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I liked the part about the celebrity hold-out mansion getting overrun. Bill Maher and Paris Hilton being eaten by zombies seemed about right.
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Aug 23, 2021 23:27
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Famethrowa posted:Picked up Negative Space by B.R Yaeger and it's hitting a button I've never had hit in a occult horror. I've never seen the surburban opoid and self harm crisis that happened in the 2000s reflected back. It's... really hard to read but incredible horror. I read for 3 days straight. It has a hold of my brain in ways I can't explain. It was so messy and vile and queer and punk and above all genuinely magical in a dirty chaotic witchy way. It felt deeply personal and real while also hitting a good cosmic horror high note. Cannot recommend highly enough if you can handle some truly disturbing self-harm inagery
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Aug 24, 2021 06:31
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The chapter with the guy who had suffered a complete breakdown after he designed and implemented the human firebreak to save as many as he could was very haunting.
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Aug 24, 2021 09:15
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Between a Spider’s Eyes came out today and I’m only through 4 stories so far but I’m really liking it. It’s an indie splatter anthology featuring 8 authors but it’s better edited and more varied than most. So far stories 2 and 3 left me legitimately unsettled and 4 was a fun silly ride. I’ll definitely be checking in on some of these authors’ other works when I’m done E: read a couple more stories and gonna caveat the above by saying the next two weren’t as strong, with the 6th (the one based around a schizophrenic) just being gross for grossness sake. Just a heads up Good Citizen fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Aug 25, 2021 |
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Aug 25, 2021 05:45
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Finished it off and the last story redeemed it enough that I’d recommend if you skip story 6 The last story was just the right kind of weird for me. Spoilers a drug give you temporary memory transfer between the people who take it. Married couple takes it to help their marriage and husband decides to rescue a dog from the pound because he learns his wife loved her childhood dog. An error in judgement occurs, the husband and dog both eat a pill, and murder mystery hijinks ensue
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Aug 26, 2021 05:11
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I finally finished North American Lake Monsters. That last story hurt, a lot. I absolutely love it but I don’t know if I’m going to be able to read it again. I do have a desire for more Antarctic horror now.
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Aug 31, 2021 00:52
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DreamingofRoses posted:I finally finished North American Lake Monsters. That last story hurt, a lot. I absolutely love it but I don’t know if I’m going to be able to read it again. You want Michelle Paver's Dark Matter: A Ghost Story. If you have any tolerance for audiobooks I can highly recommend that version, great narrator.
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Aug 31, 2021 01:45
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I'm trying to get back into reading more regularly and horror is really the only thing that can hold my attention. I'm on the last Nick Cutter book, picked up some Paul Tremblay, but I'm looking for other recs for more recent stuff. I'm good with pretty much anything but cosmic horror is a plus.
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Aug 31, 2021 20:35
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Retro Futurist posted:I'm trying to get back into reading more regularly and horror is really the only thing that can hold my attention. I'm on the last Nick Cutter book, picked up some Paul Tremblay, but I'm looking for other recs for more recent stuff. I'm good with pretty much anything but cosmic horror is a plus. the immeasurable corpse of nature by Chris Slatsky pretty much anything by Blake Butler, but start with Scorch Atlas and proceed based on how much you can tolerate the weirder stories Terminal Park by Gary Shipley
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Sep 1, 2021 17:35
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I really wanted to like Scorch Atlas, but I ended up kind of lukewarm on it overall. Some parts were fascinating and I loved the imagery and the word he was creating, others were rambly and tedious and did absolutely nothing for me.
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Sep 1, 2021 18:43
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Thanks, I picked Atlas up but couldn’t find the others (I prefer digital and I’ve gone back to Kobo so I’m a little more limited now). I also went on a spree over the last few days and have around 95 books on there now so I should probably slow down 
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Sep 1, 2021 19:08
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A thought experiment: Think back to the first time you played Sonic the Hedgehog. Why do the robots have animals trapped inside? Did you guys have any kinda theory or did you just not consider it? What a weird thing, such a strange detail, you know? Consider your theories before proceeding, just as a little experiment. My theory was that the robots are probably powered by batteries, because they're too heavy to be powered by like a rabbit or whatever, but there's animals in there, so there's a reason animals are there and it's probably to get the machine moving around in a smart animal like way. Obviously something about being in the robot changes what the animals would want to do or could choose to do, and busting them out lets them out of that restriction. This explains why there are animals in the robots and why Robotnik has those trap canisters to get more, they're a critical part of what makes the robots work at all. It also explains why they run as soon as they can. I didn't consider what any of that would mean beyond that explanation of the plot, but as a relatively young child I had apparently developed the basis of an incredible Ligotti style horror universe embedded into a popular fun video game, and then I just took it at surface level and went on. Now that I think about it, why the gently caress were there animals in there? What the gently caress was Robotnik even doing? The intent was probably some little effect added in to show how cool and how many powerful sprites the genesis could throw up on screen. Seems like there's a seething nightmare covered up by every rock you peek under after all. If I had considered what it would be like for those cartoon critters who knows what kind of worldview I'd have now.
