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Hang on. Checked my calibre library and there's also this one. I haven't read it, personally, so I'm not sure if it's applicable. American Nightmares: The Haunted House Formula in American Popular Fiction by Dale Bailey quote:When Edgar Allan Poe set down the tale of the accursed House of Usher in 1839, he also laid the foundation for a literary tradition that has assumed a lasting role in American culture. “The House of Usher” and its literary progeny have not lacked for tenants in the century and a half since: writers from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Stephen King have taken rooms in the haunted houses of American fiction.
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Apr 2, 2024 22:05
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value-brand cereal posted:Horror In Architecture by Joshua Comaroff & Ong Ker-Shing While this isn't exactly what I was thinking of, it will be very useful in other ways, since I struggle to visualize and describe this sort of thing. Thanks! MockingQuantum posted:you could probably find a decent number of haunted house stories where the ghost is load-bearing, too This exists, there's a great short story - the name of which I can't recall, which is infuriating - about a haunted house that desperately wants people to like it and want to live in it.
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Apr 3, 2024 02:59
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Ah I see. The only one I can think of is The Invited by Jennifer McMahon, albeit slightly more crime / mystery / suspense than straight up horror. It's about someone building a house out of pieces from haunted houses / places where heinous crimes occurred. Did not read but these might fit what you're looking for? Palace of Shadow by Ray Celestin which is Winchester Mystery House, apparently. Some new releases! Monsters We Have Made by Lindsay Starck quote:A poignant and evocative novel that explores the bounds of familial love, the high stakes of parenthood, and the tenuous divide between fiction and reality. Thread, I have bad news and good news. Bad news is Slenderman is a bitch rear end class traitor and has been going around pretending he's a kind or some sort of nobility. The good news is that it's so stupid that I'm pretty sure it won't take off and eventually it'll be an embarassing memory left next to slender 'no wifin in the club' man. Anyways I'm throwing my thots under a spoiler. Absolutely slender man fanfic with true crime flavors. It was decent writing. It tried to make its own myth and honestly should have tried to. The mythology of the non slender man felt generic and weightless. It tied using real life myths to prop it up and honestly I didn't care for it. So he's a king in a castle on a invisible, teleporting island. He's got a crown and sometimes the material changes throughout the ages. Ok neat? For some reason he travels to other lands to steal children? Why Germany and Egypt? Why not go a step further and make up supernatural incidences instead of fanfic-ing real life incidents like the Pied Piper or Cleopatra's missing sons? And he's got a cloak sometimes except not because he's Slender and fingers covered in sparkly gems except he can disguise himself as trees. So is he a forest monster or a paranormal ghost turned monster? A la Beast from Beauty and the Beast? Except he's also the Pied Piper Tying it to the real life tragedy of the girl child trying to murder the other child because slenderman was tacky. It felt like a goofy version of Law and Order SVU. It really minds me of a better edited version of TANIS podcast. It also tries to be Deep and Meaningful with using etymology blurbs. Not a bad thing until I realized they ripped off an Ocean Vuong quote. Maybe don't rip off better writers for your slenderman true crime fanfic? Also, while they don't say it, it's a tulpa. [OR IS IT??] Which reminds me of those godawful MLP tulpas, which didn't help my impression of the book. Like it sure is a Thing to take something sacred from a not white religion and make it about fuckign creepypastas. It really tried hard to make you think it's real and then pulls the plot twist that oh no, it's not. [OR IS IT??] Because it tries to walk back that plot twist except at that point I kinda don't care. I suddenly understand fanfic because here I am, imagining and wishing for a different ending. Maybe one with child death! Woo! Actually that is the worst part. Remember how Slenderman originated from a loving photoshop thread on the forums? Yeah apparently the author knows about that, and made the SA forums poster a character in this story. The professor made up the Kingman character by editing a picture in photoshop, uploading it, and making a whole story about it. I wish somebody was getting royalties for slenderman. Oof. Sorry buddy..... ▪ Now, what do you know of the word monster? Where does it