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Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

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

Grimey Drawer

GrandpaPants posted:

I'm reading North American Lake Monsters, and drat it does a good job of setting up these haunted people with their haunted lives, even if the stories themselves aren't necessarily horror in the traditional sense. The fact that most/all the stories tend to end on a hanging thread just sorta makes it a bit more real, since, well, these lives aren't gonna be wrapped up all nice like.

Yeah, that's what drew me to it as well.

Have you ever read any Flannery O'Connor? Most of her stories are Southern Gothic instead of outright horror, but a lot of them have a spooky vibe, and she is more skilled in these areas than Ballingrud.

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GrandpaPants
Feb 13, 2006


Free to roam the heavens in man's noble quest to investigate the weirdness of the universe!

I'll put her complete collection on the ole wishlist! I honestly only read NALM because of this thread (or maybe the cosmic horror thread), so thanks goon recommendations!

Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007

GrandpaPants posted:

I'm reading North American Lake Monsters, and drat it does a good job of setting up these haunted people with their haunted lives, even if the stories themselves aren't necessarily horror in the traditional sense. The fact that most/all the stories tend to end on a hanging thread just sorta makes it a bit more real, since, well, these lives aren't gonna be wrapped up all nice like.

I was seeing what Amazon recommended, and does anyone have thoughts on Langan's The Wide, Carnivorous Sky? I remember a mixed reaction to his The Fisherman, but maybe he's better with short stories?

i got it from kindle unlimited a while back and it was so-so, though "Technicolor" was a standout

chernobyl kinsman
Mar 18, 2007

a friend of the friendly atom

Soiled Meat

Drunken Baker posted:

a fight scene involving a biker dual wielding barbarian axes.

come on

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012




At the very least it's acknowledged as being pretty ridiculous in context too.

Chas McGill
Oct 29, 2010

loves Fat Philippe
The Immaculate Void was so bad it pretty much put me off reading more Hodge, even though I remember liking his first story collection. He has some nice ideas but he has major difficulty in writing characters. Not uncommon in horror.

Drunken Baker
Feb 3, 2015

VODKA STYLE DRINK

Hahah, is that a good "come on" in my favour or a bad one?

MockingQuantum posted:

At the very least it's acknowledged as being pretty ridiculous in context too.

I knew the edgelord was going to do something perhaps pulling a gun, maybe? But yeah, that was something else alright.

Chas McGill posted:

The Immaculate Void was so bad it pretty much put me off reading more Hodge.

I had the idea in my head that maybe he was a reincarnation of the actual Atilla the Hun or something. I haven't finished it yet, so maybe it'll all gel together at the end. But from the sounds of it, it doesn't.

It all smacks of "World's of Hurt" to me, which I loved, up to a point. I was enraptured by the idea of "another" God ousting ours and Heaven becoming a horrific place. (King's Revival is on my to read list too) But then there's a terminator character working at the behest of the God to return those lost souls. I get that kind of vibe with Atilla and it feels like both books would have been stronger (and scarier imho) without them.

Chas McGill
Oct 29, 2010

loves Fat Philippe
Yeah, the concepts are interesting but the characters don't do much to explore or enhance their impact...

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



I enjoyed the book well enough, even in the face of a couple of very silly moments. For any other faults the book may have, it does the "cosmic" part of cosmic horror pretty well.

Drunken Baker
Feb 3, 2015

VODKA STYLE DRINK

MockingQuantum posted:

I enjoyed the book well enough, even in the face of a couple of very silly moments. For any other faults the book may have, it does the "cosmic" part of cosmic horror pretty well.

I'm close to the end now and again, like World's of Hurt, the cosmic horror stuff outweighs the framing/characters. It'll stick with me, I think.

RatEarth
Aug 7, 2017

I didn't say that.
but it'd be funny if I did
Recently started reading Clive Barker's The Hellbound Heart, because I enjoy Hellraiser and for whatever reason never actually read Barker at all.

UCS Hellmaker
Mar 29, 2008
Toilet Rascal
Hope you like gore and well explained and detail sex parts and rituals. He's a good author in some ways, books of blood is a great short story work, but goddamn he loves talking about pahllic symbols. Which is also because he was an openly gay author in the 80s and 90s.

chernobyl kinsman
Mar 18, 2007

a friend of the friendly atom

Soiled Meat
barker sucks

C2C - 2.0
May 14, 2006

Dubs In The Key Of Life


Lipstick Apathy

Wrong

Ornamented Death
Jan 25, 2006

Pew pew!

