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Barkers biggest issue is he somehow makes Grossout horror happen in book form. He massively tends to detail out exactly what horror is happening to a person has they are killed. Also if you in any way do not like gay imagery  god he loves to detail out cock.I do like Barker but goddamn some of his stuff. But yeah the books of blood are great. Also the ending of revival is amazing and I would love for more books that are just that. Rest of it sucked but god that ending.
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May 16, 2018 00:08
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UCS Hellmaker posted:Barkers biggest issue is he somehow makes Grossout horror happen in book form. He massively tends to detail out exactly what horror is happening to a person has they are killed. Also if you in any way do not like gay imagery Yeah he was one of the founders of splatterpunk
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May 16, 2018 00:11
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horroe
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May 16, 2018 01:10
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David Searcy's books (Last Things and Ordinary Horror) are the only horror I've read that did not either bore or annoy me, which is distressing because I love horror and I love books and it seems like they should mix well but most of the time they just don't. Unless you want to count Thomas Bernhard's stuff as horror I guess, I love the hell out of Bernhard. Actually I guess Brian Evenson's A Collapse of Horses was mostly okay too, but still sort of underwhelming. I'm gonna read the Books of Blood eventually but the Barker I've read so far (The Scarlet Gospels) was so embarrassingly bad that it's hard to psych myself up to get started. I'm not expecting miracles here but if any of you happen to know more stuff along the lines of Searcy I'd appreciate ideas, I guess. Or if you can somehow identify the exact opposite of The Scarlet Gospels.
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May 16, 2018 06:59
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MockingQuantum posted: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. John Ajvide Lindqvist is your number 1 stop. He's most famous for Let The Right One In, as adapted twice to movies (and the movies are better, which I won't say often), but everything he's written is worth your time. Handling the Undead is a very different take on zombies, and both it and LTROI are sequelised in the short story collection Let The Old Dreams Die. Harbour (aka Human Harbour) is a classic ghost story in a way. His most complete book, though, is Little Star. I'll also push Sergei Lukyanenko's six book Watch series, although technically they're urban fantasy.
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May 16, 2018 10:46
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In the vein of international horror authors, I would like to recommend the Japanese writer Otsuichi for his novels Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse and Goth, both of which got decent translations a few years back. The former is a collection of novellas, of which Black Fairy Tale is the absolute stand out and pretty unique, while Goth is a little more of an acquired taste, about a sociopath and the girl he is obsessed with.
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May 16, 2018 11:24
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Irony.or.Death posted:I'm gonna read the Books of Blood eventually but the Barker I've read so far (The Scarlet Gospels) was so embarrassingly bad that it's hard to psych myself up to get started. It's rumoured, and almost a poorly kept secret, that Scarlet Gospels was ghost written. Not sure who (not read any of Paul Kane's work, but I know he's close with Barker), but the style and... well, everything is so far from Clive's style* that yeah, "embarrassing" is the word I'd use. Even some of the most hardcore Hellraiser fans I know have trouble defending Pinhead going super saiyan(?) and shooting fireballs at Lucifer. *Early style, at least. Never read his later, fantasy stuff.
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May 16, 2018 11:53
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Irony.or.Death posted:David Searcy's books (Last Things and Ordinary Horror) are the only horror I've read that did not either bore or annoy me, which is distressing because I love horror and I love books and it seems like they should mix well but most of the time they just don't. Ooh, I forgot about Searcy. I loved Ordinary Horror but haven’t gotten around to Last Things yet, I’ll have to fix that. One author that I don’t see discussed much here is Joyce Carol Oates. I haven’t read any of her novels, but I’ve read a bunch of her horror short stories and they are excellent. Anyone a fan and have a recommendation for her?
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May 16, 2018 12:05
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I tend to prefer the horror adjacent myself, but grabbed Silent Companions by Laura Purcell from the library on the promise of it being a gothic horror and it fell a little flat for me. I can certainly see where some would give it high marks, but it never really got beyond a little creepy for me and I had some quibbles with the way it was told.
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May 16, 2018 15:56
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Ornamented Death posted: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.
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May 16, 2018 16:33
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I just finished A God in the Shed and I'm... still not a big fan, but glad I finished it, weirdly. I am kind of low-level excited to read more from this author, since I think he's got some good ideas, but needs some experience under his belt to really figure out some structural issue (and, hopefully, improve his descriptive prose, which is pretty bland 90% of the time). Now I'm on to The Devil Crept In which so far isn't really grabbing me, but I'm not very far into the book. Anybody read it?
