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ShutteredIn posted:I would put Gemma Files in this category. A lot of her monsters are just hosed up monsters for monstersake. Bilirubin posted:Same for Christopher Slatsky and Philip Fracassi. The former writes along the Ligotti lines and the latter similar to what you get in Wounds, but with a good hit of Americana in some stories (The Soda Jerk being one short story). Thank you both for the recommendations! Any suggestions on where to start with these folks? I just finished up Ship of Fools and found it desperately wanting, so I'm still very much in the mood for some well-written horror. Funny you should mention WXXT, I've had Gateways to Abomination in my to-read list for a while now. Is that a good place to start, or is there a better entry point? Oxxidation posted:I made it about five pages into one of Fracassi’s collections before moving on. atrocious prose and worse dialogue Now this is fascinating, which collection was it? Beneath a Pale Sky seems well-regarded, but I haven't been able to find any excerpts to judge by.
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Apr 15, 2023 01:30
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Kestral posted:Thank you both for the recommendations! Any suggestions on where to start with these folks? I just finished up Ship of Fools and found it desperately wanting, so I'm still very much in the mood for some well-written horror. Paula Ashe’s We Are Here To Hurt Each Other might be in the wheelhouse of what you’re looking for, also.
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Apr 15, 2023 01:45
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Kestral posted:Funny you should mention WXXT, I've had Gateways to Abomination in my to-read list for a while now. Is that a good place to start, or is there a better entry point? I actually read Gateways to Abomination recently and recently enjoyed it, despite never having read anything else by him. It's more of a collection of glimpses from nightmares rather than fleshed out short stories outside a couple exceptions.
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Apr 15, 2023 02:21
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Kestral posted:Now this is fascinating, which collection was it? Beneath a Pale Sky seems well-regarded, but I haven't been able to find any excerpts to judge by. Behold the Void. the prose was really overwrought - he never used one good image when five bad ones would do and the dialogue had that tedious "naturalism" you see in undergrad writing where he's writing out every interjection and ellipses seriously, i'm flipping to random passages in the first story and these lines clunk quote:Tom smiles, watches the pickup truck's beams dissipate as he drives beneath the dome of ever-lightening sky, the black a feverish purple now, the stars faded to pinpricks, soon to extinguish altogether in the sun's all-encompassing gaze. The dream flickers like dying embers, then vanishes, and he reaches for it one last time, forcing his mind to drift away from the panic of his friend, back to his dream of her. quote:Tom has a feeling this is what an insane person looks like. This is the embodiment of madness, and he prays Marcus will keep his eyes closed, closed tight, because he does not want to see the eyes that are part of such a face - the eyes of a demon crawling toward him across the floor, clutching at his worn boot. quote:"I got so angry, so loving hysterical. I saw red, you know? Like...totally out of my mind. I hit her, Tom. I admit it. I slapped her in the head so hard she went sprawling. I'd never hit a woman, but she was screaming, yelling at me...saying awful things. Insults. She was mocking me, man." quote:There is harsh laughter, the laughter of the devil.
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Apr 15, 2023 03:03
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hate it when i hear harsh laughter, the laughter of the devil
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Apr 15, 2023 03:06
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On the subject of style, I'm trying to take a whack at Ligotti again since I got a few more in the mail yesterday (thanks to SA poster escape artist), and... does his prose style ever get less affected? I read the first few stories in Songs of a Dead Dreamer last night ("The Frolic," "Les Fleurs," and "Alice's Last Adventure"), and I can't tell if they aged badly or if I just find his style really trite. "The Frolic" in particular felt uncomfortably like Pointless Psychologist Exposition In Vintage Horror Film: the Story, without enough punch in the payoff. I'm guessing I should just keep on trucking?
