Horror Novels: Discussions

[Bookguy708]

Didn't see a Book Club or member's area specifically for Horror (with the exception of paranormal romance), so I thought I'd start a thread.

I've been reading Horror since the mid-70s and still read 1 -- 2 novels a week; 75% of which are straight up Horror.

How am I defining Horror?  Stephen King, Clive Barker, Brian Keene, Bentley Little, Dean Koontz, Nate Kenyon, Douglas Clegg, Rick Hautala, Tim Lebbon, Jonathan Maberry, Gary A. Braunbeck, early Robert McCammon, John Saul, Dan Simmons, Richard Laymon... to name just a few.

I'm currently reading URBAN GOTHIC by Brian Keene.  This dude is a Horror Ninja.  While all of his books are great reads, some simply stand out as exceptional.  For my money, THE RISING, CITY OF THE DEAD, and EARTHWORM GODS should be on everyone's Must Read list!

URBAN GOTHIC is similar in plot to CASTAWAYS but much more in-your-face and visceral.  The novel arrived yesterday and I'm just shy of 50% done with it in a single evening.

While I am a Stephen King junkie, I am absolutely hooked on many of the Mid-List authors and those publishing through the small presses, like Cemetery Dance and Subterranean Press.  I visit Horror Mall online several times a week!

Okay, let's get the show on the road, kids, what kind of Horror makes the hair on the back of your neck snap to attention?  Which author rocks your world?

[paulgoatallen]

I've pretty much read all of the authors you've mentioned and – that said – my most memorable "horror" read was a collection of stories entitled The Damp Chamber by a guy named Frank Chigas. Just brilliant stuff. It was released by a small press a few years back and I'm almost certain it's out-of-print or at least headed there fast but if you can get your hands on a copy, you won't be sorry!

Paul 

[LordRuthven]

Brian Keene is awesome. THE RUTTING SEASON/DARK HOLLOW is the best straight-ahead horror novel I have read this decade. I'll be getting URBAN GOTHIC when it comes out. Keene is one of those guys I like as a writer and just as a dude.

Message Edited by LordRuthven on 07-21-2009 08:06 PM

[Bookguy708]

Paul:

Thanks for the recommendation!  I just ordered a used copy for $29.

[lilithesque]

I grew up reading horror and watching horror films--all I could find.  Then in my mid twenties I was living alone with my two children, was finding myself scared, really scared at night and the books I was reading were driving nightmeres  =and I wasn't sleeping well.  I quit reading horror (Pet Sematary put the nail it the coffin), mostly then and have been more in fantasy and syfy since.  However, lateley I have been leaning more towards the darker type stories.  Lately I have read the stand, the living dead, and the Strain, and a few other darker books.  I am reading Thinner and Faery Tale, which is listed as horror, and have on reserve the Ruins and Cell.  I guess I am leaning  that way again, and am interested in  reccemendations for good horror, that is scary, but not just slice um and dice um kind of horror.  (blood and gore is fine, but lets have it needed for a plot that scares).

Lily   

[Bookguy708]

Derek:

Have you also read the two short story collections Keene wrote as companions to the RISING/CITY OF THE DEAD and EARTHWORM GODS novels?

They are excellent and really expand on Keene's central mythology.

[Bookguy708]

Lily:

The following are a few of my recommendations:

• SUMMER OF NIGHT by Dan Simmons
• SONG OF KALI by Dan Simmons
• WOLF'S HOUR by Robert McCammon
• STINGER by Robert McCammon
• PHANTOMS by Dean Koontz
• THE RISING by Brian Keene
• CITY OF THE DEAD by Brian Keene
• KILL WHITEY by Brian Keene
• COMES THE BLIND FURY by John Saul
• THE GOD PROJECT by John Saul
• CHILDREN'S HOUR by Douglas Clegg

[LordRuthven]

---

Bookguy708 wrote:

Derek:

Have you also read the two short story collections Keene wrote as companions to the RISING/CITY OF THE DEAD and EARTHWORM GODS novels?

