Horror /lit/

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>>9922010
I love Robert E. Howard

Bump, please recommend a book that has the same atmosphere as pic related. Want a book like that to read for early October.

>>9922055
OP's picture I mean.

>>9922010
William Hope Hodgson and Clark Ashton Smith are criminally underrated, give em a chance OP and spread the word

Read some Seabury Quinn

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>>9922095

Laird Barron.
A thousand times, Laird Barron.
Grab either Occultation or The Imago Sequence to test the waters of his short fiction.
If you enjoy the read, pick up the other one, and once you're through that read The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All, and then The Croning.

Ramsey Campbell

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John Langan is great

Any good books on witches? Nothing spooks me more than a hag.

>>9922010
Ligotti's Songs for a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe are top notch, specially the latter

>>9923224
This was a fantastic read, tremendous voice on Langan on this one. A similarly great one is The Sea of Ash by Scott Thomas.

>>9923240
The Dreams in the Witch House by Lovecraft

>>9922128
laird barron does a really annoying thing where he starts spouting nonsense in rapid fire to create an effect of kaleidoscopic mad images similar to the way Lovecraft's protagonists babbled on in their insanity however I've found that HPL was more measured in its use and didn't go as far as Barron with it. Made me stop reading The Imago Sequence halfway trough the book although I'm thinking of giving Occultation a try.

>>9923240
M.R. James' "The Ash Tree"

>>9923240
Just watch The Witch film that was released last year. The dialogue is of literary quality.

>>9923560
Beautiful Thing is his strongest collection, and Swift to Chase is my favorite collection.
The Croning is a fantastic novel, and I think his writing works better at novel pace than it does in short stories, but know that it builds off of the mythology he establishes in Occultation, Imago, and Beautiful Thing.

Though take my opinion with a grain of salt I guess because I'm a biased fanboy. Barron is my favorite current writer.

>>9922010
I have no mouth, and I must scream

>>9923615
i will give him another try on account of the critical acclaim he's gotten although from the couple or so stories I've read of him his prose seems to be rough around the edges and to the point and I find that I like a little bit of purple on my weird fiction although not as much as Ashton Smith indulged in.

My current favorite is a toss up between Scott Thomas and Langan even though all I've read of him is The Fisherman, it was a super strong entry in the horror canon.

>>9922010
Off Season by Jack Ketchum

>>9923615
what about X's for Eyes? no one seems to talk about that book at all, I'm guessing it wasn't very good.

>>9923633
A lot of times Barron does resort to rapid stream of consciousness, and gets a bit hard to follow. My honest suggestion is to not try too hard to follow; when it gets glossy, gloss. He's trying to invoke a feeling more so than describe a scene when he goes down tangents of weird imagery, imo.

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>>9923639
I enjoyed it a lot for what it was, but it doesn't get much mention due to how far-off it is from Barron's normal style and "canon".

He wanted to write a pulpy saturday morning cartoon with his own sense of style and storytelling, and he did exactly that.

It's a good afternoon's read on a cool autumn day.

>>9922895
his first collection "The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants" is what I've read of him and it didn't really impress me. He was trying to be HPL too hard, there's several good stories worth their inclusion to the mythos but overall I'd give it a 6/10.

>>9923659
the description doesn't sound that appealing at all desu and yeah since most of what i read about him comes from places discussing horror literature I guess there's not much place to discuss it.

>>9922010
Everything by Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft.

>>9923677
I read The Thing on the Doorstep recently and was surprised at how heartbreaking some of it was, a rare instance of him focusing on characterization.

>>9923670
>the description doesn't sound that appealing at all desu

Yeah, it's not necessarily for everyone, even if they're fans of his work otherwise.
I, on the other hand, am 100% a part of the target audience for that shit, and I hope Barron does more like it.

Either way, so long as the man keeps writing, I'll keep reading it.

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>>9922895
Good choice

>>9923681
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath is my favorite work of Lovecraft's, and possibly the farthest off from his normal style.

>>9923693
I think any of the main Cthulhu mythos stories (except the call of cthulhu ironically) is practically flawless: Innsmouth, Dunwich, Shadow, Whisperer, Color, Dreams. All of them major works.

>>9923704
>practically flawless
The reason for that is that Lovecraft absolutely meant every single word, phrase, and piece of punctuation he wrote.

Oftentimes when a piece was rejected for publication and he was asked to edit it, he's send the exact same thing as before with no edits made a couple weeks later.

And it would then be published.

>>9923711
yeah he is so great because he was a scholar of the genre, not a prodigy but someone who through rigorous study of countless stories got to understand the weird tale inside and out, the true nature of what makes something scary AND add to that his great imagination.

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>>9922010
Highly recommend Dan Simmons

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I hear good things about Matthew M. Bartlett, anyone read any of his work?

>>9923731
Hyperion looks good, is it?

>>9922010
The Corpse Exhibition

>>9923906
Hyperion is amazing, tho I wouden't say is terror.
Its space opera if you ask me.

>>9923906
I'm not that guy, but yeah. Hyperion has kinda a space Canterbury Tales thing going on with travelers telling their tales. Lots of neat world-building. There's a good amount of weird shit that goes unexplained in the first book, and the meta-narrative is kinda hard to care about until shit actually starts going down in the sequel. So it's a lot more satisfying reading the sequel as well.

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This is a spanish author but those who can read it are gonna get a great and fresh experience from the best of the contemporary horror.

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No love for Brian Everson?