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Apr 15, 2023 03:19
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i thought that Teatro Grottesco hit the sweet spot between readability and death nonsense. Dead Dreamer/Grimscribe is hazardously goth in places
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Apr 15, 2023 03:21
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Kestral posted:Funny you should mention WXXT, I've had Gateways to Abomination in my to-read list for a while now. Is that a good place to start, or is there a better entry point? Yes to Gateways to Abomination. Creeping Waves is the same concept but better executed but it’s also essentially a sequel so you’d want to start with Gateways. Beneath a Pale Sky is the only Fracassi I’ve read but FWIW I thought it was the best short story collection I’ve read since North American Lake Monsters. Lots of stuff in there that has really stuck with me.
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Apr 15, 2023 15:20
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Oxxidation posted:Behold the Void. the prose was really overwrought - he never used one good image when five bad ones would do and the dialogue had that tedious "naturalism" you see in undergrad writing where he's writing out every interjection and ellipses So I initially balked when I saw your post, thinking that I really liked it and this is just another post bagging on stuff people like, but on reflection you're spot on. I really like his stories! They are good stories filled with excellent dread-building narratives! But they are also filled with paragraphs of this stuff and I ended up skipping around in more than a few of his stories. I imagine it's hard to find a sweet spot for that sort of thing. Having read a lot of horror, a bunch of authors do this, some are just worse than others.
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Apr 15, 2023 15:43
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I've only read Beneath A Pale Sky and thought it was brilliant. Now I'm glad I didn't drop $18 on a copy of Behold the Void... I'm starting The Strange today, on audiobook. Hopefully it grabs me I finished 14 by Peter Clines earlier this week. It was fine. Decent. Lovecraft-derivative stuff, not my favorite but decent nonetheless.
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Apr 15, 2023 18:19
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Last week or two, read: The Terror by Dan Simmons. Extremely good, lots of descriptions of dying of scurvy. I found it easier to follow than the show. Like a lot of horror, kind of gets weak towards the end when most of the characters are dead. Summer of Night, also by Simmons: Very similar to IT. Less weird spirit quests. The major difference is that, while in IT the kids defeat the clown with imagination and the power of friendship, in Summer of Night they use mostly guns and explosives . If you get the edition I did, I suggest you skip the ~30 page rant at the beginning about how kids don't play outside anymore and they buy too many things. Includes a line about how he's glad that his mentor died in 2003 and was spared "the soul-sickening uber-marketing Lolita-phenomenon known as Hannah Montana that debuted on the Disney Channel in 2006" So yeah, I would just skip the intro. Not a bad read otherwise. Also read The Trials of Obed Marsh, which is a prequel to Shadows over Innsmouth, one of my top two or three lovecraft stories. It was...fine. If you want to spend a few hours reading a book about lovecraft type stuff with modern style prose, this book would be an acceptable purchase.
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Apr 15, 2023 20:51
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"Why has society forced this desire for Hanna Montana upon me" Dan Simmons groans
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Apr 16, 2023 00:34
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I was gonna say, the real horror is the phenomenon of random middle-aged men suddenly delivering Humbert Humbert's nymphet speech about a TV teenager, but with complete conviction of moral superiority
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Apr 16, 2023 02:45
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Antivehicular posted:I was gonna say, the real horror is the phenomenon of random middle-aged men suddenly delivering Humbert Humbert's nymphet speech about a TV teenager, but with complete conviction of moral superiority lmao
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Apr 16, 2023 05:11
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gey muckle mowser posted:Beneath a Pale Sky is the only Fracassi I’ve read but FWIW I thought it was the best short story collection I’ve read since North American Lake Monsters. Lots of stuff in there that has really stuck with me. I'm about 3/4 of the way through and I agree with you, and so OP be warned that only some of these stories have external monsters in them, the rest are the psychological horror I loved from NALM which is what you are not looking for from your description. That said, there is a nifty cosmic horror story in it that is well work a read
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Apr 17, 2023 03:30
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Gateways to Abomination is great so far, and I'm almost certainly going to read whatever comes next in this cycle - thanks for the recommendation! Can recommend for people who want a bunch of very short (1-6 pages), somewhat-related horror stories wherein people's experience of the supernatural is having the thin veneer of reality get stripped abruptly away to reveal sickening grotesqueries just beneath the skin of the world. Our sane world is a soap bubble enclosing and enclosed by fathomless horror, the end, no moral, and I'm here for it. Summer of Night has been on my to-read list for a long time, but I've always wondered if I'll be let down by my brain constantly making comparisons to IT, which was one of the earliest horror novels I read and I can't help but love it, warts and all.
