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Conrad_Birdie
Jul 10, 2009
Just finished “Wounds.” Pretty much entirely because of this thread, I read “North American Lake Monsters” last year and enjoyed it a ton. The horror contained in those stories was deep and psychological, and even though it’s a fairly short book, I twice had to take a week-long
I break from reading it because some of the stories gave me minor mental breakdowns! (“Wild Acres,” I’m looking at you)

So I was super excited to finally read “Wounds,” and while I know a lot of you here you liked it less than “NALM,” I gotta say, I adored it. It might be my favorite collection of horror short stories ever. Every story was a delight, a genuine joy to read, with just a little twist on the horror genre that made it special. Someone here said it was more Cliver Barker-ish, and as a massive “Books of Blood” fan, I must agree. I think “The Butcher’s Table” might just be my favorite horror novella now. It’s wild how mu ideas and plot and character and horror and twists and turns he packs into this little 100 page story. I was truly blown away. It feels kinda macabre to say, due to the subject matter, but I can’t remember the last time I had so much FUN reading a book.

I know that apparently the “Wounds” movie was a disappointment, but “The Butcher’s Table” would be an amazing adventure/horror film with the right director and special effects team.

So, yeah, Nathan Ballingrud is my favorite author now and I’m bummed because I’ve basically read all his published work and have to wait patiently for years to get new work from him.

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Count Thrashula
Jun 1, 2003

Peak Performance.

Buglord

Conrad_Birdie posted:

I know that apparently the “Wounds” movie was a disappointment

Partially because it wasn't based on the "Wounds" book!

nankeen
Mar 20, 2019

by Cyrano4747

COOL CORN posted:

Partially because it wasn't based on the "Wounds" book!
i just don't understand why they do this. why use the title at all if you're not even going to try to honour the source material?

the netflix haunting of hill house took years off my life

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



Coming this summer, a movie adaptation of Ligotti's "Nethescurial", it's gonna be an action-packed ghost hunting romp starring John Krasinski

Sab Sabbington
Sep 18, 2016

In my restless dreams I see that town...

Flagstaff, Arizona
What's up goons, I've been lurking for a while and slowly taking in a lot of the thread favorites (Ballingrud is ballin' good, for example) I haven't had easy access to new books for a bit so I hadn't really been going out of my way for new content.

Cut to now, I remembered that library-borrowed ebooks are a thing and have been slowly filling up my list and have fleshed it out with most of what gets recommended in the thread, and have decided to revisit LaVelle's The Ballad of Black Tom after devouring The Changeling in audiobook form in basically one sitting, but after that I'm kind of at a loss for where I want to go next:

If anyone has any titles they can point out (Read: not necessarily recommend) that tend towards a little bit more visceral and overt supernatural horror that'd be rad. My metric for enjoying stories based on quality is extremely low, which I figure is a good thing given how lovely a lot of this kind of horror can be.

For context: I actually liked Hex a lot, though I think almost all of the weight was pulled by the premise and by certain particularly affective scenes peppered throughout it. Ghost Story was an excellent read and I'm pretty comfortable saying I'm gonna leave Straub's work there. I actively loving hate King's work and save for Strange Weather I think the adaptations of Joe Hill's stories are better than the writing themselves.

I also don't think I've seen it mentioned in the thread and I wanted to throw it out there, but Darcy Coates' Hunted is a pretty fun and pulpy read with some solid twists and turns. I'm a bit of a sucker for stories involving teens/young adults getting isolated in the wilderness and facing down something terrifying--Anansi's Goatman pretty much helped define my love of horror when I read it as a kid.

StrixNebulosa
Feb 14, 2012

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

Threshold by Caitlin R Kiernan has a slow start but once it starts burning there's some real overt supernatural horror that's pretty messed up.

chernobyl kinsman
Mar 18, 2007

a friend of the friendly atom

Soiled Meat
im begging all of you to read Aickman

chernobyl kinsman
Mar 18, 2007

a friend of the friendly atom

Soiled Meat
hes the best horror writer of the 20th century and its not even close

Bilirubin
Feb 16, 2014

The sanctioned action is to CHUG


OK

Where should I start?

