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Pretty much all of Grady's books have gone on sale over the last little bit and I think I have them all now, is there a good reading order? Hate to read the best one first and then have a bunch of disappointments.
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Dec 16, 2021 01:42
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Retro Futurist posted:Pretty much all of Grady's books have gone on sale over the last little bit and I think I have them all now, is there a good reading order? Hate to read the best one first and then have a bunch of disappointments. Generally speaking I think publication order would be good. Obviously books don't always get published in the order the author writes them, but I get the feeling that's more or less the case with Hendrix. Horrorstor is hands-down his weakest and most straightforward. Not to say it's bad, it's still a fun little ghost story, but it doesn't do much that's particularly new or innovative. My Best Friend's Exorcism is better but also a little by-the-numbers. I loved We Sold Our Souls, Southern Book Club wasn't my favorite but is inarguably solid and well done, and I was pretty impressed with Final Girl Support Group. It's interesting to read them in publication order, because you can kind of watch him figure out how to go from merely referencing horror genres to really picking them apart and playing with the tropes to tell his own stories.
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Dec 16, 2021 03:13
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Good Citizen posted:I keep buying Brian Evenson short story collections like Song for the unraveling of the world and The glassy burning floor of hell because the combination of title/cover art/blurb make them sound like exactly my jam but then I always get bored of them halfway through and move on to something else. The dude knows exactly how to make me stop scrolling and buy a book. In practice his short stories end up being just a bit too minimalist for my taste, though. Maybe I’ll vibe with one of his novels better. I could use a horror-ish action thriller schlock story about now Check out Last Days. Not what I'd call schlock, but plenty violent and gory.
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Dec 16, 2021 07:50
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Good Citizen posted:His short story collections certainly are not but I just assumed that’s what a book based on the dead space IP would be That's just Evenson writing for an IP imo, his novels are about as weird as his shorts.
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Dec 16, 2021 11:12
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Retro Futurist posted:Pretty much all of Grady's books have gone on sale over the last little bit and I think I have them all now, is there a good reading order? Hate to read the best one first and then have a bunch of disappointments. I think Horrorstor was just okay. It's shot too, so maybe get that one out of the way earlier.
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Dec 16, 2021 14:12
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Publication order seems like a good idea, presumably they gets better as they go
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Dec 16, 2021 15:58
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Retro Futurist posted:Publication order seems like a good idea, presumably they gets better as they go This. I finished Southern Book Club and am going through Horrorstör now and it’s a fun read, but not really horrifying or as emotionally resonant (I sound like an rear end in a top hat saying it like that but it’s the best description I can come up with) with me as Southern or Support Group. I’ve got the others lined up for after. (I love libraries)
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Dec 17, 2021 03:57
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ravenkult posted:That's just Evenson writing for an IP imo, his novels are about as weird as his shorts. So his Dead Space books are on-brand for Evenson?
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Dec 17, 2021 17:37
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Evenson doesn't really change his major concerns with his I.P. work, and they're often considered some of the best that's written for the franchise (see the book he wrote for Aliens), but they're also sloppier than his actual novels (the ending/back half of the Aliens novel is not as good as the build up).
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Dec 17, 2021 20:04
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I just finished up Negative Space (thanks again Famethrowa!) and really really liked it. The content is bleak, but the prose is absolutely gorgeous, even as everything starts to unravel and fall apart. The whole thing felt like if Gummo had more cosmic horror and was way more surreal. I'm still processing the ending, but I like that it was uhh... I dunno, nothing wrapped up in a neat package. Instead of fading to black, like a movie, everything kind of faded to... blurry. The ending felt like a panic attack happening in slow motion. Now to go read all the spoiler text over the last couple pages. Edit-- whoops, there's only two posts with spoiler text! my thoughts: Yeah, the addiction angle is obviously very strong here, and you can see how insidious and cancerous it can be, sometimes even literally. The way that Yeager gives the "high" a more absolute purpose (seeing... ghosts? demons? whatever the threads are?) is a great way of communicating to the reader that there's a reason they can't just stop. In the book, they're literally keeping evil at bay, not just keeping themselves out of withdrawals. And the cancerous hacking and coughing that the family members start to have is a really striking metaphor for the grief of watching someone you love throwing their life away. As for the ending, yeah, it was pretty fuckin' bleak. Everyone in the end had been torn apart by Tyler, even if they "got out". Lu had the "happiest" ending, and even still ruminated on how nothing really mattered and she wouldn't have anyone to remember her. Everyone that knows her has disappeared thanks to the WHORL and everything that happened. Ahmir's story was downright heartbreaking. Jill managed to find love again but her trauma from Tyler metaphorically (and literally) killed her love. All in all it was haunting, and I'll be thinking about it for a while. One of the best books I've read this year, even if it's not one I can really recommend to my friends, haha. Count Thrashula fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Dec 17, 2021 |
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Dec 17, 2021 20:20
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fez_machine posted:Evenson doesn't really change his major concerns with his I.P. work, and they're often considered some of the best that's written for the franchise (see the book he wrote for Aliens), but they're also sloppier than his actual novels (the ending/back half of the Aliens novel is not as good as the build up). Interesting, thanks! I'll check them out!