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Apr 17, 2023 04:55
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von Metternich posted:Summer of Night, also by Simmons: Very similar to IT. Less weird spirit quests. The major difference is that, while in IT the kids defeat the clown with imagination and the power of friendship, in Summer of Night they use mostly guns and explosives . If you get the edition I did, I suggest you skip the ~30 page rant at the beginning about how kids don't play outside anymore and they buy too many things. Includes a line about how he's glad that his mentor died in 2003 and was spared "the soul-sickening uber-marketing Lolita-phenomenon known as Hannah Montana that debuted on the Disney Channel in 2006" I love Summer of Night, but thankfully I haven't read the new edition. As I said before since 9/11 caused Simmons to become an Islamophobe, along with his anti-Obama book, I have stopped reading any his of works. Shame since I am one of the few that really liked Drood. Honestly if you gave me a choice, I would reread Summer of Night over IT.
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Apr 17, 2023 21:15
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Oxxidation posted:i thought that Teatro Grottesco hit the sweet spot between readability and death nonsense. Dead Dreamer/Grimscribe is hazardously goth in places "Hazardously goth" is a great description. It sucks that it took him so long to find his voice, and then he stopped writing.
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Apr 17, 2023 22:49
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I'm about halfway through Ballingrud's Strange and I don't think I particularly care for it.
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Apr 18, 2023 01:27
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Read the Wolf Hunt trilogy by Jeff Strand and they're all a lot of fun. They're gory but it's all so fun that mostly the comedy of a couple of middle-aged thugs trying to survive werewolves overwhelms the horror.
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Apr 18, 2023 23:13
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The Strange discussion: It's no Butcher's Table, that's for sure. In that one he created an interesting world with interesting characters. The characters here feel hollow, and the backstory is very convoluted and it's hard to care about the main character. The main character who is supposed to be a young lady but occasionally thinks exactly like a middle aged writer. Yeah death of the author and all that, but it just feels hollow. Like this was a decent idea for a short story that somehow got expanded into a mediocre novel. All this back-mythology of Mars is kind of ridiculous. I'm in Chapter 18 and I'm really hoping it picks up
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Apr 18, 2023 23:18
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I’ve read a lot of horror recently (thanks escape artist) and keep meaning to make a post sharing my thoughts on them, but never find the time. But I just finished Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt the other day and it kind of floored me so I felt compelled to post. It’s the best haunted house story I’ve read in a long time and a really impressive debut novel. Rumfitt is a trans woman as is one of the main characters, and that’s important but the book is more broadly about the insidious nature of fascism. I finished it the other day and can’t stop thinking about it.
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Apr 19, 2023 00:04
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Do you guys ever get actually scared by literature? I was thinking about this, I'm not sure that I've ever been scared by a book in the same way I have been by scary movies, in that "I'm a grown rear end man but I don't feel comfortable going to bed tonight with my closet door open" sense. I certainly find horror compelling, thrilling, interesting, disturbing, and other such reactions, and I feel anxiety or fear for characters in these stories, but idk why books just don't scare me. If you have been really spooked by a book or story, what was it?
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Apr 19, 2023 17:04
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zoux posted:Do you guys ever get actually scared by literature? I was thinking about this, I'm not sure that I've ever been scared by a book in the same way I have been by scary movies, in that "I'm a grown rear end man but I don't feel comfortable going to bed tonight with my closet door open" sense. I certainly find horror compelling, thrilling, interesting, disturbing, and other such reactions, and I feel anxiety or fear for characters in these stories, but idk why books just don't scare me. Neuropath made me actually disgusted and I threw it in the trash, if that counts.