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



Bilirubin posted:

OK

Where should I start?

Dark Entries or Cold Hand In Mine are both good, but I'm not sure you could go wrong with any of the collections

edit: some of his stories are floating around online or in anthologies, so if you go looking, just know that you're probably most likely to run into Ringing the Changes, which is not typical of his normal work and style. It's much more conventional of a horror story than most of his work, and by extension isn't as good.

MockingQuantum fucked around with this message at 07:30 on Jan 16, 2020

pixelbaron
Mar 18, 2009

~ Notice me, Shempai! ~
I would recommend Cold Hand in Mine, personally.

I was gonna take the opportunity to recommend my favorites here but then I looked at the table of contents and realized I'd just be listing the entire table of contents.

The Same Dog was the one that hosed me up the most, I think.

nankeen
Mar 20, 2019

by Cyrano4747

chernobyl kinsman posted:

im begging all of you to read Aickman
i swear i am going to read aickman but my only way to access his works is to shell out actual money and right now that's not an option at all

Count Thrashula
Jun 1, 2003

Peak Performance.

Buglord

chernobyl kinsman posted:

hes the best horror writer of the 20th century and its not even close

Weird that you're talking about Ballingrud, but your last post mentions Aickman?

Ornamented Death
Jan 25, 2006

Pew pew!

COOL CORN posted:

Weird that you're talking about Ballingrud, but your last post mentions Aickman?

Ballingrud is so good his stories break the bounds of linear time and show up in anthologies years before he actually writes them.

Or someone doesn't understand how centuries are identified.

One of those two.

Big Mad Drongo
Nov 10, 2006

chernobyl kinsman posted:

im begging all of you to read Aickman

I'm just getting into the collection Compulsory Games and it owns hard. So far Marriage and Le Miroir have really stuck with me.

MockingQuantum posted:

Dark Entries or Cold Hand In Mine are both good, but I'm not sure you could go wrong with any of the collections

edit: some of his stories are floating around online or in anthologies, so if you go looking, just know that you're probably most likely to run into Ringing the Changes, which is not typical of his normal work and style. It's much more conventional of a horror story than most of his work, and by extension isn't as good.

Yeah this sounds kind of disappointing, from what I've seen so far the main "horror" of his stories have been normality (and with it any sense of security) dissolving around the characters rather than overtly supernatural stuff.

Big Mad Drongo fucked around with this message at 15:28 on Jan 16, 2020

Count Thrashula
Jun 1, 2003

Peak Performance.

Buglord

Ornamented Death posted:

Or someone doesn't understand how centuries are identified.


...good point. It'll be the 20th century for the rest of my life, in my mind.

StrixNebulosa
Feb 14, 2012

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

COOL CORN posted:

...good point. It'll be the 20th century for the rest of my life, in my mind.

I hope I live long enough to see the 22nd century:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyGAc-OLAiQ

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



Big Mad Drongo posted:

I'm just getting into the collection Compulsory Games and it owns hard. So far Marriage and Le Miroir have really stuck with me.


Yeah this sounds kind of disappointing, from what I've seen so far the main "horror" of his stories have been normality (and with it any sense of security) dissolving around the characters rather than overtly supernatural stuff.

To be fair, Aickman himself really didn't want his work labeled as horror, I think he used the term "strange stories". He sometimes gets unfairly dismissed as just another horror writer of a certain time period, even though he really stands out as something very unique. I'm not sure I could name another author that really writes stories in a similar style to him.

But yeah, his best work tends to be the stories where you just have no loving clue what's going on, but still know that whatever it is, you should be deeply unsettled about it. At least IMO.

chernobyl kinsman
Mar 18, 2007

a friend of the friendly atom

Soiled Meat
did not realize that "The Turning" movie with the stranger things child is based on the Turn of the Screw

MockingQuantum posted:

Dark Entries or Cold Hand In Mine are both good, but I'm not sure you could go wrong with any of the collections

edit: some of his stories are floating around online or in anthologies, so if you go looking, just know that you're probably most likely to run into Ringing the Changes, which is not typical of his normal work and style. It's much more conventional of a horror story than most of his work, and by extension isn't as good.

yes these or compulsory games

unpacked robinhood
Feb 18, 2013

by Fluffdaddy

Black Griffon posted:

Yo what's good space horror?

