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Pistol_Pete posted:What was the joke. Not sure what I've missed here, or why it's made someone delete all their posts? Value-brand cereal wrote reviews and previews of horror novels, noting the gender or ethnicity of each author, someone gave them a custom title referencing this in a snarky way
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Mar 27, 2025 12:41
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And then they blanked five pages worth of posts.
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Mar 27, 2025 12:49
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That's a lot of work. Is there a way to automate it?
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Mar 27, 2025 12:50
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Tiny Timbs posted:That's a lot of work. Is there a way to automate it? I dunno, give someone a random title and see what happens
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Mar 27, 2025 15:00
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value-brand cereal posted:For the record, I believe I pointing out the race and ethnicity of authors for multiple reasons that I think are important. I also appreciated what you were posting and took the placement of authors ethnicity as being a way of providing perspective on where they were coming from in approaching horror (as well as the rest of what you wrote). I hope you consider coming back. In goon terms that "red" text is pretty mild, and usually we mods let those stand for a week or two before changing (if at all) since someone spent the money to award you for having made an impact on forums culture. Consider it a badge of honor honestly. That said we will immediately blank egregious redtexts and if this was a thing you were really bothered by you should have reached out to me and I could have addressed it before you going and wiping those posts.  R.L. Stine posted:why paulo coelho IDK my dude (meant in the non gendered Californian context)
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Mar 27, 2025 16:22
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Oh I didn't even notice the text until just now. That would have annoyed me too. FWIW, In the book challenge thread, tons of us each year make a point to read a certain amount of books by LGBT, BIPOC and women authors. So you were actually helping us accomplish our yearly goals, with those analyses, VBC. One person might've gotten perturbed about it, and I am going to assume whoever that person is has a ton of other disagreeable opinions... to say the least. Probably the kind of person who is only comfortable surrounded by people who look exactly like them. Anyway, my point is, please come back and post more. We think you rule.
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Mar 27, 2025 17:47
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Take it with a grain of salt but people recently got upset with that poster in a different thread and probably went looking for more poo poo to cry about. I doubt anybody in this thread was bothered enough to buy them red text.
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Mar 27, 2025 19:46
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ravenkult posted:Take it with a grain of salt but people recently got upset with that poster in a different thread and probably went looking for more poo poo to cry about. I doubt anybody in this thread was bothered enough to buy them red text. Which is worse, really. It's like keying someone's car. If you key their car because they parked it across your drive and you can't get out, you might be an rear end but when they get back they'll realise why it was done and maybe not park so inconsiderately again. You do it because you don't like how loud they have play their stereo in the afternoon, they won't know why and it's just a random act of malice and vandalism.
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Mar 28, 2025 00:02
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There's quite a lot of violence I'd like to inflict on Paulo Coehlo, but phrenology really isn't it. Anyhow, I'm currently reading Scuttler's Cove based on his recommendation and I'm really enjoying the mounting sense of wrongness. Here's hoping all the rich characters get slaughtered before the end - now that I think of it, is it really a horror when you're rooting for the monster? Happens to me quite often.
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Mar 28, 2025 00:53
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I wish I had done this sooner, but I'm starting an excel doc to keep notes on the books I'm reading with a #/5 system and notes. Just finished The Shaft recently (thanks for this rec, thread, it was loving disgusting and cool) and am reading The Raw Shark Texts now and really liking it.
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Mar 28, 2025 18:14
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escape artist posted:Oh I didn't even notice the text until just now. That would have annoyed me too. yeah VBC's posts were helpful to me and will be missed. a lot of good stuff in 24/25 was dt [their] recommendations MNIMWA posted:I wish I had done this sooner, but I'm starting an excel doc to keep notes on the books I'm reading with a #/5 system and notes. I started doing this too because this thread has had so many great recommendations.