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Dec 18, 2021 04:30
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I tore through all of Grady’s books in the past week and a half. I loved all of them to one extent or another. Horrorstör is definitely the weakest imo. Southern made me truly, truly afraid of vampires for the first time in ages the image of his pieces still squirming in the niches makes me sweat. We Sold Our Souls and Exorcism are absolutely great in their own ways, and I appreciate the reoccurring theme of sparrows vs mountains in their own ways. He’s really good at writing gross, too. I’ve had some visceral reactions to some of the things he’s described. Now I need to find something else to read that I can take with me on a plane. DreamingofRoses fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Dec 23, 2021 |
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Dec 23, 2021 17:01
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I recently finished Negative Space and loved it. Lots to chew on and think about. Question for folks who've read it: why do you think Yeager titled the book Negative Space?
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Dec 25, 2021 18:27
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Retro Futurist posted:If anyone is looking for something a bit different, I'm just finishing up Taaqtumi: An Anthology of Arctic Horror Stories and would definitely recommend it. It's got all Inuk writers telling stories, but they're not just the usual retelling of Legends or anything like that, it's all pretty modern with a unique bit of cultural perspective added in. I got this for Christmas last night, so I did the necessary thing and spent Christmas Eve reading about cold and darkness. Short reaction : it’s a very good little collection. The stories are the kind of punchiness that can really shine it short horror-fiction : they set a good creepy mood and tone, scary stuff happens, there are some answers but overall it leaves you with implications and things to ponder. They don’t overstay their welcome but they don’t chicken out and give nothing. As of about halfway through the collection, it’s a very good set of short horror stories, and if you agree with me, horror often shines best in short story-novella length where it can be pretty lithe and trim. This is before you throw in the cool armchair anthropologist angle of getting to read something from a different cultural perspective, which I’m also loving. If you’re a language nerd (hey foolish pianist), you’ll be pretty happy that there’s chunks of Inuktitut and Tłįchǫ, but it’s not like there are huge passages you can’t follow and there’s a glossary in the back with a pronunciation guide. There hasn’t been anything so far that’s just straight up “this is a ghost story my grampa told me that I’ve jazzed up a bit”, but I’m pretty sure some isn’t entirely made up by the author and is more like “here is a spooky thing from my culture that I’m riffing on and making my own”. And I’m definitely in reading up on myths from the area now to get more perspective. If there is a negative, and I’m not convinced it even is one, it’s that there’s not a lot of tonal consistency between stories. Like, there will be an almost child-like ghost story next to nihilist violence with the only break being a new title. I’m actually enjoying that as a nice juxtaposition that highlights the different narrative voices, but I could see someone else finding it jarring to shift suddenly like that. Overall, very happy with it, and if “wintery horror shorts from a non-European perspective” has anything you’re interested in, it’s a totally obvious thing to pick up.
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Dec 25, 2021 19:14
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E: taken! gey muckle mowser fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Dec 25, 2021 |
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Dec 25, 2021 19:41
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Ham Cheeks posted:I recently finished Negative Space and loved it. Lots to chew on and think about. I always had the classic negative space illusion in my mind while reading and the stark light and dark especially influenced my reading.  the straightforward textual answer, to me, is that smoking WHORL unraveled the threads that encase our positive souls, and allow your soul to begin leaking out into the negative space outside your corporeal form. in the world of the book, I think Lu represented a positive shamanic magic that could repair, while Tyler represented negative black magic that could only destroy. a secondary meaning that I also took was viewing people through their relation to space. we exist and are known by others by the space we take up. much like the white void in the middle of the illusion creates an object. we occlude what is behind us, but once we are gone, and we are no longer occluding the space behind us, only the negative is left. when all the inhabitants of a small nameless rust belt town leave, it's as if nothing was ever there.
