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Sefira by Langan is good, I got my copy today. I liked the Fisherman better, but Sefira is solid so far.
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Apr 25, 2019 06:39
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Mel Mudkiper posted:hey guys I have been on a horror kick recently fostered by reading like three McDowell novels in a row and I want some more good literary horror What didn’t you like about Trembalay? I didn’t like Ghosts at all, but I can’t really put my finger on why. I really didn’t like the ending at all, but I guess the writing was okay? I dunno.
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Feb 19, 2020 20:04
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I enjoyed a lush and seething hell by John Horner Jacobs. The first novella was extremely effective. The second wasn’t great, too cliched with the writing too stilted, but it’s worth it for the first one.
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Feb 20, 2020 18:51
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chernobyl kinsman posted:read more aickman I loving loved the fisherman if only for the scene on the primordial coast- it was so vivid. He short stories though were mostly meh.
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Feb 21, 2020 00:54
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Eh, I admit a lot of that story wasn’t great, but that scene on the beach of a giant serpent chained through the sheer grief-fueled will of a sorcerer was beautiful. I am very fond of the pacific nw coasts though, so maybe the bleakness of the scene played on my nostalgia.
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Feb 21, 2020 08:37
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dms666 posted:I actually just finished this as well and agree with your review as well. Have you read anything else by him? If so, any recommendations? That was my first one, unfortunately! Although I will say, I picked up evensons “song for the unraveling of the world” and it’s fuckin great The only dud so far is “glistening world”- can someone explain that one to me because I’m apparently a dummy? Fav stories so far are cardiacs and room tone, although hole and tower were good too.
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Feb 25, 2020 08:56
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John Dies at the End was dumb. It had moments of humor but ended up being like one long Family Guy bit. The timeline jumps were jarring and the prose was so-so at the best of times. The kayfaybe was really annoying too- I cannot believe this generated a movie and three books.
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Mar 8, 2020 19:41
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MockingQuantum posted:That's kind of how I felt about it honestly. I think it would have been one of my favorite books if I'd read it when it came out, since I would have still been in my teens at the time and would have eaten that poo poo up, but I think I missed the window where I really could have enjoyed it. For sure- hit me at that 18-20 window, right about when Tucker Max was cool, and it’d be awesome.
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Mar 8, 2020 20:30
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So after finishing a Collapse of Horses and A Song for the Unraveling of the World, I think that Brian Evenson is pretty great. I have to say I liked Song waaay better than Horses, though. My issue with Horses is that while the stories all had this pretty eerie feel to them, they all had this vague quality where you are dropped into a scenario with little detail and have to scramble to figure out what’s going on. The first time you encounter this it’s pretty good, but after going through the collection, there are a lot of stories that rely on this setup and it gets old, fast. The titular story wasn’t bad, it didn’t grip me as much as others, but by the time I wound up at “Click” I found myself skimming a bunch of prose because the story wasn’t going to end up anywhere interesting. Or maybe it did, but I couldn’t tell because there was no way to connect to a lot of people in the stories, nameless protagonists or otherwise. With Song, you still got a lot of that eerie “something is wrong here” quality but on the whole the stories felt far more anchored, which made me more invested and (feel more dread).
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Mar 12, 2020 16:22
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The father of what
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Mar 23, 2020 18:11
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Jedit posted:Onto Metallica's fourth album? On to a book by Dalton Trumbo?
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Mar 25, 2020 19:56
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alf_pogs posted:I ended up liking The Deep more than The Troop for how loving weird it gets and how sort of bombastic the ending is, but it might not be for everyone. The Troop is probably the better, leaner book though The troop felt exhausting towards the end. Like it definitely hits the gross unending squeamish quality that might work for some people, but I started skimming towards the end just to get it over with because it felt so over the top.
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Apr 7, 2020 17:38
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I just want to say that while I mostly lurk/poo poo post this thread, I loving love you people. That found footage recommendation storm gave me like seven new books to read. 
