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Joe Hill didn't rely on his dad to sell books. In fact he specifically chose to not let people know he was King's son for a long time.
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Sep 21, 2016 02:54
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JackBobby posted:I'm reading Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill. It seems pretty solid so far, but it's funny how much it recalls his old man's work. Specifically the aging rock star protagonist and the use of several repeating mantras/phrases. Still, it's starting stronger than anything King has written in awhile. I was hoping for something legitimately scary but it seems like it might be something I enjoy more for its decent character work- which is how I feel about a lot of King. Anybody in here read it? I have in fact read Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill and really enjoyed it. I saw the movie of Horns and thought it was loving stupid and boring. If you enjoy HSB, then you really ought to read Sean Stewart's Perfect Circle. it's also horror, but not really, and I think Stewart is a fantastic author. The scariest poo poo that I've read was waaaay back in the day (that wasn't Stephen King's IT) was Dean Koontz' Watchers. I'd probably think it was pure schlocky poo poo these days, but I was eleven and it hosed me up good. Cujo didn't bother me, Pet Semetary was chill, but I don't know. Drifter fucked around with this message at 03:49 on Sep 21, 2016 |
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Sep 21, 2016 03:12
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Ornamented Death posted:Joe Hill didn't rely on his dad to sell books. In fact he specifically chose to not let people know he was King's son for a long time. He didn't have to rely on his Dad to sell books, he was already given a golden ticket by being born as both a King and a fiction horror writer. The pseudonym "Joe Hill" was a bold move, but again, Stephen King helped out his whole family with the business end of writing, including his wife Tabitha, who can't write for poo poo. Everything that's packed into Stephen King's "On Writing" has been transferred to all of his children due to the author's extreme success.
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Sep 21, 2016 03:15
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Drifter posted:I have in fact read Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill and really enjoyed it. I saw the movie of Horns and thought it was loving stupid and boring. Oh man, I loving loved Watchers back in the day too. I remember the end when the monster finds the dog's Mickey Mouse toy or something along those lines made me really sad. Something like they were both from the same experiment but the dog was treated well while the monster was neglected and the only thing they had in common was Mickey Mouse. I also remember a weird hitman who had a boner for killing pregnant women and someone threw up an oatmeal cookie at some point?
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Sep 21, 2016 03:40
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JackBobby posted:Oh man, I loving loved Watchers back in the day too. I remember the end when the monster finds the dog's Mickey Mouse toy or something along those lines made me really sad. Something like they were both from the same experiment but the dog was treated well while the monster was neglected and the only thing they had in common was Mickey Mouse. I also remember a weird hitman who had a boner for killing pregnant women and someone threw up an oatmeal cookie at some point? Haha, dude, that hitman guy getting a *zzzap* of energy for every person he killed and then discovered that he got extra zaps if he killed babies was so crazy to my mind. A nd yeah, maybe young me felt there were parallels between the Watcher and the other perfect golden retriever being from the same science lab and my own relationship at the time with my older brother...or something. I don't know. What I do remember was thinking how awesome it would be to be besties with a super smart dog, and how scary that supersmart, lonely rage-monkey was. God. I haven't thought about that book in years. The bad monster was actually pretty sympathetic, that I recall, at least near the end of the book. Drifter fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Sep 21, 2016 |
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Sep 21, 2016 03:49
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Drifter posted:I saw the movie of Horns and thought it was loving stupid and boring. I had really high hopes for that movie, which is why I picked up the book after watching it. Excellent concept. If I woke up with demonic horns after a night of getting trashed and everybody acted like it was no big deal, I would get freaked out. I watched the preview and believed Daniel Radcliffe was perfect for this type of role, but Horns didn't deliver. It was a major disappointment and so was the book.
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Sep 22, 2016 02:12
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When I was about 9 I'd head to the library every day to read whatever I could find about ufo's, ghosts, spontaneous combustion, alien abductions and lake monsters; and then I'd spend most of the following night in a state of utter terror. Every day, for weeks.
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Sep 22, 2016 04:12
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Horns depressed the hell out of me with the rape and murder of someone so obviously in love. The power he gains to know the sins, be able to suggest people act on them and slide out of people's awareness, were fascinating and something I'd probably go mad with power with. It was not a horror novel though. Mystery with science fantasy. Heart Shaped Box and N0S4A2 were pretty solid, though not exactly frightening. I agree that his character work is definitely his strong suit, and the Zack Wilde/Rob Zombie lead of HSB was perfect. The Fireman broke my heart. I thought I knew where it would go the whole way through. I didn't.
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Sep 22, 2016 13:50
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Oxxidation posted:"Pee-pie." 
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Sep 22, 2016 14:48
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Tree Bucket posted:When I was about 9 I'd head to the library every day to read whatever I could find about ufo's, ghosts, spontaneous combustion, alien abductions and lake monsters; and then I'd spend most of the following night in a state of utter terror. Every day, for weeks. This 100%. I used to live in a state of constant anxiety that Mothman or something was gonna come through my window. I still have some of the books kicking around somewhere I think.
