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Also feel like he missed a trick with the ending there too. I recall it's set up during the story that the cult will live on if people remember them and look into their tenants or the paintings or the writings of Sister Whateverhernamewas. And the main dude frantically starts calling his editor(Fingermouse?) to tell him to not release the documentary... but not because it could potentially bring about the end of the world if everyone took an interest in the weird skeleton-friends who live in the walls... but because he realises he'll be tied to the assault and murder of the re-incarnated cult leader if the police see it. I mean, I'm all for doing something a little different. I just feel like the book could have ended with a lingering sense of dread and more of an *oomph* if it was about something bigger than the dude's own safety.
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Sep 10, 2018 10:38
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ravenkult posted:
I loving loved that book and am glad someone else is at least aware of it
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Sep 13, 2018 05:30
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ravenkult posted:A while back I wrote this about folk horror: https://litreactor.com/columns/five-great-folk-horror-novels Machen is the man. Everybody read more Machen. Doctor Faustine posted:I also love folk horror movies like The Witch, The Wicker Man, and Kill List, to give a broader sense of what I'm after. I know its book recommendations you were after, but make sure you see A Dark Song if you haven't already. Also, Lord Of Tears has some folk horror elements and is good. On another topic, now we're using this thread for cosmic horror chat: I could use a favour. I've been left with an unpublished short story (it was a submission to a Trump-themed anthology of Lovecraftiana that is no longer coming out) which I want to distribute as a free ebook. (I don't like giving away work for free, but I can't in good conscience charge for a 30-page short.) Amazon will only make stuff free via price matching though, so if any of you can take one minute to visit https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07H6Q4R4M and use the 'tell us about a lower price' link to notify them that it's available from B&N for $0.00 (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/at-the-midnight-of-creation-philip-hemplow/1129507931) it would be suuuuuuper helpful and massively appreciated. 
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Sep 13, 2018 15:31
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https://twitter.com/NBallingrud/status/1041388220968300544?s=20
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Sep 16, 2018 19:20
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Bartlett is one of those authors that I wish I liked but always found really annoying for some reason. I tried reading Gateways to Abomination and was left overall with an impression of disjointed, slightly gruesome imagery and weak characters.
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Sep 17, 2018 00:33
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Hate Fibration posted:Bartlett is one of those authors that I wish I liked but always found really annoying for some reason. I tried reading Gateways to Abomination and was left overall with an impression of disjointed, slightly gruesome imagery and weak characters. Same, I've tried reading that more than once and it just doesn't grab me at all.
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Sep 17, 2018 18:37
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I think going into the second half of The Ritual expecting the Blood Frenzy twist made me enjoy it more than I would have done going in blind. Plus I'm a sucker for Black Metal shenanigans anyway. The film handled it all better though, in my opinion. The idea of Luke wandering across this old one God and the people who worship it gels better than a bunch of kids just trying to be as evil as possible. There's something more terrifying about the indifference in the film compared to the grotesque cruelty of the kids in the book. So that's The Ritual and Last Days done in. Should I just say "gently caress it" and grab the rest of Nevill's bibliography? I like his books, but I think the comparison to King is apt... y'know, with the flubbed endings and all. 
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Sep 20, 2018 13:51
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Drunken Baker posted:I think going into the second half of The Ritual expecting the Blood Frenzy twist made me enjoy it more than I would have done going in blind. Plus I'm a sucker for Black Metal shenanigans anyway. Best I can offer is that I liked House of Small Shadows a whole lot more than The Ritual, so that one at least is worth reading.
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Sep 20, 2018 19:29
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Good enough for me! Added to my shopping list. Picked The Troop back up by Nick Cutter. Absolutely delightful lunchtime reading.
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Sep 21, 2018 13:25
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Drunken Baker posted:I think going into the second half of The Ritual expecting the Blood Frenzy twist made me enjoy it more than I would have done going in blind. Plus I'm a sucker for Black Metal shenanigans anyway. Yeah I think the movie handled it better, though I don't really think it needed to change the reason they were there. The book does a good job of illustrating being in your 30s and being a gently caress up. The kids or whoever in the book were so cartoonishly over the top that I went from really liking the book to just wanting it to be over so I didn't have to deal with them again. Weirdly struggling with SUMMER OF NIGHT, got about halfway through and it's... Fine. It feels so King-lite without his grasp of character.