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Mar 28, 2025 23:37
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Tbh Southern Reach sounds like the brand of toilet paper
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Mar 30, 2025 11:57
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Tryna get back into reading more seriously as it's been like, a decade or more. This year so far: * Pay the Piper by Kraus/Romero -- again being out of the loop for so damned long I didn't even know about The Living Dead, but saw this on a book shelf. Having a physical paper book somehow made it easier to get back into the muscle-memory of it all. I really enjoyed this! It was super dense, especially at the beginning, me being a northerner with no knowledge whatsoever of the Pirate Lafitte and the associated battles in the region. Kraus did a good job of weaving that history into this modern "pay for the sins of your ancestors" story. It felt a wee bit preachy or too much of-the-moment like some BLM-era inspired revenge fantasy but I still really recommend this. 4/5 * Revival by papa King. I started this last year and it was pretty grounded and sorta "not fun" but I came back to it after Piper and maaaaaan this totally smoked in the latter 10% or so. Super great conclusion. 4/5 * Between Two Fires - Being that I'm late to this, you already know this: It loving rules. No notes. 5/5 * The Living Dead - Thought I'd better read this since I enjoyed Piper so much. Kraus is good, the Romero vibes are all definitely present, and it has some of the best zombie set-pieces I've read. But ... man, is it long. Like I guess pushing 800 print pages long. And there's no overall arching "plot". It's sorta like a non-epistolary form of World War Z; we hop back and forth between a lot of different characters and while they do sorta get together at the end, there isn't really some "big bad" or any real climax -- at least not yet. I'm 90% of the way done. 3/5
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Mar 31, 2025 19:47
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I usually read Fantasy instead of Horror, but Christopher Buehlman's Between Two Fires was a crossover hit which I loved so I read all of his books. He's now moved into the fantasy genre with Blacktongue Thief and The Daughters War, but I'm rereading one of his earlier books The Necromancer's House. It made me wonder, are horror protagonists usually a lot more flawed than those in other genres? Because Buehlman doesn't seem to have a problem putting some very flawed characters in that role and still getting you to root for them because they're humans with foibles and who have made mistakes but are up against pure evil. Whereas fantasy character's flaws are usually "killed too many people in the past" or "thief with a heart of gold" (the type of things you see regularly in Hollywood movies), Buehlman's characters are like "is a drunk and adulterer" or "takes a lot of drugs and went to jail for statutory rape she still thinks wasn't wrong." I think it adds an extra degree of difficulty to the writing to make the reader empathize with those types of characters. He also gives them some other traits that aren't "bad" so much as uncool, like having weird fashion choices or being vain.
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Apr 9, 2025 17:44
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At least for the horror I tend to read, I would say there's definitely a throughline of the protagonists tending to be more flawed/complex/unpleasant than you'd usually see in non-horror genre work. I can see that maybe making them harder to empathize with. But a big part of what I like about the horror that I enjoy the most is when you do have an author who uses really unpleasant protagonists, but the villain/monster/etc. is so much worse that you can look past their flaws and acknowledge they still have inherent value as a human being, and you don't want them to be killed/etc. even if they're the sort of person you'd never hang out with in real life. That was a mess of a sentence. It's maybe not what everyone gets out of horror, and not what all horror is even aiming for, (and it isn't always pulled off successfully of course), but that's my two cents at least. DurianGray fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Apr 9, 2025 |
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Apr 9, 2025 19:57
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Finished Those Who Went Remain There Still that's been mentioned in this thread and I've got mixed feelings on it. It was pretty enjoyable throughout, but at the end it just... fizzles? There's no buried secret, there's no story behind the monster, just "the characters got out of its lair" and it's quite hard to care about them in a novella. It's atmospheric, it's action-packed and it leaves absolutely no impression post-read. Let's hope The Liar of Red Valley is better.Ccs posted:I usually read Fantasy instead of Horror, but Christopher Buehlman's Between Two Fires was a crossover hit which I loved so I read all of his books. He's now moved into the fantasy genre with Blacktongue Thief and The Daughters War, but I'm rereading one of his earlier books The Necromancer's House. It made me wonder, are horror protagonists usually a lot more flawed than those in other genres? Because Buehlman doesn't seem to have a problem putting some very flawed characters in that role and still getting you to root for them because they're humans with foibles and who have made mistakes but are up against pure evil. Whereas fantasy character's flaws are usually "killed too many people in the past" or "thief with a heart of gold" (the type of things you see regularly in Hollywood movies), Buehlman's characters are like "is a drunk and adulterer" or "takes a lot of drugs and went to jail for statutory rape she still thinks wasn't wrong." I mentioned frequently finding myself rooting for the monsters before and it's truer than ever - but I guess the monsters need to be inhuman for that to work. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 20:07 on Apr 9, 2025 |
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Apr 9, 2025 20:02
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I'm gonna come out and say it: I kinda liked George RR Martin's Fevre Dream and normally I loving hate vampire novels. Unless they're like, traditional folk horror draculas. I've been looking for WW1 and WW2 horror for ages and 95% are werewolves and vampires
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Apr 9, 2025 20:36
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DurianGray posted:I can see that maybe making them harder to empathize with. But a big part of what I like about the horror that I enjoy the most is when you do have an author who uses really unpleasant protagonists, but the villain/monster/etc. is so much worse that you can look past their flaws and acknowledge they still have inherent value as a human being, and you don't want them to be killed/etc. even if they're the sort of person you'd never hang out with in real life. Yeah that's what i was getting at. Even the worst human doesn't look so bad compared to the monsters. I really enjoy The Necromancers House (I wouldn't be rereading it if I didn't) but I sort of wonder why. Is it because the magic is so weird? Because the atmosphere is so creepy, and there's so much dread? Because the characters are so unpleasant so there's a lurid aspect to reading about them? Or just cause Buehlman's prose is that good? Not sure.