His specialty is short-form minimalist horror, pretty much the polar opposite of the "kaleidoscopic mad images" mentioned earlier. He leaves out all the madness and gore and exposition.

Instead he just guides your brain down a creepy hill in the dark and abandons you there to wander around in it to find the madness and gore you already know is waiting there. Total creepy genius which really sticks with you.

>>9923947
It's on my amazon wishlist, what should i read first?

>>9923962
A Collapse of Horses is really good. He's consistent, though, so you can't go wrong with any of the short story collections.

>>9923895
I read his first collection and half of his second one and it was ok, it's a bunch of short stories building a mythos around a witchcult who uses the radio to spread their message. He is very into graphic horror so you're gonna find a lot of comparisons to stuff with blood, innards, tumors, pus and gross stuff like that, after a while it becomes a little tiresome because you already expect it. As for the quality i'd say he's more often than not good although some of it just ends up being weird/nonsensical without being scary.

>>9923928
damn never read any horror in spanish, will definitely check it out.

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Can we agree this isn't horror?

>>9923947
never heard of him but i like how that minimalist horror sounds, like a condensation of dread.

>>9923969
Fucking great, i will check it out man, thanks

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one of his more recent works. You can make the case for Lovecraft and others as the greats and I would agree, yet one of the few stories I felt genuinely scared from is in this collection.

I don't want to spoil the rest, but the story that stabbed me where I lived was one about a guy with an anxiety disorder in a shithole town, working in a factory making bits he never understood, using what cash he makes to pay for anti-anxiety medication, but not enough to save up to leave.

Eventually, a new supervisor arrives, and suddenly the work hours are being subtly increased every day. A man that entered into the new office to protest the change dies of fright, the medication getting more expensive, and the story ends with the main character in a death spiral, literally sleeping on the floor while the workers are working around the clock at feverish pace, compelled to an ever increasing rate of productivity, incapable of ever leaving, endlessly toiling until they all eventually burn out.

tell yah, I don't have anxiety problems, but the prospect of living in that kind of poverty, that idea of useless toil that you can never escape from, the way Ligotti tells it, the story genuinely unsettled me :l

...

that, and I gagged a little when he described a fat woman in a separate story eating raw hot-dogs while dipping them into a mayonnaise jar while living in a dilapidated house where people shit in the cellar.

>>9924018
Isn't that more dark fantasy/thriller? And the story takes place around Christmas?

i've decided to devote this next october to horror. my reading list is as follows:

conrad- heart of darkness
ccru collected writings
negarestani- cyclonopedia
chambers- king in yellow
ligotti- songs of a dead dreamer

waddaya think /lit/?

>>9922010
I've read Bullet through your face by Edward Lee, more "gore" type than classic horror but fun. Also I have judt finished "Ring" by Koji Suzuki. Has anyone read Spiral or Loop??

>>9923670
You should try some of Campbell's later stuff. Alone with the Horrors has a good smattering. My own recommendation to OP would be Klein's Ceremonies or Ligotti's Teatro Grottesco.

By the way, /lit/, this is a really solid horror thread. This is what I come here for

>>9923928
I've never read any horror in spanish. Thanks amigo, will check this out.

>>9925678
Chambers and Ligotti are great picks don't know about the rest

>>9925692
I've read Lee's "Dunwich Romance" and "Ipswich Horror" both very entertaining with lots of gore and depravity. Don't know if i'd read his non lovecraftian stuff tho, not really into splatterpunk.

>>9925707
I started Alone with the horrors and read the first 3 stories, seemed better already so I should get to finish that.

>>9925878
I'd say skip everything but salt diviner of that collection, not really "lovecraftian" but it is mind blowingly horryfing imho

>>9925678
I'd swap Phyl-Undhu or Cyclonopedia for the CCRU tome

>>9924496
His capitalism stories are great. I actually prefer My Work Is Not Yet Done to the collections of shorter pieces.

>The company that employed me strived only to serve up the cheapest fare that the customer would tolerate, churn it out as fast as possible, and charge as much as they could get away with. If it were possible to do so, the company would sell what all businesses of its kind dream about selling, creating that which all of our efforts were tacitly supposed to achieve: the ultimate product -- Nothing. And for this product they would command the ultimate price -- Everything.

>>9925644
It is indeed, but almost everyone call this a masterpiece of modern horror.

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>>9922010
Michael McDowell's Blackwater Series and The Elementals are both worth a read.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22223860-michael-mcdowell-s-blackwater-series-books-i-vi

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22461751-the-elementals

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I think Books of Blood is the best Clive Barker

King books

>>9926239
Really wish they just make a one volume omnibus of these.

Here's a question for this thread, what term to you prefer for the genre authors like Lovecraft and his like write?

>Weird fiction
>Cosmic horror
>Lovecraftian horror

>>9926474
For me, I prefer Cosmic horror, i think it's the perfect descriptor.

Lovecraftian just makes think the author is going to reuse the Cthulhu Mythos. Also, I think both Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood are better at this type of writing (Lovecraft I think wouldn't argue, he seems to think so too), so I don't think we should go with Lovecraftian.

>>9926239
Absolutely agreed, although Imajica is also one favourite of his full length works.

>>9926457
Such a thing does exist, it's just hard to find at a decent price,I think it goes for about £50 on his official website.

>>9926474
Weird fiction i think can really mean any story that is weird, not even in a Lovecraftian way.

Pic related is a good anthology, but many of the stories don't follow Lovecraft's definition in his essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature."

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>>9926496
Forgot the pic related

>>9926501
This is Lovecraft's definition for the Weird:

>The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain—a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space.

