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Velvet Elvis posted:I read Wounds first and loved everything about it. Now I’m worried that I’ll be disappointed by Lake Monsters. I read Lake Monsters and really loved it, but now after Wounds I'm not sure which I like more. Wounds is definitely more straight forward horror, kinda Barker-like. The pathos is turned down a little bit from Lake Monsters but is definitely still a constant throughout the stories, just at a lower frequency.
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Jul 1, 2019 01:51
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I can't finish Wild Acre. Wish the werewolf would kill something. Horrible degradation and loss of dignity from economic anxiety is way too relatable.
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Jul 2, 2019 02:15
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Anyone familiar with this: https://www.npr.org/2019/07/02/7371...WSM9fk5PQRYzMmM
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Jul 6, 2019 04:10
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Bilirubin posted:Anyone familiar with this: https://www.npr.org/2019/07/02/7371...WSM9fk5PQRYzMmM I'm about halfway through, and there's some tremendous stuff here. The story Where We All Will Be, in particular, is sticking with me in a wonderfully/horribly macro way that feels like when I first read Barker's In the Hills, the Cities as a kid. (Yes, yes, bold statement, I know.) I've run hot and cold on his novels, but this collection is pretty terrific. filmcynic fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Jul 7, 2019 |
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Jul 7, 2019 16:41
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I'm a sucker for good exploration log SCPs and liked The Sick Land a lot. What should I read next ? e: a foolish pianist posted:Seems like Annihilation will be your sort of thing. Thanks, will do unpacked robinhood fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Jul 13, 2019 |
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Jul 11, 2019 15:43
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unpacked robinhood posted:I'm a sucker for good exploration log SCPs and liked The Sick Land a lot. What should I read next ? Seems like Annihilation will be your sort of thing.
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Jul 11, 2019 21:40
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i'm about halfway through Growing Things and it's been impressive so far. the material itself is varied and original, and most of the stories have been closer to Lake Monsters in that they're more about the characters and their struggles in horrific circumstances rather than the circumstances themselves. so far my personal topper is "_________", which starts innocuous but even in its innocuous phase has a grinding nightmare logic that started getting my chest tight as events went on. this is a contrast from Songs for the Unraveling of the World, which was decent but mostly just had stories that were 10-15 pages followed by...A SCARY THING  Growing Things' biggest flaw so far is the dialogue is kind of weak (too naturalistic, over-reliant on um's and ah's and stammering pauses) but it's not prevalent enough to be a turnoff
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Jul 12, 2019 04:25
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I am 60% through The Luminous Dead and things are not optimal.
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Jul 13, 2019 01:27
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I read Sefira (the first story, novella really, in the new Langan collection) yesterday. It's really impressive that it manages to be very affecting while just flat out stating a bunch of supernatural scary monster stuff. I guess the last few collections I've read have been built on ambiguity, and this was a nice change.
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Jul 15, 2019 00:48
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Is there a place where people have had a good discussion on North American Lake Monsters? I just finished it today and I've got lots of questions about what certain stories were all about since I'm totally thick when it comes to themes and symbolism. I think "Wild Acre" was probably my favorite story. Tiny Timbs fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Jul 16, 2019 |
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Jul 16, 2019 00:38
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Fallom posted:Is there a place where people have had a good discussion on North American Lake Monsters? I just finished it today and I've got lots of questions about what certain stories were all about since I'm totally thick when it comes to themes and symbolism. I actually just picked that up today on the recommendation of this thread, as well as Teatro Grottesco by Ligotti. I'm two stories into Teatro Grottesco and I feel like I need a shower from Ligotti's prose. I love it and I'm delighted to hear that he's just as weird and hosed up in real life.
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Jul 16, 2019 02:49
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Fallom posted:Is there a place where people have had a good discussion on North American Lake Monsters? I just finished it today and I've got lots of questions about what certain stories were all about since I'm totally thick when it comes to themes and symbolism. I think this is the best place on SA to discuss it. Which stories are you wondering about?
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Jul 17, 2019 00:19
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What's the evidence of Ligotti being crazy in real life? Like, it comes through pretty obviously in his writing, but people refer to him as a weirdo IRL and I haven't seen any evidence.
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Jul 17, 2019 16:34
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COOL CORN posted:What's the evidence of Ligotti being crazy in real life? Like, it comes through pretty obviously in his writing, but people refer to him as a weirdo IRL and I haven't seen any evidence. Just look up some interviews with him. Guy is weird.