come from? Any ideas? No? No one wants to hazard a guess? Have I already frightened you into silence? Fine, fine. Well—excuse me, I didn’t see your hand there. What did you say? All right. Did everyone hear that? “A creature half human, half beast.” I won’t deny that this is the way in which the term is often used. Centaurs, Minotaurs, mermaids, and the like. So, you’re not wrong. At the same time—can we all agree that the word is frequently applied to humans and nonhumans, too? A serial killer on trial is called a monster, as is the fantastical sea dragon of Loch Ness. The Old French mostre signified on the one hand “prodigy” or “marvel” and, on the other hand, “misshapen being.” The Latin monstrum, or “portent,” emerged from the verb monere, “to warn.” At its core, then, a monster is an omen, a sign—something both significant and foreboding. I’ve written those words on the whiteboard. Memorize them. What I really wanted to say was that a monster is not such a terrible thing to be. From the Latin root monstrum, a divine messenger of catastrophe, then adapted by the Old French to mean an animal of myriad origins: centaur, griffin, satyr. To be a monster is to be a hybrid signal, a lighthouse: both shelter and warning at once.” Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous Ok alright not quote a rip off. But it's close enough that made me drop out of the book and go oh gently caress you, I should read something better than this. Well. I haven't read this books yet but hey, they look interesting. All the Fiends of Hell by Adam Nevill quote:The red night of bells heralds global catastrophe. Annihilation on a biblical scale. I hated the Reddening. I too DNF'd it. Honestly my fondness for this author is coasting solely on Last Days. If this book is dumb, he may be going on my 'don't read it you know you'll be disappointed' list. The Monstrous Misses Mai by Van Hoang quote:A determined young woman in 1950s Los Angeles walks a darker city than she ever imagined in a spellbinding novel about the power to make dreams come true—whatever the sacrifice. Man, it must suck to have Mephistoles as your landlord. You try to pay rent and he's like 'for a MERE offering, I shall give you a 3 percent discount for next month' or some poo poo. Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley quote:An atmospheric and unsettling story of the depths of grief found in an ancient farm in northern England. Folk horror!! Occult poo poo! Grief! gently caress up trees! Honestly what more can you ask for? Not a new release but I hadn't realized he wrote something after his Devil's Day. I enjoyed that book, and hopefully this is just as good.
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Apr 5, 2024 16:17
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Kestral posted:While this isn't exactly what I was thinking of, it will be very useful in other ways, since I struggle to visualize and describe this sort of thing. Thanks! I've seen at least two old-school 1950's horror comics where the house was the narrator of the story and watches with dismay as the protagonist is lured into disaster: "No, don't accept the drink, you fool! Can you not smell the scent of the soporific; are you really so blind to the sinister leer on your host's face as he hands it over? Alas! All too soon you shall know the horrors that fiend has prepared for you down in my cellar!" *The protagonist turns the tables 'cos he's secretly a werewolf or some poo poo and drugs have no effect on him*
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Apr 6, 2024 19:12
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Kestral posted:
I thought this sounded interesting so had a google.. I found Open House on Haunted Hill by John Wiswell which sounds exactly like it. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/54124189 I've stuck it on my tbr list. *edit* found it online & its pretty good. https://www.diabolicalplots.com/dp-fiction-64a-open-house-on-haunted-hill-by-john-wiswell/ Trainee PornStar fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Apr 6, 2024 |
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Apr 6, 2024 20:40
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Trainee PornStar posted:I thought this sounded interesting so had a google.. This is it! Thank you, I’m bookmarking this to read again tonight 
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Apr 6, 2024 21:05
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value-brand cereal posted:
It's good! Like War of the Worlds crossed with a Bruegel apocalypse painting (to paraphrase the author a little). It's not just about an alien invasion, but an alien invasion, with normal existence abruptly ended by a terrible incursion beyond human understanding. Basically, imagine being hunted through an abruptly emptied world by creatures like those portrayed in Bacon's Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion and go from there. 