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Sep 24, 2018 14:58
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the only thing i remember about the kids is that the girl had pierced labia and this was described to us, for some reason
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Sep 24, 2018 22:50
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I've nearly finished Peter Clines' 14. The first 3/4 of the book is a fun sort of scooby-do-meets-lovecraft mystery about a building with some unusual properties. In fine horror tradition, the ending is pretty terrible. Still worth a couple of bucks on amazon, I'd say, if you're in need of something new to read. Anyway, next on tap: Bartlett's Stay-Awake Men and Johnson's Entropy in Bloom. The latter has gotten some great praise, and in spite of some people in this thread having very bad opinions wrt Skullcrack City, that book got me psyched for more output from Johnson. a foolish pianist fucked around with this message at 23:53 on Sep 24, 2018 |
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Sep 24, 2018 23:48
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a foolish pianist posted:I've nearly finished Peter Clines' 14. The first 3/4 of the book is a fun sort of scooby-do-meets-lovecraft mystery about a building with some unusual properties. In fine horror tradition, the ending is pretty terrible. Still worth a couple of bucks on amazon, I'd say, if you're in need of something new to read. There's a semi-sequel to 14 called The Fold which is a Lovecraft meets Timeline story that's not bad
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Sep 25, 2018 00:54
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Never felt Cline's stories were really horror, more of a sci-fi book with some small lovecraft tones. 14 was pretty good though based on the premise and the fold is a decent follow-up that only later in the book is tied in.
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Sep 25, 2018 17:05
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So I just finished Devil's Day, by the author of The Loney… ...and I'm pretty annoyed and baffled by the novelist's continued commitment to building unease and semi-ambiguous supernatural elements in an atmospheric setting with its own history and secrets that all seems to be on the verge of cohering into something right up to the final page, and then just ending the whole thing without wrapping up. I enjoyed the careful pacing and focus on the everyday relationships throughout, but once the climax arrives, so many different horror elements have been teased that the refusal to commit fully to any of them doesn't feel subtle or deliberate, it feels slapdash and half-hearted - especially as he keeps adding increasingly silly 'normal' plotlines to try and offer an alternative explanation. Is this a horror story about the Devil haunting a family in rural Lancashire, or just the realistic tale of an elderly farmer who shot a sheep-thief who was the nephew of a local crime lord, while a criminal attempted to return home but was possibly eaten by a vicious stray dog or murdered by the crime lord, while that same criminal's daughter had a nervous breakdown and creeped out the pregnant hallucinating wife of the farmer's grandson, who'd also accidentally killed another child in these woods while he was young but thought the Devil made him do it? That's not some elegant tightrope of storytelling, it's anything but.
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Oct 1, 2018 10:14
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a foolish pianist posted:I've nearly finished Peter Clines' 14. The first 3/4 of the book is a fun sort of scooby-do-meets-lovecraft mystery about a building with some unusual properties. In fine horror tradition, the ending is pretty terrible. Still worth a couple of bucks on amazon, I'd say, if you're in need of something new to read. Len posted:There's a semi-sequel to 14 called The Fold which is a Lovecraft meets Timeline story that's not bad Seconding the recommendation for The Fold. It's basically Airport Fiction and you'll spot the big plot twist halfway through a mile away, but it's fun.
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Oct 1, 2018 13:49
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Any horror books where the setting is just one place? Ala Haunting Of Hill House.
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Oct 5, 2018 01:26
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Ulio posted:Any horror books where the setting is just one place? Ala Haunting Of Hill House. Hell House all takes place in a hellish house. Opinions vary wildly on it in this thread, though I like it well enough. House of Leaves, sort of. The Shining doesn't take place entirely in the hotel but the majority of the book does. Horrorstor is about a haunted Definitely-Not-IKEA House of Small Shadows is pretty much all within one building, only with a couple of exceptions. I'm only like halfway through it but so far The Supernatural Enhancements is mostly about one house There's more that I can't think of at the moment, I'll edit if I can remember what they are.