>>9926474
>>9926488
>>9926496
>>9926501
>>9926504
So yeah, I think Cosmic horror is the best description and I think it means any sort of horror tale that makes a human question there place in the universe and seeing the hidden forces of it at play. It's a very existential type of horror.

>>9923224
I had his class for a little bit. He teaches Creative Writing at SUNY New Paltz. Really funny guy, he made all the students say something they did before coming the class, wouldn't let us say nothing. He also ragged on the True Detective writer one time, which is funny cause I think the True Detective writer praised his stories.

>>9926513
Yeah it's pretty much anything that makes you question the true nature of reality, knowing that what we percieve and know is not really how things are and that the truth is horrible.

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Charles Beaumont's stories are always good reads. Not exactly the scariest stuff you'll ever read and sometimes more straight up science fiction than horror, also he was a writer for the old Twilight Zone TV show. The Howling Man is a must-read IMO.

>>9926501
This book is the greatest, but it is so fucking cumbersome to read. The stories in it are a great introduction not only to classic weird fiction but also to absurdity, irreal, surreal, gothic, post-cyberpunk and more. I go back to this book every once and while to find some new author to search for and it only overwhelms me. Love these types of anthologies. Anyone know of a good horror one like this?

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>>9926825
The Hunger is good as well.

>>9926854
That's the thing, this anthology used the word "weird" in the literal sense, so some of these stories aren't really horror (There's a funny one where some guy gets seduced by a pretty women who turns out to be able to grow her hand to gigantic proportions).

Not saying the stories aren't good, I just wouldn't consider this a horror anthology.

But to answer your question, I think "Dark Forces" is probably the best horror anthology ever. All original stories for it, some pretty literate authors (including a Nobel Prize winner), and it was the debut of Stephen King's "The Mist".

>>9922010
The Obscene Bird of Night

>>9926944
Here's the Table of Contents:

>Introduction by Kirby McCauley
>"The Mist" by Stephen King
>"The Late Shift" by Dennis Etchison
>"The Enemy" by Isaac Bashevis Singer
>"Dark Angel" by Edward Bryant
>"The Crest of Thirty-six" by Davis Grubb
>"Mark Ingestre: The Customer's Tale" by Robert Aickman
>"Where the Summer Ends" by Karl Edward Wagner
>"The Bingo Master" by Joyce Carol Oates
>"Children of the Kingdom" by T. E. D. Klein
>"The Detective of Dreams" by Gene Wolfe
>"Vengeance Is." by Theodore Sturgeon
>"The Brood" by Ramsey Campbell
>"The Whistling Well" by Clifford D. Simak
>"The Peculiar Demesne" by Russell Kirk
>"Where the Stones Grow" by Lisa Tuttle
>"The Night Before Christmas" by Robert Bloch
>"The Stupid Joke" by Edward Gorey
>"A Touch of Petulance" by Ray Bradbury
>"Lindsay and the Red City Blues" by Joe Haldeman
>"A Garden of Blackred Roses" by Charles L. Grant
>"Owls Hoot in the Daytime" by Manly Wade Wellman
>"Where There's a Will" by Richard Matheson and Richard Christian Matheson
>"Traps" by Gahan Wilson

>>9926962
It's basically the horror version of "Dangerous Visions". It got all the greats during that time period.

>>9922010
We - Yevgeny Zamyatin

>>9926944
sold

I want to read more Bloch.

>>9926977
Shhh...no one will get why this joke is so true.

Ramsey Campbell
Cilve Barker

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If you want some fun pulpy werewolf stories with Nazis read The Wolf's Hour and The Hunter from the Woods by Robert McCammon

>>9927006
Have you read Psycho yet?

>>9926052
is Phyl-Undhu any good? can you talk about it a little bit?

>>9922128
Came here to post Laird Barron. Only modern horror writer that has ever engrossed me in the story enough to give me a spooky tingle.

Reading that part of "The Croning" where they're sitting around telling ghost stories actually managed to spook me a little bit late one night.

>>9923560
Imago Sequence is by far the weakest of his collection IMO. I was introduced to his stuff with Occultation and loved it.

Oddly enough, that being his first collection I read it has a lot of gratuitous homosexual stuff in it and made me think for several years that he was actually gay.

>>9923615
>Though take my opinion with a grain of salt I guess because I'm a biased fanboy. Barron is my favorite current writer.

Are you ME?

To be honest, I've thought Swift To Chase has been the weakest entry thus far.

>>9922010
I will never understand why people give a shit about Lovecraft outside of the fact that he's basically the granddaddy of cosmic horror fiction.

His prose is bland shit the stories are Saturday cartoon tier pulpy which is understandable for the time, sure but I don't think has aged well at all.

Most of his shit ends with "LOL HE WENT INSANE" or "TOO HORRIBLE TO DESCRIBE" or "OH NO I NEED TO FINISH WRITING THIS BEFORE THE MONSTERS GET ME OH NO THERE THEY ARE I'M STILL WRITING ON THE PAGE AS THEY PULL ME AWWWWAA...."

TL;DR: The people who emulate his style write far better stories than he ever could have TBQH.

>>9922010
Who are some of the best cosmic horror writers out there today who do not rely heavily on Lovecraft specific tropes and make their own detailed, interesting universes?

>>9926239
Barker is shit.

>>9926501
This book was shit. Threw it in the trash.