Check out The Dark Behind the Stars. I wouldn't call it horror but it's pretty bleak and I love it

Fallom posted:

It’s “Beyond,” not “Behind.”

:doh:

unpacked robinhood fucked around with this message at 13:34 on Jan 20, 2020

Tiny Timbs
Sep 6, 2008

unpacked robinhood posted:

Check out The Dark Behind the Stars. I wouldn't call it horror but it's pretty bleak and I love it

It’s “Beyond,” not “Behind.” Thanks for bringing it up - I read this ages ago but couldn’t remember the title for the life of me.

I really liked The Explorer and The Echo by James Smythe (and all the rest of his books, but they aren’t space horror). It’s a weird recommendation because I think his writing is kind of rough but something about it is very evocative.

Tiny Timbs fucked around with this message at 01:57 on Jan 20, 2020

Antivehicular
Dec 30, 2011


I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Read most of North American Lake Monsters on a plane yesterday. Boy, this is well-crafted stuff, but I'm definitely not "enjoying" it -- it actually made me reflect on how so much horror fiction makes me sad and uncomfortable instead of afraid, and NALM is mashing that button with a vengeance. Good stuff, but tough stuff.

Black Griffon
Mar 12, 2005

Now, in the quantum moment before the closure, when all become one. One moment left. One point of space and time.

I know who you are. You are destiny.


Yeah, that's what makes it so very effective, and there's uncomfortable triggers for everyone. My personal thing was anything that had to do with animals, and the preponderance of failed human beings.

GrandpaPants
Feb 13, 2006


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

I had to stop reading and take a walk after Wild Acre. gently caress that's a good story.

Antivehicular
Dec 30, 2011


I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

GrandpaPants posted:

I had to stop reading and take a walk after Wild Acre. gently caress that's a good story.

What I found really interesting about it is that the werewolf is almost superfluous; it adds a layer of unreality, but a sufficiently weird industrial accident could probably take its place. It's a horror story about the aftermath of a traditional horror story, and that's kind of genius.

GrandpaPants
Feb 13, 2006


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

I think the monster is important, given its symbolism as a primal force of nature, which ties into how the main character becomes emasculated throughout the course of the story and basically becomes a victim of their own toxic masculinity. . I don't think you would get that if the inciting incident were just an accident.

Sab Sabbington
Sep 18, 2016

In my restless dreams I see that town...

Flagstaff, Arizona

Antivehicular posted:

Read most of North American Lake Monsters on a plane yesterday. Boy, this is well-crafted stuff, but I'm definitely not "enjoying" it -- it actually made me reflect on how so much horror fiction makes me sad and uncomfortable instead of afraid, and NALM is mashing that button with a vengeance. Good stuff, but tough stuff.

This is something I think about a lot in terms of fiction and has pretty thoroughly fed into why I've been craving more content that can pull the pulpy kind of gore-fest big monster style of storytelling into a place that's affective in a way that most psychological horror tends to be. I don't think I'd trade one for the other, and really only feel this way because I know that the medium has a solid selection of the latter continuing to make content right now, but I'd do a lot to find a way to supplement it.

In preparation for checking out the film adaptation I went through The Visible Filth the other day and was surprised to land on it being like, fine.

I also revisited The Ballad of Black Tom like I'd intended to and I think it's cemented LaVelle as my favorite active author? If you haven't read The Changeling, I can't recommend it enough.

Count Thrashula
Jun 1, 2003

Peak Performance.

Buglord
https://twitter.com/NBallingrud/status/1219685352379756544?s=20

Come onnnnn I neeeedddd itttttttt

(Monsterland being the Hulu series adaptation of NALM)

Anomalous Blowout
Feb 13, 2006

rock
ice
storm
abyss



It makes no attempt to sound human. It is atoms and stars.

