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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: The Grin of the Dark by Ramsay Campbell is great, if you can stand how it uses puns and wordplay to create a horrific atmosphere, plus the main character is a loser who gets into a lot internet fights.
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Jan 28, 2019 04:07
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Brian Evenson has a new book out, Song for the Unravelling of the World.
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Aug 28, 2019 23:42
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fez_machine posted:Don't read Laird Barron read Brian Evenson. It's been five years, and it's still true.
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Aug 29, 2019 03:28
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nankeen posted:can anyone recommend a decent horror shorts anthology (with various authors)? i already have the treasury of american horror stories (which is good and i'd recommend btw), so something without too much overlap would be great The Weird by the Jeff and Anne VanderMeer is world class. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weird
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Aug 30, 2019 01:33
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Black Griffon posted:Yo what's good space horror? "Voyager in Night" by C J Cherryh Brian Evenson has done a lot under the name B. K. Evenson fez_machine fucked around with this message at 21:27 on Jan 13, 2020 |
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Jan 13, 2020 21:15
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anilEhilated posted:Tangentially related to the Klein talk - where would you folks recommend starting with Ramsey Campbell? I love Midnight Sun but it's more a mood piece than anything else. At the very least read his autobiographical introduction to The Face that Must Die, because it's one of the best pieces of autobiographical horror that exits. Basically, it recounts his very messed up family life and upbringing and his struggles to care for his schizophrenic mother.
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Feb 6, 2020 14:05
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Ok, putting together a list The Red Tree by Kiernan is supposed to be good (She's never gelled with me) The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat is a Iranian classic Michael Cisco's work is more weird than horror but still worth tracking down, The Wretch of The Sun is him working in the horror mode. Kathe Koja's The Cipher is a classic for a reason
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Feb 21, 2020 12:50
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Give me that 'gotti gang tag, mods.
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Mar 9, 2020 09:24
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COOL CORN posted:Have any of y'all ever encountered a book that's too obscene or grotesque or unsettling? I just realized that's happened to me movies but never with books. Maybe it has something to do with the limits of my imagination. I'm not sure but now I want to push myself! Jack Ketchum really pushes it, I've never touched any of his stuff based on what people have said.
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May 17, 2020 11:55
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GrandpaPants posted:Does anyone have any recommendations for (good) stories where a phenomenon is slowly being discovered or studied? It can also just be weird, rather than actually horrific. Probably the weirder the better, honestly, as opposed to like, I dunno, zombies. Kathe Koja's The Cipher is a good one. T E D Klein's The Black Man with The Horn is great but stay away from the wikipedia entry. Avram Davidson's The Adventures of Doctor Eszterhazy are short stories that are generally about slowly uncovering phenomenon but as Holmes pastiche. Edit: The Boss In The Wall is probably a better choice for the mood you want. Robert Westall's The Wheatstone Pond is a good one about a malicious pond infecting a neighbourhood. Basil Cooper's The Great White Space is a Mountains of Madness inspired novel. fez_machine fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Feb 23, 2021 |
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Feb 23, 2021 13:43
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Ham Cheeks posted:Robert Aickman has such unique writing, I recently started reading his stuff and it's just so....weird. Are there any other writers like him? Have you read The Weird anthology by the Vandermeers? That's usually a good place to find this type of stuff.
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Mar 24, 2021 02:16
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a foolish pianist posted:Can you point to some of this furor? I haven't seen any, and now I'm curious. It's largely on twitter. The crux of it is that Gretchen has been consistently opposed to softening or otherwise making queer expression palatable and will argue about it strongly on internet in ways that aren't softened or palatable. This has made her a lot of enemies. So when she published a work that's in some ways similar to the "Attack Helicopter" story that's going to win a mea-culpa Hugo award, people took it as an opportunity to go on the attack. fez_machine fucked around with this message at 15:57 on Jun 17, 2021 |
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Jun 17, 2021 15:53
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Siivola posted:What's the deal with ST Joshi? I'd like to get into Lovecraft and have seen recs for the Penguin Books collections edited by Joshi. Those books are fine, but he went crazy and hard apologist for Lovecraft when people began to question the things perpetuating the canonisation of Lovecraft like the World Fantasy Award statuette and the revisionist Lovecraftian trend in general. It went way beyond someone freaking out because people were attacking his bread and butter. He also built a reputation as a good editor of fiction in the Lovecraft style that got exposed because he doesn't have great taste just better than what existed at the time he was putting together collections and writing screeds about the state of modern horror fiction prompted people to go in fighting. edit: Reading over his blog from the last few years he appears to have mellowed out a little, but he's still a Lovecraft racism apologist (rarely denying but always softening). fez_machine fucked around with this message at 10:41 on Jul 11, 2021 |
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Jul 11, 2021 10:25
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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. Last Days by Brian Evenson is focused on a cult that worships amputation but I don't think that's too much of a leap in terms of body horror.