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Sep 2, 2021 01:39
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SniperWoreConverse posted:A thought experiment: ok, fine, post your sonic horror fan fiction
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Sep 2, 2021 01:48
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Nah that's it p much it. I don't really have anything to add beyond it seems like nethescurial is essentially real life
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Sep 2, 2021 01:54
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Wasn't he turning the animals into robots?
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Sep 2, 2021 02:32
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No idea, all I remember is smashing the bot releases a perfectly fine normal seeming animal
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Sep 2, 2021 02:39
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Retro Futurist posted:Wasn't he turning the animals into robots? That's how one of the cartoons explained it
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Sep 2, 2021 02:58
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SniperWoreConverse posted:Any good vampire stuff I can get for free? Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu predates Dracula by 75 years, and is also better. The Vampyre by John William Polidori is a short story that predates Dracula by 78 years. Both are readily available for free. Carmilla has quite a few free audiobooks across all the big platforms.
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Sep 2, 2021 14:12
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Franchescanado posted:Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu predates Dracula by 75 years, and is also better. Huh. Care to give your reasoning? I've never heard that preference before. (100% not attacking you or nothing, just honestly curious ; your evidence can be "because I like it better basta" and it'll be, at worst, a less interesting conversation.)
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Sep 2, 2021 14:42
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Xiahou Dun posted:Huh. Care to give your reasoning? I've never heard that preference before. I just don't enjoy reading Dracula. I appreciate it's place in Victorian literature, and it's lasting effect on pop culture, and it's exploration of sexuality and fears of the Victorian era, and how well it balances the voices of the different characters through the prose, but I find it dull to actually read. For an epistolary Gothic novel, I much prefer Frankenstein, which I love. Carmilla is much more straight-forward, in that it's not epistolary, and the narrative voice is more personable to read. It also deals with similar themes of sexuality, especially lesbianism, that is inherent to the vampire story. And it's like 100 pages, depending on the edition, compared to Dracula's length (my copy is like 450 pages, I think?). It's a fun book! Bram Stoker certainly thought so, since it directly inspired Dracula. edit: To clarify, I like Victorian literature in general, but I'm far from an expert Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 15:09 on Sep 2, 2021 |
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Sep 2, 2021 15:02
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I like both quite a bit for the reasons Franchescanado outlined. I've read Dracula every two or three years since I was a teenager so it has a sort of nostalgia for me, but I could see how it just wouldn't do it for someone. The epistolary format does mean you get a lot of "boy let me tell you about the crazy thing that just happened to me, good thing I survived to tell the tale" sort of passages that both undercut the book's tension and don't make a ton of sense under great scrutiny. I think it's a fun book with some weird dated trappings, like a lot of stuff from that era. I only read Carmilla for the first time late last year and was surprised how much I liked it. I tend to find a lot of horror or gothic fiction from that era to be more stodgy and dry than engaging, but Carmilla didn't have that issue for me. You'll probably be able to see just about every plot beat coming from miles away because they've been cribbed or reworked hundreds of times in books and movies, but despite that it's good enough to be entertaining, I think. Also yeah, it's (I think) unique for its time in that it deals with themes of lesbian sexuality and actually treats its female characters as capable (if not outright superior) to the male characters.
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Sep 2, 2021 15:47
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Kestral posted:You want Michelle Paver's Dark Matter: A Ghost Story. If you have any tolerance for audiobooks I can highly recommend that version, great narrator. Wow, thanks for the recommendation! About halfway through Dark Matter and it's great. Super atmospheric with a sense of creeping dread that I'm really enjoying. And yeah, the narrator for the audiobook is top notch.
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Sep 2, 2021 18:18
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I really want to check out that Lesser Creatures book from the OP, but there's no ebook I can find, nothing at the library, and all the copies in Amazon are going for $800 for some reason?
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Sep 2, 2021 18:24
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Franchescanado posted:I just don't enjoy reading Dracula. I appreciate it's place in Victorian literature, and it's lasting effect on pop culture, and it's exploration of sexuality and fears of the Victorian era, and how well it balances the voices of the different characters through the prose, but I find it dull to actually read. For an epistolary Gothic novel, I much prefer Frankenstein, which I love. MockingQuantum posted:I like both quite a bit for the reasons Franchescanado outlined. I've read Dracula every two or three years since I was a teenager so it has a sort of nostalgia for me, but I could see how it just wouldn't do it for someone. The epistolary format does mean you get a lot of "boy let me tell you about the crazy thing that just happened to me, good thing I survived to tell the tale" sort of passages that both undercut the book's tension and don't make a ton of sense under great scrutiny. I think it's a fun book with some weird dated trappings, like a lot of stuff from that era. Huh. I disagree entirely but for the exact opposite reasons. I'm a total sucker for the epistolary format in general and I always thought Carmilla was a bit too melodramatic in a campy way. (Speaking relatively, of course : we're talking Victorian gothic lit so things like "camp" and "melodrama" are already boosted to absurd levels.) I like them both a lot and if I were ever stuck teaching a course on like the History of Vampire Literature or something they'd be assigned reading, so we're pretty much talking about slight differences in the decimal place on our own internal review scores. Still it was cool to hear your thoughts on the subject. Thanks!
