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I’ve been stuck in serialized non-horror bullshit for a while and want to finish the month strong with some good horror content. Looking for some good extreme/splatter punk or some fun schlock. Short story collections or novels both good.
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Oct 15, 2022 04:10
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The Splatter Westerns that came up earlier are cool
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Oct 15, 2022 04:19
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Just finished up another short novel, One Bloody Thing After Another by Joey Comeau. Really inventive and creative. The comedic first half did not prepare me for the disturbing elements of the second half. The conclusion wasn’t the most satisfying, but the book is about people who can’t get closure, and how closure doesn’t fix what’s broken inside you, so it ultimately works.
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Oct 15, 2022 16:38
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Finished We Are Here To Hurt Each Other last night. If you’re into Clive Barker or Gemma Files you’d probably enjoy it.
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Oct 17, 2022 20:50
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After a terrible bout of insomnia last night I finally got the push I needed to pick up my read of The Stand again. I think we just got introduced to Randall Flag for the first time, and boy if I wasn't hooked already (I was, just got very sidetracked by real life and more vapid / low effort entertainment), I am now. 
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Oct 17, 2022 21:34
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I've got a few chapters left in The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum. I've only heard it discussed in terms of how disturbing it is. And it is disturbing. I think what gets missed in the discussion is how well it's written, how it doesn't feel exploitative, how it's kind of meditative on cruelty, pain, suffering, sadism, and human behavior, and that it's compelling despite the ever mounting dread of things getting worse for the titular character, Meg. Also, it's just more sad than it is disturbing. Yeah, I've been disturbed, but the darkness of human depravity is outweighed by the senseless suffering of a powerless teenager with no course of action but to try and be strong in the face of death. I may post more thoughts when it's done. I'm surprised by how compelling the whole thing has been. I never thought I'd read it. It always felt like a book edgelords recommend, which is not justice to this book. I'm glad I gave it a chance, even if I feel weird recommending it or considering it "good". Snuff Melange posted:After a terrible bout of insomnia last night I finally got the push I needed to pick up my read of The Stand again. I think we just got introduced to Randall Flag for the first time, and boy if I wasn't hooked already (I was, just got very sidetracked by real life and more vapid / low effort entertainment), I am now. Are you reading the original print, or the Uncut version? Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Oct 17, 2022 |
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Oct 17, 2022 21:42
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Franchescanado posted:I've got a few chapters left in The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum. I would be very interested to hear your thoughts when you finish the book. That one is one of the very few that I totally regret reading. Still kind of haunts me when I think about it.
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Oct 18, 2022 04:10
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That's actually the only book I have stopped reading because it made me too sad but I may revisit it
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Oct 18, 2022 04:39
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I tried to start it earlier this year, audiobook version, and also had to tap out because it was upsetting. However, I think I'll push through because many authors I respect speak highly of this book
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Oct 18, 2022 06:06
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I've read quite a bit of Ketchum and haven't read that one. I'll have to check it out.
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Oct 18, 2022 07:59
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I bailed on A Lush and Seething Hell about five chapters into the first novella because it's just not clicking with me. Maybe it gets better later on and I can try again later, but something about Jacobs' writing style isn't working for me. I'm gonna read The Elementals by Michael McDowell instead.
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Oct 18, 2022 12:17
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BurningBeard posted:I would be very interested to hear your thoughts when you finish the book. That one is one of the very few that I totally regret reading. Still kind of haunts me when I think about it. I finished The Girl Next Door. It got even more brutal before the end, although it still has restraint in how it handles the worst of it. Overall my opinion stands, and I don't regret reading it, even if it's a hard one to recommend. It left me with a lot of thoughts, mostly about how Meg was failed (and how we fail children in foster care, adoption agencies, victims of abuse, etc.), about culpability, about how you would criminalize kids in this situation, about irreversible guilt. It's a very good book that I totally understand wanting to bail on or regret reading. There's no happy ending to look forward to, and there's no way to have closure over the events of the book. They just exist. It's not fun. I had way more visceral reactions to say We Are The Flesh. This was more depressing and sad. I would probably have a harder time with it if I were a parent, since so much of it is about corruption, or the heinous acts kids are able to commit without being fully conscious of the morality or ramifications of their actions. The line between this being fiction and being true crime is also difficult to wrap my head around. It gives everything more credibility, like the mental illness of Ruth (the adult) and her misogynist repression, and how something like this could go on and involve a whole group of kids without people finding out, but it also doesn't give you the safety valve of "it's only a story".