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Apr 8, 2024 21:41
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Pistol_Pete posted:It's good! Like War of the Worlds crossed with a Bruegel apocalypse painting (to paraphrase the author a little). Sounds rad. For some reason the Kindle version is a totally separate store entry, and it happens to be on Kindle Unlimited
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Apr 8, 2024 21:59
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Are there any books that are similar in premise or tone to the original Flatliners (1990) film? I watched it today and it made me wanna find something comparable to read.
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Apr 8, 2024 23:28
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 A woman's account of her possession. I heard really great things about this but it fell pretty flat to me. It's unique take on things and it's quite short, but the actual story just didn't do anything for me at all.  This one I liked a lot. A group of teens goes to a cabin in the woods and gets massacred. The hook here is that the book starts at the tail end of all that and then picks up a year later with the parents going back to the cabin to try and trap the killer. It goes in some really interesting directions and has a good old fashioned griminess to it.
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Apr 9, 2024 06:16
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Franchescanado posted:Are there any books that are similar in premise or tone to the original Flatliners (1990) film? I watched it today and it made me wanna find something comparable to read. Oktober by Stephen Gallagher, maybe?
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Apr 9, 2024 09:35
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Opopanax posted:
Snagged this one and put it in the list since it sounds fun.
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Apr 9, 2024 17:43
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Opopanax posted:
I read this recently and had the same reaction honestly. I finished it and my first response was "wait, that's it?" I'm honestly a little baffled why it shows up on so many people's lists of best horror (assuming it even still does). Like intellectually, yeah, it has a unique perspective for that type of book, but not a very interesting one despite that.
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Apr 9, 2024 22:54
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Ok I haven't read these yet, but they looked interesting enough to share. Grey Dog by Elliott Gish [ white american lesbian] quote:A subversive literary horror novel that disrupts the tropes of women’s historical fiction with delusions, wild beasts, and the uncontainable power of female rage Kinda rolling my eyes because 'female rage' tends to be an incredibly white genre these days, if not from the start. But sure, the body horror looks very cool. Ghost Station by S. A. Barnes [ white american woman] quote:A crew must try to survive on an ancient, abandoned planet in the latest space horror novel from S.A. Barnes, acclaimed author of Dead Silence. Her first book, Dead Silence, I did read but cannot remember much about nearly 2 years later. The synopsisesii(sp?) look a tad similar. But hey, maybe she's improved since her debut. I do love some space horror. The Gathering by C. J. Tudor [white british woman] quote:WELCOME TO DEADHART. ALASKA. POPULATION 673. LIVING. The only book I read from her was the thriller 'The Burning Girls' which I bounced off of due to it being a boring catholic sex abuse mystery which wasn't really a mystery. Maybe the straight up horror genre will prevent it from being boring yet again?? Honestly, it's Jo Ladz's 'The Fealty of Monsters' which is making me interested in more vampires and monsters. I may disappoint myself. Smh.
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Apr 10, 2024 22:37
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Dead Silence had a good plot hook, but the reveal was a wet fart. I'll probably read the new one anyway, space horror is hard to come by.
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Apr 10, 2024 23:29
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Hm. I'm trying to remember if Dead Silence also had a sketchy 'almost patient doctor relationship tryst' because I'm seeing a tiny hint / start of that in Ghost Station. And not to be a huge loser who sees the world in relations to video games, but this book very much feels like the video game series, Dead Space. I know theres nothing new under the sun, and a reinterpretation of themes / tropes ain't a bad thing. But man, I dont want to read about Isaac Clarke's Very Bad Horrible No Good Day in Space, except it's a woman character.
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Apr 11, 2024 17:31
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i do. gently caress. I already have too much to read. I just want books about people in horrible spaceships and space stations and space colonies and generally unpleasant space industrial environments, with corridors and poo poo.