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May 16, 2018 17:28
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Solitair posted: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. 1408 is an absolute ripper and everyone should read it gey muckle mowser posted:One author that I don’t see discussed much here is Joyce Carol Oates. I haven’t read any of her novels, but I’ve read a bunch of her horror short stories and they are excellent. Anyone a fan and have a recommendation for her? If you like serial-killer stuff then Zombie is worth a look, it won't take up too much of your time anyway
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May 16, 2018 23:16
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Drunken Baker posted:It's rumoured, and almost a poorly kept secret, that Scarlet Gospels was ghost written. Not sure who (not read any of Paul Kane's work, but I know he's close with Barker), but the style and... well, everything is so far from Clive's style* that yeah, "embarrassing" is the word I'd use. Even some of the most hardcore Hellraiser fans I know have trouble defending Pinhead going super saiyan(?) and shooting fireballs at Lucifer. The going super saiyan was kinda dumb, but more than that the whole book read like the author wasn't up to date on anything in the Hellraiser mythos and was just treating it like regular hell, with demons and lakes of fire and whatnot.
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May 17, 2018 17:58
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Scarlet Gospels was a huge bait and switch for me. I'd never read anything by Barker before except The Hellbound Heart and flipped Gospels open on a whim while browsing in a bookshop. The first two chapters were hands-down amazing and convinced me to get the book, and then the rest was a wet fart.
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May 17, 2018 18:37
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Skyscraper posted:Just treating it like regular hell, with demons and lakes of fire and whatnot. Unfortunately that's pretty much what Hellraiser devolved into with the later films. With an actual angel showing up in the latest film. Everything cool and weird and good about the idea of this parallel realm dedicated to extreme experience was just flushed down the bog. "Angels to some, demons to others..." nah, they're just demons now. The Labyrinth is ACTUAL Judeo-Christian hell where the dead go and the box is a shortcut. loving trash.
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May 18, 2018 08:44
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Scarlet Gospels is shockingly bad, even if it sometimes has flashes of brilliance (there's one bit of dialogue from Pinhead that really struck me; all other dialogue from every character is juvenile snarky one liners, it's garbage). I'm not sure where the ghost writer rumors originated, though. Barker had been talking about writing it for something like 25 years, and supposedly finished the first draft about 6 years before publication. You can't imagine how sad it was looking forward to this book for 2 decades and ending up with... yeah. The Hellbound Heart will always be a masterpiece, though.
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May 18, 2018 08:58
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The worst part for me was when the aul girl (who Pinhead literally kicks to death) quips, "These aren't your usual sado-machoists from beyond the grave!" At first I thought, oh that's cute, harking back to the naming debacle with the first Hellraiser film. But it's so clunky and horrible and on the nose and it makes my drat skin crawl now.
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May 18, 2018 11:10
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Drunken Baker posted:Unfortunately that's pretty much what Hellraiser devolved into with the later films. With an actual angel showing up in the latest film. Everything cool and weird and good about the idea of this parallel realm dedicated to extreme experience was just flushed down the bog. "Angels to some, demons to others..." nah, they're just demons now. The Labyrinth is ACTUAL Judeo-Christian hell where the dead go and the box is a shortcut. Haha, what? Really? I liked some of the the direct-to-video sequels, but I honestly thought they were done after releasing Hellraiser: Revelations just to fulfill their contract. I guess not 
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May 18, 2018 16:01
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weaveworld is the best thing barker ever did and i will recommend it to everyone i read it when i was 11 and it shaped me as a person
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May 19, 2018 02:57
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Drunken Baker posted:The worst part for me was when the aul girl (who Pinhead literally kicks to death) quips, "These aren't your usual sado-machoists from beyond the grave!" The worst part for ME is when Hell is properly described for the 1st time and some of the demons are riding about the City of the Damned on bicycles. loving bicycles. I'm hoping I hallucinated that particular detail so please let me know if I'm mistaken. A much better and unjustly much-neglected novel is The Shaft, by David Schow, which I read recently. Written in the late 80's, The Shaft is set in Chicago in the depths of winter and it's a gritty crime thriller where the supernatural elements are only slowly and subtly introduced (most of the key characters don't realise that they're actually starring in a horror story until it's FAR too late...). This is a beautifully well-written book: I've read plenty of godawful horror, so I know something good when I see it. The key characters are deftly drawn and you really start to care about them, even the shithead drug dealer Cruz, who flees to Chicago after successfully daring his bosses girlfriend to leap from a hotel roof into the pool while they're all shitfaced drunk (you can probably guess how that turns out). Also, look at this front cover. LOOK AT IT:  In short, this book owns and everyone should read it.
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May 19, 2018 19:47
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Is there anything comparable to Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian? I've always considered it horror in my mind. It's just so brutal and steeped in mysticism.
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May 22, 2018 02:24
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Pistol_Pete posted:
This reminds me that everyone should read Paperbacks from Hell Its a visual history of radical horror novel covers and concepts
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May 22, 2018 14:58
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Mel Mudkiper posted:This reminds me that everyone should read Paperbacks from Hell I'm going to add it to the OP next time I can be bothered to edit it. Also I'm not sure I'd call it horror but Yoko Ogawa's Revenge is macabre and dark and beautiful and creepy. Very good read, and probably one of very few recent novels I've read that I see myself re-reading in the near future.