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Apr 19, 2023 17:35
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zoux posted:Do you guys ever get actually scared by literature? I was thinking about this, I'm not sure that I've ever been scared by a book in the same way I have been by scary movies, in that "I'm a grown rear end man but I don't feel comfortable going to bed tonight with my closet door open" sense. I certainly find horror compelling, thrilling, interesting, disturbing, and other such reactions, and I feel anxiety or fear for characters in these stories, but idk why books just don't scare me. Probably the most I can report is a feeling of dread for characters I like within the story, but never really any fear on my own part, at least since I was a child. Movies really aren’t any different for me though. I started reading and watching this stuff so young that it usually feels more silly than scary
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Apr 19, 2023 17:57
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I think the last time I was spooked by a book was when I was twelve and reading the wendigo scenes in Pet Sematary. Honestly, I mostly read horror for the fantasy that just isn't present in the horribly conventional fantasy genre. There's some great oppressive atmosphere to be had in literary horror too, but wouldn't classify that as scared.
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Apr 19, 2023 18:01
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General Battuta posted:Neuropath made me actually disgusted and I threw it in the trash, if that counts. Terrifying prose style doesn't count, no. anilEhilated posted:Honestly, I mostly read horror for the fantasy that just isn't present in the horribly conventional fantasy genre. Ha! I'd say I read it for the same reasons mostly.
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Apr 19, 2023 18:04
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I DNF'ed the Strange at around 65% I might revisit it later but I just don't care for fungi ghost robots of Mars. I tried so hard to give a poo poo.
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Apr 19, 2023 18:51
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Yeah I think the only time I've gotten scared from prose is when I read House of Leaves as a teen, or various online stories/creepypastas. Really liked Ted's Caving Page. I think there's a lack of punch with a novel vs a short ghost story.
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Apr 19, 2023 21:12
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oh god oh gently caress posted:Yeah I think the only time I've gotten scared from prose is when I read House of Leaves as a teen, or various online stories/creepypastas. Really liked Ted's Caving Page. I think there's a lack of punch with a novel vs a short ghost story. If you like 'Ted the caver' you should give The Descent by Jeff Long a try.
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Apr 19, 2023 21:32
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Trainee PornStar posted:If you like 'Ted the caver' you should give The Descent by Jeff Long a try. I read this last year and was conflicted about even mentioning it here because it’s really more an adventure book than a horror book. I enjoyed it well enough to finish it, but not enough to move on to the second book in the series
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Apr 19, 2023 21:36
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Good Citizen posted:I read this last year and was conflicted about even mentioning it here because it’s really more an adventure book than a horror book. Adventure with horror elements pretty much sums it up, I thought the sequel is a bit more horror though.
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Apr 19, 2023 21:43
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zoux posted:Do you guys ever get actually scared by literature? I was thinking about this, I'm not sure that I've ever been scared by a book in the same way I have been by scary movies, in that "I'm a grown rear end man but I don't feel comfortable going to bed tonight with my closet door open" sense. I certainly find horror compelling, thrilling, interesting, disturbing, and other such reactions, and I feel anxiety or fear for characters in these stories, but idk why books just don't scare me. Sure, but I don't know if being a child at the time counts. I was reading a lot of grey alien books when I was a kid. It was huge in the 90s. I don't know what you would call it as a genre. It's like fictional nonfiction. Or bullshit. I was young and gullible and reading those accounts and would go to bed too scared to move. There wasn't that safety net of pure fiction. People were claiming this was actually happening to them. The cover art of the book Communion was the worst one. Not your typical grey alien. The upper half of the face an insect, the lower part with an almost Mona Lisa smile. I saw it in my mother's books and it had "A True Story" right there under the title with that face on it. Out of childhood, no. While I'm reading, kinda. I remember parts of The Woman in Black creeping me. When he's cut off, alone in the house and the noises start up. But it doesn't stick anymore. No matter how dark my house or how many mirrors or if my curtains are open at night.