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Dec 27, 2021 07:08
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Reading another Philip Fracassi chapbook, a little novella called Commodore. So far its like a weird Stand By Me, but the body isn't quite dead and its in a junkyard and is a car. Really needs a milkshake This is set in the same setting as his short story Soda Jerk included in the chapbook Shiloh. He has a pretty unique style for horror IMO and is an engaging story teller
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Dec 29, 2021 04:57
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Bilirubin posted:So far its like a weird Stand By Me, but the body isn't quite dead and its in a junkyard and is a car. This is a beautiful loving sentence.
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Dec 29, 2021 05:20
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a foolish pianist posted:I started Jeremy Robert Johnson’s The Loop last week, and so far, it’s pretty much just 90s teen horror film Disturbing Behavior (which isn’t a particularly good teen horror movie, even by the low standards of the genre). Anyone else read it? Yeah I read all his stuff. I didn't think it was bad, I liked the antagonists. Also the stoner teen doing mushrooms seemed reasonably well written.
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Dec 29, 2021 05:48
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Bilirubin posted:Reading another Philip Fracassi chapbook, a little novella called Commodore. So far its like a weird Stand By Me, but the body isn't quite dead and its in a junkyard and is a car. Really needs a milkshake I'd never heard of this dude, just read Altar. Brutal, gently caress. Very good.
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Dec 29, 2021 07:10
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Working my way through a pile of Christmas horror books, with mixed results: The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham-Jones: Very well written and observed, and the focus on middle-aged American male frustrations and regrets reminded me of Ghost Story - old friends who rely on their lifelong rituals of male friendship, but who are ultimately too trapped in their own heads and their own histories to communicate with one another and save one another. I did think that SG-J's style is very slick, to the point where 'scare' moments almost drift by rather than leaping on the page - and other than one great moment with an elk-headed woman standing on the far side of train tracks, his monster itself is sometimes disappointingly un-uncanny in its appearances (it even just shows up as a herd of elk at times!). Also not sure whether to give praise for the wild tonal shift that follows up a tragic and horrific massacre with a climactic and chatty basketball game between good and evil. Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw: Great title, lots of high praise, and I've enjoyed the short stories by Khaw that I've read, so I was a bit surprised that this one just didn't work for me at all. The premise is oddly wobbly and artificial, with a group of protagonists - a five-person wedding party in a real Japanese haunted house, which is supposed to have been a huge and expensive endeavour to plan even though most of the characters are barely tolerating each other's company, and one of them has travelled all the way but doesn't seem to even remember the groom's name - who don't make any sense to me. There's meant to be tension rising from the protagonist's Hill House-esque feelings of isolation and inadequacy, but everyone comes across as equally dysfunctional, and the tangled relationship issues sometimes just skip into banter along the lines of 'if this was a *real* horror story, I'd definitely die first!' The grand reveal of the ghost is followed by the characters standing in front of it, bickering at length about their next course of action. Really not sure what I'm missing on this one. Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt: The most genre-blending and 'literary' book has actually been the best horror experience for me of the three so far. Some big swings that know how to be both absurd and scary - possessed posters of Morrissey next to your bed! - some sharp commentary on haunted houses, some very raw depictions of the trauma, complex emotions and self-loathing that come when you're trying to figure yourself out while trapped in a grey, furious, desperately intolerant Britain. Very refreshing, really intrigued to see how it plays out.
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Dec 29, 2021 12:59
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grobbo posted:Working my way through a pile of Christmas horror books, with mixed results: I felt the same way, I was very disappointed
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Dec 30, 2021 02:23
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RE Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw I don't think I've ever enjoyed a Cassandra Khaw work. Most of the time it reads like YA novels, regardless of its intended audience. Nothing but blacked teeth felt like a full novel cut down to fit into a short story anthology, minus the rest of the anthology. The ending felt embarrassing too, like Khaw didn't have faith in one ending, so they threw on a but wait there's more! the ghost is actually still haunting them! whoa wow what the?! The 'rules' the book/ghost established felt confusing. I don't think I missed anything but eh. The pacing was also bizarre. We get scenes slapped together and conversations as scotch tape to make it stick. I'm not sure if it was supposed to make it feel suffocating or disjointed on purpose? The premise is incredibly weak to me. Like regardless if they were rich or poor, in a haunted house or not, you'd definitely harm familial relationships by having a wedding far away and not inviting your parents. By the way, has anyone read Journals of Horror: Found Fiction Terry M. West ? I was looking for more 'found footage' / faux documentary stuff in the vein of Nevill's Last Days, but haven't found too much that looks interesting. Here's the table of contents. Bagged, Tagged & Buried By Terry M. West Turn Me On, Dead Man By Robin Dover Truant By D.S. Ullery The Book Of Flesh And Blood By Jeff O’brien Beyond Castle Frankenstein By Paula Cappa Dying Scrawl By Dj Tyrer Girl In The Woods By Evan Purcell Going Home By Michael Mcglade Hamburger Lady By Darryl Dawson Hole By Joseph Ramshaw Human Resources By Todd Keisling In The Woods, We Wait By Matt Hayward “Killing Jessica” By Glenn Rolfe Letter To Grandma By Crystal Leflar Look Up By Michael Seese Lucca By John Ledger Night Terrors: Journal By Michael Thomas-Knight Finders Keepers By Paul D. Marks The Anniversary By Sonja Thomas The Breath Within The Darkness By Essel Pratt The Devil’s Irony By Lori R. Lopez The Note By P. D. Cacek The Seahorse Speaks By Erik Gustafson Vermilion A Traveler’s Account By Stuart Keane Whispers On The Wind By Robert Mcgough There's Something In My House By Wesley Thomas Tweets Of Terror By Robert Holt Self-Consumed By Terry M. West & Regina West Note-To-Self By Christopher Alan Broadstone At least there's a variety, so that you can skip to the next one if it's not clicking.