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Apr 23, 2020 23:36
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I’m never reading dan Simmons again after the abominable. That book was a false bill of sale and pissed me off to no end. He’s a garbage writer with the occasional good idea
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Apr 26, 2020 20:19
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In a stunning reversal, I ordered Song of Kāli without actually noticing that Dan Simmons wrote it. I was so mad that I bought another of his damned books. I spite-read it. It was pretty great. Tons of dread, a reasonably good ending with hopeful message, and only a small amount of weird sex poo poo. On the whole I enjoyed it. It’s probably because he wrote it back in the 80s before the brain worms got him.
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Apr 30, 2020 17:28
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I just finished the hollow places by t kingfisher and while there are some interesting images and ideas, it largely gets punked by its own ending. I think overall she does a great job treading well-worn paths in new and interesting ways, and I felt a good chunk of dread. I thought her characters had unique, if not original, voices. Her prose is so-so in parts and solid in others. The book falls flat in the end, unfortunately, and really took the wind out of my sails on enjoying it. Definitely a B, B+ in the first two-thirds and C-/D for the finale.
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Feb 2, 2021 10:07
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MockingQuantum posted:I'm about a third of the way through The Fisherman and having a hard time continuing. I feel like basically nothing has happened, and the writing isn't outstanding enough to keep it from dragging. I'm honestly a little puzzled by the near-universal praise it seemed to get when it came out. I guess it's possible it's not my cup of tea, but boy does it come off as a very bland book to me. There's some truly amazing imagery towards the end of that book fwiw. It's not the most amazing book, but there's at least one scene that's stayed with me, as opposed to a lot of generic horror.
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Feb 21, 2021 01:42
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fez_machine posted:Kathe Koja's The Cipher is a good one. I have been searching for a copy of this for a long time and haven't found one. I've had offers to source it but at extremely unfavorable prices.
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Feb 23, 2021 16:36
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MockingQuantum posted:It's been a cheap ebook for years now, if you're open to reading it that way. It's been out of print for ages otherwise, and you'd have to be extremely lucky to find an affordable hard copy at this point, I think. That's good to know, thank you. I knew it was out of print, but have been looking for it as a physical copy in any format. Maybe I'll check out the ebook instead.
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Feb 23, 2021 17:31
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nate fisher posted:Actually The Cipher was re-released in September last year. You can pick it up for $17. 🤯 I haven't looked for a long while, this is great! One more book for the giant unending pile on my bed stand
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Feb 23, 2021 19:19
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Sab Sabbington posted:I started reading Nick Cutter's The Troop a bit ago and had to put it down, probably permanently, after one particularly hosed up scene involving a monkey. Body horror is usually extremely my poo poo but apparently I found my limit in this specific kind of parasite. The troop only gets worse, IMO. I pushed through that whole drat book out of grossed-out spite. I also usually don't shy away from body horror but it felt like the book devolved into a long piss and vomit joke by the end. You are missing nothing by skipping it. The only other book (story) that made me put a book down was the one in the short story collection (black suns or something like that?) where they dredged up some polyp from under the ocean and this lady gets infected and her vagina explodes. I'm not even kidding. It grossed me out so bad I left the book in a hotel room. sephiRoth IRA fucked around with this message at 17:54 on Mar 1, 2021 |
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Mar 1, 2021 17:46
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Answer the following three questions 1. I prefer my antagonist to be ...more monstrous ...more psychological 2. I prefer my setting to be ... more grounded in reality ... more supernatural 3. My definition of horror is ... more traditional (books marketed as "horror", etc) ... open to elaboration (books that aren't horror but may still induce feelings of dread or fear)
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Mar 3, 2021 19:30
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Untrustable posted:More psychological. Twenty Days of Turin - Giorgio De Maria A Lush and Seething Hell - John Jacobs The Tenant - Roland Topor
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Mar 3, 2021 20:26
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I'm about halfway through the cipher and it's loving
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Mar 17, 2021 01:09
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That's exactly how I'm reading it! Just a bunch of garbage people who have horrible things happen to them. There's something to be said for the dread you get when bad things happen to a good person that you invest in, but being able to jettison that for reveling in the bad things is nice
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Mar 17, 2021 20:31
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I liked devils rock much better than head full of ghosts, fwiw. And honestly the audio book audio book ghosts is terrible, dump it if you can
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Mar 18, 2021 01:01
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Finished The Cipher today. Have to say I'm really disappointed. It was awesome until about 2/3 of the way through and then it crawled up its own Funhole and I stopped being able to give a poo poo. It was really repetitive with lots of random yelling yelling and the characters ran together.