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Oct 18, 2022 17:06
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Double post, but what are some fun horror novels. Everything I’ve got lined up sounds bleak. I’m not looking for something like John Dies At The End. More like the Evil Dead 2 of horror novels.
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Oct 18, 2022 17:30
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MeatwadIsGod posted:I bailed on A Lush and Seething Hell about five chapters into the first novella because it's just not clicking with me. Maybe it gets better later on and I can try again later, but something about Jacobs' writing style isn't working for me. I'm gonna read The Elementals by Michael McDowell instead. I did the same thing with Lush and Seething Hell, and then a week later I realized I couldn't stop thinking about the story, and restarted it. Since then I've read everything John Hornor Jacobs has published Franchescanado posted:Double post, but what are some fun horror novels. Everything I’ve got lined up sounds bleak. Do you like McCammon? I don't know if I'd call him Evil Dead 2-esque, but when I was looking for something that was fun and gory and reminiscent of 80s horror films, McCammon fit that mold decently Help a goon out! Lots of books - horror, nonfiction, classics and more for sale. escape artist fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Oct 18, 2022 |
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Oct 18, 2022 18:06
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Franchescanado posted:Double post, but what are some fun horror novels. Everything I’ve got lined up sounds bleak. this has come up before in this thread so you may have already read it, but Skullcrack City by Jeremy Robert Johnson is similar to John Dies at the End but in my opinion the better novel.
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Oct 18, 2022 18:15
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escape artist posted:Do you like McCammon? I don't know if I'd call him Evil Dead 2-esque, but when I was looking for something that was fun and gory and reminiscent of 80s horror films, McCammon fit that mold decently I've got Boy's Life and Wolf's Hour on kindle, but have not read him yet. Would either of those fit the bill? I know Boy's Life is supposed to be a coming-of-age novel with supernatural elements. My library has a bunch, so if there's a specific one you're thinking of, I'd like to know. gey muckle mowser posted:this has come up before in this thread so you may have already read it, but Skullcrack City by Jeremy Robert Johnson is similar to John Dies at the End but in my opinion the better novel. This one's new to me. I'll check it out.
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Oct 18, 2022 18:19
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Franchescanado posted:I've got Boy's Life and Wolf's Hour on kindle, but have not read him yet. Would either of those fit the bill? I know Boy's Life is supposed to be a coming-of-age novel with supernatural elements. My library has a bunch, so if there's a specific one you're thinking of, I'd like to know. I haven't read those yet, but I started with Blue World, his only short story collection, and was so taken by it that I read Swan Song, his giant novel that has been compared to The Stand. Those felt like I was reading something that Barker or Craven or Raimi could've written or directed. Help a goon out! Lots of books - horror, nonfiction, classics and more for sale.
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Oct 18, 2022 19:10
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Franchescanado posted:I finished The Girl Next Door. It got even more brutal before the end, although it still has restraint in how it handles the worst of it. Yeah, it’s extremely gnarly and you hit on what bothered me so much about it. No matter how sensationalist it is—and knowing the author’s output, I’m willing to bet there’s a high degree of sensationalism—it’s still ultimately based in real events. I think all your points are good ones, but I think beyond the shocking content, I’m mostly left feeling real fuckin’ emptied out that the book, as a sort of macabre monument, exists at all. I’d have preferred the dry, just-the-facts true crime approach, in the vein of The Stranger Beside Me. But perhaps the book’s ability to cut deep and leave impressions is only possible through the lens of fiction, when you get down to it. It’s a book I wish didn’t exist, and yet I can’t fault its existence, if that makes sense.
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Oct 18, 2022 20:51
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Franchescanado posted:I've got Boy's Life and Wolf's Hour on kindle, but have not read him yet. Would either of those fit the bill? I know Boy's Life is supposed to be a coming-of-age novel with supernatural elements. My library has a bunch, so if there's a specific one you're thinking of, I'd like to know.
