The General Horror Book Thread: Between Two Fires fucking RULED! Hell yeah!!!!

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > The General Horror Book Thread: Between Two Fires fucking RULED! Hell yeah!!!!

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Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

chernobyl kinsman posted:

anything good come out lately?

Jeff Vandermeer has a new one out. I have no idea how horror or weird it is personally, but a friend really liked it

# ¿ Jul 10, 2018 01:44

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 05:16

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

MockingQuantum posted:

Are you talking about Borne? That came out well over a year ago now, he hasn't put out anything since then.

The only things that have been on my radar are Paul Tremblay's new thing, Cabin at the End of the World, and the new Stephen King, which I'm guessing won't be a wild hit itt

vOv

My google assistant went nuts a few weeks ago about a new book he had out, and that is the extent that I looked into it at that point (since I already have an enormous pile to read and books don't often go stale)

# ¿ Jul 10, 2018 01:54

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

I didn't think The Fisherman was all that bad a read. I really liked a few elements in fact. Just super glad the greatest length wasn't written in the voice of the first narrator (although I found that evened out later in the book).

# ¿ Aug 13, 2018 04:36

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pospysyl posted:

What are some good horror novels that deal with institutions? I'm thinking of schools, corporations, or other organizations with strict hierarchies and rules. Authority from the Area X trilogy would count, as would the darker parts of Kafka's The Trial. I'm also looking to check out Andres Barba's Such Small Hands, which is about a girl's orphanage.

20 Days of Turin has a mysterious library, and is worth reading

# ¿ Aug 29, 2018 22:44

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ravenkult posted:

Save you a click, I mention:

"We Will All Go Down Together" by Gemma Files

I loving loved that book and am glad someone else is at least aware of it

# ¿ Sep 13, 2018 05:30

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Tolkien minority posted:

So I read at the mountains of madness and... I really hated it. This was my first experience reading anything by lovecraft. I think it might be one of the worst books I�ve ever voluntarily read all the way through. Mild spoilers ahead. I swear 50% of the word count is descriptions of rocks or buildings, giving you the exact height, length, shape, longitude and latitude and age. He took such a cool concept of an ancient alien plant monster race and ruined it by explaining every single aspect of it in meticulous, incredibly dry detail. He uses the same words over and over again til they lose all meaning. What the gently caress even is a cyclopean room and why should it scare me!!! I felt like when I was reading my little cousins lovely fan fiction that told me all about his protagonists hp stats and sword length and epic ninjitsu strikes and I had to pretend it was good so he wouldn�t feel bad. I don�t think there�s a single line of dialogue or character building in the 100 pages. It basically alternates between �my god, this was so horrible, so horrendous, I cannot possibly explain what it is and have you understand � and 10 pages of meticulous detail telling you the area and volume of every room he stepped through to get there and did I mention the rocks and carvings he found and the exact length and number of tentacles coming from it�s anus, before finally ending on �ahh what he saw was so terrible, I cannot describe it, it drove him mad! space! Horror! Yogg! Necronomicon! Old gods! Other lovecraft buzzwords! be afraid!�. The scariest part were the giant penguins

I�m like, actively mad at this book. I�ve been reading my way through the �classic� horror stories of the 20th century and everything I�ve read so far has been good to great, but this was just so poorly written and boring it was like pulling teeth to get through.

Read Arthur Machen instead if you have not already

# ¿ Jan 5, 2019 06:17

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Tertius Oculum posted:

Imago Sequence - Grabbed the audiobook, it's pretty cool, I've finished half of the stories in it including the title, like it for the most part so far.

Opinions on the Black Sloth?

quote:

Currently reading:
The Fisherman So far it's a pretty well written book. I think I'm almost done with the Dutchman's Creek tale. They just unhooked the Leviathan and the fisherman got hooked into the ocean. :0

Wait for it

# ¿ Jan 9, 2019 07:24

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

chernobyl kinsman posted:

i honestly, and i'm not just trying to be contrarian here, do not understand what people like about The Fisherman. i think it's one of the worst horror novels i've ever read. the only good parts were about the dude fishing in the hudson valley - which, for all that the book stresses that it's set in the hudson valley (and speaking as someone who has spent a lot of time in the hudson valley), feels absolutely bland and characterless. it's very clear that langan wanted the hudson valley to be a character in the story but completely lacked the skill necessary to give it any kind of vitality; you could run a find and replace on every instance of "New York" and change it to "Washington" and the book wouldn't be even a little bit different. hex did a way better job of conjuring the feel of the landscape and that book was written about Holland.

and good lord, the middle section of the book - the massive exposition dump weakly framed as a story-within-a-story, heralded by the narrator's weak bit about wow it's so mysterious that i remember this word for word, like some other force is moving through me - blew. aside from being paint-by-number predictable, and aside from being written in exactly the same voice as the narrator's (despite purportedly being reported [or better, channeled] speech) - it also failed to give either its physical or temporal setting any life or interest at all. it's just boring. it's boring as hell and i hate it.