Barker wrote some influential stuff early in his career and has basically been cruising on that ever since.

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014


If you read Books of Blood volume 1, you'll find some fairly definitive evidence that Barker sucks.

C2C - 2.0
May 14, 2006

Dubs In The Key Of Life


Lipstick Apathy

Jedit posted:

If you read Books of Blood volume 1, you'll find some fairly definitive evidence that Barker sucks.

I've read nearly everything written by him. Plenty there to poo poo on but he's written some good stuff too. He's no different from King et. al. in that respect

chernobyl kinsman
Mar 18, 2007

a friend of the friendly atom

Soiled Meat

C2C - 2.0 posted:

I've read nearly everything written by him. Plenty there to poo poo on but he's written some good stuff too. He's no different from King et. al. in that respect

hes very different from king in that king has written literally anything worth reading in the last 30 years

chernobyl kinsman
Mar 18, 2007

a friend of the friendly atom

Soiled Meat
e: double post

chernobyl kinsman fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Nov 1, 2018

Ornamented Death
Jan 25, 2006

Pew pew!

"in the Hills, the Cities" is perhaps the stupidest story I've ever read.

On the flip side, "The Yattering and Jack" and "The Midnight Meat Train" were decent.

a foolish pianist
May 6, 2007

(bi)cyclic mutation

Ornamented Death posted:

"in the Hills, the Cities" is perhaps the stupidest story I've ever read.

On the flip side, "The Yattering and Jack" and "The Midnight Meat Train" were decent.

I like it as a kind of insane fairy tale.

Also, I don't even kinda get the King-Barker comparison. King isn't anywhere near Barker's league.

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



a foolish pianist posted:

I like it as a kind of insane fairy tale.

Also, I don't even kinda get the King-Barker comparison. King isn't anywhere near Barker's league.

They're both horror writers who had a disproportionate influence on horror in the 80s, are kind of consistently overrated, have weirdly dedicated fans for the quality of their writing, and have been coasting on a small handful of good books for most of their careers?

I say this with love. For King, at least. He's goofy and dumb and his writing is often not great, but I love him anyway. I've tried Books of Blood a few times and found it tedious enough to not get very far, I'm still planning to give it a fair shake though so I don't feel like I actually have a well-formed opinion of Barker. Undying was fun, though.

a foolish pianist
May 6, 2007

(bi)cyclic mutation

I guess I'm the opposite. Nothing King writes holds my attention - it all seems tedious and hackneyed. Barker is at least novel, mostly of the time.

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



a foolish pianist posted:

I guess I'm the opposite. Nothing King writes holds my attention - it all seems tedious and hackneyed. Barker is at least novel, mostly of the time.

It doesn't help that two of my friends that are big Barker fans are also way into the cheesiest edgelord horror stuff imaginable. One has at least one skull, one ridiculous looking decorative knife, and one Todd McFarlane figurine in every room of his house. Intentionally. That's what I associate with Barker as a result.

chernobyl kinsman
Mar 18, 2007

a friend of the friendly atom

Soiled Meat
king is without a doubt going to garner increasing attention from academics over the next ~50 years; barker is going to remain the weird cult figure that he is today, if even that. i mean legitimately, the guy wrote at best two books worth reading, both 30 years ago, and even those are saturated with barker's trademark gross-out sex-and-torture poo poo. hes just not good.

e:

MockingQuantum posted:

It doesn't help that two of my friends that are big Barker fans are also way into the cheesiest edgelord horror stuff imaginable. One has at least one skull, one ridiculous looking decorative knife, and one Todd McFarlane figurine in every room of his house. Intentionally. That's what I associate with Barker as a result.

i have also known only two people who were really into barker, and both of them are exactly like this. including the mcfarlane figures. do we know the same people

chernobyl kinsman fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Nov 1, 2018

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



chernobyl kinsman posted:

king is without a doubt going to garner increasing attention from academics over the next ~50 years; barker is going to remain the weird cult figure that he is today, if even that. i mean legitimately, the guy wrote at best two books worth reading, both 30 years ago, and even those are saturated with barker's trademark gross-out sex-and-torture poo poo. hes just not good.

e:


i have also known only two people who were really into barker, and both of them are exactly like this. including the mcfarlane figures. do we know the same people

If we do, I feel bad for you. People were not meant to discuss cenobite lore as much as these two do

chernobyl kinsman
Mar 18, 2007

a friend of the friendly atom

Soiled Meat
the best clive barker book is the movie event horizon

Chas McGill
Oct 29, 2010

loves Fat Philippe
The best Barker book is the first 100 pages of Weaveworld imo.

