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ravenkult posted:Classy. Try the House of Lost Souls by FG Cottam. It's pretty good - Haunted House with thelemic, devil ritual magic type stuff. Alastair Crowley is a character in the book. Gethsemane Hall by David Annandale was also not bad - this one is more Lovecraft - esque in theme. If you like Southern Gothic and you can find it (it's out of print) I absolutely love The Elementals by Michael McDowell.
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Jan 24, 2013 06:14
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Ninja fetus posted:Hope you guys don't mind me asking for something related. I've been looking to get into horror again and I'm not sure what's popular these days. I'm not necessarily into cosmic horror. Got any recommendations? What kind of stuff interests you? serial killers? gore? haunted houses? zombies? vampires? If you like haunted houses I'd go with Richard Matheson's Hell House if you want seventies style creepy weirdness and Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House if you want spooky ambiance. Adam Nevill is a popular UK author who does some good stuff. I really liked The Ritual about a group of friends that get lost in the Scadinavian Wilderness and get hunted down by an unnamed Ancient Horror. Will Elliot wrote this great book called The Pilo Family Circus about this guy who gets pulled into a Circus of the Damned by these crazy clowns who end up turning him into one of them.
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Feb 12, 2014 04:33
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Ninja fetus posted:I like all of this stuff, except for vampires and serial killers I guess. Gore is okay, as long as it's part of the story. I don't really like gory horror movies either, but I don't mind seeing gore as part of a bigger picture. Zombies are great, although I've never finished World war Z. I found it to be a little boring. I really dig the vibe of empty cities. I like videogames like STALKER, Doom II and Day Z. Post apocalyptic stuff interests me. Especially if it has something to do with demons, creatures that come out at night, etc. Not sure if that helps. Anyway. Great recommendations. Thanks. I'll look into these this weekend. My fave zombie book is The Reapers are the Angels by Alden Bell. Alex Adams' White Horse might also be of interest to you since it has a lot of weird creatures and an epic journey - this one I think is very much Greek mythology-esque. Peter Clines also wrote a 4 book series about X-men Type superheroes in a post apocalyptic zombie infested world, the first book of which is Ex-Heroes. Also try Extinction Point by Paul Anthony Jones. It's a kindle book. I found it to be merely decent with some ludicrous stuff thrown in but it hits a lot of your points (weird alien creatures that come out at night, empty cities) and it was a decent airplane read.
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Feb 13, 2014 00:13
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Neurosis posted:Halfway through The Ritual on the strength of this thread's recommendation. Is the second half really that bad? I've enjoyed it so far. I find the characterisations very believable. The arguments they have and the physical confrontation, and Luke's reactions to it afterwards, have reminded me very strongly of some of my own experiences. The horror elements are maybe not so strong - I don't find the thing hunting them particularly scary. I found being trapped in the wilderness with no hope of escape more scary than the actual creature. Yes, the second half does fall apart. I think this is Nevill's biggest failing, he never knows how to finish his books. The only book of his that I enjoyed all the way through was Last Days, but that one is a bit more esoteric in subject matter.
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Feb 13, 2014 16:20
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A little late, but February is Women in Horror Month. In case you want to broaden your horizons or read mostly dudes. Currently reading Gemma Files' A Book of Tongues and really enjoying it. It's a great cross genre dark fantasy/horror/western novel that I think would have a broader audience if not for all the explicit gay sex.
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Feb 21, 2014 00:38
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Has anyone else here read American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett? It just got nominated for the Shirley Jackson award, and I wanted to recommend it to you avid fans of Laird Barron and cosmic horror if you haven't checked it out before. It's a tad long and drags a bit in the middle but altogether a fantastic read and wholly original.
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May 25, 2014 04:59
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Friendless posted:Has anyone read much Joyce Carol Oates? If so, is there a good place to start on her short fiction? Oates is very prolific and her books vary so wildly in style and subject matter it's hard to say. Currently reading The Accursed as I make my way through this year's Shirley Jackson nominees and it's great but incredibly different from the stuff of hers I've read before (We Were the Mulvaneys, Zombie, Foxfire). Maybe try Black Dahlia & White Rose? It's part of the LA Noire series. fez_machine posted:Frankly, it speaks to how bad that year was for nominations, because Mr. Shivers is almost as legendary as Johnny 'Five Aces' for being bad goon fiction. There was a legendary FYAD mock thread, who knows where it is now. A ton of fedora fetishism in that book. Really? That's very disappointing because I really enjoyed American Elsewhere. Well, if anything I guess it speaks to someone's ability to grow as an author. I hope your opinion of Mr. Shivers doesn't keep you away from American Elsewhere because there is not a fedora in sight in that book.
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May 25, 2014 17:29
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Helical Nightmares posted:Glad you guys recommended American Elsewhere. Honestly I didn't feel like it dragged in the middle. It just felt to me that the book was so intricate. There was so much interesting backstory and a valid reason for every creepy weird detail. I really like how he handled the cthulhoid beings. Though they were given some understandable human-like emotions and motives (which I usually hate because it makes the monsters sympathetic and less likely to induce the sensation of cosmic horror), the author used several different methods to hammer home the point that even though they ape humanity the monsters are truly alien. I'm glad you enjoyed it as much as I did. I do agree with you that there was a reason for all the backstory, I understand why he included it after the fact but during the reading of it, I felt that it dragged and skimmed a few pages in the middle. Nevertheless, I finished the novel in one day of intense marathon reading because it was compulsive and hard to put down. I actually loved the combination of realistic emotions and horrific creatures here, though you're right - without such a deft touch it would have come across really terribly. That ending though, definitely worth the long set up!
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Jun 2, 2014 16:51
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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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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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Nuclear Tourist posted:I love this thread. Finished Ship of Fools by Richard Paul Russo not too long ago, and just loaded up on The Void by Brett J. Talley as well as some Laird Barron stuff. I found The Void to be derivative and boring, which disappointed me because That Which Should Not Be was very good.
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Sep 14, 2014 16:24
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