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Oct 18, 2022 21:35
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MeatwadIsGod posted:I bailed on A Lush and Seething Hell about five chapters into the first novella because it's just not clicking with me. Maybe it gets better later on and I can try again later, but something about Jacobs' writing style isn't working for me. I'm gonna read The Elementals by Michael McDowell instead. As someone who liked A Lush and Seething Hell part of my appreciation was how even the first novella was from start to finish. No spending a hundred pages on pointless backstory before it gets interesting, no story-defining twist, no stumbling just before the finish line, just solid throughout. If you didn't like it now you're not going to like it more later. The second novella has more ups and downs (in particular, the modern day side of the story felt clunky and ham-handed compared to the past portions), but the writing style is largely the same. Might be worth picking up again at a later time because it's an overall solid pair of works but I doubt it will click if you slog through it.
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Oct 18, 2022 21:56
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Big Mad Drongo posted:The second novella has more ups and downs (in particular, the modern day side of the story felt clunky and ham-handed compared to the past portions), but the writing style is largely the same. Might be worth picking up again at a later time because it's an overall solid pair of works but I doubt it will click if you slog through it. And it helps if you are a fan of Nick Cave or the song Stagger Lee... edit: Yeah, I can't loving do The Girl Next Door. Once they started pulling up the girls skirt and spanking, I had a PTSD type response. And that was only like 30% through the book. Going to switch to "Other Terrors: An Inclusive Anthology" Help a goon out! Lots of books - horror, nonfiction, classics and more for sale. escape artist fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Oct 19, 2022 |
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Oct 18, 2022 22:29
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Franchescanado posted:Double post, but what are some fun horror novels. Everything I’ve got lined up sounds bleak. Haven't read it yet, but have you tried the sequel to John Dies at the End? This Book is Full of Spiders.
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Oct 19, 2022 09:43
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Franchescanado posted:I've got Boy's Life and Wolf's Hour on kindle, but have not read him yet. Would either of those fit the bill? I know Boy's Life is supposed to be a coming-of-age novel with supernatural elements. My library has a bunch, so if there's a specific one you're thinking of, I'd like to know. McCammon is one of the most cinematic writers I've ever encountered. You can picture everything being on film. The Wolf's Hour, Swan Song, Stinger are all great and I really need to replace my copy of Usher's Passing that I got in 1987 because it's falling apart.
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Oct 19, 2022 10:08
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Jedit posted:McCammon is one of the most cinematic writers I've ever encountered. You can picture everything being on film. The Wolf's Hour, Swan Song, Stinger are all great and I really need to replace my copy of Usher's Passing that I got in 1987 because it's falling apart. Usher's Passing sounds great, so I may make that my first McCammon.
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Oct 19, 2022 12:48
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Swan Song had a good audio recording that was enjoyable. It's the only McCammon I've experienced, but perhaps I should check out some more.
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Oct 19, 2022 15:59
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A bad case of ADHD has me contemplating a couple books for October. I know they’re different, but I can’t decide which to read. Hill House or Blackwater? I made the mistake of starting both. Help!
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Oct 19, 2022 17:07
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Hill House is peak Halloween spookums, read Hill House now and then Blackwater will be a good transition.
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Oct 19, 2022 18:30
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Jedit posted:McCammon is one of the most cinematic writers I've ever encountered. You can picture everything being on film. The Wolf's Hour, Swan Song, Stinger are all great and I really need to replace my copy of Usher's Passing that I got in 1987 because it's falling apart. They Thirst (vampires) and Stinger (alien criminal thing) are both also a blast and VERY 80s horror movie. Agreed that Boy's Life is much less horror than most of his stuff, but it's very...sweet? It reminded me a little bit of King's best writing with kids as the main characters without the holy poo poo cringe. Well worth it if you end up liking his other stuff.
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Oct 19, 2022 18:47
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I have the audiobooks of Mine, Gone South and Usher's Passing. Which one should I start next?