and then the end of the novel abandons any horror pretensions at all and turns into an out-and-out fantasy romp, complete with a dark wizard battle. gently caress, that book sucks.

hahaha yeah it owns

# ¿ Jan 9, 2019 07:26

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Never sell books you like

# ¿ Jan 16, 2019 15:49

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

chernobyl kinsman posted:

last four

I raise you all of them

# ¿ Jan 17, 2019 21:03

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Traxis posted:

Can anyone recommend any books that have a found footage/mysterious signals/numbers stations vibe? So far I've read:
House of Leaves
Transmission by Ambrose Ibsen
Experimental Film by Gemma Files
The Last Days of Jack Sparks by Jason Arnopp
and the short story collection Lost Signals

Found Audio https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32073070-found-audio

# ¿ Jan 27, 2019 19:51

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ravenkult posted:

Any good recs for an Alien vibe? Abandoned space stations or ships, etc?

Charles Sheffield had a series on the go along these lines, the Heritage series, but it is more scifi than horror also he died before finishing the arc so the alien artifact mystery will never be solved

# ¿ Feb 3, 2019 22:54

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chernobyl kinsman posted:

been trying to make a death of the author joke since you posted this but i cant make it work

I tried when I wrote it

# ¿ Feb 4, 2019 00:44

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pikachode posted:

every time i think "sicilian-polish-american from detroit" i lol irl for reasons i can't even begin to explain here. poor thomas

Nothing says Hamtramck like

# ¿ Feb 18, 2019 03:25

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chernobyl kinsman posted:

i taught a couple of robert aickman stories in class this week and one of my students said it was "the weirdest poo poo ive ever read in college and i didnt understand it at all"

you're welcome, son, and neither do i

So the teaching of it is you standing before the class and gesturing vaguely ?

# ¿ Mar 1, 2019 14:50

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chernobyl kinsman posted:

i just say "weird poo poo huh" and then make uncomfortable eye contact with them in total silence for 75 minutes

lol

Today's guest lecture my impression of the internal dialogue of Ligotti:

# ¿ Mar 1, 2019 19:15

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Can't recall whether these two have been mentioned before.

New from Laird Barron: https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781614981923?fbclid=IwAR0V_pJswT6AQ-dguUCZccUh7L0eqgeg7LgZwkmhXN-r7-sLGsBjCIv2sbQ
And from Nathan Ballingrud: https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-5344-4993-0?fbclid=IwAR0sgIKulgwsukweBocFqSWRGjBrUpj9GPhNx0v_uEaAsOplEGb_XmpvdmA

# ¿ Mar 4, 2019 16:15

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Ornamented Death posted:

John Langan

poo poo right. Apologies. Was just looking at a review by Barron and that slipped in

# ¿ Mar 4, 2019 16:36

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

ravenkult posted:

A book I edited years ago is a featured deal on Bookbub and I thought it might be of interest here.
It's a 50's USA themed collection that I would describe as kind of old school in terms of stories. Not very gory or violent but not really new wave of weird either.

https://www.bookbub.com/books/american-nightmare-by-max-booth-iii-and-tim-marquitz?ebook_deal

Nice!

# ¿ Mar 24, 2019 15:32

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Mel Mudkiper posted:

So I just got done reading Kwaidan which is a book of ancient buddhist ghost stories and it owned

link that poo poo up my good man

# ¿ Apr 17, 2019 15:27

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Mel Mudkiper posted:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1210

Many thanks, epub transferred to drive, needed a public domain book for the reading challenge

# ¿ Apr 17, 2019 18:33

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Cool. I just got my hands on Lake Monsters and am going to start it tonight. Glad folks seem to like it

# ¿ Apr 22, 2019 00:27

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Bilirubin posted:

Cool. I just got my hands on Lake Monsters and am going to start it tonight. Glad folks seem to like it

Dear god what have I gotten myself into? Two stories in and the theme seems to be "how a minor brush with unreality can completely drive people completely mad". Really entertaining so far!

# ¿ Apr 24, 2019 04:33

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anilEhilated posted:

It's really good.

It really is.

Just finished the Antarctic expedition story. Amazing

# ¿ Apr 25, 2019 03:58

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Oxxidation posted:

"Wild Acre" is the sort of horror story that should be written more often imo

Yes.

Also loved The Crevasse and Monsters from Heaven. Sunbleached was super sad tho

# ¿ Apr 28, 2019 02:05

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

chernobyl kinsman posted:

wounds is good but not as good as lake monsters, which absolutely owns. the stories in wounds lack the emotional wallop of monsters. it's also much more dark fantasy than horror, and they're all (or almost all?) set in the same universe, so there's a fair bit of what feels like just world-building with no other end - the last story, for example, suffers hugely at its conclusion because it's forced into being a prequel to the first story.