>>9928181
It's him doing his best Lovecraft impression, which as it turns out is pretty good, but suffused with all his own weird-ass obsessions (superintelligence, virtual reality, the Fermi paradox) as the source of the horror rather than just a vague idea of "things man wasn't meant to know". The actual novella's pretty short, and then it comes packed with two essays relating to horror and nihilistic philosophies

>>9922010
Not exactly a book, but The White People by Arthur Machen is best horror short story

>>9923611
This. The more I think of this film, the more I love it. Bound to become a horror classic in 40 years time.

>>9925678
Heart of Darkness is less weird fiction/spooky horror, but more about the horrors of colonialism. It won't spook you but if you appreciate beautiful prose and a short story with a moral that was challenging for its time, you'll love it.

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I know it's manga rather than novel but who likes my dude Junji Ito here?

Anyone read Tomie here?

>>9926474
Weird fiction and cosmic horror, lovecraftian really only applies to lovecraft himself and people who take direct influence from him

saying that, i suppose i don't care so much as to what term you use really

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NOTHING by Stephen King. I tried reading "It" and laughed my rectum off. Not only can this guy not write, he writes like a five year old. What grown man uses onomatopoeia in his prose? "Ziiing!" "Creeeaaak" "Bzzzzz!" I mean, am I reading a novel or watching some bubblegum Batman '60s fight scene? ("Pow!")

>>9926854
Great Tales of Horror and the Supernatural and The Dark Descent are known to be the best anthologies in the subject. Well, Great Tales used to be, it's an old book and Dark Descent is considered to be it's succesor, but those two along with The Weird are pretty much all you'll need of horror fiction in a long time.

>>9928885
Not yet, but planning on it. Is Uzumaki any good?

>>9928926
I love it, anon. It genuinely did unsettle me but it's also quite absurd the further you get into it. At times it becomes like a collection of short stories focusing on this village and how its inhabitants become obsessed with spirals.

Would recommend Gyo too if you fancy something that, at first, is ridiculous and amusing (it's where the legendary GASHUNK toilet shark comes from), gradually becoming something grotesque and almost apocalyptic.

>>9928947
Thanks for the recommendation anon, hopefully that makes my work day a little more interesting

>>9928280
Laird Barron, as mentioned.

King of course has his Cosmic stories.

Ligotti would probably be the one you're looking for.

>>9922895
The Render of the Veils is one of the best Lovecraft-like novels. Hands down.

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Gerald's Game is pretty underrated IMO.

>>9923928
Where can I download this book?

Where's a good place to download pdfs of some these? Some of the more modern authors are hard to find.

>>9928897
I read The Jaunt from a reddit link and I closed it in disgust thinking it embodied a reddit story perfectly. I realized a few weeks later that it wasn't written by some random redditor lmao

half way done with Books of Blood, suprised there is no mention. Basically a collection of stories you can finish before bed, it's a bit hit and miss but I find the writing keeps me hooked and some of the stories so far have been 10/10

>>9931804
Really, I always hear that's one of his best (and not just on reddit).

>>9932121
It felt really amateurish. Read like a creepypasta.

What are some good ghost stories, i wanna feel sad and scared, new england or new orleans setting preferred but idc that much,

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Nobody posted The Exorcist? We all know the story sure, but this is exceptionally well written and perfect for reading at night.

You won't be disappointed, especially since you should be able to find it for cheap online. It was very hard to find in person because it seems that a lot of people keep their copies. I was lucky enough to run across it at one of the biggest used bookstores in the PNW.

>>9932190
Aickman or MR James

Book of Kali by Dan Simmons

>>9932208
I heard the author revised it for like the 40th anniversary. Should I read that or nah?

>>9928926
Uzumaki is really fucking good. I highly recommend it, imo, it's his best work. Gyo is pretty good as well, but Uzumaki is leagues above it.

>>9928885
did anyhing come out of the Junji Ito X Pokemon thing, there were 2 pieces of artwork and thats it

what about witches

>>9923240
Umineko
;)

what are some good scary books for /lit/ noobs

>>9934997
What this guy said, hit us up.

>>9934997
Dracula and Frankenstein if you haven't read them yet.

Then Poe and Lovecraft. Stephen King of course.

>>9933374
I personally don't like revised versions of art. The original is the way to go. I will say though, that I've only read the original. I don't see why he would revise something so good. That's like revising Star Wars...

>>9935697
Don't read King. He's bad. Read Thomas Ligotti instead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxZpEFJhO6k

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Seriously, is nobody going to post this?

What are some disturbing horror stories, like actually scary stuff, something more contemporary would be nice, i find it hard to get into lovecraft or the classics

>>9936215
Peaked halfway through and got progressively shittier and topped of with a shitty ending

Only read the "tapes" story. Really, just skip the edgy schizo notes guy

>>9936215

This book is great if you skip the degenerate parts and just read the house parts.

>>9922010
Thomas Liggotii

>>9936439
see
>>9922128

The broadsword (Occultation)
Mysterium tremendum (Occultation)
The siphon (The beautiful thing That awaits us all)
The men from Porlock (The beautiful thing That awaits us all)

>>9936589
>Ctrl-F "Ligotti"
>7 results
>hurr durr me recommend Ligotti he's so obscure.

>>9922069
The House on the Borderland is absolutely amazing

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(Yes I know its a comic but fuck you, there are some graphic novels that are more /lit/ than most books that get published these days)

>>9936215
Honestly one of the few things to really scare me

>>9936695
Ignoring The Courtyard and the abomination that is Neonomicon, this is definitely the greatest Lovecraftian fiction ever made.