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Oct 5, 2018 01:34
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michael mcdowells the elementals
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Oct 5, 2018 01:39
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MockingQuantum posted:Hell House all takes place in a hellish house. Opinions vary wildly on it in this thread, though I like it well enough. I have already read Hell House, ya that was really spooky although the backstory of all the hauntings was a bit too much The Shining I have seen the movie, unless it is really different I rather not read it. I will check out Horrorstor, the setting sounds really unique and from the looks of it there is some satirical stuff in it as well.
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Oct 5, 2018 01:41
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oh hell yes, The Elementals is a great suggestionUlio posted:I have already read Hell House, ya that was really spooky although the backstory of all the hauntings was a bit too much The Shining novel is different enough from the movie to send some people into meltdowns over which is better, but not actually substantially different enough to feel like you've missed anything by not reading it. Little stylistic things and a few plot points are different enough that I'm glad I read it. Just a heads-up on Horrorstor, I enjoyed it, but it's the very definition of Big Mac horror. It revels in a lot of well-established tropes and doesn't do anything wildly unique (beyond the book design) but doesn't stick around long enough that you're gonna feel like it's dragging, IMO. And yeah, a lot of the cooler touches are in the book design. I originally got it as an ebook from the library but I think it loses something in the presentation, so if you have access to a physical copy it's probably the better bet.
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Oct 5, 2018 01:51
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I listened to Horrorstor as an audiobook what does the physical book do?
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Oct 5, 2018 01:58
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Len posted:I listened to Horrorstor as an audiobook what does the physical book do? It's presented as an IKEA style catalog that gets increasingly weirder over the course of the book. It's mostly stuff at the end and start of chapters, plus an insert here or there. It's not huge, but adds some nice flavor that the book benefits from.
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Oct 5, 2018 02:14
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The book is real big and unwieldy though. Not sure how much of a bearing that has on what version you go for, but it really is like a giant Ikea catalogue.
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Oct 5, 2018 08:43
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Ulio posted:Any horror books where the setting is just one place? Ala Haunting Of Hill House. Paul Tremblay’s recent Cabin at the End of the World. It’s been a while since I read it, but King’s Misery more or less fits the bill as well.
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Oct 5, 2018 08:57
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Ulio posted:I will check out Horrorstor, the setting sounds really unique and from the looks of it there is some satirical stuff in it as well. Horrorstor is a decent read, but the satire is pretty toothless. The setting is diegetically an American Ikea knockoff, and there are several explicit references to how it's a lovely knockoff and Ikea is better, presumably as lawsuit shielding.
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Oct 5, 2018 18:41
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Laird Barron's Old Virginia is all in a single setting.
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Oct 5, 2018 18:47
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Antivehicular posted:Horrorstor is a decent read, but the satire is pretty toothless. The setting is diegetically an American Ikea knockoff, and there are several explicit references to how it's a lovely knockoff and Ikea is better, presumably as lawsuit shielding. Unfortunately "toothless satire" can accurately describe Grady Hendrix's fiction in general. My Best Friend's Exorcism was enjoyable but aggressively by-the-numbers, and despite seeming like it really wanted to make a statement on social ostracization and the dangers of gossip in teenagers lives or something like that, it never actually gets around to making it matter. It's a weird book. I'm pretty skeptical of We Sold Our Souls too. Ultimately Horrorstor and Exorcism are fine as time-killer horror that is successful enough at being entertaining, but not much beyond that. I guess I read the references to Ikea as less lawsuit shielding than half-hearted attempts at tongue-in-cheek humor. Either way, they do stick out as a little on-the-nose and unnecessary.
