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I've been working through a bunch of Best Horror of the Year anthologies and boy there is a lot more pedophilia and incest than I was expecting. Can anyone recommend some like, weird occult horror? Like Tim Powers in vibe, but spookier, maybe. These anthologies have some good stories but also some absolute dog poo poo and maybe I could read something where fewer girls get raped by their dads.
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Jul 28, 2025 03:18
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Ravus Ursus posted:
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by your to read list you can just delete the Cradle series as a start
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Jul 28, 2025 05:05
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Cool Dad posted:I've been working through a bunch of Best Horror of the Year anthologies and boy there is a lot more pedophilia and incest than I was expecting. Are these the Ellen Datlow ones?
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Jul 28, 2025 05:52
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Good Citizen posted:If you’re feeling overwhelmed by your to read list you can just delete the Cradle series as a start I probably will. I keep hearing praise for it but I made it through the first paragraph once.
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Jul 28, 2025 12:18
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I remember getting one of the Ellen Datlow ones and read like two stories, they were okay. Then there was a third story that was about how a guy was suspecting that his travel companions were raping their female companion and the twist at the end was that the narrator was, too. I never read another loving story in that book afterward.
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Jul 28, 2025 12:19
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escape artist posted:I remember getting one of the Ellen Datlow ones and read like two stories, they were okay. Then there was a third story that was about how a guy was suspecting that his travel companions were raping their female companion and the twist at the end was that the narrator was, too. I never read another loving story in that book afterward. Ellen Datlow is a loving psychopath and having her name anywhere on the cover is a good sign to avoid it.
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Jul 28, 2025 12:42
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Jedit posted:Ellen Datlow is a loving psychopath and having her name anywhere on the cover is a good sign to avoid it. she is?
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Jul 28, 2025 12:59
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Jedit posted:Ellen Datlow is a loving psychopath and having her name anywhere on the cover is a good sign to avoid it. Curious to know a bit more. Not doubting you, I would just like to know more since she constantly pops up on my Facebook people you may know list.  One problem I should've noted is that the story was actually written pretty well and the twist was revealed well too. So I felt oddly violated in that sense, too. The writer of the story I am referring to is: RIchard Clueley and it was in Year's Best Horror #11 escape artist fucked around with this message at 13:22 on Jul 28, 2025 |
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Jul 28, 2025 13:20
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Ellen Datlow comes into my library sometimes 
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Jul 28, 2025 13:41
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escape artist posted:One problem I should've noted is that the story was actually written pretty well and the twist was revealed well too. So I felt oddly violated in that sense, too. The writer of the story I am referring to is: RIchard Clueley and it was in Year's Best Horror #11
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Jul 28, 2025 13:41
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escape artist posted:Curious to know a bit more. Not doubting you, I would just like to know more since she constantly pops up on my Facebook people you may know list. Either as editor or blurb writer, Datlow has given her approval to a lot of stories featuring rape or sexual abuse of women. In fact, I don't believe I've ever seen her name attached to a story that didn't - although I freely admit my knowledge is not exhaustive. Regardless, anyone who can describe The Library at Mount Char as "funny" needs professional help and I'm not sure whether it's from a psychiatrist or a hitman. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jul 28, 2025 14:11
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Jedit posted:I don't believe I've ever seen her name attached to a story that didn't [feature rape or sexual abuse]
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Jul 28, 2025 14:26
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Jedit posted:Either as editor or blurb writer, Datlow has given her approval to a lot of stories featuring rape or sexual abuse of women. In fact, I don't believe I've ever seen her name attached to a story that didn't - although I freely admit my knowledge is not exhaustive. What a wild thing to say when you literally know nothing. Datlow is a great editor, one of the best in the horror genre for nearly 30 years. As anthologies go, not every story is great and there’s certainly been “problematic” stories in collections edited by her, but you’re also providing zero context on those stories, merely that they exist, as if worthwhile stories can’t be told with that as a central aspect of them. Also, Mount Char is often intentionally funny, almost to the detriment of the story it’s telling! Please shut up if you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!
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Jul 28, 2025 14:48
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That's completely crazy. You think all of the stories in her collections (hell, even most???) feature rape or sexual abuse?
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Jul 28, 2025 14:51
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That would be unlikely by sheer loving volume, she's one of the biggest anthologists out there.
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Jul 28, 2025 15:27
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Yeah it's the Datlow anthologies I've been reading. The story that sticks with me as being the worst is Omphalos by Livia Llewellyn which involves  a family where the parents are siblings, the kids are twins who gently caress each other, the mother fucks the son, the dad fucks the daughter including a scene where he brutally rapes her. They aren't all full of terrible poo poo but I've read several of the anthologies now and each one includes at least one story that's hosed up in a not-fun way. A lot of the other stories are just kind of meandering and don't go anywhere too. I suspect that she just uses drastically different criteria for choosing stories for her anthologies than I would.