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Apr 11, 2024 18:04
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90s Cringe Rock posted:i do. Maybe check out Alien Horrors by Tim Curran. I haven't read it yet but all of Tim Curran's short story collections are a theme backdrop + a different hosed up monster in each story. So generally you can't go wrong if you're in the mood for (theme of that book) + (monster) and they're well written quick stories.
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Apr 11, 2024 18:15
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So I am trying to work through Paul Tremblay's new short story collection The Beast You Are. And you know, I DNFed his first collection because I thought it was just not good. But I am trying with this one, there's some decent stuff so far, about 5 stories in. Although repeating a story from the previous collection was kinda lame.
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Apr 11, 2024 22:20
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Actually finished some books lately instead of just jumping around through short story collections. Episode 13 by Craig DiLouie: If you've seen Grave Encounters or a similar movie, this is close to that in book form. TV ghost hunters encounter real haunted house. I thought it was interesting for it's take on the found footage genre as a book, and the construction was unique jumping from camera perspectives to e-mails to peoples personal journals. It's a good breezy read and I enjoyed it even if it didn't break the mold outside of the format. Atomic Horrors by Tim Curran: As I mentioned in a previous post, Tim Curran short story collections are (theme) + (monster), and if that's what you're in for then this does the job. The nuclear apocalypse isn't really a driver for the story, but more of a backdrop of devastation and desperation that all the stories live in, and gives Tim an excuse to have improbably mutated monsters and demons running around doing their thing. Each story has a fun monster of the week, whether its society of giant rat men, swirling omnipotent fallout clouds, or gangs of demon children. Basically nobody in this book is having a good time but I had a good time reading it. Clickers III: Dagon Rising by JF Gonzalez and Brian Keene: Another creature feature from the series that reliably does that. You read this book if you read Clickers 1 and 2 in the past and you wake up one day wanting more clickers, now with (more) cthulu-like stuff happening. It's that and you already know if you want to read it or not. I maybe enjoyed it a little less than the other clickers books due to its leaning on the supernatural Good Citizen fucked around with this message at 17:43 on Apr 12, 2024 |
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Apr 12, 2024 17:34
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I love the Clickers series so much.
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Apr 12, 2024 19:47
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90s Cringe Rock posted:i do. Well. It's not a complete Dead Space / Isaac Clarke with the serial numbers filed off. But it's a decent bit of scifi horror. There's definitely past space disease trauma coming to light that's impacting the main character. I'm enjoying it so far, and there's definitely some tension about how they're getting off the planet. Weird they don't think the space disease will be a problem, but maybe that's wishful thinking on their part. They name drop a bit of lore that space diseases have caused pandemics on space stations. I don't get the impression they're very technologically advanced beyond having AIs be doctors and lawyers. es, really. And doctors / lawyers go back to trade school or flip burgers because they're out of a job. Well. I did like the bit about the alien mass death pit and how the MC comments about how they must have been driven into the pit. It doesn't make much sense in retrospect, given what the space disease does. Maybe it affected the alien lemurs differently. Hm. Anyways, that was creepy. Very 'Weyland Yutani's report did NOT mention the alien death pit, what the?!!?' I half wish there WAS a surprise character in that one of the previous missions' member somehow survived via the space disease and that is who was wandering around outside. Just have some half dead not-cromorph [not necromorph] jump-scare everyone trying to take samples.
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Apr 13, 2024 00:11
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UwUnabomber posted:I love the Clickers series so much. Absolutely One thing to note about 3 is it has a more explicit tie in to other series from Keene. Specifically the earthworm gods series (read them, they’re good) and the labyrinth series (haven’t read them). So that may sway how much you do or don’t care about those parts Also there’s an actual crossover book where the clickers fight the zombie creatures from Keene’s the rising series which I’ve only read the first of
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Apr 13, 2024 01:12
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How is Earthworm Gods, anyway?
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Apr 13, 2024 02:19
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Kestral posted:How is Earthworm Gods, anyway? They're good! It's been several years since I've read them but I thought the concept/setting and characters were really good, and my only real complaint was the Keene-y ending to book 2. But I mean this is the horror genre so you're already at 50/50 the ending isn't going to work for you.