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Dec 30, 2021 03:10
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value-brand cereal posted:RE Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw Some of those look pretty interesting and I'd be down for a trip-report when you make some progress if you don't mind. I really like "In the Woods, We Wait" as a title. Is this the author any good? A quick google gave me that he has a recent novel out "Those Below the Treehouse" which looks like a kind of coming-of-age plant(?) zombie(?) thing maybe? So could be trash but could be trash in a good way? Anyone heard of any of these?
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Dec 30, 2021 03:51
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Felt like reading some creature feature nonsense on vacation and Clickers 2 definitely feels like aliens vs clickers 1’s alien so far. Everything cranked to 11 and the few survivors from the first book getting called back in to fight some prehistoric crab/scorpion monsters. Love me some JF Gonzalez schlock
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Dec 30, 2021 05:50
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Xiahou Dun posted:Some of those look pretty interesting and I'd be down for a trip-report when you make some progress if you don't mind. Eh, I'll give it a go. Or at least summarize the stories. The first one isn't terribly promising. Ah, Mox Fulder's Z File division is getting shut down but with a plot twist, and we learn about it via emails. Just what I want to read on this holiday break: more emails! I've never heard of any of these authors but that's fine, some people are occasional writers. I'm very happy they get their stuff published when they can. Maybe there's some hidden gems.
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Dec 30, 2021 20:05
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Finished The Haunting of Ashburn House last night, and I super liked it. Went out and bought a bunch of Darcy Coates books immediately afterwards. A young woman inherits a house from her great aunt, whom she had barely interacted with during her life. She moves in to the secluded and dilapidated house, with spooky consequences. I love this kind of gothic horror where the spooky goings on build up and the focus is more on ratcheting up the tension than gross-out poo poo or ... what's the book version of a jump scare? It's also a fun mystery, where you could piece together what's going on before the book reveals all the cards, which is something I always enjoy. Very much recommended!
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Dec 30, 2021 21:33
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value-brand cereal posted:I was looking for more 'found footage' / faux documentary stuff in the vein of Nevill's Last Days, but haven't found too much that looks interesting. Here's the table of contents. Have you read Lost Signals, Lost Films and the latest one, Lost Contact?
