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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.
Stephen King loving sucks poo poo and all his books suck poo poo and since there is a general thread to say it I am glad to finally be free to say it

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MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



Mel Mudkiper posted:

Stephen King loving sucks poo poo and all his books suck poo poo and since there is a general thread to say it I am glad to finally be free to say it

There's also a Stephen King thread, you could say it there too. I've read and enjoyed a lot of Stephen King and I'm not even sure I can disagree.

Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

MockingQuantum posted:

There's also a Stephen King thread, you could say it there too. I've read and enjoyed a lot of Stephen King and I'm not even sure I can disagree.

They get mad when you say it though

Also, everyone should read Michael McDowell

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer

A human heart posted:

What's up with the horror genre producing less cool books than even like fantasy or whatever.

It's kinda the bastard child of genre fiction. It also tends to be all-around better when a horror story is a short story or novella. Since there is barely a market for short stories and novellas, the genre is pretty limited. Also, for the past decade, publishers tend to only want to push out what's popular, so most of the things you'd find in a book store are still Vampires, Zombies or H.P. Lovecraft/Cthulu rip-offs.

Since 2014, the horror film genre's been getting energized with good unique films and new directors, and publishers are now willing to take a few more risks. They still tend to push and market a lot of them as Thrillers, though.

Horror's always been the bastard genre. Every decade there's a new cultural attack on it, like the Satanic Panic or some poo poo. Fantasy and Sci-Fi don't nearly get as much flack or backlash, and also tend to offer mind-numbing escapism, and horror (even the bad stuff) attempts to shock or scare more than distract with make-em-ups.

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer

MockingQuantum posted:

Because I've never read it, and the two people who reached out to me over PMs have mentioned in the other thread they think Barker is bad. I can add it though, since it's pretty much considered a classic at this point. Where would it fit best in the current recommendation categories (that I kind of hate but can't think of a better way to do them yet)?

And derp, not sure how I forgot Something Wicked, it's one of my favorite books. I'll add it and Thief of Always, since I do kind of want a subsection that's basically "good horror/supernatural/gothic fiction for younger readers and/or people who don't like to actually be scared by a book". So I'd welcome more suggestions along those lines.

Also, I'd love to have at least some recommendations for non-American/UK/Western Europe horror novels, just to show what's out there. I'm aware of some Japanese horror novels, though I haven't read any, but beyond that I'm pretty unfamiliar with horror from the rest of the world.

Well, you should read Books of Blood. It's good and mostly devoid of the aspects of Barker that people dislike. It's a pretty good gateway into horror because of how many aspects of fear it explores, and the variety of stories. I'd say it fits in with Weird Fiction, but I tend to keep horror short story collections as their own thing, since most authors (worth reading) bounce around the sub-genres.

You could very easily make a section for Witch fiction like Hex and Possession fiction like The Exorcist and A Head Full of Ghost, since the latter is pretty popular right now.

edit: I'll PM you some poo poo.

gey muckle mowser
Aug 5, 2003

Do you know anything about...
witches?



Buglord
also seconding/thirding Books of Blood

Stephen King chat: I used to be a big fan when I was younger, but I tried to re-read It last year and it's absurdly loving long and I got bored halfway through. I have gone back and read a bunch of his short stories too, and they do hold up. Pretty much everything in Night Shift is great.

Has anyone mentioned Joe Hill yet? 20th Century Ghosts is real good.

Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007
joe hill is worse than his father by an order of magnitude

Relevant Tangent
Nov 18, 2016

Tangentially Relevant

A Night In The Lonesome October is by Roger Zelazny and is actually very kid friendly. It is about a dog, his master, and a Ctulhuean ritual.

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer
Joe Hill is pretty bad, but half of the stories in 20th Century Ghosts are good, and I like Locke & Key enough. It was certainly the best horror-ish comic at the time, when the only other horror comic was The Walking Dead, which has always been dumb.

edit: Anyone else like Joe R. Lansdale? I liked quite a few stories in his short story collection Writer of the Purple Rage. He's the only modern southern horror author I know.

Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 18:12 on May 15, 2018

gey muckle mowser
Aug 5, 2003

Do you know anything about...
witches?



Buglord

Oxxidation posted:

joe hill is worse than his father by an order of magnitude

Yeah that's fair, Horns was alright but I didn't think much of his other novels that I've read. I do think most of the stories in 20th Century Ghosts are great though.

Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007

gey muckle mowser posted:

Yeah that's fair, Horns was alright but I didn't think much of his other novels that I've read. I do think most of the stories in 20th Century Ghosts are great though.

even at the very lowest of his doldrums king never wrote anything half as bad as Horns, it was a badly written fifty-page novella with a decent idea that got stretched out beyond the point of sanity or reason

Oxxidation fucked around with this message at 18:16 on May 15, 2018

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer

gey muckle mowser posted:

Yeah that's fair, Horns was alright but I didn't think much of his other novels that I've read. I do think most of the stories in 20th Century Ghosts are great though.

His story Best New Horror is great. I used to do short story readings for my friends and that one got a lot of visceral reactions.

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



gey muckle mowser posted:

also seconding/thirding Books of Blood

Stephen King chat: I used to be a big fan when I was younger, but I tried to re-read It last year and it's absurdly loving long and I got bored halfway through. I have gone back and read a bunch of his short stories too, and they do hold up. Pretty much everything in Night Shift is great.

Has anyone mentioned Joe Hill yet? 20th Century Ghosts is real good.

Yeah King is at his best in short stories, though even then some are kind of duds. Skeleton Crew is more spotty than Night Shift imo, I haven't read any of the other collections in their entirety. I always have trouble when recommending Stephen King, especially to people who haven't read anything by him, because on one hand his "classics" (Carrie, Shining, Stand, Misery, It, Pet Sematary) aren't necessarily his best work, they're definitely the King-iest of his books. I usually default to telling people to read The Shining if they want something supernatural, or Misery if they don't, since both are accessible and at least pretty decent. But yeah, a lot of his longer works that die-hard fans rave about kind of go off the rails and imo the man can't write a tightly-plotted ending to save his life. I wonder sometimes how much better his writing would be if he hadn't gotten so big, so early in his career, it seems like his fairly early success kind of opened the door to him writing more or less whatever he wanted, without strong editorial oversight, which probably resulted in a lot of his books being much weaker than they could have been.

My unironic, actual Stephen King recommendations for people that know what they're getting into with his stuff is to read From a Buick 8 if you want to read a surprisingly tightly-written novel, and then read Danse Macabre and/or On Writing depending on where your interests lie.

I have a hard time recommending Joe Hill. I haven't read 20th Century Ghosts, which is too bad, since it seems like it's the only thing he's written that's generally viewed pretty positively by everyone. Heart Shaped Box is okay, but gets kind of dumb the longer it sticks around. The Fireman is pretty bleh and feels like it was written in the hopes of it getting optioned as a movie. NOS4A2 actually seems pretty polarizing, I know a lot of people who love it and think it's the only good book he's written, I kind of hated what I read (which so far is about half the book, not sure I'll ever pick it up again). It felt like him playing his dad's Greatest Hits but not doing a very good job of it at all. Also I think the title is dumb, but whatever. No idea how Strange Weather or Horns are, haven't read either.

Edit: I forgot about the one Joe Hill thing I've read that is genuinely quite good: Locke & Key. Definitely better than most of his novels. I think he probably just works much better in shorter formats, he kind of has all the issues his dad has when it comes to longer works, but about twice as bad.

MockingQuantum fucked around with this message at 18:17 on May 15, 2018

Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Oxxidation posted:

joe hill is worse than his father by an order of magnitude

you cannot multiply by zero

IT is trash and anyone who says its their favorite book is also trash

Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007

Mel Mudkiper posted:

you cannot multiply by zero

IT is trash and anyone who says its their favorite book is also trash

IT is longwinded in the extreme and includes a child sewer gangbang and still shows considerably more craft and wit than anything his kid's put to paper

also as king's gotten older he's turned misanthrophic and mean and it's benefited his more recent collections like Full Dark No Stars or Bazaar of Bad Dreams quite a bit

Fire Safety Doug
Sep 3, 2006

99 % caffeine free is 99 % not my kinda thing

Franchescanado posted:

edit: Anyone else like Joe R. Lansdale? I liked quite a few stories in his short story collection Writer of the Purple Rage. He's the only modern southern horror author I know.

I love the guy – would have asked him to be added to the OP but it's kinda hard to file him under a heading besides "Joe R. Lansdale", because he's massively prolific and has written pretty much everything.

When it comes to King, I was reading his stuff obsessively as a kid, then went through a bleh-he-sucks hipster phase, and now I can once again appreciate his better stuff, which probably still outnumbers most of the competition on a word by word basis. Salem's Lot and Different Seasons (especially The Body) immediately spring to mind as really good King books.