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Apr 13, 2024 02:43
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Good Citizen posted:They're good! It's been several years since I've read them but I thought the concept/setting and characters were really good, and my only real complaint was the Keene-y ending to book 2. But I mean this is the horror genre so you're already at 50/50 the ending isn't going to work for you. I liked them too & the ending makes sense to me seeing as all his books are supposed to be in the same general place but different dimensions or some such.
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Apr 14, 2024 20:21
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I DNFed the Paul Tremblay because the titular story The Beast You Are, well, had me following around animals. Is this worth reading? Was anyone blown away by this novella? Help a goon out! Lots of books - horror, nonfiction, classics and more for sale.
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Apr 15, 2024 17:33
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I've been reading horror! A Guest in the House by Emily Carroll. I've been a fan of Emily Caroll's comics for over a decade (many are free online and well worth your time) and this graphic novel might be her magnum opus. It's a tightly paced piece about a young woman with pretty much no self-esteem and vivid dreams who enters an unhappy marriage just because the guy paid some measure of attention to her. She learns some nasty rumors about why her new husband suddenly left his wife and fled to the other side of the country, which is bad enough. Then she starts seeing his former wife's ghost. Then things get worse, though it's hard to say more without getting into spoiler territory. The art is gorgeous, the story is fantastic, and the whole thing is gut-wrenchingly beautiful and awful. A must-read. I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Paul Tremblay Eh? Eh. I got this one because I've heard so much about it, good and bad, and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. In the end, it's... fine. The book isn't half as clever as it thinks it is, but there are some properly spooky passages, and I'm always a fan of stories about decaying relationships and uncomfortable visits to weird people and places. My bigger disappointment was that I don't know why it's sparked either the love or hate I've seen, because it's just kind of average. She Said Destroy by Nadia Bulkin This collection was nominated for a Shirley Jackson, and it is deserving of the accolades. Very modern, occasionally political, always interesting, this is just a solid collection through and through. There's no overarching theme, with stories running the gamut from Lovecraft pastiche (I particularly enjoyed her retelling of The Colour Out of Space) to modern (one is about a last girl just thinking about things as she drags the mostly-dead monster to town). The collection has a gift for putting you into the world and neatly inserting little details that point to the horror you're seeing being just a slice of a reality where things have gone very, very wrong. Solid, memorable horror from start to finish.
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Apr 15, 2024 18:37
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Big Mad Drongo posted:
You mean Iain Reid right? Not Paul Tremblay
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Apr 16, 2024 00:53
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escape artist posted:You mean Iain Reid right? Not Paul Tremblay Whoops, you're right, I must've read your post while typing mine and me brain slipped.
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Apr 16, 2024 22:47
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Big Mad Drongo posted:I've been reading horror! drat this destroyed me. Is their other work this good too? I remember really liking His Face All Red when it was making the internet rounds. For that matter, are there any graphic novels or comic omnibuses that might scratch a horror itch? I just finished Harrow County, it was pretty great, but grounded spooky hauntings and a generally heavy atmosphere are my poo poo. I've searched reddit for recommendations but it's hit or miss and usually there is very little if any context or description provided
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Apr 17, 2024 00:39
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Finished Song of Kali. It wasn't as good as everyone said, and it wasn't as racist as everyone said. It was just okay.
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Apr 17, 2024 00:55
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R.L. Stine posted:I just finished Harrow County, it was pretty great, but grounded spooky hauntings and a generally heavy atmosphere are my poo poo. The thing with horror in comic form is it tends to be action focused, edgy to the extreme, and/or rely heavily on an existing source material due to the serialized format. So you end up with a lot of the Walking Dead, Crossed, and a million variations on the Aliens franchise, and not too much atmospheric stuff outside of short-run indie label comics that are more horror-adjacent than full horror. There have also been a few collaborations between comic companies and horror authors like Stephen King and marvel and Clive Barker and (i think) dark horse. I'm assuming you're already familiar with Junji Ito's horror manga collections?