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Apr 19, 2023 23:19
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gey muckle mowser posted:I’ve read a lot of horror recently (thanks escape artist) and keep meaning to make a post sharing my thoughts on them, but never find the time. But I just finished Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt the other day and it kind of floored me so I felt compelled to post. It’s the best haunted house story I’ve read in a long time and a really impressive debut novel. Rumfitt is a trans woman as is one of the main characters, and that’s important but the book is more broadly about the insidious nature of fascism. I finished it the other day and can’t stop thinking about it. I really enjoyed it too! It's a viscerally churning read and one that makes no bones about the influence Haunting of Hill House had on it and the ways that TMIW turns its attention to the present moment. I love the ways in which fascist violence as the antagonist becomes an infection with The House acting as an active source, but one which has already served its purpose in an social environment that has become threaded through with fascist allure. Quick question about how others have read the ending : what do you think about the split endings? It seems uncharacteristic of The House to let the girls go in the second ending, but after rolling it around a while my takeaway was that it's not necessary to know how they escaped, only that the House claims them again in the end. At the same time, the joy and time that they buy through that escape isn't nothing.
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Apr 19, 2023 23:35
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RoboCicero posted:I really enjoyed it too! It's a viscerally churning read and one that makes no bones about the influence Haunting of Hill House had on it and the ways that TMIW turns its attention to the present moment. I love the ways in which fascist violence as the antagonist becomes an infection with The House acting as an active source, but one which has already served its purpose in an social environment that has become threaded through with fascist allure. I just had to flip through my copy. What exactly do you mean by it having a split ending? Just like the last chapter and then the epilogue? I read it as the house (fascism) not necessarily always having as much control as it thinks it does, but that doesn't mean it's not still a threat. Even when you 'win' against it, you still have to stay vigilant since it's always there as background radiation. I think there's also the sort of note of hope with the line of the award-winning photograph, (it also says "They don't know that yet." which implies they lived), something came out of it that hopefully moved people.
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Apr 20, 2023 02:51
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zoux posted:Do you guys ever get actually scared by literature? I was thinking about this, I'm not sure that I've ever been scared by a book in the same way I have been by scary movies, in that "I'm a grown rear end man but I don't feel comfortable going to bed tonight with my closet door open" sense. I certainly find horror compelling, thrilling, interesting, disturbing, and other such reactions, and I feel anxiety or fear for characters in these stories, but idk why books just don't scare me. Horror books should implement jump-scares by having those popup things:  So you turn a page and then a monster pops out!
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Apr 20, 2023 09:00
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I did read a book one time that promised a monster at the end...but I was too scared to go on
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Apr 20, 2023 15:19
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I remember "The Evil at Devil's Rock" (or whatever it's called had something sorta like that with a sudden spooky picture of a ghost kid on the next page, buuuuut the rest of the book was a kinda petering out wet fart. I guess that's one disadvantage books have over audiovisual mediums is you can't really have any sorta jump scare to spook people and relieve tension. I feel like the most effective spooky moments in your classic ghost stories and whatnot is when something that previously seemed somewhat innocuous is recontextualized to be something much more sinister later on. Like the scraping noises being a monster moving out of its lair in Ted's Caving Page or the red color in the keyhole being a ghost's eyes in the hotel lady ghost story. Those are the moments that really stick with me and freaked me out when I first read them
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Apr 20, 2023 16:05
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I was spooked by certain parts of the Heart-Shaped Box and No One Gets Out Alive.
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Apr 20, 2023 16:19
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anilEhilated posted:I think the last time I was spooked by a book was when I was twelve and reading the wendigo scenes in Pet Sematary. The last time I got scared while reading was around the same age and it was a haunted house story in a Rod Sterling's Twilight Zone anthology. Although I can creep myself out while winding down for bed reading so called experiencer's stories on Reddit, just gets the imagination juices flowing too much before dream time
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Apr 20, 2023 17:36
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