They are excellent and really expand on Keene's central mythology.

---

No, but I'd probably like them. My friend Eddie Coulter is in the RISING companion, if memory serves.

For no-frills gut-bucket horror, I like Bryan Smith.

[lilithesque]

Great!  Thanks so much for your reccemendations. 

Lily

[axisage]

---

How am I defining Horror? Stephen King, Clive Barker, Brian Keene, Bentley Little, Dean Koontz, Nate Kenyon, Douglas Clegg, Rick Hautala, Tim Lebbon, Jonathan Maberry, Gary A. Braunbeck, early Robert McCammon, John Saul, Dan Simmons, Richard Laymon... to name just a few.

While I am a Stephen King junkie, I am absolutely hooked on many of the Mid-List authors and those publishing through the small presses, like Cemetery Dance and Subterranean Press. I visit Horror Mall online several times a week!

Okay, let's get the show on the road, kids, what kind of Horror makes the hair on the back of your neck snap to attention? Which author rocks your world?

---

bookguy708 - glad you got this post going! i'm a king junkie too. and i recently devoured a short story collection by bentley little. but, aside from barker and saul here on your list, these names are new to me. i guess i'm not a straight-for-the-throat guy, but i like me some thriller in the horror, fo sho. is there one of these authors on your list you might reccommend first? book too?

like you, i'm into this mid-list author thing, as you deftly put it. recently i found this book - plucked it out of obscura, almost by accident, called "chimera." the author is timothy james brearton. i freakin' LOVED it. i'm not sure if it totally could be classified as "horror" tho... definitely had some terrifying imagery - actually gave me a bad dream or two, which is the side effect we must sometimes endure (i still remember bad dreams from king's "it" - i was 13). anyway i got to this forum from the "paranormal and urban fantasy" which i may or may not classify the brearton book as. great read. twisty and turny, and worth it.

thanks again for creating a place to discuss and get reccos for this kind of material!

-rick

striving to be the person my dog thinks i am. and i don't even have a dog.

[Horrorgasms]

I haven't posted in here for while (quite frankly, I WISH there was a true horror fiction thread!) but thanks a lot, bookguy, for starting one!  I liked everyone's comments and even though I cut my teeth--so to speak--on King and Koontz when I was younger, I really dig some of the newer horror writers (some already mentioned) like Richard Laymon, Douglas Clegg, Edward Lee (my favorite!), Brian Keene, Jonathan Maberry, Bentley Little, among others.  I am reading Bryan Smith's Soultaker and it is fantastic!  Probably my favorite of his novels so far.  Fans of Lee and Laymon would definitely dig Bryan Smith!

[dulcinea3]

I don't come by this board often, but I was just kind of wandering around today and came across this.

There are a few great older novels that I don't think are in print now, but if you can find an old copy...

I thought that Burnt Offerings by Robert Marasco was really creepy.  You might have better luck trying to find the movie starring Oliver Reed, Karen Black, and Bette Davis, but of course it doesn't measure up to the novel.  While looking for info on this book, I just came across a wiki article on The Shining that lists this novel as one of King's influences for that novel.  Apparently there are also a number of other books with the same title.

The Rolfes -- Ben, wife Marian, son David, and Aunt Elizabeth -- are a pleasant family from New York seeking to escape from the doldrums of a summer in their Queens apartment. They find a beautiful old country mansion on Long Island -- restful, secluded, with pool and private beach -- perfect, for the right people. But their "perfect" summer home hides terrors beyond their wildest imaginings. During that long summer the house becomes a nightmare from which there seems to be no escape.

Burnt Offerings (the movie)

Another good one that I had read around the same time (mid-70s, I think) was Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon, who had written The Other.  Pagan goings-on around the corn harvest in a small New England town.  Similar in theme to The Wicker Man and Children of the Corn.  Coincidentally, Bette Davis was in the miniseries, The Dark Secret of Harvest Home (and, from the cast, Rosanna Arquette and Tracy Gold must have still been children in 1978!).