Books are so slow that constructing horrific scenes, even ones of gradually increasing tension, always comes of as completely inadequate. Have any of you actually been scared by an event in a book? I think horror in literature comes in the form of ideas and concepts, things that bother you on an animal level that you struggle to comprehend.

>>9936695
>that dream sequence
>that graffiti in the underground cave

laughed more than anything.

>>9922010
You should read "Salem's Lot" by Stephen King. Really scary.

>>9935805
If I remember, it was more of an "uncut" version, he added new scenes that got cut from the original manuscript. A bit like "The Stand".

>>9936215
The scene where he described his dream about being in the afterlife stuck with me.

>>9936657
Well, he was for awhile. Thanks to True Detective he got a Penguin Classics. I do hope we'll get a "Complete Tales and Poems" one day.

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Seconded on Dark Forces. Also, The Dark Descent edited by David G. Hartwell is probably comparable to that weird fiction anthology in terms of cumbersome size and broader in terms of scope, but for horror.

>>9928926
You know I always had the sensation that Ito is a very bad storyteller and altought uzumaki has some top quality weird elements in drawing and "absurdity" i found sometimes that it really was too weak from the storytelling point I mean it's easy to throw in a bunch of shit and never explain how it worked but that for example is conpletely in contrast to the internal coherence of the story that imho makes a great weird story

WHAT?>>9937490

>>9936215
you beat me too it
love that book

The ending was pretty eh, but it's still an amazing book.

>>9936503
no that ruins the point. Johnny's arc adds a whole new layer.

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>>9924018
20th Century Ghosts is entertaining if you want some spooky short stories.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/373915.20th_Century_Ghosts

>>9926131
Is there some kind of omnibus edition of the Blackwater series books?

Caitlin R. Kiernan.

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Anyone here read this? I'm tempted to buy it.

Does anyone know any horror novel about snuff films ?

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Any /lit/ like a slasher movie ?

You know the basic premise, group of friends come together and get picked off one by one by some psycho, the usual stuff

>>9942165

The bible.

Read Cold Hand In Mine by Robert Aickman. It's not pure horror, but still deeply unsetting.

Any horror novel similar to True Detective's season 1 ?

White Hands by Mark Samuels. I enjoyed this short stories collection even though it's pretty simple and sometimes reads like creepypasta. Quentin S. Crisp is also a good read.

>>9942215
The King in Yellow.

There are some good short stories by Roald Dahl. There's one where they saw off the leg of a little girl against her will. Messed me up for a while.

>>9942531
Roald Dahl was surprisingly fucked up considering he wrote such charming, lovely children's books.
The part of a story that really stuck with me was in The Witches, where they turn the fat kid into a mouse, and his parents drown him in a bucket.

>>9942215
2666, the crime part

>>9942383
Not that guy, but if I read it, will it ruin my True Detective interpretation? My interpretation being that Rust was the Yellow King and the entire series was symbolic of his ascension to a deity.

>>9942165
And Then There Were None, is the novel that created that whole schtick. And its good until the ending. and I haven't read these since middle school but Stine's Fear Street books were basically slashers stories. No high brow shit here, but you are asking for slasher movies so its apropos.

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Is Slade House by David Mitchell good? I heard it was better than Bone Clocks but I haven't read any of his books yet and this seems more interesting.

>>9926239
Did I fall for a meme? I hope it's good. Just got back home. Bonus points for crime and punishment.

>>9942607
No, it will reinforce your interpretation.

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>>9922010
This was a great book. Interesting if you know about Italy in the 70s and all the violence occurring between fascist gangs.

>>9932208
just bought this, pretty excited to read before bed.

also got agatha christie's "and then there were none"

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>>9928885
hell yea. i'd recommend ito to anyone who's into horror, even if you don't like manga.

>>9943772
ito has fucked me up so many times, it's not even funny

>>9942589
I already read that and the King in yellow , I want more .

>>9945119
Laird Barron, his first 3 collections and his novel "The Croning". There's also plenty of anthologies influenced by the King in Yellow.

>>9940916
Wish I could find the TOC.

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>>9945144
thanks

>>9923928
Buy it on Amazon motherfucker.

vampiere

>>9945144
Karl Edward Wagner and John Langan might also be of your taste.

Also, look into hardboiled fiction.

>>9939838

Are you still here anon? Amazon has a paperback omnibus listed as releasing on October 2nd.

>>9936215
There seems to be an even divide between people who like this book and people who hate it. Should I bother with it?

>>9947290
Thanks. It'll be nice to have an all in one edition.

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The Library at Mount Char was a fun read

>>9947375
Well, I think the reason why that is because part of the narrative (the Johnny Truant part) is written a lot like something Chuck Palahniuk would write. Palahniuk is one of those authors you either love or hate. So if you love him, you'll like House of Leaves.

>>9934183
I didnt even know that was a thing, dude

Was it an official thing or was it some fan-made thing?

>>9942169
I wish you could see me right now, my eyes are literally rolling out of my skull

>>9948258
Fan-made. On /co/ you see a shockingly high amount of Junji Ito x Steven Universe art, of all things

>>9947375
Yes, form your own opinion on it, my dude. Johnny Truant's story won't bug you if you're into that neo-schizo pulp shit like Bret Easton Ellis or as the other anon said, Palahniuk. If you're better than that (and you should be really but to each their own), at least the Navidson Report is fun.

>>9948576
It was official, just two drawings.

>>9931718
Where can I download this book? [1]

>>9948588
I would, yeah. 700-someodd pages is still kind of an investment just to be disappointed, familam. Just looking for feelers.