Boo I'm down to the last story and I don't want for it to end.

Lots of feels in this, poor old haunted man

# ¿ Apr 28, 2019 05:53

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Holy poo poo. A Good Husband. What a note to end on.

Top to bottom one of the best collections of horror short stories I've yet read.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2019 17:30

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R.L. Stine posted:

Is there anything out there like Lake Monsters? I started Wounds and I'm not crazy about it. Too much like Ligotti's weirder cosmic puppet stuff. If there are other short collections in line with Lake Monsters or, for example, Ligotti's short The Bungalow House I'd be eager to check them out.

The Imago Sequence is probably the closest I have read to Lake Monsters but it is very different in tone and story structure (and a little one note on the central characters) so not really?

I also really loved Gemma Files' We Will All Go Down Together but its more supernatural/fairy thriller a la Hellblazer than like Lake Monsters.

# ¿ May 5, 2019 05:10

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Actually, read Arthur Machen's The White People
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11226926-the-white-people-and-other-weird-stories?from_search=true

# ¿ May 5, 2019 05:14

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

nankeen posted:

lake monsters verdict: holy poo poo

right?

# ¿ May 17, 2019 15:07

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nankeen posted:

yeah i'll definitely be re-reading the collection in a few days so i can give each story the attention it deserves, i'm used to short story collections fizzling out after the second or third entry so i plough through them but lake monsters stayed red hot all the way to the end. wounds wasn't as good apparently?

Its different as I understand it. Not so much independent stories but more of an exercise of world building with opening and closing stories that tie it all together

# ¿ May 18, 2019 06:40

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

I love it when the forums can agree on something

# ¿ May 24, 2019 15:09

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unpacked robinhood posted:

I've been slowly going through the books that pop up in this thread and House of Leaves is the first one I really don't get.
What really kill it for me is the fake intellectual rambling more than the Johnny Truant part though.
It felt like such a boring drag to slog through for the most part.

One of my students lent me his copy and is super keen for me to start it and I'm kinda middling about it given the mixed reviews here.

But he was totally correct about Roadside Picnic so perhaps I should give him the benefit of the doubt

# ¿ May 26, 2019 17:27

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Robot Wendigo posted:

I just finished--and loved--Roadside Picnic. Having read all of House of Leaves, the main house mystery is the only part that was memorable and worthwhile. The rest was just wankery.

I hope you read the version with the zombies because that was both wtf and lmao at the same time. Really good, and as you said in your review could have been written today.

I just picked up Lincoln in the Bardo at a small indy bookstore today and while chatting evangelized the clerk on Lake Monsters. Hope he takes me up on it, since we bonded over Blood Meridian.

# ¿ May 27, 2019 03:46

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

chernobyl kinsman posted:

it's important to remember that a lot of horror writers are deeply unstable weirdos.

# ¿ Jun 16, 2019 07:15

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Buddy of mine (the one who lent me Lake Monsters) is currently finding this one super creepy: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show...wNwuf206o24ODv8

# ¿ Jun 30, 2019 07:05

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Anyone familiar with this: https://www.npr.org/2019/07/02/7371...WSM9fk5PQRYzMmM

# ¿ Jul 6, 2019 04:10

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Fallom posted:

Mainly the titular one. What was the monster supposed to represent? Why did its substance adhere to the father, and what was the significance of the glow that animals carried away from it as they devoured it? What's the meaning of how the daughter saw the monster when she made her drawing? Is there a horror element here beyond the father struggling to reintegrate with his family after leaving prison and falling back on his (self) abusive behavior?

I feel like answering the first question would probably be enough to help me understand the rest.

I regret this question has not engendered more discussion. I'm really not sure whether the first question is at all appropriate though? I suspect that this might be a situation where trying to impose an "explanation" on something that is so much larger and, frankly, non human, will lead to the overwhelming dissonance experienced by the father. Somethings just are, and have no reason, ya know?

The other way of approaching it would be how the unexamined life and traumas of the father perpetuates a cycle of abuse, vs. an unknowable thing that the father struggles to first understand, then get rid of, in disastrous failure, might be another way out

# ¿ Aug 6, 2019 04:01

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Got my hands on a copy of Wounds, wish me luck, heading in

# ¿ Aug 7, 2019 05:21

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 05:16

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Fire Safety Doug posted:

Wear an iron box over your head and you�ll be okay.

Finally was able to get to it and after the first story I understand this now

Its good.

# ¿ Aug 18, 2019 20:47

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > The General Horror Book Thread: Between Two Fires fucking RULED! Hell yeah!!!!

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