Good point keep talkin
Sep 14, 2011


So for the month of October I tried to read some horror to get in the spirit of the season, those books being I'm thinking of Ending Things, The Disappearance at Devil's Rock, and Enter, Night. These are actually the first books I've finished since high school and honestly I came away from the whole experience really frustrated, both with the books themselves and with novels in general. In all three cases I was really invested in the story up to the ending, then it all came apart for me in the last couple pages. Spoilers for all three.

I'm Thinking of Ending Things didn't have a bad ending in my opinion. It just went from a spooky ghost story into a "it was all in the main character's head" thing which is never a trope I find interesting and just makes everything unsettling in the rest of the novel "safe" since the reader knows it didn't actually happen. The Disappearance at Devil's Rock felt like it was gonna be a slow burn that built into really creepy conclusion where you find out what's behind the supernatural stuff but you don't. The scares/hauntings never really pick up and the ending doesn't explain or contextualize any of it. Enter, Night was great up to the last few pages where it just kinda stops. The vampire lord is still hanging out and half the town is still vampires and all we get is a vague allusion to the mother and daughter getting out of the town alive. I haven't read the bit at the end with the priest yet but how the main story ended was a real bummer.

I can see where other people would like the way these ended but for me it's just been frustrating to spend hours on three separate stories and have each of em fall flat consecutively. I'm switching gears to westerns with The Sisters Brothers now but for afterwards if anybody has any recommendations for something creepy that they feel has a satisfying conclusion I'd be happy to hear em.

C2C - 2.0
May 14, 2006

Dubs In The Key Of Life


Lipstick Apathy

plz dont pull out posted:

So for the month of October I tried to read some horror to get in the spirit of the season, those books being I'm thinking of Ending Things, The Disappearance at Devil's Rock, and Enter, Night. These are actually the first books I've finished since high school and honestly I came away from the whole experience really frustrated, both with the books themselves and with novels in general. In all three cases I was really invested in the story up to the ending, then it all came apart for me in the last couple pages. Spoilers for all three.

I'm Thinking of Ending Things didn't have a bad ending in my opinion. It just went from a spooky ghost story into a "it was all in the main character's head" thing which is never a trope I find interesting and just makes everything unsettling in the rest of the novel "safe" since the reader knows it didn't actually happen. The Disappearance at Devil's Rock felt like it was gonna be a slow burn that built into really creepy conclusion where you find out what's behind the supernatural stuff but you don't. The scares/hauntings never really pick up and the ending doesn't explain or contextualize any of it. Enter, Night was great up to the last few pages where it just kinda stops. The vampire lord is still hanging out and half the town is still vampires and all we get is a vague allusion to the mother and daughter getting out of the town alive. I haven't read the bit at the end with the priest yet but how the main story ended was a real bummer.

I can see where other people would like the way these ended but for me it's just been frustrating to spend hours on three separate stories and have each of em fall flat consecutively. I'm switching gears to westerns with The Sisters Brothers now but for afterwards if anybody has any recommendations for something creepy that they feel has a satisfying conclusion I'd be happy to hear em.

Kill two birds with one novel.

Horror-Western Blood Meridian

StonecutterJoe
Mar 29, 2016

chernobyl kinsman posted:

king is without a doubt going to garner increasing attention from academics over the next ~50 years; barker is going to remain the weird cult figure that he is today, if even that. i mean legitimately, the guy wrote at best two books worth reading, both 30 years ago, and even those are saturated with barker's trademark gross-out sex-and-torture poo poo. hes just not good.