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Sep 22, 2016 15:26
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I can't see Mothman without thinking Manmoth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xz88x0mm9Q Content: Peter Haining true mystery books are good. All out of print but worth tracking down. Spooky stuff.
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Sep 22, 2016 17:55
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I went from a easily scared child to a completely desensitized adult. I don't think I've read anything in the last 10 years that scared me but I've added a few books from this thread to my reading list. I thought the The Screwfly Solution was entertaining enough, but the ending was heavily telegraphed and it made me think of the Choas Walking books by Patrick Ness. A horror novella I have revisted many times is N. by Stephen King (in the collection Just After Sunset.) It has a very eerie feeling and a real sense of creeping dread.
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Sep 24, 2016 19:32
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Geokinesis posted:Definitely this, they are such cosy reading. M.R. James was a brilliant academic and Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University (and later, Headmaster of Eton College). His ghost stories were a hobby; he only allowed himself to write one per year (he was a very busy man) and, each story being gradually crafted and refined over many months, the result was always an almost perfectly polished masterpiece, with barely an unnecessary word included. The one where the bed sheets take on a life of their own and form themselves into a menacing, human-shaped figure still gives me the creeps today.
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Sep 25, 2016 07:16
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Ornamented Death posted:Joe Hill didn't rely on his dad to sell books. In fact he specifically chose to not let people know he was King's son for a long time. I've read Horns and I'm trying to read The Fireman; Joe Hill's style is just so close to that of his dad's that it puts me off. If King had published these under his own name, I doubt I'd have questioned it except to notice that they seemed faintly clumsy and inexperienced compared to his normal stuff. I do like the apparent shout-out to The Stand though, in the person of an awkward and rather creepy young know-it-all named Harold... On the actual thread topic, Adam Neville's No-one Gets Out Alive is the scariest thing I've read recently. The book is suffused with such a sense of helpless dread that, after the first few chapters, I had to check the ending to make sure I could stomach the rest of the book.
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Sep 25, 2016 07:27
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What would you say are the top five horror novels published within the last five years? I like to make October a horror month - original, I know - and I'm looking to mow down some good horror novels.
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Sep 26, 2016 01:05
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Noam Chomsky posted:What would you say are the top five horror novels published within the last five years? A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay Whom the Gods Would Destroy by Brian Hodge (technically a novella, but just an outstanding story) North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud (collection) Lights Out by Nate Southard The Complex by Brian Keene These would be my top five with wide appeal - there have been other books I've enjoyed equally, but I think most everyone can find something to like in these.
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Sep 26, 2016 01:46
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Ornamented Death posted:A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay Thanks! I have read Whom the Gods Would Destroy; it was very good. Looking forward to checking out the others. I think my recommendations, though I only have two, would be: Slade House by David Mitchell The Deep by Nick Cutter
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Sep 26, 2016 06:29
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Noam Chomsky posted:Thanks! I have read Whom the Gods Would Destroy; it was very good. Looking forward to checking out the others. Sweet Jesus, The Deep was a very rough book to read. Warning: If you've been a victim of child abuse, it's going to bother you.
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Sep 26, 2016 18:58
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Talmonis posted:Sweet Jesus, The Deep was a very rough book to read. Warning: If you've been a victim of child abuse, it's going to bother you. Yeah, it was rough. But, then again, I like reading Ligotti, so I guess I like to read horror that makes me feel horrible. Existential dread is just about the only thing that scares me. I have issues. That being said, I don't recommend reading The Deep if you were a victim of child abuse, have a psychopathic sibling, or ever lost a child. Huzanko fucked around with this message at 19:39 on Sep 26, 2016 |
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Sep 26, 2016 19:37
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Noam Chomsky posted:Yeah, it was rough. But, then again, I like reading Ligotti, so I guess I like to read horror that makes me feel horrible. Existential dread is just about the only thing that scares me. I have issues. Gotta love Ligotti's utter despair inducing logic. And yeah, reading it gave me awful flashbacks and the sweats. Fun stuff.
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Sep 26, 2016 21:48
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George R.R. Martin's "The Pear-Shaped Man", which I read at the age of 12 or so, which was over 20 years before I knew anything about The Song of Ice and Fire.
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Sep 30, 2016 00:41
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precision posted:George R.R. Martin's "The Pear-Shaped Man", which I read at the age of 12 or so, which was over 20 years before I knew anything about The Song of Ice and Fire. What's so scary about a memoir? 
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Sep 30, 2016 02:45
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Pistol_Pete posted:The one where the bed sheets take on a life of their own and form themselves into a menacing, human-shaped figure still gives me the creeps today. Oh, whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad
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Oct 2, 2016 08:54
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"Count Magnus" was the only MR James story that creeped me out. The rest of them are kind of quaint but not scary.