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Mar 21, 2021 07:20
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nate fisher posted:I was disappointed in the Elementals. Not that it was bad, it was more of a case I hyped the book up in my mind and it never delivered on that level to me. I know I am in the minority here, but I do wonder if I need to give the author another try. Nah you're okay. It got hyped by this thread so I picked it up. It was another horror book. I can remember it, so that's good, but it wasn't particularly amazing.
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Mar 27, 2021 17:10
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I found it really cringy and stupid. Like I remember some of the details, but mostly that I just hated all the characters, and the writing, and the plot.
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Apr 23, 2021 22:38
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The cipher for sure.
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Apr 29, 2021 18:32
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Jedit posted:Funny, I feel the exact opposite: any desire I have to read those books has been killed by the covers. They're so utterly unappealing. Big The Cipher energy. I wanted to read that book for a long time, finally got a copy, and was both grossed out and underwhelmed. Those covers invoke a similar vibe and makes me want to avoid them
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Apr 19, 2022 14:52
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PsychedelicWarlord posted:Reading The Fisherman by John Langan and it's just...perfect. I love it. What short story collection of his is best to read next? I have only read Sefira, and honestly it was a bit of a letdown. The imagery of that haunted coastline and primordial serpent was so awesome, and nothing in Sefira really compared.
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Apr 19, 2022 15:04
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Xiahou Dun posted:Wide Carnivorous Sky by a country mile. I love them all, but there’s clear blue water between it and the next best one. Oh poo poo, I forgot that was langan! Yes wide carnivorous sky slaps, definitely read it
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Apr 19, 2022 15:39
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Count Thrashula posted:I recently finished Stolen Tongues by Felix Blackwell , and it was pretty excellent. It does indigenous horror very well, and the epilogue includes a short essay written by the author on what it means to write indigenous horror as a non-indigenous person, and how to do that responsibly. So, I really respect that. After 150hours of elden ring this sounds badass
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Apr 21, 2022 13:23
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MockingQuantum posted:Has anybody read Lair of the White Worm? I've always heard it's really bad, but I've never been certain if it's because it's conceptually kind of bad or if it was poorly written. I love Dracula as a novel so there's part of me that's always been curious about it despite its poor reputation. The story itself didn't enthrall, and there are some big oofs to be had with regards to race and other issues. Imo it's both conceptually bad and poorly written, and that's from someone who also enjoyed Dracula.
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May 2, 2022 17:15
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I just finished the Hunger this last weekend, actually. It was mostly enjoyable. A page turner with horror qualities, but to me it misses some of the dread I look for when I read horror. Which is ironic because the whole book is dread-based, it's the Oregon trail, but I think the narrative just didn't ever feel like it was playing for keeps. There were too many characters to make any deaths or serious consequences impactful.
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May 3, 2022 01:58
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Just FYI I'm about seventeen chapters into between two fires by Christopher buehlman and it's amazing, 10/10 The characters are all compelling, it's dark and gritty and full of weird hope and the depictions of horror are incredible
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May 21, 2022 15:43
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Mr. Nemo posted:Wounds was extremely disappointing after NALM, didn't grab me at all. I felt the same way. NALM was the peak.
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May 21, 2022 22:04
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Shitstorm Trooper posted:Haven't read NALM, Wounds is kinda eh. I haven't finished it yet. NaLM is much better fwiw
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May 22, 2022 00:30
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Finished Between Two Fires today. Solid finish. I was expecting it to fizzle at the end, but the choices of imagery and the specific metaphors behind the story were great. Easily in my top three favorite horror, best book I've read in a long while. Really recommend.
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May 22, 2022 19:15
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