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Dec 30, 2021 21:40
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Ok I finally finished reading the whole thread. Glad to see everyone is has the hots for Aickman and Ligotti. Pork something something catch phrase goes here. I saw a lot of books I've read, but I didn't see these mentioned so maybe here's a few recs for others. What I read in 2021 and liked enough to admit in public to reading fully, entirely, with both my human eyes. A Dowry of Blood - S.T. Gibson Dracula but make it from the Brides/Grooms POV, and give it a fresher twist. Personally I'd call this Domestic Violence The Novel feat Dracula. It's not a bad thing, the prose is lovely and I thought it was an interesting version. But the toxic relationship portion was the focus, so don't expect much topics outside that. There is a bisexual or gay men relationship, not entirely sure which, but the pov is solely the Bride's so it's more a background relationship. I can appreciate showing lgbt relationships that are toxic and abusive. Woo, what an ending. Filed under good for her, her, and him! FantasticLand - Mike Bockoven This was mentioned briefly ITT but here's a reminder. I wouldn't exactly call this horror in that there's no supernatural or paranormal incidents. It's very... realistic faux documentary about a horrifying reaction to a natural disaster and the lack of state / federal support. I liked the rotating view points of the interviewees, how the groups divided, how everything devolved into chaos around them. I appreciated the realism of the soldier, near the end of the book. That's pretty much what I assume a semi bored, mostly traumatized soldier man bro to react to endless amounts of random disaster death. If it was a macho superhero caricature I would like it less. Basically imagine Disneyland but what if they split into factions because tribalism and started committing violence against each other because a hurricane cut them off from the world. It gets fairly gorey at some points. Note, re sexual violence in this novel. While rape is never explicit or stated to happen, there is often portrayed the threat or implication that sexual abuse is happening off screen. Outright, rape is alleged to have happen briefly in a single sentence. But if that still bothers you, skip it. The Changeling - Victor LaValle Black man author. This is horror, but it's heavily flavored with myths and fairy tales. I dare say this is Folk Horror, albeit modernised. I don't know how to explain it without spoiling everything. A Black man in the modern day finds himself journeying through a fairy tale esque hero's journey to discover what happened to his wife, and why she killed their child and attempted to kill him. It's mainly a mystery story, wherein we follow the main Black character traversing land and sea for clues to where his wife has fled--and, perhaps, understanding just what happened to their infant. Definitely weird supernatural poo poo. It's a long read despite it being only 400+ pages. Let your brain soak in it. The Night Will Find Us - Matthew Lyons White man author. Yes the main characters are 18 yo children, but it's not a YA aimed novel. There's plenty of creepy monsters, gore, murder, and supernatural poo poo. I love a decent Forest Horror story and thought this was more fun and briefer than that The Ritual novel from Nevill. Prosper's Demon - K. J. Parker An exorcist in Ye Olde European Times faces down a particularly irritating, recurring demon who plans to tutor / groom a future king, perhaps with dangerous intentions. I liked the witty conversations, and thought the world building was decent. At times it felt like the wittiness was hitting cringy quirky Deadpool levels in how self aware it was, though. I appreciate that the exorcist was a ordinary man who just wanted to do his job and be done with it though. The equivalent of clocking out the second you're allowed to. A Spectral Hue - Craig Laurance Gidney Black gay author. Maybe more Dark Fantasy with Eldritch horror and Folk horror. The themes and prose are gorgeous. Absolutely stunning. I think I've reread it twice, and I keep finding new things to gawk over. It's an incredibly Black book, about Black people and generational trauma. The way the author uses such lush color, and how everything ties together despite characters not specifically having direct links is amazing. The way the color fuschia haunts the characters throughout the ages is terrifying but comforting all at once. The way color itself ties itself back from the end to the start. God, this slapped my soul out of my body. This is definitely a story to read slowly. It features a rotating cast throughout several generations, but I think it ties things together very well. Gidney also has a short story anthology called 'Sea, Swallow Me & Other Stories' which looks very intersting. Fair warning. It deals explicitly with Black slavery in the US, and does become graphic. Here's the summary for A Spectral Hue because it explains it better than I can. quote:For generations, the marsh-surrounded town of Shimmer, Maryland has played host to a loose movement of African-American artists, all working in different media, but all utilizing the same haunting color. Landscape paintings, trompe l’oeil quilts, decorated dolls, mixed-media assemblages, and more, all featuring the same peculiar hue, a shifting pigment somewhere between purple and pink, the color of the saltmarsh orchid, a rare and indigenous flower. Future Home of the Living God - Louise Erdrich Indigenous woman author, specifically Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. Thanks wikipedia. Summary from storygraph. quote:"The world as we know it is ending. Evolution has reversed itself as women have begun giving birth to babies that appear to be a primitive species of human. When rumors start of Congress rounding up and confining pregnant women, Cedar Hawk Songmaker will do anything to keep herself and her unborn baby