text (the first "layer" of the narrative that is supposed to be an analysis of a film), there are parts where he goes off on self-indulgent tangents that have nothing to do with anything, sometimes just listing poo poo for pages. He's supposed to be kind of full of poo poo so don't hesitate to occasionally skim through some parts. I also really liked A Head Full of Ghosts - I like Paul Tremblay in general and I think that might still be his best novel. There is one scene in particular that I found genuinely frightening in a way that books don't often affect me. I agree the blog parts can be a little annoying though.
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Feb 23, 2024 18:07
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I appreciate all the input. I was looking for some stuff on Goodreads the other day and one of the reviews was basically "I liked how SPOILER." Nice to have somewhere to talk that isn't ridiculously out of touch like that.
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Feb 23, 2024 19:14
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Love the almost unanimous consensus that House of Leaves is really good, but overcooked.
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Feb 23, 2024 20:04
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