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Oct 3, 2016 14:32
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Juaguocio posted:The Shining is one of the very few cases where I think the film is better than the book. Kubrick made the right decision to remove a lot of the really obvious supernatural stuff and focus on the characters' relationships. 'what stories traumatized you as a child' would be a good thread in and of itself. colville was up there for me. paul zindel's the doom stone gave me actual nightmares. somewhere there's an 80s paperback titled monsters you've never heard of which featured a story titled the burr woman, about this grey shaggy hairy thing that latches onto the back of a cowboy (?) in the desert southwest and cannot be removed without causing horrific agony to its victim. she slowly leaches the life out of him until he kills himself by leaping from a cliff; the last scene is the burr woman hauling herself over the cliff edge and running towards the narrator it was terrifying
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Oct 3, 2016 15:27
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I just remembered my real, actual answer and holy poo poo how did I ever forget this? When I was about 8 I picked out a book from my classroom's "library" called The Plant People. It's a short novel about aliens or plants making lights in the atmosphere which, if you watch them, make you start slowly turning into a plant. And then later on they're hiding in a supermarket and the televisions start showing the lights  Anyway, this book terrified me so much that I literally couldn't stand to even look at it. I don't recall any other piece of media actually ever scaring me, I was afraid of normal things like "that dark corner of the basement" but that book, Jesus. Here's the cover:  Jesus Christ 
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Oct 3, 2016 16:15
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I'm listening to the audiobook of The Narrows. It's a small town horror that takes place in the mountains of Western MD outside of Cumberland. It hits a few themes I enjoy; Small town drama, steadily ramping peril, competent women and kids, tired and overwhelmed local police force, and the concept of "Wierd poo poo from the wilderness."
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Oct 11, 2016 17:23
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A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay is on sale for Kindle for $2
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Oct 25, 2016 14:50
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Anyone know of any cult related horror novels that were good? I'm looking to do some fictional research, as it's a subject that scares the hell out of me from the non-fiction I've read.
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Oct 25, 2016 18:02
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Talmonis posted:Anyone know of any cult related horror novels that were good? I'm looking to do some fictional research, as it's a subject that scares the hell out of me from the non-fiction I've read. Are you looking for something like a fictional account of a group like the Golden Dawn? Or just anything involving cults? Because for the latter, a pretty big chunk of cosmic horror involves cults trying to summon one unspeakable evil or another.
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Oct 25, 2016 18:08
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Talmonis posted:Anyone know of any cult related horror novels that were good? I'm looking to do some fictional research, as it's a subject that scares the hell out of me from the non-fiction I've read. Adam Nevill's Last Days
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Oct 25, 2016 18:09
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Ornamented Death posted:Are you looking for something like a fictional account of a group like the Golden Dawn? Or just anything involving cults? Because for the latter, a pretty big chunk of cosmic horror involves cults trying to summon one unspeakable evil or another. Fictional Golden Dawn, Manson Family, etc. Reading about the actual events at Jonestown bothered the hell out of me, and baffles me that it's reduced to "Drank the kool-aid," rather than "literally held down the screaming children to painfully poison them to death and shooting anybody who runs."
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Oct 25, 2016 18:12
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Talmonis posted:Fictional Golden Dawn, Manson Family, etc. I'm assuming you've read Helter Skelter?
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Oct 25, 2016 18:23
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Franchescanado posted:I'm assuming you've read Helter Skelter? I haven't actually. Is it one you recommend?
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Oct 25, 2016 18:29
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Talmonis posted:I haven't actually. Is it one you recommend? Pretty much required reading for your interest, and is pretty creepy.
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Oct 25, 2016 19:22
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Talmonis posted:Fictional Golden Dawn, Manson Family, etc. It might be too obvious to recommend The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea, though I actually prefer Wilson's later Historical Illuminatus Chronicles. The Widow's Son is by FAR the single novel I have read the most number of times, I believe I've read it nearly a dozen by now.
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Oct 25, 2016 22:19
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The Amityville Horror Read this book when I was twelve. My Grade Eight class passed it around, each of taking turns to read it at recess and lunch and then having a sleepless night of terror before we passed it on to someone else.
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Oct 26, 2016 01:17
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precision posted:It might be too obvious to recommend The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea, though I actually prefer Wilson's later Historical Illuminatus Chronicles. The Widow's Son is by FAR the single novel I have read the most number of times, I believe I've read it nearly a dozen by now. I just got done with pretty much his entire non-fiction catalog that's still in print. Now it looks like next up is the Historical Illuminatus Chronicles. Have you by any chance read the Shrodinger's Cat trilogy? w/r/t fictional cult stories I've gotta go with Laird Barron's The Croning followed by any of his short stories that revolve around his Children of the Old Leech cult.
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Oct 26, 2016 04:20
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Ornamented Death posted:Are you looking for something like a fictional account of a group like the Golden Dawn? Or just anything involving cults? Because for the latter, a pretty big chunk of cosmic horror involves cults trying to summon one unspeakable evil or another. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn wasn't/isn't a cult.
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Oct 26, 2016 05:26
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Talmonis posted:Anyone know of any cult related horror novels that were good? I'm looking to do some fictional research, as it's a subject that scares the hell out of me from the non-fiction I've read. Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon
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Oct 26, 2016 07:59
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