safe." It has a religious horror flavor to it, but it's not purely the typical antichrist is trying to be born that is common. It's a brutal read, and the ending is is not a happy one. You will at least sympathize with the main character and her struggles. It's reads as an autobiographical at times since it's a diary by the MC. I liked the personality the MC has. Yeah it's about fertility rights / personhood and maybe gets heavy handed about that. Blood Is Another Word for Hunger - Rivers Solomon Black woman author. It's. Uh. It's Pregnancy Horror. Yup, that's a Genre now. Solomon, Erdrich, Rocklyn, et al has made it so. A young Black woman murders her former slave masters, and proceeds to give birth to her descendants. I cannot say more than this as it will spoil all 25 pages. Enjoy if you want to read it! Fair warning. Real explicit Black slavery in the US shown here. It's the entire short story. You Let Me In - Camilla Bruce. White norwegian woman author. Dark fantasy / horror. If there's only three books you read from this list, make it this one, LaValle's and Erdrich's books. A famous author vanishes. Her niece and nephew inherit her house and all it contains, including her final manuscript. Her side of the story, the how and why of her father and brother's murder-suicide, and her alleged murder of her husband. Was the insanity defense a clever ploy from a murderess, or did the Fae cause her to brutally slaughter her husband with an axe? What really happened in her childhood? Was she simply born bad, or did the fairy folk break her mind from years of haunting her? I loved the concept of using the fae as a symptom of trauma and mental illness. Or is it?!?! It's kept vague enough that you could read it either way. At times the metaphors and analogies got a lil heavy handed. The floweriness evened out from what it is like at the start. Note The theme of incest / csa is present through the book. It's not explicitly shown, but it's explicitly clear that abuse occured, including one scene with a brief mention of some blood in a child's bed. Condemned - Christopher Renna White gay man author. Did you like Grady Hendrix's 'My Best Friend's Exorcism'? This is kinda the teenage boy version, written by a gay man. It is rather blander as there's far less 80s references, but it was fine in its own right. You might get tired of high school scenes as, well, they are teenagers. There's also a fair amount of homophobia and lesbophobia. Because, again, they are teenagers. Never Have I Ever: Stories - Isabel Yap Filipino woman author. Horror and dark fairy-/folk-tales, but specifically of the Filipino variety. It's an anthology by a single author. At times the writing felt a little immature but I chalk that up to being about teen / young characters. There's a fair amount of variety, from haunted schools to Filipino monsters. Contains graphic pedophilia / csa scenes, esp in the final story. The Worm and His Kings - Hailey Piper Eldritch horror but make it lesbians, feat transbian main character. The author is a white trans woman. I loved the unique eldritch lore the author created, and the otherworld / underworld. This is extremely what I want from the eldritch horror genre. It felt refreshing and unique to me. I also appreciated the MC being a disadvantaged homeless woman. I think it's usually middle class or well to do scholars who have typically investigated eldritch / cosmic nonsense, isn't it? At least what I half remember from reading lovecraft years ago. I could be talking out my rear end, which is my fave past time. The End of the Sentence - Maria Dahvana Headley and Kat Howard White women authors. Folk horror / dark fairy tales / haunted house. A grieving man buys a house in the middle of no where, and, so to speak, 'inherits'... the previous owner? The one who was serving a prison sentence for hundred years, and is now returning. And oh, the current home owner must accomplish a violence task for him. There's no choice otherwise. I liked the unique type of haunting that this house has, and the combination of various myths brought over by the white colonizers to the US. City of Red Midnight: A Hikayat - Usman T. Malik Pakistani man author. A short story, dark fantasy rather than horror. But the imagery creeped me out, and I appreciate a drat fine Otherworld. An interlocking story that's very moody and gorey, and kinda bizarre? Honorary Mentions Rules For Vanishing - Kate Alice Marshall Horror with Fantasy. Grits teeth, yes this is also YA genre, don't bully me dang it. The writing does reflect that. In my defense my moonreader app doesn't list genres and I'm wanted more 'found horror' / multimedia novels a la Blair Witch Movie and Pessl's Night Film. It's been a while since I read it, but I liked the rotating view points, the local folk lore, the bizarre Otherworld, the cute close relationships, the multi media portions such as transcripts, internet forums posts a la ARG forums, interviews, etc. Note there's a spider in this. It's big. It's featured over several chapters if that's an issue for members of the Anti Spider League. The Breach by M T Hill I'd call this Insect Horror or Parasite Horror. Admittedly it's listed as sci fi / thriller genre, but it grossed me out enough and the insect parts were creepy to me. There's nothing paranormal or supernatural, per se. It follows two characters, Shep, a man into urbex and Freya, a woman who is investigating the tragic death of a climber. However his death is stranger than a typical climbing accident, when a strange photo of a 'nest' appears on an online forum. poo poo goes wrong and it doesn't stop going wrong. Everything is a mess. Why does his head hurt? God there's bugs and fungi everywhere. Lady don't go into that sweet smelling abandoned building. This company wants to build a tower into space? Oh no. If you liked the Dionaea House web fiction, The Last of Us game, or Girl With All the Gifts book series, you may be interested in this one. 