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Jul 28, 2025 15:51
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That seems like a problem with the horror genre in general. I mostly stick to highly regarded stories these days, because when I've tried picking things up based only on a blurb or premise, the story often isn't scary, just horrible.
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Jul 28, 2025 16:02
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Cool Dad posted:Yeah it's the Datlow anthologies I've been reading. The story that sticks with me as being the worst is Omphalos by Livia Llewellyn which involves I'm not about to die on this hill, but that is my experience also. As Fitz says, there's a difference between horrifying and horrible, and I feel Datlow falls on the wrong side of that line too often for comfort.
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Jul 28, 2025 16:45
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Jedit posted:Either as editor or blurb writer, Datlow has given her approval to a lot of stories featuring rape or sexual abuse of women. In fact, I don't believe I've ever seen her name attached to a story that didn't - although I freely admit my knowledge is not exhaustive. Thinking the psychopath is you. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jul 28, 2025 17:02
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Library at Mount Char most definitely takes on a humorous tone at many points
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Jul 28, 2025 17:29
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Fitzy Fitz posted:That seems like a problem with the horror genre in general. I mostly stick to highly regarded stories these days, because when I've tried picking things up based only on a blurb or premise, the story often isn't scary, just horrible. Complete opposite for me. I’m over here bottom feeding in the kindle unlimited swamp based on nothing but cover art and a premise. I’m totally fine with getting 30-50 pages into a book and deciding it sucks and dropping it though
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Jul 28, 2025 17:38
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Idk why, I can watch campy horror but I prefer not to read it. Maybe because I like to read horror for its atmosphere, which in my opinion is pretty anti-humor. That's why comedy films aren't very ambitious in the way of cinematography. Wish i could break outta this mindset tho, I'd have more options like this Grady Hendrix, who I'm sure is very good, or Mt Char or this one audiobook I can't seem to get into, A Theory of Haunting by Sarah Monette. Oh btw, has anyone read A Theory of Haunting by Sarah Monette?
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Jul 28, 2025 18:05
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Cool Dad posted:Yeah it's the Datlow anthologies I've been reading. The story that sticks with me as being the worst is Omphalos by Livia Llewellyn which involves Maybe the Paula Guran anthologies or the old Karl Edward Wagner ones might be more your speed.
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Jul 28, 2025 18:34
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caspergers posted:Idk why, I can watch campy horror but I prefer not to read it. Maybe because I like to read horror for its atmosphere, which in my opinion is pretty anti-humor. That's why comedy films aren't very ambitious in the way of cinematography. Wish i could break outta this mindset tho, I'd have more options like this Grady Hendrix, who I'm sure is very good, or Mt Char or this one audiobook I can't seem to get into, A Theory of Haunting by Sarah Monette. That's because there's an art to schlocky movies. Nobody wants to read that though. I also had the same realization as you, a few years back, when I tried to find a book that read like an 80s slasher flick.
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Jul 28, 2025 20:44
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Cool Dad posted:I've been working through a bunch of Best Horror of the Year anthologies and boy there is a lot more pedophilia and incest than I was expecting. If you're looking for Tim Powers but spooky, Unknown Armies (second edition at least, haven't checked the much more recent third edition) is a horror TTRPG takes a ton of influence from Power's work. There's at least one novel that uses the setting, though I never read it so I can't say whether it's good or bad, but the sourcebooks have plenty of weird occult creepiness through a combination of short stories, plot hooks and bizarre magic. The game also has some late 90s edge to it as well, which probably didn't age gracefully.
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Jul 28, 2025 20:44
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 never read or even heard of this but this cover owns
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Jul 28, 2025 21:09
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Meanwhile, I've been trying to read Mr. Gaunt and not making a lot of progress; the style is very discordant with the subject matter, and it's not working for me. I just started "Tutorial," and... man, I hate this protagonist. (Also I can't buy that our protagonist is the only person in an introductory college Creative Writing course who is writing horror, or whose writing is weak enough for the professor refers him to the university writing center and openly shames him for it in class. "Writing genre fiction inappropriate for assignment" and "needs to go to the writing center" is the Intro Creative Writing starter pack, dude!)