*
I can’t remember if it was recced in this thread or not, but I ended up giving up on Bone Music by Christopher Rice. It has an intriguing enough premise even if I found a lot of the elements kinda cliche, but the main character just didn’t grab me or interest me much and the breakneck pacing meant that I never felt like I got to know anyone well enough to appreciate the stakes. The villain ended up being the most interesting character to me and then he doesn’t get nearly as much time on-page as the setup would lead you to believe.

If you like horror stories that are more like techno murder thrillers with horror elements this one is pretty good for that. It reminds me a lot of an airport thriller type of book–and that’s not a knock on those, I read a lot of them. It’s more that those types of books tend to serve a very specific purpose and one of them isn’t “long ruminations on the nature of abuse and bad childhoods from the POV of a sympathetic protag.” This book tries for that and ends up feeling more like Dean Koontz.

Still, the writing is decent, and the premise is really cool. What if you were a traumatised person who was raised by some truly horrifying people and your psychiatrist gave you a drug that gave you super strength and other associated minor super powers to cope with your ‘anxiety’? And this isn’t done to the protag knowingly, so it presents an interesting conflict right off the bad. She’s getting what she thinks is a Xanax or whatever, haha.

I got about 1/3 of the way in. I might return to it when I’m in the mood for a light thrillery type read that’s almost more of a dark superhero story than anything.

escape artist
Sep 24, 2005

Slow train coming
Absolutely loving North American Lake Monsters.

Is Visible Filth available to buy anywhere? On Amazon it's like $900...
Is it different than Wounds? The covers look so similar.

Count Thrashula
Jun 1, 2003

Peak Performance.

Buglord
Visible Filth is a short story contained in Wounds.

escape artist
Sep 24, 2005

Slow train coming

COOL CORN posted:

Visible Filth is a short story contained in Wounds.

Thanks! Ordering it today.

Ornamented Death
Jan 25, 2006

Pew pew!

Just a few more years and I'll be able to retire off of my copy of The Visible Filth!

gey muckle mowser
Aug 5, 2003

Do you know anything about...
witches?



Buglord
what (if any) Stephen King novels from the past 10-15 years are worth reading? Last of his I read was Under the Dome.

szary
Mar 12, 2014
Revival. I liked The Cell well enough too, but most people seem to dislike it.

alf_pogs
Feb 15, 2012


gey muckle mowser posted:

what (if any) Stephen King novels from the past 10-15 years are worth reading? Last of his I read was Under the Dome.

seconding Revival, i think its probably one of his best all-up. i liked it a lot

escape artist
Sep 24, 2005

Slow train coming
11/22/63 is in my top 5 King novels ever. Definitely a must read.

I hear good things about Duma Key but haven't read it yet

edit: Finished NALM and holy poo poo. I can't wait to re-read it. That was some of the best horror I've ever read. Each story was great. It also helped that I visited New Orleans, St. Petersburg, and the Blue Ridge Mountains last year, so all of these places were fresh in my mind.

Anything else universally acclaimed on the forums like NALM?

escape artist fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Jan 31, 2020

DreamingofRoses
Jun 27, 2013
Nap Ghost
I would like to say both thank you and gently caress you to whoever recommended NALM in this thread. I picked up the audiobook version and it's...hard. Really hard. It's definitely horrific, and feels like I'm watching Hereditary again.

remigious
May 13, 2009

Destruction comes inevitably :rip:

Hell Gem
I just picked up NALM and Wounds today. I’m excited to go on this journey with you all. I’ve always loved short horror story collections, and I’m so excited to dig in, like I know it’s gonna be good :)

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Pistol_Pete
Sep 15, 2007

Oven Wrangler

escape artist posted:

11/22/63 is in my top 5 King novels ever. Definitely a must read.


11/22/63 is good 'cos it forces King into a time period where he can't mangle modern technology :laugh:

More seriously, it's kinda freaky to think that a time period that we regard as another era is one that King's old enough to have experienced 1st hand.

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