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Any good splatterpunk recommendations? I've been in a bit of a splatterpunk mood lately but would prefer to avoid the poop-heavy side of the subgenre (so maybe no Edward Lee, etc)
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Sep 17, 2020 01:05
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How about some modern horror anthology recommendations? Maybe some stuff off the beaten path, so not King or Barker (though of course both do their best work in this medium). Always looking for more. Some I've read in the last month or so because it's lockdown and I'm reading too much: Wounds by Nathan Ballingrud - Read on the recommendations of the thread. Good stuff. Maybe I'll ready NALM sometime soon though it seems less like what I'm feeling right now Seeing Red by David Schow - Kinda wandered off in the middle of this one because I wasn't feeling it. May circle back. It felt well realized but an older style than I was looking for at the time. Splatterpunk Fights back by Various - Some real weird ones but I liked a few of the stories a lot, especially around the middle of the book. Times of Trouble by Various - Probably my fav recently and not strictly horror, but all stories of time travel gone bad. A couple big misses (for me) in here but some real big winners as well. Loved "A Tornado in Time" Grimoire Diabolique by Edward Lee -  Don't read this. It's all poo, and not in a metaphorical sense. I skipped most of these part-way through and only mention it because a couple of the stories not focused on poop or sex crimes were alright. Good luck finding them without stepping on a landmine full of poop or rape or poop-rape though. I am now wary of the person who recommended this to meIn the End, Only Darkness by Monica O'Rourke - Definitely on the extreme horror side, but a good undercurrent of black comedy keeps it just light enough to be readable, and a couple of the stories clicked with me pretty well I've definitely been dipping my toes in the more extreme/weirder side of the genre recently but always looking for more recommendations or just hearing about the weird poo poo you're reading.
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Oct 6, 2020 04:57
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Sham bam bamina! posted:Apologies for dropping in like this in a thread where I'm not a regular, but I'd like to invite everyone here to the 2020 TBB Secret Santa. The more, the merrier! my impulse to send someone some real weird poo poo is tempered by my hesitance to share my real address and name
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Nov 22, 2020 06:25
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Read The Haunted Forest Tour by Jeff Strand and James A Moore and it's basically Jurassic Park with a lot more violence and spooky monsters instead of dinosaurs. It's definitely got some serious B movie vibes with the too snappy dialogue and some silly set piece sequences but if you're looking for a horror adjacent splatterfest rollercoaster ride then you could do a lot worse.
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Dec 23, 2020 23:53
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I also finished up Devolution yesterday and my takeaway was that it was a good entertaining read, held up a bit by the Max Brooks format. It felt like the only interesting information added by the cuts to interviews was that it helped explain the situation that was occurring outside of their perspective, but I thought there were already decent mechanisms for that like the car radios. It wasn't a deal breaker, it just didn't seem to have a purpose besides 'thats the thing Max Brooks does'. Good characters. Nice building dread (dragged down a bit by format). Fun set piece action/horror sequences. Overall a recommend.
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Feb 11, 2021 20:28
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MockingQuantum posted:I'm reading it now and honestly it's not grabbing me at all, I feel like it's not very good at setting up tension, and tends to undercut what tension there is when it comes up. I'm a quarter of the way through the book or around there but I think I might drop it. And yeah, I don't think the format is doing the book any big favors. I liked WWZ aaaages ago when I read it but I think this one either isn't for me, suffers for Brooks's preferred way of writing, or both. It's definitely a bit slow to get going. All of the characters start out pretty boring and flat and each, individually, has a dramatic change of character at some point in the story and becomes a more interesting character. That helped a lot. I think I had the same thoughts about a quarter of the way through and took a break to read a couple of short stories from anthologies instead, but came back to it the next day and started to enjoy it more.