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Jul 28, 2025 21:41
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Just finished The Night House by Joe Nesbo, aka I Didn’t Burn Down the School! It Was The Butterfly I Tell You! THE BUTTERFLY!: The Novelization Overall: It’s a thoroughly mediocre and frustrating story that’s somewhat redeemed by a decent final act. No spoilers: OK, so my main gripe is that I just really didn’t like the main character or the texture of the prose (if that makes sense). I get that this is a damaged teenager dealing with some poo poo but they really don’t give you anything at all to make you root for him. So much so that I was convinced we were being set up for him being a serial killer or something. On top of that the writing itself is weirdly stiff and full of bad character dialogue and exposition dumps, many of which either don’t make sense or ultimately aren’t important. Yes, I do understand why some of this is the way it is but it’s not fun to read. Minor spoilers: The book starts off strong with a good hook revolving around a kid being eaten by a phone booth but the premise isn’t really utilized to its full potential and is heavily undercut by the main character being pathologically open to the cops about what happened and then being shocked when everyone thinks he’s killing people. Theres also only 2 of these incidents (the second involves a kid being turned into a bug) before the kid gets tossed into the looney bin and the finale begins, which left me feeling a bit ripped off. Also the guy in the house being a generic demon that just kind of lets the kid set fire to the house felt pretty disappointing. Major spoilers: OK, so the gimmick is that this is all a book written by an author who’s on his way to a high school reunion. The book he wrote (which I do NOT buy is a bestseller) is actually a symbolic reframing of his personal trauma, which I kind of liked. I generally hate unreliable narrator stories where the events are all in the protagonist’s head because just having the supernatural stuff be real is almost always the more interesting story (also it feels like a lazy cop out for the author to not need to have anything make sense or be coherent). That said, it more or less works here due to some good character beats. I also really liked it when the people at the reunion started turning into monsters and eating people. Because again, it’s much more interesting if the monsters are real. At this point I was legitimately invested in what was happening. And then the book does ANOTHER twist revealing that all of what we’ve seen so far is actually the delusions of a schizophrenic man in an asylum undergoing shock therapy. A twist I liked a LOT less. We’d already done this exact same fake out in a way that felt much more connected to the first part of the story, so why are we doing it again? Plus, this time the book actually commits to the previous events being made up (in a weird way that unnecessarily makes you wonder in another twist is incoming) so now all the interesting threads we had going so far have now been unceremoniously cut off and deemed irrelevant, which is EXACTLY what I was afraid this book would do. Plus the writer felt like a natural extension of the lovely teenager, while the schizophrenic man felt much more disconnected from things. And why the hell did he imagine that specific series of events anyway? Why did he give himself a double fakeout? It all ~mostly~ works in the end but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t frustrated by it. This one could have been a banger but it just didn’t quite get there and I can’t say I’d recommend it. Any suggestions for the next book? Something similar in tone to The Magnus Archives would be fun. readingatwork fucked around with this message at 23:14 on Jul 28, 2025 |
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Jul 28, 2025 23:09
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Today in "semi-confusing titles" 
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Jul 30, 2025 02:07
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escape artist posted:Today in "semi-confusing titles" I wonder if that's Aaron Stell the film editor? Wiki doesn't list him as having written a novel.
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Jul 30, 2025 08:32
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escape artist posted:I just came into a copy of Night Boat by McCammon and I am elated. Phrasing. I, too, came into a copy six months ago at the local Oxfam bookshop (and now I'm banned, what gives?) I really enjoyed it. Some of the language was a bit dated - not racist by 1981 standards, but a bit off now - and the rugged diver hero doesn't get to bang the sexy pilot lady, which was a nice surprise. There were some genuinely creepy bits, and I enjoyed it.  So I decided to try out a couple of old bits of horror that I'd read as a kid, starting with The Spear by James Herbert. And boy howdy, I wasn't expecting the transphobia - more shocking than much of the horror, to the point where it put me off the book, bollocks to the fact that it was first published in 1978.  But, sucker for punishment, I've decided to try out one more Herbert - one I have good memories of from decades ago. Will report in soon. Fingers crossed it's not loving awful! 