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Jul 17, 2019 16:45
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Hell just read Conspiracy Against the Human Race. Ligotti is basically a Ligotti character.
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Jul 17, 2019 17:29
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GrandpaPants posted:Hell just read Conspiracy Against the Human Race. Ligotti is basically a Ligotti character. yes, that one is basically just him laying out his personal outlook and philosophy of living and it is very fuckin bleak.
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Jul 18, 2019 01:54
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a foolish pianist posted:I think this is the best place on SA to discuss it. Which stories are you wondering about? Mainly the titular one. What was the monster supposed to represent? Why did its substance adhere to the father, and what was the significance of the glow that animals carried away from it as they devoured it? What's the meaning of how the daughter saw the monster when she made her drawing? Is there a horror element here beyond the father struggling to reintegrate with his family after leaving prison and falling back on his (self) abusive behavior? I feel like answering the first question would probably be enough to help me understand the rest.
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Jul 18, 2019 01:59
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Going through Growing Things now, but first couple stories have been alright. A bit weak in the spookyness for me. Still going through it, but nothings really unsettled me yet. I think I liked Wounds more.
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Jul 20, 2019 01:40
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Tertius Oculum posted:Going through Growing Things now, but first couple stories have been alright. A bit weak in the spookyness for me. Still going through it, but nothings really unsettled me yet. I have to agree with this statement.
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Jul 20, 2019 01:56
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Tertius Oculum posted:Going through Growing Things now, but first couple stories have been alright. A bit weak in the spookyness for me. Still going through it, but nothings really unsettled me yet. yeah, i'm midway thru Growing Things and don't really have the motivation to keep going. it isn't bad, but after North American Lake Monsters and Wounds it just isn't good enough.
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Jul 20, 2019 21:08
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Been working my way through Sefira and other Betrayals it's real good so far even though a lot of Sefira was weak for me.
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Jul 21, 2019 14:22
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I regret buying Growing Things. Maybe it's interesting if you don't read much horror or something...
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Jul 21, 2019 14:29
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Thanks for saving me the time and money, thread!
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Jul 21, 2019 19:55
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i have nothing but kind feelings toward ligotti and don't want to publically armchair diagnose him lol, but the reason i assume he's weird irl is because judging from his writing he's about half a step above ulillillia on the autism spectrum, as well as being crippling depressed and polish-italian-american and laden with bizarre fetishes for inanimate objects
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Jul 22, 2019 00:09
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I'm about halfway through Teatro Grottesco now and I love how he turns the fluorescent 9-5 office job into a cosmic horror all its own. It's like some weird mix of Lovecraft, Kafka, and anti-capitalism. I'm digging it. You can tell he has a very odd world view and is cripplingly anxious, but I don't DISAGREE with him.
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Jul 22, 2019 00:16
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A few years ago, Ligotti said the only thing that temporarily lifted his depression was a near death experience on the operating table during surgery.
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Jul 22, 2019 00:19
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COOL CORN posted:I love how he turns the fluorescent 9-5 office job into a cosmic horror all its own
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Jul 22, 2019 00:20
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crazy how he manages to turn working in an office into a dehumanising horror
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Jul 22, 2019 01:31
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Read "My Work Is Not Yet Done" for more of Ligotti's Lovecraft meets Office Space. Just caught this blurb in the Wiki article: quote:In Brandon Robshaw's brief review for The Independent, the book's prose was compared both favourably and unfavourably to Edgar Allan Poe's: "Parts of this are as creepy as Edgar Allan Poe. Unfortunately, the prose is also as ponderous as Edgar Allan Poe. Ligotti simply will not use one word where he can use lots of them." C2C - 2.0 fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Jul 22, 2019 |
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Jul 22, 2019 01:59
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MWINYD is a concise summation of Ligotti's actual beliefs imo. It's very good.
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Jul 22, 2019 03:54
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I'm also losing steam on Growing Things. Tremblay has definitely fallen into the weird category of authors that I want to like more, but I'm progressively liking him less. I loved A Head Full of Ghosts, enjoyed Disappearance at Devil's Rock even though it is not really at all a horror novel and was heavily marketed as one, kind of actively disliked Cabin at the End of the World, and just can't get into Growing Things. Based on the author's notes for Cabin, it seems like he's the kind of writer who gets way, way too in his own head about complex symbolism and multilayered themes, at the expense of writing something that's just consistently engaging or interesting. Also Cabin felt weirdly flat and passionless despite being very violent and angry most of the time.