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer

Fire Safety Doug posted:

I love the guy – would have asked him to be added to the OP but it's kinda hard to file him under a heading besides "Joe R. Lansdale", because he's massively prolific and has written pretty much everything.

What's another good Lansdale book or collection (preferably) to read? Hap & Leonard novels are already on my radar.

Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.
I have a problem where the concepts I find most horrifying are also the concepts I most strongly oppose logically.

Like, things that haunt me are also things I find deeply frustrating to experience and consider

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer

Mel Mudkiper posted:

I have a problem where the concepts I find most horrifying are also the concepts I most strongly oppose logically.

Like, things that haunt me are also things I find deeply frustrating to experience and consider

Care to elaborate or provide some examples?

Popular Human
Jul 17, 2005

and if it's a lie, terrorists made me say it
I picked up The Elementals and The Graveyard Apartment because of this thread. Both look good as hell. Thanks for the recs!

anilEhilated
Feb 17, 2014

But I say fuck the rain.

Grimey Drawer
I'm reading a collection of stories called The Devil and the Deep and so far it's utter poo poo. Any good water monster horror out there?
FWIW, I've read North American Lake Monsters and Blackwater and both are great but come a bit short on the monster front.

Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Popular Human posted:

I picked up The Elementals

Dope


Franchescanado posted:

Care to elaborate or provide some examples?

Ideas of eternal damnation or tortured souls in particular, especially when they are based on arbitrary things. Basically anything where the moral order of the universe allows for a perpetual state of punishment.

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer

anilEhilated posted:

I'm reading a collection of stories called The Devil and the Deep and so far it's utter poo poo. Any good water monster horror out there?
FWIW, I've read North American Lake Monsters and Blackwater and both are great but come a bit short on the monster front.

Look and see if The Town That Forgot How To Breathe is what you're after.

anilEhilated
Feb 17, 2014

But I say fuck the rain.

Grimey Drawer
That looks pretty great, thanks.
e: Reviews seem pretty negative, though. I'll check it out.

anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 20:04 on May 15, 2018

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



anilEhilated posted:

I'm reading a collection of stories called The Devil and the Deep and so far it's utter poo poo. Any good water monster horror out there?
FWIW, I've read North American Lake Monsters and Blackwater and both are great but come a bit short on the monster front.

Boo, I requested The Devil and the Deep at my library and I'm next in line after it being weirdly popular, that's such a bummer to hear.

Popular Human posted:

I picked up The Elementals and The Graveyard Apartment because of this thread. Both look good as hell. Thanks for the recs!

I love The Elementals, I hope you enjoy it. It's a slow burn, to be sure, but the book as a whole was deeply unsettling to me.

anilEhilated
Feb 17, 2014

But I say fuck the rain.

Grimey Drawer

MockingQuantum posted:

Boo, I requested The Devil and the Deep at my library and I'm next in line after it being weirdly popular, that's such a bummer to hear.
I'm like five stories in and I wouldn't even classify what I've read as horror. Maybe it'll get better further on.

Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.
Upon reflection, I really like Body Horror although I tend to prefer it as a dressing in a larger story than the main focus

Like it sounds weird, but one of the most horrifying stories I can remember reading is from this non-horror book called The Illuminations and one of the chapters was about a woman who got an incurable and inexplicable oral ulcer that caused chronic distracting pain and it haunted me

Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007

Mel Mudkiper posted:

Ideas of eternal damnation or tortured souls in particular, especially when they are based on arbitrary things. Basically anything where the moral order of the universe allows for a perpetual state of punishment.

funnily enough the end of king's novel Revival is one of the nastier if less subtle takes i've seen on that concept

pity about the 300 or so pages that precede it

e: whoops, got the name wrong. goes to show how memorable it was outside the finale

Oxxidation fucked around with this message at 20:19 on May 15, 2018

Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Oxxidation posted:

funnily enough the end of king's novel Deliverance is one of the nastier if less subtle takes i've seen on that concept

pity about the 300 or so pages that precede it

I read about the ending to Revival which hits that spot but apparently the book is terrible and I already am on record wrt King sucking rear end

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



Mel Mudkiper posted:

Upon reflection, I really like Body Horror although I tend to prefer it as a dressing in a larger story than the main focus

Like it sounds weird, but one of the most horrifying stories I can remember reading is from this non-horror book called The Illuminations and one of the chapters was about a woman who got an incurable and inexplicable oral ulcer that caused chronic distracting pain and it haunted me

You may like The Cipher by Kathe Koja then. It has some pretty unsettling body horror stuff but I wouldn't call it the main focus.