But one of my favorite novels of all time is The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson; psychological terror at its best.  We just read it in the Literature by Women group.  This novel definitely had a very strong influence on Stephen King.  I also found it listed in the influences for The Shining, and his Rose Red miniseries is even more heavily influenced, having the common theme of a psychic investigation of a reportedly haunted house by a group of people with psychic abilities, assembled by a psychologist.  As a matter of fact, Jackson is specifically mentioned in the movie.  Well, this is interesting: According to wikipedia, Rose Red was originally supposed to be a remake of the old movie The Haunting, based on Jackson's novel.  King and Steven Spielberg worked on it for two years, but had differences, and King later returned to it and expanded it beyond his original concept.  No wonder it is so similar!

The Haunting of Hill House 

 

[Ryan_G]

I recently watched "Burnt Offerings" on TV a few months ago.  I really enjoyed it.  I like when the end isn't happy.

I would also add in the book and movie versions of The Exorcist, The Sentinel, and Rosemary's Baby.

[dulcinea3]

But whatever you do, don't read the sequel to Rosemary's Baby!!!  I think it was called Son of Rosemary (also by Ira Levin).  It's not only that it was horrible, but it ruined the first book, as well.

[LordRuthven]

---

dulcinea3 wrote:
But whatever you do, don't read the sequel to Rosemary's Baby!!!  I think it was called Son of Rosemary (also by Ira Levin).  It's not only that it was horrible, but it ruined the first book, as well.

---

Yeah, that was pretty wretched. I just read the ending because my brother told me how rancid it was, and it sure lived down to what he told me.

In fact, I think that the movie version of "Rosemary's Baby" was better than the book, truth be told.

[plaidfroggie]

I am glad you started this thread as I too have been wondering where the scary stories have gotten to when it comes to the paranormal.  I am a Stephen King fan and have read a few of the other authors mentioned in this thread, but frankly I did stop reading horror once they stopped being scary.  I am referring to the urban fantasy trend where sleeping with the vampires and other occult creatures is in and fleeing in terror or trying to kill them is out.  I was actually shocked to find that I am according to someone on this forum what is considered a literature snob since I do believe that urban fantasy is pretty much equal to pornography.  Boy do I wish I could get in touch with the high school English teachers who truly were literature snobs that tried to discourage me from reading King to tell them I have been labeled one for my views on urban fantasy.  I also think Graphic Novels are pretty stupid so I am apparently a huge literature snob.  Funny since I read sci-fi and fantasy with a bit of horror more than anything else.

I haven't bought a horror novel new in quite some time though I recently bought 3 books 2 from the thrift store and one from Walmart that seemed to promise interesting theories for vampirism and lycanthropy and was sadly disappointed in 2 of them.  One was more a mystery story which while not actually scary was interesting.  The other two though actually needed a warning of "straight up romance on one and smut alert on the other".   Out of the two highly disappointing ones, well the one was at least a romance between two vampires, the one I was more interested in because I like werewolf stories better turned out to be really disgusting.  I should apparently have read her acknowledgement page because if I had her thanking someone for keeping her from crossing the line into beastiality would have made me put it back on the shelf.  I read the book, the friend who read it didn't do a good job at all.  Unfortunately the covers do not report the love aspect in the descriptions enough.

I am at the point where I would actually appreciate a label saying "this is scary" and "this is smut" so I know what to buy.  I am by no means saying they should only print straight up horror and disappoint all those who like a good supernatural orgy, but since I suspect that if the graphically described orgies were being done by normal humans they would not be publsihed by mainline publishers.  I did like Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the wide variety of demons and such, but I didn't like her sex with vampires so am sorely disappointed that the urban fantasy genre has exploded to the point where it is hard to find a good scary story.