'Six Stories' series - Matt Wesolowski This is actually a series of novellas/novels called 'Six Stories'. The first book in the series goes by that title. It's a lil confusing. It's generally suspense / mystery with faux True Crime elements. There is some supernatural and paranormal elements to it, but stays true to the suspense genre. It's not purestrain horror, so please don't expect that. You'll be disappointed. But you might appreciate the solid conclusions. I liked the faux podcast element. The books are transcription-flavored, but for the most part read like novels. It's not endless skype chat logs. The chapters are split into 'episodes' in which there are rotating POVs of interviews, intro / extros, interjections and personal audio notes from the podcast interview character 'Scott King'. I think it has a decent balance between character voices and the recurring Scott King character, and how well it builds up the settings. I liked 'Changeling' and 'Deity' the most. Imo the worst one was 'Beast', but maybe I just didn't get the ending. The One That Comes Before by Livia Llewellyn White woman author. Eldritch horror short story. I love some good eldritch horror, and this also had some background architecture horror too! [to a degree.] The city is monstrously huge and while its not haunted or sentient, it reminds me of the BLAME! manga and the House from House of Leaves' later chapters. The writing was neat and florid, and the plot was pretty interesting. Definitely has some weird sex poo poo in it. Might be a, ha, turn off. The ending was gently sequel bait. It goes in this mention list, though, because the author is white and she has a lovely antiblack bit in this book about the MC's Black textured hair is "dirty cotton candy" and she's not Black enough to be the right kind of Black, and not lightskinned / white passing enough to be white. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth and doesn't come up again besides that. There's also some fatphobia / body shaming in the same scene because the MC isn't a skinny white woman. Again, doesn't come up elsewhere. I really hate white authors who pull this poo poo. The setting is eldritch, to the point where there's obvious fish like body horror monster people riding the same buses as the MC is. The MC is by default incredibly different than these fishy monster peoples. What was the point of the antiblackness. I don't know. Did Lovecraft temporarily possess the author? Possibly. I cannot personally prove otherwise. The writing was great, but that section grated on me worse than the rest of the book, which had a fair amount of gross gorey poo poo. There's definitely classism themes, so I guess I can strain my eyes to see the point of that. But personally I don't trust white authors to handle race well in an eldritch horror book. Ok I'm stepping off my soap box now. Flowers for the Sea by Zin E Rocklyn Black woman author. Oceanic Eldritch Pregnancy? Horror. I... wasn't entirely enthralled by this. The prose was nice, the premise interesting, but it fell flat for me. I mention it here because eh. Eh? Maybe it'll click with someone else. The story is about a socially reviled and needed woman days from giving birth to one of the few living children left in their community. Birth to who? Or to what? You have 112 pages to find out. The book cover may or may not spoil it. I don't actually know. Anoka: A Collection of Indigenous Horror - Shane Hawk Indigenous men author. Indigenous Horror anthology, based around a location called Anoka. It goes under Honorary mention because ehh. I felt the writing was a bit weak. The plots were interesting, and I think 'Imitate' and 'Transfigured' were the strongest of the bunch. Still, it was interesting and if you want something different, give this a go. Definitely pretty gorey and gross at times. Ps anyone here read Revelator by Daryl Gregory? It came out 2021. The reviews on storygraph look good at 4.03 star rating, but I don't know what they say as I don't want to get too spoiled for it. The book cover looks like the goth version of that Midsommar flower dress. You know the one. Anyways, it's next on my reading list. Well. It's listed on my tbr. I'll get around to it. Maybe next year. The summary from storygraph. quote:In 1933, nine-year-old Stella is left in the care of her grandmother, Motty, in the backwoods of Tennessee. These remote hills of the Smoky Mountains are home to dangerous secrets, and soon after she arrives, Stella wanders into a dark cavern where she encounters the family’s personal god, an entity known as Ghostdaddy. Folk horror? Religious horror? Cosmic horror?? It kind of reminds me of the novella My Heart Struck Sorrow by John Hornor Jacobs . I'll find out if it's shares much similarities when I get around to reading it. Anyways, sorry for the big post, hopefully something here looks interesting to a stranger. Happy horror! PS I know it's the holidays but hey, what's the best or most memorable books y'all have read in 2021? Doesn't even have to be published this year either. PPS thank you to whomever mentioned Taaqtumi anthology edited by Neil Christopher that anthology looks cool and I hope it gets here soon! value-brand cereal fucked around with this message at 05:24 on Jan 1, 2022 |
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Dec 31, 2021 09:00
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ravenkult posted:Have you read Lost Signals, Lost Films and the latest one, Lost Contact? Not yet. I was gifted Lost Signals from a friend, but I'm not familiar with the others. The summary was vague, and I didn't realize it's found footage type weird genre. Thanks, I'll bump it up the tbr queue and check out the others! I'm on a big anthology kick because the holidays make it hard to get into a long, full length novel at the moment.
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Dec 31, 2021 09:02
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If you're a fan of Clive Barker, you should definitely check out Hailey Piper.