Barker also loving loves starting stories and never finishing them. "Cabal? Of course there's a sequel coming. Or you could read my new series, Books of the Art. Books of the Art? Eh, I'll write the finale someday. In the meantime, want to read my new series Abarat? Abarat? Eh, I'll write the finale someday. Want to read my new..."

ravenkult
Feb 3, 2011


MockingQuantum posted:

They're both horror writers who had a disproportionate influence on horror in the 80s, are kind of consistently overrated, have weirdly dedicated fans for the quality of their writing, and have been coasting on a small handful of good books for most of their careers?



lmao

Drunken Baker
Feb 3, 2015

VODKA STYLE DRINK

MockingQuantum posted:

A Todd McFarlane figurine in every room of his house. Intentionally. That's what I associate with Barker as a result.

chernobyl kinsman posted:

I have also known only two people who were really into barker, and both of them are exactly like this. including the mcfarlane figures. do we know the same people

MockingQuantum posted:

If we do, I feel bad for you. People were not meant to discuss cenobite lore as much as these two do

God! I loving love Hellraiser (and most of Barker's other work) to an absurd degree but every other fan I know is the CRAZIEST bastard. I realise this is some kind of "self own" and it's me... I'm the weird Clive Barker fan, but the living rooms I've seen... honest to god chains hanging from ceilings and everything. I've got a couple of McFarlane Cenobites in my office, but I don't have guests in there, y'know.

Drunken Baker fucked around with this message at 12:24 on Nov 2, 2018

Dr. Video Games 0081
Jan 19, 2005
Anything out there that has the salvia trip-like qualities of the passages in The House on the Borderland about being a disembodied consciousness floating through infinite voids of time and space, but written fairly recently?

(or old, too, if not written by Lovecraft or Hodgson)

Drunken Baker
Feb 3, 2015

VODKA STYLE DRINK
Not read House on the Borderland yet, but VURT is pretty trippy. It's a mashup of Cyberpunk and horror though so not sure how much that will effect your enjoyment of it all.

Dr. Video Games 0081
Jan 19, 2005
Read I'm Thinking of Ending Things yesterday. It was okay--real fuckin page turner but doesn't really stick the landing.

USMC_Karl
Nov 17, 2003

SUPPORTER OF THE REINSTATED LAWFUL HAWAIIAN GOVERNMENT. HAOLES GET OFF DA `AINA.
Anyone here heard of either Bedfellows or its author, Jeremy C Shipp? One of my book recommendation newsletters mentioned it and the premise sounds like it could either be really interesting or a total mess. Not sure if it's a perfect fit for the Horror genre, but it sounds kinda horror-y. The fact that it is up for preorder for $4 on Amazon makes it very easy to impulse buy, but also makes me hesitate a bit.


I'm usually hesitant to accept book recommendations from a "best ~ of (year)" list, but for some reason the blurb popped out at me. I'll paste it here.


quote:

Acclaimed horror writer Jeremy C. Ship offers up another slice of his dark imagination in this short novel, which charts the slow decline of a family forced to learn to live with the strange, human-shaped thing in a Space Jam t-shirt that settles into their home and refuses to leave. At first, the intruder terrifies the Lund family—but then, he is not; the creature seems to have the power to edit memories; as soon as the family has accepted him as a homeless man who saved their son from choking as they dined at a restaurant, he becomes a friend from work, a distant relative, even father Hendrick Lund’s twin brother. As the invading entity works to complete his own special project in the Lund’s spare bedroom, he continues to manipulate their minds, using their worst feeds and misdeed against them. Shipp constructs a constantly self-editing narrative that is all the more compelling for its shifting strangeness.

God Of Paradise
Jan 23, 2012
You know, I'd be less worried about my 16 year old daughter dating a successful 40 year old cartoonist than dating a 16 year old loser.

I mean, Jesus, kid, at least date a motherfucker with abortion money and house to have sex at where your mother and I don't have to hear it. Also, if he treats her poorly, boom, that asshole's gonna catch a statch charge.

Please, John K. Date my daughter... Save her from dating smelly dropouts who wanna-be Soundcloud rappers.
If you consider something like The Wasp Factory, to be both horror, and a good read-- Then read Ryu Murakami's Coin Locker Babies.

StrixNebulosa
Feb 14, 2012

You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Okay, Paperbacks From Hell is a great book, but I'm getting annoyed at how every other book I look up from it is like 40-50$ if I want to own a paperback copy. Would some publisher please get on reprinting these things!

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Dr. Video Games 0081
Jan 19, 2005
I wish they'd reprint The Cipher. I'm teaching my horror class again soon and it would be a fun thing to teach in it.

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