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Oct 14, 2021 01:11
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PRADA SLUT posted:Recommend me some horror books for an 8-year-old. Does the Goosebumps series hold up, or is there something better in the last 20 years? I'd say Robert Westall is the guy who wrote the best horror stories for kids but would probably be more appropriate for a slightly older age group. His stuff for children is legitimately suspenseful and well written as evidenced by Valancourt putting out his work straight as for adults.
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Nov 12, 2021 22:46
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Shaman Tank Spec posted:I recently finished Quiet Houses (very good), and I'm about done with the Elementals. I'm in the mood for more good ghost stories, haunted house or otherwise. I've read the Haunting of Hill House, Hell House, Amityville Horror, Summer of Night, Ghost Story and a few others but largely you can assume I ain't read poo poo. Grab the Valancourt Robert Westall collections
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Nov 24, 2021 21:19
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Evenson doesn't really change his major concerns with his I.P. work, and they're often considered some of the best that's written for the franchise (see the book he wrote for Aliens), but they're also sloppier than his actual novels (the ending/back half of the Aliens novel is not as good as the build up).
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Dec 17, 2021 20:04
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Untrustable posted:So recently I've been getting into what I call "investigative horror". Stuff where the story is told through a standard narrative, but also through the use of police reports, pictures, witness statements, etc. The Boss In the Wall: A Treatise on the House Devil by Avram Davidson is great and has one of my favourite ever confront the ghost scenes.
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Jun 5, 2022 08:23
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Antivehicular posted:Is there anyone out there who fits in the same niche as Aickman -- the mundane evolving into unnerving off-kilter situations and mounting dread, usually without any monsters/violence, just... deep discomfort? (I don't really know how to sum up Aickman, but you know how it goes.) I find his writing uniquely compelling and want more stuff that feels like it. I like Avram Davidson's horror stories a lot for this - Limekiller in particular (but be aware they're very different from Aickman). Some, not all, Ramsey Campbell is good for this as well.
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Jul 1, 2022 12:04
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elpaganoescapa posted:I've been reading through Alone with the Horrors, the Ramsey Campbell collection, and man, what a great writer. I just love that subtle style, the constant and increasing disturbing hints, the final reveal. He writes the same story again and again so they may start to blur together, but I think that's a strength for him. One of the all-time masters, for sure. I really like Campbell. He's under-discussed even if he's an acknowledged master. There's a lot of books though of varying style and quality. I'll second everything alf_pogs recommended. Midnight Sun in particular, although it's not the most consistently great, when it hits it hits HARD. I always recommend his introduction to The Face That Must Die, “At the Back of My Mind: A Guided Tour”, as one of the greatest pieces of auto-biographical horror ever. The Grin Of The Dark is probably the start of his punning phase, where the typical late period Campbell protagonist is constantly barraged by mishearing, misinterpretations, and maladjusted language that obscures their impending doom. Anyway, it's a miserable book but it very effectively builds and builds and builds the horror, until it culminates in something very unsettling. (I felt like my brain was being rewired reading it). fez_machine fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Aug 1, 2022 |
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Jul 31, 2022 21:36
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MockingQuantum posted:It looks like between my library's physical collection, they have The Searching Dead, The Kind Folk, The Overnight, and Nazareth Hill. Any opinion on any of those? Of these I've only read The Overnight (I've just started reading The Searching Dead). The Overnight is decent, it's pretty deliberately tongue-in-cheek being based on Campbell's own experience of being forced into working at Borders at an advanced age because writing wasn't paying the bills. But it has its moments. A very slow burn if you can't stand the tedium of workplace disputes and pettiness. The Searching Dead is him returning to his Lovecraftian roots, which people have periodically begged him to do. Nazareth Hill is from around his 80s and 90s peak so might be very good. fez_machine fucked around with this message at 06:24 on Aug 2, 2022 |
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Aug 2, 2022 06:18
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zoux posted:What about the horror genre lends itself to shorter forms over longer ones? Sci fi used to be the realm of short stories, but now everything is a 6 part doorstopper series. Not to say that there aren't horror doorstoppers, the most famous horror writer of all time churns them out, but it seems like the best stuff - or at least the most recommended stuff- are short story collections. Do y'all think that's because of the rules and style of the genre itself or is it to do with marketing and other business-side aspects of publishing? The best sci-fi stuff is still being published at short lengths it's just that nobody wants to read or talk about it. Even here in the horror thread, mostly people recommend novels.