>>9932121

Not the guy you're talking to, but for what it's worth I think it's one of his best short stories. King really shines when the horror is entirely within the mind instead of any kind of paranormal stuff. I like Survivor Type, too. And finally The End of the Whole Mess.

Ignore the memers, there are some real diamonds in King's 70s-era short fiction.

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The book is fun comedy-horror, movie was shite.

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>>9947290
I'm glad they're releasing this, but the cover looks cartoonish desu.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0755KSSVD

>>9951252
Aaay, my man

>>9949528
I understand, it's a long book and if it doesn't quite match your expectations, it feels like a waste of time. I'd maybe suggest that if by page 100-150 that you're not feeling it, you probably won't enjoy the rest.

Saying that, House of Leaves has a lot of nearly empty pages with a sentence or two on them, so those 700 pages are likely to be more like 500. It's meant to replicate the feeling of discovering odd notes on napkins, old pieces of paper, little tidbits, etc. Depending on who you ask, it's either very interesting or a gimmick.

more books please

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>>9947885
His next book sounds interesting.

An Interview with Scott Hawkins, Author of The Library at Mount Char
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ilana-teitelbaum/decoding-the-mysteries-an_b_9126792.html

>What are your plans now that Mount Char is a hit? What’s next?

>I’m almost done (I hope) with a novel that’s unrelated to Mount Char. An insane pretzel billionaire named Bob is interested in learning more about a school shooting, but he’s not having much luck. All of his investigators keep disappearing. So, in the spirit of “to catch a thief” he hires a fry cook named Jackie, who is herself accused of a youthful massacre, to look into it. Wackiness ensues.

>I’m shooting for kind of a Humphrey Bogart vs. Peter Pan vibe, but we’ll see how it comes out.

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>>9928885
>tfw the Junji Ito/Kojima Silent Hills will never happen

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>>9922010
Richard Bachman>Stephen King

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>>9927720
I really like some of McCammon's work. A writer of his ilk will never get much if any respect from /lit/ tho.

>>9951252

Heart Shaped Box was pretty good as well.

>>9954104
This breaks my heart too. People remember Guillermo was attached but fewer know Junji was too. Shit would've been terrifying from all of the material they made to promote it.

I know it's been like two years or so but my piss boils still over it. Fuck Konami.

check out these two anthologies, they're full of gems

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/137763.Great_Tales_of_Terror_and_the_Supernatural

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23793.The_Dark_Descent

Gonna read some of Karl Edward Wagner's horror after I finish this current book. Apparently his story Sticks is excellent and was a bit of inspiration for the first season of True Detectives.

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Does anyone like Dennis Cooper?
https://books.google.com/books?id=-JwGEGAEr_EC&lpg=PA33&ots=ghPQP-kjVp&dq=david%20cooper%20ugly%20man&pg=PA33#v=onepage&q=david%20cooper%20ugly%20man&f=false
His reputation is as a gay writer, I think, but much of what he writes is just awful snuff stuff, not the typical "boo hoo, being different is so hard" gay shit.

>>9956763
Dennis Cooper is a gayer version of Peter Sotos
If you are into it, give him a try

>>9922010
Fuck, just recently a ghostwrote a novelette ghost story for someone, but they're still working on getting a cover for it and don't want to tell me the pseudonym they'll be self-publishing it under. Wish I could provide it to you, OP. I think it turned out not bad, considering ghost stories aren't exactly my forte.

>>9956812
Tell us what it is about
Also, what other authors you ghostwrote?

>>9956823
It's the only ghostwritten thing I've done. I've self-published 8 books myself before working on that, I think my 9th book will be a sequel to a novelette I wrote.

I don't feel comfortable sharing what the book is about since I don't hold the rights to it and the buyer of it hasn't yet released it. She loved it enough to give me a hefty tip however so that's good, and she wants me to write for her again, potentially for even more money than last time. She really loves my writing style I guess. Anyhow if you want to check out my stuff, just look up J N Morgan on Amazon. I'm a local shill and frequent lurker of /lit/. To sum up my bibliography; 5 novels in a zombie survival series, a short novel that's part erotica and part drama, a novella drama about some men's rights issues, and an action novelette that's basically one part post-apocalyptic and probably several parts gun porn. I'm steadily getting more readers and more reviews, I'm happy to say, and look forward to trying more ghostwriting.

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Richard Matheson is GOAT


http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/546682/the-best-of-richard-matheson-by-richard-matheson/9780143130178/

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Lansdale has some great short stories. Bubba Ho-Tep and Fish Night are probably my favorites.

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>>9957458
I approve.

"He died a natural death."

>>9923731

I actually liked Drood more, although Terror has some good scenes.

>>9928230

Are you sure you weren't reading Derleth "edits" and pastiches?

>>9928897
>Read the shining, expecting it to be better than the movie, first King book ever
>A FUCKING CROQUET MALLET LMAO

Good grief

>>9926104
Only because he's King's son
The Fireman was better and even that wasn't good

>>9934997
>>9935036

If by "noob" you mean "not used to wordy or slow-paced writing" then you probably won't like Shelly, Stoker, Lovecraft or Poe just yet. You should probably just start with Dark Forces
>>9926944
>>9926962
And see what you like, then look for more of that. If you finish the anthology and still aren't sure, look for more anthologies.

Horror is very dependent upon the era in which it was written, the character of the prose, the standard of what is or is not "weird", "scary", "mundane" are totally different in any given era from all others, and since establishing realism to empower the unreal is so important to the genre, I think this makes horror even more linked to the time and place of its writing than other genres. So the moral is, you might end up liking "60s" horror or 80s horror, or old timey (1930s and earlier) horror, even though the subjects and themes of a given work within the era are wildly different.