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Oct 5, 2018 19:20
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i cant imagine listening to horrostor as an audiobook because the catalogue gimmick is like the defining characteristic of the book
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Oct 5, 2018 19:23
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chernobyl kinsman posted:i cant imagine listening to horrostor as an audiobook because the catalogue gimmick is like the defining characteristic of the book This. To add to the list of horror books that take place in a single location... The Nightly Disease by Max Booth III (a hotel) (this is a really weird book for what it's worth) Zero Lives Remaining by Adam Cesare (an arcade) The Tower by Simon Clark (a house) (not a great book, but it may scratch the itch) The Nightmare House by Douglas Clegg (a house) (start of a series; better than the previous book listed, but still kind of by-the-numbers) The Deep by Nick Cutter (an underwater lab) Lot Lizards by Ray Garton (a diner) The Sorrows by Jonathan Janz (a mansion) (presumably the sequel also takes place in a single location but I haven't read it) The House of Many Doors by Brian Lumley (a house) (lol don't read this, also I think there's a sequel) William Meikle has a series of interconnected novellas set in single locations, it starts with Broken Sigil (an apartment building) Slade House by David Mitchell (a house) The Deceased by Tom Piccirilli (a house) (not his best by a long shot, but it's decent after a rough start) Wild Fell by Michael Rowe (a house) Lights Out by Nate Southard (a prison) I tried to keep this to a single structure or building as the setting. Something like Brian Keene's The Complex predominantly takes place at an apartment complex, but one made up of numerous buildings rather than just one.
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Oct 6, 2018 01:27
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chernobyl kinsman posted:i cant imagine listening to horrostor as an audiobook because the catalogue gimmick is like the defining characteristic of the book I hadn't heard of it before when I was browsing Hooplah for something to listen to so I didn't know it had a gimmick
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Oct 6, 2018 14:03
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Somewhat related to the haunted **** recs - I'm in the mood for something along these lines, ideally with people exploring a mysterious environemnt running into weird supernatural stuff and uncovering its history. Good example would be the Southern Reach books by Jeff Vandermeer. I've sadly read most of the classics mentioned here (Shining, Terror, House of Leaves, Deep...; more interested in the mystery than the horror but horror books tend to have the most interesting mysteries anyway. Would prefer it to be at least partially explained.
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Oct 6, 2018 20:10
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Ship of Fools if you haven't read it.
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Oct 7, 2018 01:34
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I have but that's another perfect example of what I'm looking for.
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Oct 7, 2018 10:50
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I'm in an apocalyptic mood, and I'm looking for some real dire poo poo to read/listen to. Stories about madness, indescribable horrors, and curses that grow in your brain. Like, one of the things I like the most about Lovecraftian horror is the utter bleakness and futility of the protagonists' actions and attempts at understanding what they're up against. The realization that you are wildly out of your league makes for a good source of dread and the sinking feeling that accompanies good horror. What're some good stories for this kinda thing, both modern and relatively classic e.g. Derleth and Lovecraft (if I should even be reading them)?
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Oct 8, 2018 03:45
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Pollyanna posted:I'm in an apocalyptic mood, and I'm looking for some real dire poo poo to read/listen to. Stories about madness, indescribable horrors, and curses that grow in your brain. Like, one of the things I like the most about Lovecraftian horror is the utter bleakness and futility of the protagonists' actions and attempts at understanding what they're up against. The realization that you are wildly out of your league makes for a good source of dread and the sinking feeling that accompanies good horror. What're some good stories for this kinda thing, both modern and relatively classic e.g. Derleth and Lovecraft (if I should even be reading them)? Gonna rec Scorch Atlas for the nth time.
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Oct 8, 2018 04:48
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Oxxidation posted:Gonna rec Scorch Atlas for the nth time. alright alright i'll read it
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Oct 8, 2018 04:54
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I'll recommend some Conrad Williams. The Umblemished and One are wonderfully bleak and dark.
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Oct 8, 2018 11:06
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Tor has The Ballad of Black Tom up as a free download. It is very good so I recommend everyone go get it.
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Oct 9, 2018 14:55
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On the one hand, "The Horror at Red Hook," the short story The Ballad of Black Tom is based on and is responding to, gives you context for and a better appreciation of the novella. On the other hand "Red Hook" is super-racist and incoherently bad, even by the standards of a Lovecraft work. So only read it if you're a completionist or interested in the history of racism in America
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Oct 9, 2018 15:46
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