Horror authors/books you recommend

[ravenus]

Excerpting from a list posted elsewhere:

3. I'd recommend King's short story collections SKELETON CREW (which,
among many other well-written stuff, has this completely off-the-wall
story called 'Survivor Type' about a guy who is marooned on an island
and forced to eat parts of himself to survive) and NIGHT SHIFT (It
has a lovely Lovecraft tribute called 'Jerusalem's Lot', the totally
weird 'Lawnmower Man', 'Children of the Corn' – both of which had
terrible movies made on them, but the stories are darn good and even
the bad stories are comfortingly bad as opposed to being annoyingly
so, heh).

4. Look for stuff by Thomas Ligotti. I've just read a couple by this
guy but they are ******* awesome, he's a kind of modern Lovecraft but
tremendously more skilful in maintaining the sense of awe and
mystery.

5. Collections of classic horror generally have a lot of very good
stories – look for collections with Ambrose Bierce ('The Damned
Thing', 'Incident at Owl Creek Bridge'), JS Le Fanu ('Green
Tea', 'Carmilla'), Dickens , Maupassant ('Night in Paris', 'The
Horla', 'Who Knows?').

6. H.G.Wells' short stories fit more comfortably in the
horror/macabre mold rather than the science-fiction bracket that he
is saddled with. Also, for those that haven't read these yet,
INVISIBLE MAN and ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU.

7. For modern horror anthologies, the Stephen Jones edited
collections are one of the safest bets. The stories may not be too
ambitious but the authors are skilled at taking an idea and weaving
an extremely well written short piece of it. Look for Neil Gaiman, Steve Rasnic Tem,
you'll also find Richard Matheson (I AM LEGEND, which inspired
Romero's 'Night of The Living Dead') and Co. in some of these
collections.

8. Some individual IMO entertaining novels, not necessarily path-
breaking or anything like that, but rather well-written and certainly
worth the look:
THE OMEN – David Seltzer
THE SHINING, CARRIE, FIRESTARTER – Stephen King (THE STAND is an
extremely ambitious end-of-the-world book and has some great parts
but I wouldn't recommend it unless you can take tons of crap with the
good stuff)
ROMSEMARY'S BABY – Ira Levin (it's a book where you know the plot
from a mile off but it's still entertainingly written and eminently
readable)
SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES – Ray Bradbury (more dark fantasy
than straight horror but this one, even with its bits of mawkishness
towards the end is one of Bradbury's most fantastically written
works, and anyone who has read Bradbury knows that this is high
praise)

I have read a good deal more after I had put this up and I shall inlcude those later

[Winters_Sorrow]

A good scary book series I read was the Rats trilogy by James Herbert

[knivesout]

I'd also add Dark Forces, a horror anthology edited by Kirby McCauley. A great collection, nearly a primer of the best in horror at the time it was published (1980). Great stories by TED Klein, Joe Haldemann, Stephen King, Theodore Sturgeon. A few stories didn't work too well for me - such as the one by Gene Wolfe, 'The Detective of Dreams' which could have done more with its subject matter, but a solid collection.


I'd second pretty much everything on Ravenus' list, looking forward to the next installment.

[MilesVorkosigan]

If your looking for Human pshyco horror read *Richard Laymon ! To my shame I read about 3 books of his ....... and started a purification ritual immediately afterwards ... fasting ,praying, mediatating.... its really not my cup of tea, totally revealed to me that horror was not my thing.
Also try Graham Masterson, though he totally felt fantasy to me for some reason.

* It seriously made me question this man's sanity/mind !

[I, Brian]

Somehow we passed over HP Lovecraft and Edgar Allen Poe.

[Circus Cranium]

Sounds like we're all on the same page (pun intended) with all those titles. Except I hate Laymon. I know, I know, people worship him, but I think his writing is positively horrible.

I want to add Clive Barker to the list too. I've not loved everything he's written, but enough to make him one of the tops. As well as Brian Lumley.