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Apr 17, 2024 01:00
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Good Citizen posted:The thing with horror in comic form is it tends to be action focused, edgy to the extreme, and/or rely heavily on an existing source material due to the serialized format. So you end up with a lot of the Walking Dead, Crossed, and a million variations on the Aliens franchise, and not too much atmospheric stuff outside of short-run indie label comics that are more horror-adjacent than full horror. Yeah, I've got all Junji Ito's hardcovers put out by Viz. And yeah the problem with action and ridiculous fantasy have been a real problem for me. Something starts off a spooky little mystery and all of a sudden there's a super hero demon killer with a big fuckoff gun running around
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Apr 17, 2024 01:14
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It appears to now be E.M. Carroll, they/them, as a headsup.
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Apr 17, 2024 04:13
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 Lord of the Feast by Tim Waggoner quote:Readers of Clive Barker’s The Great and Secret Show, Laird Barron’s The Croning or Steve Rasnic Tem’s Blood Kin will love this new Tim Waggoner chiller I love this concept. They aborted their own baby fetus god. FLUSH! Man, I love abortion. I ain't ever read a book from this guy because his supernatural the TV show series novelizations put me off. But maybe this one will be worth it. If I can just ignore those sulky white boys book covers in the search results. That cover does look pretty cool.
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Apr 17, 2024 19:21
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Big Mad Drongo posted:I'm Thinking of Ending Things by I was lukewarm on it too. I really loved the film adaptation though, it was one of my favorite films of 2020
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Apr 17, 2024 21:37
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R.L. Stine posted:drat this destroyed me. Is their other work this good too? I remember really liking His Face All Red when it was making the internet rounds. For that matter, are there any graphic novels or comic omnibuses that might scratch a horror itch? I just finished Harrow County, it was pretty great, but grounded spooky hauntings and a generally heavy atmosphere are my poo poo. Maybe an obvious one but Alan Moore's "Providence". EDIT: Just realized I walked into the 'little context or description provided". It's superficially his take on Lovecraft, and most of the issues riff on a specific story but in the context of a frame story that's pure Alan Moore. A wealth of historical detail, and parts really emphasize the horror of things that have become fairly rote/tropes by now (the mind/body swap issue really got under my skin). Benefits from either a reference or an encyclopedic knowledge of the extended canon, but doesn't require it. It has a lot on its mind. Yarrington fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Apr 18, 2024 |
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Apr 18, 2024 19:06
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The entire Mignolaverse is heavy on horror. The Hellboy proper books are really a way for Mignola to explore horror folklore from around the world while the main character mostly watches. Other major themes include silurian/hyperborean mysteries, Nazi occultism, cosmic horror, and Christian eschatology. BPRD is more like what the movies were, where a government agency charged wiht supernatural oversight goes on missions and such. Hellboy leaves that org/book early on and it takes on an apocalyptic/cosmic horror bent as it progresses. Those are the two main titles and they cover a LOT of issues, but the first Hellboy omni is on Comixology Unlimited and the rest are under $15, which is a great price. The first trade of BPRD is also on Unlimited. Mignola is the best artist I'm aware of when it comes to striking, stylized imagery and he can set mood and tone using color and shadow like no one else. He's also an outstanding writer who knows how to let his art tell a story and when to use dialogue and exposition.  It's interesting because some stories are just "Hellboy catches an evil faery with some iron tongs" and some are "the great Dragon is awakening and will soon destroy the earth". The whole run is my favorite series of all time, I usually read the whole thing once a year or so. Also the comic character Hellboy is almost nothing like the GDT movie Hellboy. He's a taciturn noir detective, not a glib quip-master. zoux fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Apr 18, 2024 |
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Apr 18, 2024 19:25
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Boo on that AI cover though.
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Apr 19, 2024 01:38
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