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May 22, 2018 17:01
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There was a recent sale on Robert McCammon’s novels in Kindle format so I’m currently reading Swan Song for the first time in twenty years. I’m about halfway through and enjoying it, although the moments where characters suffer from situational stupidity are jarring. I read a few of his other books as a teenager but don’t remember them.
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May 22, 2018 17:37
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Cymoril posted:There was a recent sale on Robert McCammon’s novels in Kindle format so I’m currently reading Swan Song for the first time in twenty years. I’m about halfway through and enjoying it, although the moments where characters suffer from situational stupidity are jarring. I read a few of his other books as a teenager but don’t remember them. That reminds me that I found a copy of that book a month or two ago at my local Savers, and I still need to get around to reading it
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May 22, 2018 18:02
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Kill Creek is amazing holy poo poo
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May 22, 2018 18:10
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UCS Hellmaker posted:Kill Creek is amazing holy poo poo Good to hear, I grabbed it (and Black Helicopters, yay) last week, but I'm already reading three-ish other books so I probably won't get to it for a while.
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May 22, 2018 18:16
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who else has read mcdowell's the elementals? who else wants to talk about what was in the red vase (baby bones, from the malformed thing?), and why the drawing of the woman in the dress was form 1875 (the same year Beldame was built), but the photograph was from 1865, and what the connection is to the woman who ate the dead baby, and what's up with the cone that took over the house?
chernobyl kinsman fucked around with this message at 06:18 on May 23, 2018 |
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May 23, 2018 05:49
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chernobyl kinsman posted:who else has read mcdowell's the elementals? who else wants to talk about what was in the red vase (baby bones, from the malformed thing?), and why the drawing of the woman in the dress was form 1875 (the same year Beldame was built), but the photograph was from 1865, and what the connection is to the woman who ate the dead baby, and what's up with the cone that took over the house? I was curious about some of those myself when i read it, but without a re-read I'm not sure i could contribute much to the discussion. Which, I guess, is a great reason to re-read it.
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May 23, 2018 06:20
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I dont know how i felt about Universal Harvester. It certainly wasnt a horror book so im not sure why it popped up so often. Even the unsettling bits went away by the halfway point. I think i enjoyed it though although Wolf in White Van i think i liked more.
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May 25, 2018 02:42
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Len posted:I dont know how i felt about Universal Harvester. It certainly wasnt a horror book so im not sure why it popped up so often. Even the unsettling bits went away by the halfway point. I think i enjoyed it though although Wolf in White Van i think i liked more. I just read this also and I agree with everything you just said.
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May 25, 2018 16:05
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Cymoril posted:There was a recent sale on Robert McCammon’s novels in Kindle format so I’m currently reading Swan Song for the first time in twenty years. I’m about halfway through and enjoying it, although the moments where characters suffer from situational stupidity are jarring. I read a few of his other books as a teenager but don’t remember them. Of the ones I've read: Stinger is a classic B-movie in novel form. There's nothing on the page that you can't imagine on the screen. The Wolf's Hour isn't strictly horror, but it has elements of horror. High concept: what if James Bond fought in World War 2, and was a werewolf? Usher's Passing is a glorious mishmash of American Gothic and Poe-esque horror wrapped around the conceit that the House of Usher didn't die out and instead became massive arms dealers who settled in North Carolina and built the Winchester Mystery House. Baal, Bethany's Sin and They Thirst I wouldn't really bother hunting for. They're serviceable novels of their type, but pedestrian. Lastly there's the short story collection Blue World, which like all such collections is variable. When it's good it's really good, though.
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May 25, 2018 17:31
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Jedit posted:The Wolf's Hour isn't strictly horror, but it has elements of horror. High concept: what if James Bond fought in World War 2, and was a werewolf? jesus christ, man
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May 25, 2018 19:39
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If you're going to read a not strictly horror werewolf novel, I'd strongly recommend Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones.
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May 25, 2018 20:34
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McCammon's best thing is probably Speaks the Nightbird; again, not strictly horror but there are some unsettling bits. I'd suggest staying away from the sequels though, he turned it into a historical adventure novel series.
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May 25, 2018 21:27
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chernobyl kinsman posted:jesus christ, man Is that positive or negative?
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May 25, 2018 21:37
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Jedit posted:Is that positive or negative? It's negative dude that sounds like garbage for idiots
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May 26, 2018 00:42
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Earlier this week I finished Alice Walks by Michael Aronovitz. It's a pretty good take on the ghost story. The ending flounders just a bit in my opinion, but everything leading up to that is amazingly solid. I recommend it for anyone after a good ghost story.
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May 26, 2018 01:03
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Jedit posted:The Wolf's Hour isn't strictly horror, but it has elements of horror. High concept: what if James Bond fought in World War 2, and was a werewolf? I'd like to know what you think a low concept is if this is high concept
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May 26, 2018 02:24
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quote:High-concept is a type of artistic work that can be easily pitched with a succinctly stated premise. It can be contrasted with low-concept, which is more concerned with character development and other subtleties that are not as easily summarized. The origin of the term is disputed. It's a confusing term.
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May 26, 2018 02:40
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