If, however, prose is not a problem and you just don't know where to start, then go ahead and listen to that anon. I read Lovecraft because I felt obligated to until I read At the Mountains of Madness and fell in love with it, then Shadows Over Innsmouth and then started to appreciate the shorter and less straight-forward stories. Through Lovecraft, I came to appreciate Poe, Hawthorne, and the Romantics.

>>9959116
I'm willing to bet if it weren't for "Supernatural Horror in Literature" people wouldn't remember Blackwood, Machen and possibly Dunsany.

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>>9922010
Try Robert Aickman

I recently watched the movie "The Witch", I liked it, a psychological horror movie about a witch in a forest, very eerie, no jumpscare or anything.
So I was wondering, I like "forest lore", is there any book on it?

>>9959596
is his stuff actually scary or just weird? Cause i don't really care for stories that are just out there without being actually horror.

>>9959611
Sylvan Dread: Tales of Pastoral Darkness is supposed to be all about nature and its horror however I haven't read it cause there's no online version for sale.

>>9959630
The book seems pretty good, thank you, I'll try to get it.

>>9926474
Cosmic horror is probably best but I would put Cosmic horror under the umbrella of weird fiction.

>>9951252
>comedy horror

Seeing this shit fucking enrages me. How can you be scared when the book/movie is trying to make you laugh. Even though people like to link comedy and horror they just don't go together. It's like if someone said Tom and Jerry is a comedy horror.

>>9959774
It's horror with some dark comedy/black humor sprinkled in and a little fantasy (the protagonist wakes up in the morning with a pair of horns growing from his temples).

>>9958248
lol I made this, can't believe someone saved it cause it was hastily made on topsters

>>9959611
Arthur Machen

>>9959630
Yeah, Aickman is a bit of a weird author that sometimes leaves reader frustrated.

Lots of his stories are were a character experiences something weird but they don't die and it's never really explained what happened. I like cause it's realistic, when people experience something in real life, they often never get a proper answer to what happened.

>>9959748
Would you consider weird fiction to be used in the literal sense? Like any fiction that is weird, and doesn't have to follow a Lovecraftian type plot.

>>9959774
Ever see An American Werewolf in London?

>>9960264
but is the stuff that happens weird scary or just stupid a la waking up as a cockroack?

>>9959050
>A FUCKING BOILER

Man I hated this book. Thank god Kubrick took a shit on it and created a masterpiece.

>>9959774
that's pretty narrow minded desu

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The woman in black.

>>9960875
> tfw the author is literally from my hometown

It's a shithole dump but it's pretty cool to know people like her and Sir Ben Kingsley escaped when they did.

>>9961177
Cool stuff. Can't say I know of anyone local to my home town or even my home community (a group of towns) have ended up being particularly well known. But we're talking about a population of probably something like 2000-4000 people, varying a bit over the last half-century. I'm on my way to becoming a successful author though, one step at a time, so perhaps I'll come to bring some degree of fame to the little place if I ever give my real name instead of a pseudonym. I've got some readers from other continents so that's pretty damn cool. Even got paperback sales in Germany. There are physical copies of my books in fucking Germany, how many self-published authors can say that? Not many, I wager.

>>9961198
Congrats, dude, that's pretty cool. All the best.

I bet it'd be a bit surreal that whenever it is you do make it, people from your town you never knew will start claiming to have known you just because they saw you one time pick up something from the supermarket.

>>9960276
No I avoid shit like that. If I want to watch horror I will watch an actual horror movie or read a horror book not some crap where they try to mix horror and comedy and fail at both. I guess normies just can't handle the depths of horror so they need to have little bits of comedy sprinkled in so they can make it through.

>>9961351
> No I avoid shit like that
> shits on the film like he knows what happens in it

I mean, I get where your coming from, most horror comedy doesn't sit too well with me with the exception of Shaun of the Dead but that's not really a horror, but An American Werewolf In London - although not perfect (the humour is kinda dated) - does have some genuinely brilliant visual horror.

>>9961233
Haha that's a weird thought, but hey, might not be for another 20-30 years or so before I give my real name and by then quite a lot of the people in that community would be dead or in retirement homes; most of the people around my age has left to find work, as well as a fair few up to their 40s and even 50s for the same reason. Mostly they just go back to retire though sometimes they stay in the area they worked to retire so who knows what'll come about when (and if) I give out my real name. Might go to my grave using my pseudonym and then people will only find out who I really was in (God willing) the 2060s-2070s perhaps, at which point there'll only be space-hippies and space-longhairs, smoking space-pot while space-Nixon curses them all, and the space-Jews of course as well. Space-Nixon hates the spaces-Jews.

Anyhow, thanks! Cheers from across the pond!

>>9960302
Read his story "The Hospice" and if you don't like it stop reading him.

>>9961351
Do you know about the concept of dark comedy or nah?

I've just finished reading Pet Sematary... it was ok. Still think King stretches a 200 page plot to 500 pages for no good reason. His strenght is in his characters and how humane they are. I think it also suffered a bit because before it I had read The Fisherman which is by all account a superior account of horror and grief.

>>9962750
also reccomendations on what to read next? I was thinking of maybe Dark Gods by Klein

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Neuropath by R Scott Baker.

Its disturbing, particularly with the ontological theme of the book. I also liked the dystopian 'modernpunk' setting, rather than another dumb horror novel taking place in rural new England like always. I thought alot about the book after I read it.