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Dec 31, 2021 15:08
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value-brand cereal posted:Ok I finally finished reading the whole thread. Glad to see everyone is has the hots for Aickman and Ligotti. Pork something something catch phrase goes here. I saw a lot of books I've read, but I didn't see these mentioned so maybe here's a few recs for others. Thanks for this, put a few of these on my list to seek out sometime
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Dec 31, 2021 17:54
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Bilirubin posted:Thanks for this, put a few of these on my list to seek out sometime Nice!! Happy reading! Also one more that I read a while ago and just remembered. We Are All Completely Fine - Daryl Gregory quote:Harrison is the Monster Detective, a storybook hero. Now he’s in his mid-thirties and spends most of his time not sleeping. I vaguely recall it's slightly more somber in tone than Hendrix's 'My Best Friend's Exorcism' or Edgar Cantero's 'Meddling Kids'. It's a novella, pretty suspenseful, and has an interesting premise.
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Dec 31, 2021 20:16
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I really dug We Are All Completely Fine. I need to revisit it in 2022.
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Jan 1, 2022 02:22
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NB Johnston is just one author in Taaqtumi. It’s compiled by Neil Christopher.
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Jan 1, 2022 03:32
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Ah, I didn't realize. I was going by the first name in the Storygraph summary page. I have no idea why they don't list editors separately. Thank you, it's corrected.
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Jan 1, 2022 05:26
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O word I totally get how you could make that mistake, but I was checking this thread and the book was literally in my lap so I just thought I’d throw it out there to make it easier to find. I just finished it, quite good but I hope I can discuss it with people in this thread at some point.
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Jan 1, 2022 06:22
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Just finished perinatal thread-favorite North American Lake Monsters. drat was that amazing! I like how on goodreads all the bad reviews for the book were people complaining about how they were expecting shocking gore and horror, and got a bunch of moody, melancholy stories instead. Ugh. For me, some well-done character studies with vaguely supernatural elements that heightened things *just a little bit* was exactly what I was in the mood for. That said, I think my favorite stories (and the ones that stuck with me the most) where the one with a werewolf, the one with a vampire, and the one with a zombie. It's a great premise: take an extremely well-known and conventional horror monster and riff on how an encounter with something like it would effect a regular person in the decaying world of modern day America. The werewolf story which was actually just a pitch-perfect portrayal of survivor's guilt was my favorite. Sunbleached was just flat-out one of the best vampire stories I've ever read. Then the story at the end with the zombie who may have just been brought back because of the guild her husband feels and is just an embodiment of his lingering feelings (?) hit pretty hard. One of the best stories I've read about...well, not depression, but the more the people who have to deal with loved ones with depression. I listened to the audiobook (the narrator had this wonderful, gritty county accident, though I got annoyed and had to raise the volume a few times), and immediately after I finished I went and bought Wounds. Read the first two stories there and I'm enjoying it a lot too. It's like Clive Barker stories without any of the edgy/awkward/teenage/90's poo poo attached.
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Jan 2, 2022 06:15
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Shaman Tank Spec posted:Finished The Haunting of Ashburn House last night, and I super liked it. Went out and bought a bunch of Darcy Coates books immediately afterwards. I'm curious to read a follow-up about another book of hers. I saw Ashburn House at a book store and thought it sounded good. I looked her up, and she has almost a dozen books that are "The Haunting of (house/person name)", and I couldn't imagine someone writing so many haunted house books without being redundant. I'm interested in figuring out her deal without spending the time reading them all.
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Jan 3, 2022 22:36
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Franchescanado posted:I'm curious to read a follow-up about another book of hers. I saw Ashburn House at a book store and thought it sounded good. I looked her up, and she has almost a dozen books that are "The Haunting of (house/person name)", and I couldn't imagine someone writing so many haunted house books without being redundant. I'm interested in figuring out her deal without spending the time reading them all. I feel this way about Sarah Rayne too, just tons of horror books that all sound kind of the same. Sort of tangentially related, I tend to like horror that does something unique/interesting but honestly sometimes I just want to sit down and read something fun and entertaining, even if it is kind of predictable, and I don't feel like I've found a horror author who manages that. Stephen King is probably the obvious option but he's got his own shortcomings and baggage, and I have zero interest in ever reading another Koontz book. I hope Grady Hendrix keeps writing because he kind of manages that niche pretty well. Any other suggestions? Now that I've written this post I realize I thought I was asking 'what's Discworld, but for horror' but really I'm asking 'what's Goosebumps, but for adults'
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Jan 3, 2022 23:41
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