[ravenus]

Lovecraft is a bit of a mixed bag; his best stories blow you away, but he wrote tons of mediocre ones in between. Stories by Lovecraft I most recommend:
Shadows over Innsmouth (Creepy as hell...no, worse)
At the Mountains of Madness (ambitious and sweeping story arc much more than makes up for the few deficiencies in credibility and language)
Rats in the Walls
Dreams in the Witch-House (probably not an all-round recco but I read it when I had a fever and it vibed very well with my state of mind)
Have heard great word about Color out of Space but have not read it
On the other hand I found The Dunwich Horror one of the most overrated and thuddingly boring stories.

I have Thomas Ligotti's short story anthology (I believe the man has written no novels thus far) The Nightmare Factory and it has many great stories. The thing with Ligotti's stuff is you have to accept that he is most of the time telling the same yarn of an individual in a macabre dream world with some Kafkaesque leanings but every inividual story is a darkly brilliant piece in itself.

Richard Matheson's novel I am Legend is a great survival horror piece about a man in a world where almost everybody else has been converted to a vampire.

China Mieville's novel Perdido Street Station, while mostly an epic adventure in an alternate history world contains enough scary elements to be also seen IMO as a great horror book.

Night on the Borderland by William Hodgson is a great precursor and undoubtedly one of the biggest inspirations to the stories of Lovecraft.

[knivesout]

Since Lovecraft has his own section here, I figured he was taken as given.


Re: Ravenus' mention of Perdido Street Station, in the same spirit, I'd suggest Jeff VanderMeer's Veniss Underground, which has major horrific aspects. The author describes it as a book about cruelty, certainly an aprt subject in the horror vein.

Has anyone read this totally oddball horroristic writer called James Havoc?

[knivesout]

Originally Posted by Circus Cranium

I want to add Clive Barker to the list too. I've not loved everything he's written, but enough to make him one of the tops.

Which books would you specifically recommend? I've seen a lot around, never been able to decide.

[Tsujigiri]

I'd recommend Graham Masterton as a good writer, he does his research and his books are an entertaining read.

[ravenus]

I've read a few of Masterton's short stories and they're a mixed bag.

[Circus Cranium]

For Clive:

The Great and Secret Show
The Damnation Game

And Coldheart Canyon is really good...if you can get past the author intrusion at the beginning, where he spends 3 chapters having the main character's dog die, because Barker himself just had his own dog die. It has no bearing to the story, but it does end and get better after that.

I'm also a huge fan of the first Hellraiser film; though the sequels were crap, and he whored out the rights to it after the first one.

[Drake Black]

Help I am researching I am looking for any information on a book called "THE YELLOW KING" it's supposed to be a book holding some kind of universal knowledge that upon reading you go completely insane, any info on a legend about this book or a possible truth would be greatly appreciated, this book is mentioned in "The Picture Of Dorian Grey" an something else by H. P. Lovecraft.
Any info anyone?

[littlemissattitude]

"Damnation Game" is indeed good, but "Coldheart Canyon" is much better (despite that dog), and "Galilee" is even better than that, although the horror is not exactly the point of it, I don't think. And while "Imajica" is very, very (very...) long, and I'd classify it more as dark fantasy than horror per se, I would also highly recommend it.

I couldn't get through "The Great and Secret Show" but, as I've said before, I think, I couldn't get past the fact that Barker uses Simi Valley as a location, and he got the geography all wrong. I grew up in Simi Valley (yes, it is a real place), so I know.

Oh, and the other thing I wanted to say: Someone mentioned Ira Levin and "Rosemary's Baby". Good book, but for my money "The Stepford Wives" and "The Boys From Brazil" are both much more frightening.

[Tsujigiri]

Originally Posted by Drake Black

Help I am researching I am looking for any information on a book called "THE YELLOW KING" it's supposed to be a book holding some kind of universal knowledge that upon reading you go completely insane, any info on a legend about this book or a possible truth would be greatly appreciated, this book is mentioned in "The Picture Of Dorian Grey" an something else by H. P. Lovecraft.
Any info anyone?

I believe that it's called 'The King in Yellow' and it's something created entirely for the Cthulhu Mythos.
There will undoubtedly be copies claiming to be genuine but they would be essentially full of BS.
Of course if you read one and have an insane urge to eat your own leg........