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Feb 11, 2021 20:55
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MockingQuantum posted:I think part of the problem is the yuppies honestly, I find all of the characters pretty unlikeable. And I get to some degree they're meant to be, but woof. None of them are outright offensive or anything, they're mostly just bland stereotypes and I just don't care what happens to them. It definitely feels like a slasher movie in a way though, they're such cardboard cut-outs that I kinda just want terrible things to happen to them. You're not wrong, but that aspect feels intentional as you get farther in. Each character 'breaks' in their own way when they begin to realize the situation they're in and become more interesting afterwards. That's kind of the meat of the story that isn't ape fights or survivalist set up. e: not saying you should just power through if it isn't clicking. It may just not be for you
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Feb 11, 2021 22:11
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Idle Amalgam posted:Looking for more horror in the south, to be honest... feels like home. I mean if you’re a total sicko there’s always the Edward Lee option. He’s basically the definition of extreme hillbilly horror
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Feb 24, 2021 00:30
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After reading the yuppies vs squatches book, I got in the mood for more 'stereotype vs monster(s)' and general creature feature books so here we go on a round up of some B-grade splatterfests I've read recently. Pandemonium by Ryan Harding: Low rent wrestling promotion and fans at the event vs demons of the 'if they injure you then you also become a demon' variety. Most folding chair related murders ever captured in one book. Everyone's skull is consistently as squishy or as solid as is required by the story at the time. 95% of characters don't live long enough to be a character and are just referenced by whatever shirt they're wearing C+ Castaways by Brian Keene: Survivor-esque reality TV cast vs missing link cannibal tribe. All the reality TV stereotypes are here, at least briefly. Gruesome, and gets pretttty rapey for a bit in the last 1/3 so maybe avoid if that's an instant put down. Still, better written than Pandemonium. B- Earthworm Gods (and Earthworm Gods 2) by Brian Keene: Giant worms and every kind of sea monster you can think of vs the few small groups that are still alive. Probably should have just been one book. It's got Cthulu monsters and above average writing for this class of book so you can't go too wrong. Mid-late second book spoiler, suddenly giving the book a path towards a resolution with a magical dude kinda lame B+ Clickers by JF Gonzalez: Sleepy Maine community vs Giant crabs (scorpioncrabs?) and eventually super human lizard/fish people. Good 'absolutely no one is safe' fun. I guess there's a series of these and even a crossover of giant crabs vs Brian Keene's smart zombies from The Rising? I may actually pick some of those up if the mood strikes me again. B The Hematophages by Stephen Kozeniewski: Deep space salvage crew vs brain parasites. Starts Event Horizon-ish and ends The Thing-ish (in the don't know who's infected kinda way). Fun world and characters. B+ Draculas by four different authors. Jeez, man: Draculas, of the very much not chill variety, vs a hospital full of people. Each author took on a different set of characters and the result isn't so much a story, but it's definitely a thrill ride. Pure grindhouse poo poo from minute one. You could do a lot worse if that's the kind of thing you're looking for. B Well that was 2 weeks of late night wine-heavy reading well spent.
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Feb 24, 2021 02:40
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Xiahou Dun posted:Well poo poo. I have some stuff to load up my tablet with. Thanks! No problem, man. Keep in mind those grades are on a "You're in the mood for this kinda poo poo" curve. But overall I enjoyed the lot of them for what they were.
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Feb 24, 2021 02:56
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Ornamented Death posted:This was one of those weird situations where the author had a GREAT book right up until the last five pages when a massive plot contradiction ruined everything. Explanation: Literally the entire book characters go to great lengths to explain that the company is recording everything at all times, yet for the ending to work the company has to be completely ignorant of what happened. They would have watched the goddamn videos and known what's-her-face was compromised. Yeahhhhh, I mentally explained it away as it never being completely clear how easy it is for someone to get infected, though clearly direct contact with the aliens gets the job done. They got all up in the ships water supply before the climax if I'm remembering right, so I just chalked it up as remnant eggs somewhere I guess. But yeah you're not wrong it's a swerve that is done more for what it allows the author to do with the character, rather than what makes the most sense.
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Feb 24, 2021 04:22
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It’s been a while but I remember liking but not loving The Troop. It does exactly what you know and expect it to do competently, without ever really elevating itself past that. I guess it helps that my tolerance for violence and body horror is very very high when it comes to books.
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Mar 3, 2021 02:29
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:Kind of a weird request but does anyone know of any horror novels set during the Vietnam War? I realized there's some stuff floating around that deals with the aftermath back home in the US, but I couldn't really think of any novels set during the conflict itself. There's a decent amount of horror set during WW1 / 2 and even Iraq / Afghanistan, so I thought it was kind of an interesting gap. I got you man. Recently read Grimweave by Tim Curran and it sounds like what you're looking for https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00YM7NCQ6/ref=kinw_myk_ro_title It's a shorty at 149 pages but its a fit for what you're asking
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Mar 3, 2021 06:46
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Since we're doing our periodic Wounds love-fest, does anyone have any other recommendations for books that take place in/deal with literal hell? I've read a few like City Infernal and Soma, but neither are books I'd recommend to others.