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Aug 6, 2022 01:45
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Finished The Searching Dead and didn't like it very much. Ramsey's reaching for a lot of stuff but not quite grasping all of them. There's one or two core ideas that are good but could have been better at short length.
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Aug 10, 2022 12:29
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Peter Straub is really good if really boomer in places.
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Sep 7, 2022 12:24
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chernobyl kinsman posted:bug chasing is a real thing, there are academic articles on it, and given that a large part of clive barker's brand is being a hosed up sex weirdo it would be unsurprising if he has in fact done hosed up weird sex stuff The story behind the Cenobite aesthetic is pretty messed up https://thequietus.com/articles/23468-stephen-thrower-clive-barker-hellraiser-coil-article
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Sep 29, 2022 10:23
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Shitstorm Trooper posted:Oh man the leather-bound, heavily pierced guys who torture people were inspired by BDSM porn? Why I never... It's some pretty extreme BDSM porn from weird underground magazines, like what's described isn't your run of the mill leather, chains, and whips stuff.
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Sep 29, 2022 22:04
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Avram Davidson's The Boss in The Wall: A Treatise on the House Devil which I've recommended numerous times in this thread is free on Amazon for the next 5 days.
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Apr 23, 2023 23:52
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Count Thrashula posted:I'm sure this has been asked before, but what should I read if I'm on a big Diablo kick at the moment? (Nathan Ballingrud comes to mind, as does Between Two Fires, but I've read those) Karl Edward Wagner's Kane series of books might work for you.
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Jun 17, 2023 11:43
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value-brand cereal posted:Hi thread it me. I've been making two bookshelves themed around similar, niche themes and was wondering if anyone had suggestions. Ramsey Campbell's The Grin of The Dark takes a while to build up but very good at rearranging your brain to make the scares impactful. Also Ancient Images Stephen Graham Jones's Demon Theory
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Nov 6, 2023 22:14
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Kestral posted:Anyone here read William Hope Hodgson’s House on the Borderland ? I’m about two thirds of the way through The Night Land and good god I can’t take much more of the drippiest, most saccharine romance ever put to paper, but I’m fascinated by the way this guy’s brain works, and some of the nightmare imagery he conjures up. Wondering if Borderland holds up after all this time, hopefully with more of the great imagery and weirdness and less awkward faux-17th century prose and excruciating romance. People generally regard House on the Borderland as far more accessible. I've only read a comic book adaptation but no romance as far as I can remember.
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Nov 18, 2023 10:22
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escape artist posted:
he was literally nominated for a Hugo award and then wrote about getting rammed in the butt by it
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Nov 30, 2023 05:11
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LifeLynx posted:I had trouble deciding whether to post this here or in the sci-fi thread, but I get more of a horror sense from weirdlit. After finishing The Weird by Jeff VanderMeer, I've been on the hunt for more sci-fi/horror weird fiction short story collections. My recent haul from the library: Brian Evenson and Robert Aickman's collections are great places to go on from The Weird and yes, here's the WeirdLit thread https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3461819 Lol it's been almost a decade of me recommending Brian Evenson to deaf ears fez_machine posted:Brian Evenson is probably one of the best writers writing horror at the moment. Get Windeye, its got most of the really good stuff in it. fez_machine fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Jan 22, 2024 |
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Jan 22, 2024 15:16
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MockingQuantum posted:Not entirely deaf, I started reading Evenson because of him being recommended in the Weird thread and never regretted it Thank you for your services to reading and enjoying good short fiction
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Jan 23, 2024 07:05
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Seconding Kenneth Hite, ironically as a classical live and let live Eisenhower Republican, he's one of the least objectionable Lovecraft scholars.
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Feb 9, 2024 22:42
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edit: no as authoritative as I thought
fez_machine fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Feb 9, 2024 |
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Feb 9, 2024 23:23
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Franchescanado posted:I would really like something in the vein of Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury and Hell House by Richard Matheson. Not that the two are overly similar, but both are favorites of mine and I have a hard time finding something that hits those highs. Lovely prose, macabre ideas, inventive imagery, serious tone but still fun. The last horror book that really knocked my socks off was Blatty's The Exorcist. Have you checked out what Valancourt Press is publishing? https://www.valancourtbooks.com/horror.html Michael McDowell is a perennial thread favourite. Particularly Blackwater. I love their Robert Westall reissues.
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Mar 15, 2024 13:12
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escape artist posted:What's a good starting place? Never heard of this fellow but skimming his Wiki has me intrigued. The Best of Greg Egan
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Mar 21, 2024 02:26
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I mean there's not much horror fantasy in mediaeval-style settings either
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May 5, 2024 15:05
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