Help a goon out! Lots of books - horror, nonfiction, classics and more for sale. escape artist fucked around with this message at 00:25 on Oct 20, 2022 |
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Oct 19, 2022 22:57
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For those interested, Bundle of Holding has a Clark Ashton Smith and William Hope Hodgson bundle here: https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Weird2022
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Oct 20, 2022 01:52
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escape artist posted:I have the audiobooks of Mine, Gone South and Usher's Passing. Which one should I start next? Depends how the Southern accents are, but Usher's Passing.
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Oct 20, 2022 12:32
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https://mobile.twitter.com/brittlepaper/status/1583096130560491520
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Oct 21, 2022 06:19
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i just finished devolution and it was completely Fine. it somehow didn't include any of the things that make isolated-community type stories interesting? like, the characters are too broad--there's not really any interplay or sharing of skillsets aside from "somehow the lovely husband is suddenly a handyman" and "the foodies have good knives". it just seems like it's meant to be hammered out into a screenplay more than anything. exciting, though.
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Oct 21, 2022 20:02
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Hey folks, never posted in this thread before but I want to talk about some stuff I've been reading lately. Just started House of Hunger by Alexis Henderson--a gothic, campy, horror/fantasy novel about young women employed as "bloodmaids" to rich noblemen (and noblewomen). I plowed through a third of the book in one sitting. Really well written and immersive. Currently re-reading You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories by Kristen Roupenian. Not really "horror" per se, but really psychologically disturbing short stories. Some of them, such as "Sardines" are actually body horror, whereas others are just unsettling. I think this collection got panned when it was released, but I loved it and I'm happy to be re-reading it now that enough time has passed that the stories feel fresh again. Just finished Poking Holes by Juan Valencia. This is a collection of short stories by a YouTuber I really love (his channel is Plagued by Visions) who covers disturbing, transgressive literature in a really intellectual and thoughtful way. His collection of stories is very disturbing but also very good. The theme of "poking holes" is expressed quite literally in the title story, which is about a man who has a fetish for poking holes in the skin of young men he hires. But it's also expressed metaphorically in many of the stories by poking holes in our expectations and assumptions. Theme of power, racism, abuse, and sexuality are prominent in the stories. Recently read Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes by Eric LaRocca. I found the title story/novella to be disappointing because I wanted *more*. It goes by so quickly and the stakes go from 0 to 60 in the span of a few pages, which seemed unrealistic to me. I would love to see this story turned into a full length novel so that we could get some more character development. Also, the first part of the book is overwritten in a way that was super annoying. The other two stories in this collection--"Enchantment" and "You'll Find It's Like That All Over" are really good. Recently read When Darkness Loves Us by Elizabeth Engstrom. This was one of the books from Grady Hendrix's Paperbacks from Hell and sounded really cool. I didn't like it at first, but it grew on me. It's actually two novellas packaged as one, and though I read it for the title novella, I actually liked the second story--"Beauty Is..." more, even though it was a bummer.
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Oct 22, 2022 13:43
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The Girl Next Door, The Stars are Legion, and Negative Space are all on my small but growing list of books that I thought were extremely good, but that I would probably never recommend to anyone. The Stars are Legion (Kameron Hurley) was fantastic but also probably the most disgusting thing I've ever read, and I'd want to warn any squeamish people away from it. The book just revels in biological functions, in all their grossness. Negative Space (B.R. Yeager) is possibly my favorite novel, but it also checks off (maybe deliberately) every trigger warning box in existence. And The Girl Next Door is very well done and effective as a frank, almost banal portrayal of how child abuse can actually happen in the real world, and how people who think of themselves as 'good' can still end up letting vile stuff happen. Well done, but wouldn't actually recommend.
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Oct 24, 2022 04:42
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Big Mad Drongo posted:As someone who liked A Lush and Seething Hell part of my appreciation was how even the first novella was from start to finish. No spending a hundred pages on pointless backstory before it gets interesting, no story-defining twist, no stumbling just before the finish line, just solid throughout. If you didn't like it now you're not going to like it more later. I ended up finishing this after The Elementals (which incidentally seemed more sloppy than any other McDowell I've read), and I agree as far as the novella goes. The frame story involving the present-day archivist at the Library of Congress was really clunky and basically unnecessary. I don't think anything would have been lost if the entire novella was just the 1930s archivist's diary entries. "The Sea Dreams it is the Sky" has a neat idea at the heart of it but fell pretty flat to me. Maybe I'm more of a prude as I get older, but I really hate the tendency of modern genre writers to shove in bad erotica at every opportunity. Jacobs does it a lot, and it rarely serves much of a purpose for the characters or plot.