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Mar 3, 2021 23:47
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I’m like 2/3 of the way through carrier wave and the biggest terror of the book is watching the percentage left tick away and acknowledging that this book is gonna end. It’s a long book but it could be twice as long and I’d eagerly gobble it up. I want more of this world and I’m conflicted between wanting to read more immediately and not wanting it to end.
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Mar 9, 2021 05:19
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Mr. Nemo posted:Has anyone read this? There was discussion of it a while back in the thread. I liked it because I kinda dig that sort of horror story where you can’t trust your senses. I also liked the evolution of the catalog items as things progressed. Mid late ending spoilers: it got a lot less good when it tried to explain things, but then the climax and epiloguey bit was pretty ok I think I read it on an iPad and had no trouble with weird formatting
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Mar 13, 2021 02:41
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Finished Carrier Wave and I really enjoyed it, even if I liked the first 2/3 of the book more than what it became towards the end. Spoilery discussion, I would have liked it if we checked back in on some of the interesting characters from earlier instead of introducing more new ones in the chapters right before the finale. Like lets hear what happened to that Costco settlement maybe? Also I wanted to see more about the Judges flipping to chaos. Chaos servants were played up as the ultimate big bad and then Mari and the 2 japanese ladies just pop 2 of them immediately before the last one goes ham on fruit stand or something. Then the stand-esque 'well we got a nuke now' ending was kinda lame That's just me focusing on some of my negative points though. The things I didn't like about the later parts were easily outweighed by everything I loved about the earlier parts. Is any of the other stuff from Brockway worth reading?
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Mar 18, 2021 21:40
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Did anyone ever read that forum post book from a long while back where hell and heaven declared war on earth and humanity fucks them both up relatively easily and half the book is military porn describing how bad rear end human weapons are? The one where the amazing Randi (rip) played a pretty significant role. Anyone have any recommendations for anything else where humanity faces a serious big bad and ends up being the real horror that the 'bad guys' need to worry about?
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Mar 26, 2021 06:06
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Kestral posted:This sounds hilarious and I'd love to know what it's called. I think it was the Salvation War. It's ridiculous and I think there was a thread about it at some point. Its real silly but pretty fun
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Mar 26, 2021 09:49
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Scorch Atlas feels like someone writing poems about nightmares they had. I tried to get through it once and lost interest part way through in the same way I find people telling me about their ‘really weird dream’ gets boring real fast. Since people were praising it again I decided to give it another shot. I thought I only got like a quarter through it and as I got to each story I realized that no, I read this one too. Eventually I was more than half way through and wondering if I actually finished it before and it occupied the same short term memory slot my own dreams go to, and was quickly forgotten. I think I was right the first time and it’s not for me
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Apr 8, 2021 16:05
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StrixNebulosa posted:It absolutely has that dream logic feel where the world building barely hangs together. Why is everyone sick? No answer. Why is society breaking like this and not in a more realistic way? Because it's scorch atlas. Why can someone eat cloth and birth a dress? Dream logic! Oh, totally. The writing kind of reminds me of a less extreme and more dreamlike Charlee Jacob. Not for me but I appreciate what they’re trying to do
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Apr 8, 2021 17:44
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Conrad_Birdie posted:Right now I’m trudging through the original two “Splatterpunk” anthologies. It’s a part of horror history I’ve always been (morbidly) fascinated by. And yeah, most of the stories don’t really hold up. Most are about as edgy as a 13 year old boy who just got into South Park, but there’s still some gems in there. Splatterpunk is good but like most horror subgenres the quality in the anthologies can be suuuuper swingy. It's extra weird since most of the authors that get assigned the label actively reject it and the curators of the collections love overstating the importance and social commentary of the genre
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Apr 20, 2021 19:33
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you guys are both thinking of papa Matheson
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Apr 20, 2021 20:14
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Bilirubin posted:Three stories into Gemma Files' new short story collection In That Endlessness, Our End, and this is some good poo poo. The Puppet Motel is just a great haunting story for our modern times. Best collection I have read so far since NALM I’m several stories in (just finished the story about the classic actress) and man is this just not clicking with me at all. It seems every story is someone talking about how spooky something is or describing how spooked they are and then there’s a brief ‘oh it was this thing’ and then it ends. The writing itself is well crafted but so far I remember the stories being the lights in my apartment are spooky, my Airbnb has a spooky tone, and statistically some bad stuff happens more often around this actress who may, in fact, be spooky. Then the last page of each story is like ‘oh yeah it was spooky because of electricity jellyfish/ghost(?)/ritual that turned actress into a weird tree? I’m sorry for being jokingly reductive here but I’m disappointed because I had high hopes for this one
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Jun 16, 2021 22:18
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Bilirubin posted:Huh. Not at all what I recall of it or my reactions to it, but I guess I hope you didn't pay too much? Oh no worries I paid a tenner and have no regrets about supporting a writer who's trying something. I'm glad you enjoyed it too, it just didn't work for me
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Jun 17, 2021 03:13
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Flaggy posted:Rad, thank you, after purchase did it take a while to get a copy? Like 10-15 minutes for me. But it seems like she may be fulfilling by herself through sharing a drop box so it’s entirely possible that it could take longer at some times?