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Jul 22, 2019 18:52
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I honestly disliked cabin. It really never grabbed me or felt good in the slightest. I think I made it halfway and just gave up, the twist and ending weren't worth it compared to the preamble. What even was the plot and ending? It was just so lackluster. The disapearence book I liked alot. Mainly because it seemed like a book version of lake mungo and was decent.
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Jul 23, 2019 00:55
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Yeah, I feel the same way. Was it the two girls from Headful in the titular short story? Didn't really add anything, sadly. And Cabin was just the end of The Cabin in the Woods, but worse.
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Jul 23, 2019 11:41
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Just finished The Hunger. Thanks to Anomalous Blowout for the recommendation. I definitely enjoyed it the most of all of the horror books I've read over the past year or so, though unfortunately the spooks didn't really hit me at my core. This has me interrogating why that is. I think that images and audio have a much more immediate impact on the senses. Movies, video games, and even a pure audio format can scare me, but I think my imagination isn't strong enough to immerse me into the books the way I can with other media. When I think about written stories that have scared me, I think back to stories like the one about the ghost in the hotel room. It takes a seemingly innocuous description of something, then later twists its meaning so it's like horror image in your head hits very suddenly. Or (this might be kinda silly) Ted the Caver, where it's a slow build and your imagination does most of the work. With all that being said I was kinda curious about your guys' thoughts on horror in the written form that you found actually scary and what parts of the medium scares you in particular?
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Jul 24, 2019 01:28
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GreyjoyBastard posted:I am 60% through The Luminous Dead and things are not optimal. I'm a couple chapters from the end of this, and wondering if there's anything out there that fulfills the promise of The Luminous Dead's back cover, rather than being a love story between two deeply dysfunctional people that happens to be set in a spooky cave. Caving is inherently terrifying, and I'd love to read more in that vein.
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Jul 26, 2019 02:16
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Wounds was so good! It’s like Ballingrud took the best elements from Barker’s Books of Blood and Lovecraft’s Kadath stories.
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Aug 4, 2019 18:05
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plz dont pull out posted:Just finished The Hunger. Thanks to Anomalous Blowout for the recommendation. I definitely enjoyed it the most of all of the horror books I've read over the past year or so, though unfortunately the spooks didn't really hit me at my core. This has me interrogating why that is. no offense but could you please try to have better opinions
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Aug 4, 2019 18:38
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Origami Dali posted:A few years ago, Ligotti said the only thing that temporarily lifted his depression was a near death experience on the operating table during surgery. for what he called an 'abdominal crisis' yea. it's the exact thing that happened to the character in 'the shadow, the darkness', written years prior. in the jacket description of the book he wrote afterwards he's like 'yes yes i'm aware it's all very ironic' and then he says that his new book probably sucks anyway iirc Bilirubin posted:Buddy of mine (the one who lent me Lake Monsters) is currently finding this one super creepy: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show...wNwuf206o24ODv8 evenson is good and his stories led to his ousting from Brigham Young University which in turn led to his renunciation of the mormon heresy so they're a morally positive force in the world
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Aug 4, 2019 18:43
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Fallom posted:Wounds was so good! It’s like Ballingrud took the best elements from Barker’s Books of Blood and Lovecraft’s Kadath stories. Oh come on, Lake Monsters was next on my to-read list, but now you've gone and described my perfect book.
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Aug 5, 2019 14:31
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Any recommendations for stand-out horror in audiobook format, either books or short story collections? I have to do most of my reading on audio these days, and horror is especially tricky to do right in that format: I was looking forward to Wounds, for example, but some of the narrators are terrible fits for the material. Some things I've listened to and enjoyed include: Dark Matter, A Ghost Story - Michelle Paver Dracula - Bram Stoker The Elementals - Michael McDowell The Haunting of Hill House Heart-Shaped Box - Joe Hill The Imago Sequence - Laird Barron The Wide, Carnivorous Sky and Other Stories - John Langan ... and a lot of Stephen King, which has consistently gotten good narrators for some reason. Ghost stories and weird/cosmic horror are my jam, but I'll check out anything that isn't gore-porn or really extreme body horror.
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Aug 5, 2019 19:52
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