I will likely check out some of the suggestions in this thread.  I honestly am rather tired of pulling books of the shelf at random at the bookstore and reading until I either hit scary or smut to determine whether or not to buy the book.  Quite frankly sci-fi and fantasy took over my collection so completely because of the lack of a good fright.  I miss the chills though I never got them from any movie except Silence of the Lamb, I do get them from a good horror novel.  My imagination doesn't rely on enough fake blood to fill an ocean though like most horror movies.  The last time I bothered checking out a new to me author was when people kept raving about Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire.  I couldn't finish it because the jaded vampire talking to a reporter didn't scare me and I thought it was rather silly.  They said it gave them chills, it gave me yawns.

I honestly didn't like Cell by Stephen King because since I didn't like Insomnia I read a bit of his books now before buying and it seemed very silly to me.  He spilled more blood in the beginning of that book than he did in all his other books combined (or at least he seemed to since he went into slasher film mode describing it)  Consequently I did not buy Cell.  I wonder why it is that he reverted to traditional slasher movie format for a book when he could give me chills with past books just describing the thoughts of a rabid dog.  I am getting jaded about what people recommend as good books in general these days though when it comes to many things as I feel my tastes are antiquated or something.  Somehow hearing a vampire's "history" while he is talking to a reporter he promised not to eat made everything he was saying dreadfully dull and not at all scary.  Maybe I am missing the point of something, but really saying right up front the guy will not be eaten honestly took all the fun out of Anne Rice for me.

[axisage]

plaidfroggie, you need to read the book i mentioned earlier in the thread.  creepiest, scariest thing i've read in a while.  not a ton of sex in it, but some of S&M leanings, in my opinion.  and i agree - i read "cell" and it left no impression whatsoever.  but hey, king has given us such incredible books, he's allowed a little dud once in a while.  as for anne rice...i dunno; once you start dressing vampires up to look like thomas jefferson and george washington, i lose interest pretty rapidly.  give me leather with my fangs, please.

-r.m. 

[dulcinea3]

Hmmm, I actually liked Cell.  I have come to expect King to throw some disgusting stuff in here and there.  Good Lord, look at Dreamcatcher!  That one I didn't like as much - I found much of it extremely disgusting, but King can write really good characters that you come to care about, so I stuck with it to find out what happened to them.  The other one that I really hated was Gerald's Game - I found it really boring and every time I expected something interesting to happen, it didn't.  I have only read a handful of King's novels, but I loved The Stand, Needful Things, and The Shining.  Cell doesn't quite measure up to those, but for some reason it reminded me of The Stand a bit.

[plaidfroggie]

I agree that Dreamcatcher had some supremely disgusting stuff in it.  Even so it didn't remind me of the extremely predictable slasher horror films I went to for awhile after I turned 18.  My mother forbid me to watch them so while I was underage I didn't, then when I was old enough I checked them out to see what the fuss was about.  The only thing I found amusing about the Freddy and Friday the 13th movies was that they scared my boyfriend so that I could look out of the corner of my eye and see the hair stand up on the back of is neck and he jumped like they say girls do.  When I was reading Cell all I really kept picturing was supremely cheesy horror film clips which considering King usually gave me vivid and unique images, it was a big let down. 

Gerald's Game didn't thrill me, but I thought some of the criticism that it was too "kinky" at the time was pretty funny.  Now considering what they sneak in under pg ratings and on prime time tv it is pretty tame.  Heck I have heard reference that daytime talk shows are bawdy enough to make a porn star blush when people air their dirty laundry. 

I like the same King books you really like along with a few others.  The Dead Zone and Cujo etc.  Early King was more interesting in my opinion. 

[Bookguy708]

I am so glad this thread is seeing some action.  Next to reading, I enjoy talking about reading!

Recently, I completed the new John Saul mass market and hated it; however, I did love Guiermo Del Toro's STRAIN.  Book absolutely rocked!!  I understand that there are two more forthcoming books sequels.

Currently, I am reading THE LAW OF NINES by Terry Goodkind.  Not exactly horror, but does deal with crossing dimensions, dark magic and heavy Thriller elements.  I adore most of Goodkind's Sword of Truth series and he's pulling somewhat of a Dark Tower with THE LAW OF NINES.