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Jun 20, 2021 03:25
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Time for another roundup of pulpy horror genre trash I read recently Primitive by J.F. Gonzalez: I enjoyed Clickers so decided to give this a spin. It's basically a zombie-virus tale but people turn into weird savage neanderthals instead of zombies. There's also some old gods stuff thrown in as Gonzalez likes to do. Overall an alright book but it was a bit too explainy through dialogue and it felt like it was building to something but never quite 'got there'. The Resurrectionist by Wrath James White: A very creepy dude has the power to resurrect people with limited knowledge of what happened immediately before their death and uses it for his own gratification and to terrorize people, mostly the couple across the street that he's obsessed with. This book was hosed up even on the relative scale of Wrath James White books, which was already a high bar. Just unsettling and gross all around, but you probably knew that's what you were signing up for with a WJW book. Animal Kingdom by Iain Rob Wright: All the animals in the world suddenly go all Maximum Overdrive on humanity and the protagonist and his son are at the zoo. Solid creature feature action with a big dose of 'other humans are the true monsters' cliches. You could do a lot worse if you're in the mood for some schlocky b-movie style action on a lazy afternoon or a moderately long flight. The Gates and Legion by Iain Rob Wright: Enjoyed Animal Kingdom so gave Wright's 'end of the world/demon invasion' series a shot. The first book (The Gates) was alright but the second book was just the same events from the first book from other characters' perspectives with a tiny bit of advancement at the end. That really sapped my motivation to continue on so I drifted off after book 2. I've read several more recently but the books not included above range from 'forgettable enough that I hardly remember them', all the way to 'embarrassed to admit that I read it', not counting the half dozed anthologies I'm perpetually half-way through.
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Jul 5, 2021 00:35
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Chas McGill posted:Is there a good (or at least fun) example of this genre? Ehhhh. The one I mentioned isn’t bad. I’d just read the first book, maybe read the news reporter sections and the last chapter of Vamps’ story from the second, and then move on to the third (which I haven’t read yet). Comedy fun answer is the salvation war, though. Earth vs Hell and eventually Heaven but neither adversary had been paying attention to earth’s weapon development for the last few centuries. That’s more hilarious military porn than horror, though. E: there’s obviously a lot more good stuff if you start branching out into elder gods instead of Abrahamic demons though. If anyone has more suggestions I’d love to hear them because I love that over the top silly Armageddon stuff Good Citizen fucked around with this message at 03:17 on Jul 5, 2021 |
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Jul 5, 2021 03:14
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No. 1 Juicy Boi posted:I just read my first splatterpunk novel, Aron Beauregard's The Slob. That one always shows up on my 'based on your reading' list because I read terrible poo poo and still my reaction is always 'naaaaaah I'm good thanks'
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Jul 7, 2021 04:17
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Oxxidation posted:the ending is an "all bets are off" thing either way, since it's outside the usual cycle intended by the Four. the Judge was supposed to flip sides and extinguish the human race for good because the other three got into its territory and went "base," but the surviving humans went "gently caress you actually" and severed all of the Four's connections at once with the nuke. at best they've been banished for good, at worst they're drifting out in space again with a population that knows about their cycle and how to educate against it I read the Four as concepts and not truly 'killable', and humanity as eventually hosed, unless the immunity that the survivors had was genetic. Even with proper education, imagine anyone with enough motivation had a nuke that could eliminate humanity just by searching out some old hard drives. Once the cycle kicks off that's pretty much it for humanity. The best possible situation humanity can hope for is that the immunity is genetic and then the survivors can track down anyone who survived through methods like the costco colony and kill them all.