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Sep 2, 2021 18:32
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Retro Futurist posted:I really want to check out that Lesser Creatures book from the OP, but there's no ebook I can find, nothing at the library, and all the copies in Amazon are going for $800 for some reason? This seems to be the curse of obscure horror books with small print runs. I've wanted a copy of Feesters in the Lake by Bob Leman since reading one of his stories in an anthology, and the cheapest copy I've seen is $600.
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Sep 2, 2021 19:36
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Yeah, though then we get situations like The Cipher being available dirt cheap as an ebook, kind of out of nowhere. Might be time for an updated OP with some recommendations that are actually available, I feel like there's maybe one or two others in there that are completely out of print and unavailable as ebooks.
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Sep 2, 2021 19:47
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PM me whatever obscure horror books you're looking for and I'll see what I can do (once I get home next week). I know I can help with the two listed on this page, for example.
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Sep 3, 2021 02:27
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Paddyo posted:Wow, thanks for the recommendation! About halfway through Dark Matter and it's great. Super atmospheric with a sense of creeping dread that I'm really enjoying. And yeah, the narrator for the audiobook is top notch. I really liked that one so I picked up a couple of her other books and Thin Air is also good but it’s basically the same book. Giving it a break before trying Wakenhurst, that one looks a little different at least.
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Sep 4, 2021 22:27
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No. 1 Juicy Boi posted:I just finished Gone to See the River Man by Kristopher Triana and it was... fantastic. Emotionally and viscerally gut-punching the whole way through, but holy hell what a great read it was. Just finished this, it was pretty good. Insanely depressing, though.
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Sep 4, 2021 22:39
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Kestral posted:You want Michelle Paver's Dark Matter: A Ghost Story. If you have any tolerance for audiobooks I can highly recommend that version, great narrator. It looks good! I’m just cash-light right now and my library doesn’t have it. It’s definitely on my list.
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Sep 5, 2021 18:27
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I’m in the mood for some western horror. Preferably more overtly supernatural than like a Cormac McCarthy, any good ones out there?
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Sep 6, 2021 06:20
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Have you read The Hunger by Alma Katsu? It's good.
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Sep 6, 2021 08:12
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Retro Futurist posted:I’m in the mood for some western horror. Preferably more overtly supernatural than like a Cormac McCarthy, any good ones out there? Joe R. Lansdale has written a few (Dead in the West is probably the best known). Outside the book realm, his Jonah Hex comics miniseries with Timothy Truman is great and horror-adjacent.
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Sep 6, 2021 08:22
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I just finished House of Leaves ("The Remastered Full-Color Edition" *rolls eyes* ). It was fun. The layout playfulness was annoying but I bet in 2001 it was avant garde and new and interesting. I starting completely ignoring everything that Johnny Truant wrote since he was such a boring loser. But the 5 explorations of the Navidson Film were all pretty cool.
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Sep 6, 2021 15:36
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reading posted:
No, it was just annoying then, too.
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Sep 7, 2021 00:31
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reading posted:I just finished House of Leaves ("The Remastered Full-Color Edition" *rolls eyes* ). Are there actual different editions or no? Mine was black and blue ink only and had some bullshit about an edition with red ink I assumed was a lie Flopstick posted:No, it was just annoying then, too. The one after that was this book you could read forwards or backwards by flipping it around and I got maybe a quarter through it
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Sep 7, 2021 00:37
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I (finally) finished Carrier Wave a few days ago and it's just a perfect example of a great idea for a story completely ruined by an over-eager author and an apparent lack of editorial input. That book did not need to be so fuckin' long to tell that story, and the fact that it is hurts it.
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Sep 7, 2021 02:32
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I didn't care about the colored text, but I actually liked Johnny's story as much as the house. Both stories drew from the same themes (loss, separation, grief, etc.) but his felt especially sad to me.
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Sep 7, 2021 02:37
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reading posted:It was fun. The layout playfulness was annoying but I bet in 2001 it was avant garde and new and interesting. Yeah, it was! I'd never seen a book do that before, and it was fun. I kind of wish more books would do that, especially with colored text.
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Sep 7, 2021 03:26
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Colored text is hot bullshit and a giant gently caress you to colorblind readers for no gain. At least change fonts or something if you can’t be a good enough writer to do it by just changing the voice.
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Sep 7, 2021 05:36
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