Solitair
Feb 18, 2014

TODAY'S GONNA BE A GOOD MOTHERFUCKIN' DAY!!!
I was very into Stephen King in high school, though I haven't read any of his books since 11/22/63. I can't say how good most of the books I read are, since that evaluation would be based on distant, nostalgic memories, but I'm still confident in saying that "1408" is my favorite short story of his.

Oxxidation posted:

IT is longwinded in the extreme and includes a child sewer gangbang and still shows considerably more craft and wit than anything his kid's put to paper

also as king's gotten older he's turned misanthrophic and mean and it's benefited his more recent collections like Full Dark No Stars or Bazaar of Bad Dreams quite a bit

Weird. I gave up on Full Dark No Stars because the first few stories gave me the opposite impression, especially the dumb one about exercise and cholesterol or whatever.

Ornamented Death
Jan 25, 2006

Pew pew!

anilEhilated posted:

I'm reading a collection of stories called The Devil and the Deep and so far it's utter poo poo. Any good water monster horror out there?
FWIW, I've read North American Lake Monsters and Blackwater and both are great but come a bit short on the monster front.

Dead Sea by Tim Curran is full of underwater monsters. It is not as well-written as the two books you named, but like most of Curran's work, it's a lot of fun.

Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007

Solitair posted:

Weird. I gave up on Full Dark No Stars because the first few stories gave me the opposite impression, especially the dumb one about exercise and cholesterol or whatever.

You're thinking about Stationary Bike from Just After Sunset, which was totally forgettable. FDNS was published years later.

Solitair
Feb 18, 2014

TODAY'S GONNA BE A GOOD MOTHERFUCKIN' DAY!!!

Oxxidation posted:

You're thinking about Stationary Bike from Just After Sunset, which was totally forgettable. FDNS was published years later.

Whoops. I guess I'll add those good collections to the pile.

Fire Safety Doug
Sep 3, 2006

99 % caffeine free is 99 % not my kinda thing

Franchescanado posted:

What's another good Lansdale book or collection (preferably) to read? Hap & Leonard novels are already on my radar.

He's got tons of short story collections out but it looks like Electric Gumbo covers most of his best-known stories that aren't in Writer of the Purple Rage. Hap & Leonard series is good, although for me it took a downward turn around Captains Outrageous. For standalone novels I really like The Bottoms for that southern / To Kill a Mockingbird vibe, and Nightrunners is a good example of his splatterpunk-era stuff (although I haven't read that in ages so not sure if I'd feel the same today). If you're into comics, his Jonah Hex stuff is hilarious. That should get you started!

Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007
Also everyone in this thread should give at least a passing glance to Blake Butler, especially Scorch Atlas and the first half of Three Hundred Million (it gets really, really loving abstract after a certain point that will be punishingly evident).

Scorch Atlas especially contains some of the best apocalyptic imagery I've ever read.

Solitair
Feb 18, 2014

TODAY'S GONNA BE A GOOD MOTHERFUCKIN' DAY!!!

Oxxidation posted:

Also everyone in this thread should give at least a passing glance to Blake Butler, especially Scorch Atlas and the first half of Three Hundred Million (it gets really, really loving abstract after a certain point that will be punishingly evident).

Scorch Atlas especially contains some of the best apocalyptic imagery I've ever read.

I have a copy of Scorch Atlas at home right now but I'm swamped with other stuff to read at the moment. I need a better way to manage my queue.

Relevant Tangent
Nov 18, 2016

Tangentially Relevant

Mel Mudkiper posted:

you cannot multiply by zero

IT is trash and anyone who says its their favorite book is also trash

Maximum Overdrive is good tho.

Relevant Tangent
Nov 18, 2016

Tangentially Relevant

Mel Mudkiper posted:

Dope


Ideas of eternal damnation or tortured souls in particular, especially when they are based on arbitrary things. Basically anything where the moral order of the universe allows for a perpetual state of punishment.

Roko's Basilisk style or just arbitrary Demiurge style?

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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Relevant Tangent posted:

Roko's Basilisk style or just arbitrary Demiurge style?

Nah Roko's Basilisk doesn't do it for me because stuff like I have no mouth isn't scary as much as its just dumb

Relevant Tangent posted:

Maximum Overdrive is good tho.

I concede this point

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