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Jul 24, 2021 03:30
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pospysyl posted:Just finished up Bonding by Maggie Siebert, which you can find here courtesy of Siebert herself: Read this and it’s a nice quick read for being free. Most of the narrators felt unreliable since it seems almost all of them are in the process of going insane in some way. My biggest complaint is that a few of the stories cut off right when they seemed like they were going to get really interesting. It’s a really quick read so pick it up if you want an odd collection of relatively shorter than usual short stories for free
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Jul 27, 2021 01:16
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As a fan of themed anthologies I really liked multiple perspectives on a universal disaster. My only complaints with the story were based around the writer’s attempt to wrap up all of the loose ends and the abandonment of interesting storylines/characters
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Aug 17, 2021 20:57
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Between a Spider’s Eyes came out today and I’m only through 4 stories so far but I’m really liking it. It’s an indie splatter anthology featuring 8 authors but it’s better edited and more varied than most. So far stories 2 and 3 left me legitimately unsettled and 4 was a fun silly ride. I’ll definitely be checking in on some of these authors’ other works when I’m done E: read a couple more stories and gonna caveat the above by saying the next two weren’t as strong, with the 6th (the one based around a schizophrenic) just being gross for grossness sake. Just a heads up Good Citizen fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Aug 25, 2021 |
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Aug 25, 2021 05:45
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Finished it off and the last story redeemed it enough that I’d recommend if you skip story 6 The last story was just the right kind of weird for me. Spoilers a drug give you temporary memory transfer between the people who take it. Married couple takes it to help their marriage and husband decides to rescue a dog from the pound because he learns his wife loved her childhood dog. An error in judgement occurs, the husband and dog both eat a pill, and murder mystery hijinks ensue
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Aug 26, 2021 05:11
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SniperWoreConverse posted:A thought experiment: ok, fine, post your sonic horror fan fiction
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Sep 2, 2021 01:48
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Big Mad Drongo posted:https://twitter.com/UweBollocks/status/1435234604940734465 I’d also like to hear from anyone who read this as it’s always hovering around in my kindle suggestions and I’ve almost picked it up a couple times
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Sep 8, 2021 16:31
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Retro Futurist posted:Need some good space horror. Preferably some "ancient civilization" Ghosts of Mars type stuff, but I'll take some Event Horizon If you’re ok with a book that kinda whiffs it in the last couple pages the Hematophages is a pretty good mix of Event Horizon/The Thing
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Sep 28, 2021 15:39
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Xiahou Dun posted:Can I get recommendations for good horror with images of cannibalism? I’m running an RPG with that as a central theme, and I find it easiest to do that by just filling my brain with stuff to steal from. I’ve read a bunch already but feel free to give obvious ones too cause maybe I missed obvious stuff. Extra bonus if I can get it cheap and digitally cause the game is in two weeks so I don’t want to wait too long. Just some stuff I read in the last year or so they're relatively fresh on my mind. Apologies if I'm misremembering anything. All of these were kindle books. I'll indicate if I got them on unlimited. Primitive by J.F. Gonzalez - Most of humanity suddenly devolves into aggressive savages. A group of survivors attempts to flee to the countryside. There's some influence behind the scenes from an ancient neanderthal god/demon. Maybe more semi-smart zombie-ish than cannibal tribe-ish? The Devil Next Door by Tim Curran - Similar concept as Primitive with the devolving, but a tighter focus and much more visceral. The people who regress remain being characters with chapters from their perspective. Probably my favorite of these three but pretty graphic (Unlimited) Castaways by Brian Keene - Missing link cannibal tribe on an island that one of those survivor-like shows decided to film on. Absolute schlock and pretty rapey in the last quarter or so but lots of cannibal tribe action once things kick off. That's me interpreting your request as tribal cannibal stuff. If you just want graphic depictions of people eating other people there's always stuff like Off Season by Jack Ketchum or Succulent Prey by Wrath James White. Good Citizen fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Oct 13, 2021 |
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Oct 13, 2021 06:17
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Retro Futurist posted:I have a tonne of Goosebumps for my kid, they still rule. Plus good old Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark If you want to traumatize your child just remember to get the version of scary stories to tell in the dark with the original artwork. The art refresh was trash
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Nov 12, 2021 19:40
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ptkfvk posted:i just started carrier wave and it is wonderful If you're into bleak apocalyptic horror with shifting perspectives, there really isn't anything else quite like it. It's one of the few semi-recent horror books I'm considering rereading.
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Dec 3, 2021 06:32
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