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Apr 9, 2025 22:06
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R.L. Stine posted:I've been looking for WW1 and WW2 horror for ages and 95% are werewolves and vampires If you want World War 1 horror just read Charley's War. It's a straight story following one young Tommy from 1916-19 and it's horrifying enough without adding anything that wasn't real.
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Apr 10, 2025 08:09
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Ok while I was generally fine with VBC’s posts, even if I sometimes thought they were a bit much, they’re not really going to beat the “performative” allegations by deleting all their posts - which were meant to highlight potentially overlooked authors of various minorities - because they suffered a lovely criticism from one person, likely not even from this thread? It does come off as excessively dramatic, as if they get to be the enlightened gatekeeper of what people do and do not get to read.
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Apr 10, 2025 13:51
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Conrad_Birdie posted:Ok while I was generally fine with VBC’s posts, even if I sometimes thought they were a bit much, they’re not really going to beat the “performative” allegations by deleting all their posts - which were meant to highlight potentially overlooked authors of various minorities - because they suffered a lovely criticism from one person, likely not even from this thread? It does come off as excessively dramatic, as if they get to be the enlightened gatekeeper of what people do and do not get to read. Dude, someone paid to tell a minority that they were participating in race science. Sorry you’re so enlightened that you can’t see how that would hurt or have enough common sense to leave it alone.
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Apr 10, 2025 13:53
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This is the most uncomfortable thread I've ever been in lol
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Apr 10, 2025 14:00
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caspergers posted:This is the most uncomfortable thread I've ever been in lol Then talk about horror books. I just finished the Angel Lake trilogy by Stephen Graham Jones and I really enjoyed it. I'm on to The Only Good Indians now and it seems to be shaping up to be as good as the trilogy.
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Apr 10, 2025 14:06
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DreamingofRoses posted:Dude, someone paid to tell a minority that they were participating in race science. Sorry you’re so enlightened that you can’t see how that would hurt or have enough common sense to leave it alone. The systematic deleting of their posts and the giant post pointing out that they deleted all their posts IS dramatic, sorry But yeah, whatever: Old Soul is great, everyone read that. I read an ARC of the first book in the new LaRocca trilogy which is comparing myself to Blackwater and unfortunately it’s awful, maybe the worst thing he’s ever written.
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Apr 10, 2025 14:16
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Has anyone read Black River Orchard? I very much enjoyed it, very reminiscent of mid to late 80s Stephen King (if you know who that is)
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Apr 10, 2025 15:19
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DreamingofRoses posted:Dude, someone paid to tell a minority that they were participating in race science. Sorry you’re so enlightened that you can’t see how that would hurt or have enough common sense to leave it alone. Yeah, I’m with Conrad on this - as I’ve said previously I enjoyed the posts and subsequently added many of those books mentioned on my TBR - if the end goal was to “highlight potentially overlooked authors of various minorities”, it seems a disservice to those same authors to remove the posts, thus stealing the opportunity from future readers to get exposed to them. I was just catching up on the last handful of pages in this thread when it happened, so sadly there were a few posts with suggestions I did not get to read and catalog. A shame. Edit: That said, I’m not trying to minimize the situation of one rear end in a top hat deciding to do something lovely. I just feel that here, VBC’s way of handling the attack hurt the authors they were explicitly trying to help. Majin fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Apr 10, 2025 |
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Apr 10, 2025 22:06
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caspergers posted:Has anyone read Black River Orchard? I very much enjoyed it, very reminiscent of mid to late 80s Stephen King (if you know who that is) Just picked this up the other day - really looking forward to it!