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Oct 28, 2022 05:57
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Just heads up until tomorrow WOUNDS Kindle version is only $1.99 on Amazon. How much I love this book? I now own it on Audible, Kindle, and the physical version. Link https://www.amazon.com/Wounds-Six-S...ps%2C342&sr=8-1 nate fisher fucked around with this message at 14:28 on Oct 30, 2022 |
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Oct 30, 2022 14:26
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Just wanted to say that Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather was a fantastic recommendation. It’s like a modern M.R. James story.
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Oct 31, 2022 03:42
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Cool I'm glad I'm not the only one who enjoyed it. I really do think this is the niche audience for that story, and everyone in this thread should read it.
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Oct 31, 2022 08:43
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I read some horror books recently! Gallows Hill - Darcy Coates Darcy Coates writes so many god drat horror novels that I'm halfway convinced it's a shared pen name for a bunch of authors. The downside of being so prolific is that you can become formulaic, and that's definitely the case for many of her books. Gallows Hill is a bit different, though. For about half of the book it's a very by the numbers haunted house story, but then it kind of shifts focus. Not a plot twist or anything, but just some non-coatesian elements. It worked fairly well! Not a banger or anything, but a perfectly serviceable spooky book.  ,5 / 5Home Before Dark - Riley Sager I didn't know anything about this book prior to going in, except that it was highly regarded. Now I get why. It's one of the best meta style horror novels I've read, largely because it manages to be meta without jumping up its own rear end like so many other books do. It's kind of a retelling of the Amityville Horror phenomenon. The narrator of the book is a woman who had an Amityville experience as a child, and is forced to confront it again as an adult. The book jumps back and forth between the book the woman's father wrote about the events, and current day. This is a really fun mechanic because it allows the author to foreshadow things and give them new context in a natural way. Very spooky, very well written. / 5What Moves the Dead? - T. Kingfisher Another retelling, this time of the Fall of the House of Usher, and this time without any pretense. The author says in their notes that they read the Fall of the House of Usher, liked the story, but felt it needed more backstory and a more thorough exploration of the topic, and decided to write it. The result is wonderful. Even though What Moves the Dead? is a fairly short book at ~200 pages, Kingfisher still manages to cram in a ton of really fun and cool world building. The book is set in a slightly altered version of early 20th century Europe. Our main character comes from a fictional country where military service gives people exclusive pronouns, that sort of thing. It all feels really organic and sets up a world I'd love to explore in a bunch more books. The story itself is extremely well told and creepy as gently caress. What Moves the Dead? also manages to be the rare horror book that naturally mixes in a bit of comedy to occasionally alleviate the tension before ratcheting it up again. / 5Ring Shout - P. Djèlí Clark Ring Shout is a pulpy African American horror story about a world where the Ku Klux Klan consists of literal supernatural monsters, and the determined African American warriors who hunt them. It's all one liners, explosions and magical swords that channel the anguish of African slaves. It draws in elements from various African American traditions and sub cultures and manages to mix them all up into a unique and really fun story. Also a fairly short book at 200 pages and change, but definitely left me wanting more in the same universe. / 5Chasing the Boogeyman - Richard Chizmar If you want to talk meta, it doesn't get much more meta than this. Chasing the Boogeyman is Richard Chizmar's personal recollection of a series of gruesome murders that shocked a small Midwestern town in the early 80s. Having recently graduated from college and returned home until his impending marriage, Chizmar finds himself connected to the killings and in desperate need for answers and explanations of any kind. That's pretty much all I'm going to say about the book, because this is one of those where the less you know, the better it will turn out. If you enjoy things like Zodiac and other true crime books, then this is definitely one to read. / 5
Shaman Tank Spec fucked around with this message at 09:16 on Oct 31, 2022 |
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Oct 31, 2022 09:13
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