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Jul 30, 2025 18:10
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MockingQuantum posted:If it is, I am also too dense to get it. I really just think it's not a very well written book, honestly. The combination of poor pacing and a pretty bad lack of focus on the stuff that's interesting/actually matters and drives the narrative forward means even when the prose is solid, I had a hard time getting through it. I'll be honest, a lot of the people I know that really really love the book are from that part of the country, and I think that might do some heavy lifting in making the book feel more familiar/accessible/meaningful. Not to say that it's the only reason you'd love the book, but a lot of times when I hear people talk about it or see it discussed online, I kinda feel like I just don't get or see what they're talking about (or feel like I read an entirely different book than they did, lol) I just finished The Fisherman last week and went looking for takes to help me understand some of it and I guess I'm striking out here I enjoyed it overall but felt like it was missing something that should have better explained what gave the The Fisherman the juice to spend several centuries trying to tame the World Serpent, and what that fight was supposed to represent or accomplish more than just wrapping your hands around the serpent that underpins our lovely world. It may have been better to keep this guy more enigmatic the whole way through instead of giving him an unfortunate but mundane, common backstory and then setting up a couple somewhat goofy confrontations. Also what the gently caress was with the ending stinger about the protagonist having a couple fish kids lol Fallom fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Jul 30, 2025 |
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Jul 30, 2025 18:40
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The more I think about The Fisherman the more it disappoints me. It still boggles my mind that the flashback portion was longer than the framing story? Jedit posted:I wonder if that's Aaron Stell the film editor? Wiki doesn't list him as having written a novel. I couldn't find a drat thing about that novel when I was trying to do research. There's two copies for sale online.
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Jul 30, 2025 21:39
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Fallom posted:I just finished The Fisherman last week and went looking for takes to help me understand some of it and I guess I'm striking out here Yeah no that's my take on it too. It had some great moments but together, eh. Disappointing given how my buddy hyped it up to me
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Jul 31, 2025 00:41
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Just finished IT for the first time this week. My wife and I took turns reading it aloud to each other, which was fun. FYI I'm not going to spoiling any of this. If you miraculously have not heard of or consumed any sort of IT-related media and know nothing about it, I give the book an average of 2.5/5, with it being 5 in some spots and 1 in others. It's a looooong book. --- I'll say this- that weird motherfucker King can write. There were parts of that book which were almost poetic. There was a haunting quality to his ruminations on the passage of childhood and the indifference of adults towards children. On the other hand, this is a gross book. There was a lot of focus on Beverly and what she was wearing and her taut calves or whatever and at some point I stopped being able to tell if it was a literary device or king being a coked-up weirdo. The orgy was as unpleasant, awkward, and out of place as cultural osmosis informed me it would be. I can't genuinely get it, at all. There's only 1000 other ways to reinforce their bond and running a train on the only girl didn't even make the list. Fuckin grosssss The other part that left me a bit adrift was the final confrontation as adults. It just seemed anticlimactic. IT went down so easily. They punched it to death. What i enjoyed more was Mike's ending interlude, and the forgetting. Some of the best writing of the book is there, and it would have been a better book to end it there. Instead we flip back to Bill and Audra, which was kind of a let-down. Getting back on Silver and channeling childhood has a certain symmetry, but I really didn't care about Audra. My wife and I discussed whether a person could really maneuver well enough to grab the pedaler's erection while on a bike going over rough terrain at great speed, and we concluded that Bill just had that huge a hog. Anyway as I said, this book hits a 5/5 in some spots but King can't get out of his own way AND he has historically struggled with endings. Between needing editing badly and the pediatric fuckfest, I give it 2.5/5 sephiRoth IRA fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Jul 31, 2025 |
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Jul 31, 2025 12:40
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sephiRoth IRA posted:Just finished IT for the first time this week. My wife and I took turns reading it aloud to each other, which was fun. FYI I'm not going to spoiling any of this. If you miraculously have not heard of or consumed any sort of IT-related media and know nothing about it, I give the book an average of 2.5/5, with it being 5 in some spots and 1 in others. It's a looooong book. I'm just cracking this open so I'm not going to read your post, but I will check back in in a couple weeks (I'm slow) with my own thoughts
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Jul 31, 2025 15:04
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MNIMWA posted:I'm just cracking this open so I'm not going to read your post, but I will check back in in a couple weeks (I'm slow) with my own thoughts Ah, now I feel bad. Ill go throw some spoiler bars in there  . Definitely curious what you think, reading the book was quite different compared to what I had in my head from miniseries/movie/cultural osmosis
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Jul 31, 2025 15:08
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Moderately surprised to have multiple people in this thread who didn’t read IT when they were like 14
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Jul 31, 2025 15:09
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Good Citizen posted:Moderately surprised to have multiple people in this thread who didn’t read IT when they were like 14 I read all his short story collections at 10, after my mom died and dad didn't police what I read at all. But I didn't start reading any of his novels until I was an adult. I've read Carrie and Misery, which I thought were great. Pet Sematery was just ok. Needful things was a funny read, but not particularly well written. Are any of his others must-reads? I guess I read the gunslinger a long time ago but never went further than that.
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Jul 31, 2025 15:14
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sephiRoth IRA posted:I read all his short story collections at 10, after my mom died and dad didn't police what I read at all. But I didn't start reading any of his novels until I was an adult. The Stand is the obvious other stand out not on your list. Also Salems Lot and Cujo
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Jul 31, 2025 15:16
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