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Apr 10, 2025 22:19
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Conrad_Birdie posted:I read an ARC of the first book in the new LaRocca trilogy which is comparing myself to Blackwater and unfortunately it’s awful, maybe the worst thing he’s ever written. I feel weird that my first thought here is "the worst LaRocca? I kinda want to read this, maybe it'll be fascinatingly bad instead of just frustrating and disappointing."
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Apr 10, 2025 22:35
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Antivehicular posted:I feel weird that my first thought here is "the worst LaRocca? I kinda want to read this, maybe it'll be fascinatingly bad instead of just frustrating and disappointing." So I really enjoyed At Dark I Become Loathsome. It was transgressive and edgy but I felt it all had meaning and it actually made me feel something. This new one - called We Are Always Tender With Our Dead if anyone cares to read the ARC - feels like a parody of LaRocca’s stuff. Just endless sexual violence and weirdness that leads to nothing of substance. I was just sighing as I forced myself through it, realizing I was reading the second of two SA scenes within the span of ten pages (and those weren’t the only ones in the book!!!). Like, tell me you don’t understand what makes Blackwater a masterpiece without telling me you don’t know what makes Blackwater a masterpiece. And again, this is supposedly the first of THREE connected books!
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Apr 10, 2025 22:53
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caspergers posted:Has anyone read Black River Orchard? I very much enjoyed it, very reminiscent of mid to late 80s Stephen King (if you know who that is) I prefer post van, really upped his game
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Apr 11, 2025 14:14
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Antivehicular posted:I feel weird that my first thought here is "the worst LaRocca? I kinda want to read this, maybe it'll be fascinatingly bad instead of just frustrating and disappointing."  Nah, you aren't weird. That is hilarious and sums up my thoughts exactly.
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Apr 13, 2025 19:58
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I've been hilariously broke for about 6 months and have been eating up books from the local library in my spare time. They don't have Between Two Fires so I read Those Across the River by Christopher Buehlman. It feels like 2 people wrote this book and maybe hated each other? The tone varies wildly from chapter to chapter. It's like it can't get out of its own way. Every time the story starts to get interesting, or a character fleshed-out, it's pushed to the side. It sucks because I wish there was more of it. The story felt constrained on top of the weird tone. I felt like there was so much more story there.
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Apr 15, 2025 10:25
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I read Those Across the River after enjoying Between Two Fires and was also a bit disappointed. It seemed like it was cribbing too much from Salem’s Lot and I already thought that Salem’s Lot was a bit derivative.
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Apr 15, 2025 13:53
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I've read a few different Buehlman books and Those Across the River is definitely his most disappointing. I've read far worse horror novels, but it's just the most unfocused of the ones I've read. I like the concept in theory, but the execution wasn't great and honestly I have a hard time even remembering the book that well. The best I can say about it is that Buehlman writes violence well, lol.
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Apr 15, 2025 15:33
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It's a first novel, they're very rarely better than okay and usually deeply flawed.
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Apr 15, 2025 16:24
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Yeah that's the one Buehlman book I didn't finish. Some interesting ideas but not executed well. He improves dramatically.
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Apr 15, 2025 17:19
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Then there's the case of the first book being their best, but that means they have more luck than they do talent. For instance, Ready Player One is probably the best book in its series.
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Apr 15, 2025 17:40
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Those Across The River I tried to read a few times and ended up DNFing both times.
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Apr 15, 2025 18:06
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I also wasn't crazy about The Lesser Dead but it was indisputably a better novel than Those Across the River. I think it just wasn't my cup of tea, it was at least a somewhat different take on a vampire novel though.
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Apr 15, 2025 18:09
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caspergers posted:Then there's the case of the first book being their best, but that means they have more luck than they do talent. For instance, Ready Player One is probably the best book in its series. Wasn't my childhood cool: The Book. Fitting for the horror thread.
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Apr 15, 2025 18:14
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