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Anyone here read this? I love Laird Barron's stuff and he seems to think pretty highly of Langan.

I've read a little bit of "The Wide Carnivorous Sky" and thought it was pretty shitty..

>>9962884
yeah same happened to me, read like the first two stories and dropped it however The Fisherman is a great read, one of the best cosmic horror books from the past few years. Langan goes full storyteller mode and I found it gripping from the very first chapter.

>>9962904
Hmm, good to hear. Been thinking about getting it.

>>9962750
I always thought his characters were horribly forced and he clearly never had any friends and that the only people who could possibly like these characters never went outside or did anything. Care to comment?

>>9959611
Read Machen for woodsy/folklorish horror. "The White People" is great.

>>9962785
I would do that, heard it's pretty good.

>>9936215

I really loved the house parts, but my god was the protagonists story just one big "meh"

>>9962907
won't regret it, best book I've read this year

>>9962910
i never said they were likeable but that they felt humane. I've read both Revival and Pet Sematary and in both King excels at family dynamics and bonds. At least to me the feelings of fraternity between characters feel real but also the fights and animosity that sometimes sparks between them. In short I can believe his characters are related to one another instead of just being actors that move the plot forward.

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>>9928230
>he doesn't understand HPL

>>9962951
Whats there to "understand"? He's a pulpshit artist and is boring as fuck.

Octopus/fish people and tentacles are first grader tier horror.

Wolfe doesn't write a lot of horror, but his story "Redbeard" is very good. https://books.google.com/books?id=2QQEZ-zYbrcC&pg=PT297&lpg=PT297&dq=Redbeard+gene+wolfe&source=bl&ots=IsxnJLntFG&sig=iAx3rD-av5J3TyA6wealSuBz6mI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiV-fmFnoLWAhUX5GMKHThBA7EQ6AEIPjAD#v=onepage&q=Redbeard%20gene%20wolfe&f=false

>>9962915
>Read Machen for woodsy/folklorish horror.

I am intrigued, "The Great God Pan" sounds good.

Anybody know if any of Richard Gavin's stuff is worth a read?

>>9923906
The first book is fucking amazing, and each sequel is less so but still worth reading if only because you won't be able to handle not knowing what happens after the first one.

>>9922010
I've been on this big Peter Straub kick lately. He's great. The Blue Rose trilogy is haunting. Also his short stories, The House With No Doors.

>>9963175
>Constantly collaborates with Stephen King

>Shitty Wal-Mart tier eye grabber covers

He's shit.

>>9923611
>>9928860
It's garbage.

>>9963175
what's a good starter book? tried ghost story and it was boring af reading the account of a child kidnapper in the beginning

>>9962750
i can't understand how someone would call that the most horrifying book the've ever read and I've read that statement more than a couple times.

>>9961358
The movie may be great, but I already know its not great as a horror movie when it also has a comedy tag attached to it. And it takes more than visuals, you can have hideous moments or monsters but if you reign it all back in with comedy its just pointless, its not horror anymore.

It makes me very angry when I see lists of greatest horror movies/books and half of them are just comedies. Yet great horror books will get ignored by the public for actually being true to horror.

>>9962088
Yes but dark comedies are not actually horror they are just comedies that have some grim subject matter. I remember watching some french dark comedy and it was some butcher eating people or something but it wasn't horror because they just threw all this comedy into it. It doesn't make it bad but its certainly not horror.

>>9963189
>Judging a book by its cover

>>9963509
Try the Blue Rose Trilogy, starts with Koko.

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>>9962915
>"The White People" is great.
I second this.

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>>9963129
Well this person>>9959630 recommended Sylvan Dread and I remember someone in an older thread recommending At Fear's Altar. Haven't read his stuff myself but people on Goodreads seem to like him so take that for what it is worth.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18950911-at-fear-s-altar

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31084870-sylvan-dread

>>9936990

Usually what scares me is either a particular image (Brown Jenkin eating into that guy's guts while he was asleep) or else a sense of foreboding and dread for the unknown answer to the mystery or the end result of the events toward which the book is building.

However, jump scares are the lowest form of horror, and trying to do it in writing is fucking retarded

>>9936990
There's a certain way of writing that can capture that sense of fear and dread that not many writers can tap into. I've read books that were filled with absolutely horrific acts of violence, but most do not scare with a few exceptions where the writing was just so good and you were so invested you were actually shocked to see the violent act happen and it was described in remarkable detail.

Other then that there is the more subtle horror you speak of where things just feel off, nothing terrible is happening but there is a sense something is wrong that just pervades throughout the book and slowly builds.

After awhile you do become dulled to horror, they don't scare you as much anymore as they used to.

>>9943772
>>9944436
I always wondered why no one else has really gotten into the horror manga scene. Horror manga just seems mostly devoid of true horror.

>>9963976
Welp, I knew that was coming. Way to be original yah fucking dink.

>>9964264

What do you mean noone else has gotten into it? And what is true horror?

>>9926474
Cosmic horror/Weird fiction

>>9964307
Wrote that wrong I just meant to say manga seems devoid of true horror basically meaning theres not much pure horror manga out there except for Ito although theres like some shounen crap that some people say is horror like Attack on Titan.

>>9964640

Have you ever read Fuan no Tane? Just a bunch of little one-shot horror stories in an anthology, all by the same artist, pretty great stuff.

http://www3.mangafreak.net/Read1_Fuan_No_Tane_1

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>>9922063
>masters of the weird

>>9964303
Point still stands buddy