The General Horror Book Thread: Between Two Fires fucking RULED! Hell yeah!!!!

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > The General Horror Book Thread: Between Two Fires fucking RULED! Hell yeah!!!!

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

I sort of hiccup laughed out loud when I saw this, I don't know how it can't be awful but maybe that's the point.

quote:

Deadline reports Amazon Studios is developing a series based on Nick Cutter�s horror novel The Deep from Carlton Cuse and Antlers screenwriter C. Henry Chaisson. According to the book�s official synopsis, the story concerns �a strange plague called the �Gets�� that�s �decimating humanity on a global scale. It causes people to forget�small things at first, like where they left their keys, then the not-so-small things, like how to drive or the letters of the alphabet. Their bodies forget how to function involuntarily. There is no cure. But far below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, a universal healer hailed as �ambrosia� has been discovered. In order to study this phenomenon, a special research lab has been built eight miles under the sea�s surface. But when the station goes incommunicado, a brave few descend through the lightless fathoms in hopes of unraveling the mysteries lurking at those crushing depths�and perhaps to encounter an evil blacker than anything one could possibly imagine.�

I hope whoever is making the Sphere TV show and also the Event Horizon TV show keep making them and do a good job

# ¿ Dec 21, 2022 05:14

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 10:14

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

The Troop is a weird combination of very funny and genuinely terrifying

# ¿ Jan 5, 2023 21:34

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

I finished THE WIDE, CARNIVOROUS SKY and it was pretty good. It was maybe a little formal though. Lil' bit too self aware. Horror for horror writers if you will.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2023 17:59

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Magic Hate Ball posted:

Binged The Troop in two sittings the other day, a lot of very good descriptions (was biting my knuckles with disgust a couple of times, which is wonderful) but the back half lagged a bit. Any other Nick Cutter worth reading?

The Deep is really stupid, but also great.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2023 18:33

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Opopanax posted:

I don�t know how people itt feel about comics, but I�m finally getting around to Lake of Fire and it�s really good. A ship full of basically Xenomorphs crash lands in France during a crusade and a handful of knights have to deal with it. Good little story to scratch that Between Two Fires itch

YOOOO this sounds like my poo poo!

e: oh god drat it it's a comic. Well maybe it's still my poo poo

# ¿ Apr 1, 2023 18:04

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

"Why has society forced this desire for Hanna Montana upon me" Dan Simmons groans

# ¿ Apr 16, 2023 00:34

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

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.

If you have been really spooked by a book or story, what was it?

Neuropath made me actually disgusted and I threw it in the trash, if that counts.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2023 17:35

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

zoux posted:

Halfway through Library of Mount Char - which fuckin owns - and would you guys call that urban fantasy or horror

It's sui generis baby

e: Americana horror with curtis lemay characteristics

# ¿ Apr 20, 2023 21:10

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

The last bigass Ligotti collection I read included one of his stories twice in a row. I kept waiting for some mind melting time is a flat circle twist on the second one but it was just the same thing twice

# ¿ Apr 25, 2023 03:47

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

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.

If you have been really spooked by a book or story, what was it?

Okay I thought of a good answer. Smear by Brian Evanson really freaks me out. It's not hide in my room under my covers scared but it makes me intensely uncomfortable. It's short, give it a read.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2023 04:00

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Can someone remind me the name of the story that's just about a guy living on a farm with his mom and wife and he snaps and just starts shooting people? There's no supernatural twist, just this rear end in a top hat going postal.

# ¿ Apr 27, 2023 16:40

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Oxxidation posted:

hate it when i hear harsh laughter, the laughter of the devil

�Lol, lmao�

# ¿ Apr 30, 2023 13:24

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Count Thrashula posted:

Are there's any vampire books out there that still have the regal aloof distinguished feeling of Dracula but with more blood and guts and zombies and stuff like that?

For a very specific reference I'm looking for something like the vampires from the Warhammer Fantasy universe and nothing really scratches that same itch.

I don't think it's at all what you're looking for but Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons (he of the writhing post 9/11 brain worms) is SOME kinda fuckin vampire story. It's gross in many dimensions and probably racist but it's certainly a hell of a take on 20th Century Vampires. They're running the government and Hollywood, or they're preachers or ex-Nazis, and they're all competing to be invited to an annual rich people get together on what's basically Epstein's Island, except it's about mind controlling human puppets to hunt down hapless victims, or playing chess games with living people where you eat the pieces that get taken. And a Holocaust survivor and a victim's daughter have to fight them.

So, bad rec for what you're looking for, but maybe a rec for "unusual vampire books"??

# ¿ May 18, 2023 03:42

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

ScootsMcSkirt posted:

any good longer horror novels that anyone would recommend?

Im about to finish IT, and now im getting anxiety about finding another behemoth of a book. Ive read Black Water already, which was fantastic, and Carrier Wave, which started strong but really fell off at around the half way point

not too picky about the subject, as long as it qualifies as horror of some kind

The Stand (long) or the rerelease (even longer)

# ¿ Jun 15, 2023 16:48

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Gone World spoiler ish: The only people in IFTs who know they�ll wink out are people who know about the mechanics of time travel. They assume they�re in solid ground until a traveler shows up, but the moment that happens they know they must be in an IFT - because a traveler arriving from the past can only happen in an IFT; solid ground is a hard cutoff, nobody can arrive at solid ground from before solid ground. They might still convince themself the IFT will continue once the Traveler leaves�but they know now for sure they�re not in solid ground, that they�re in some way not �real�. Even if they convinced themself the IFT would continue, you have to imagine that would get to them.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2023 20:32

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

By gawd it�s Donnie Darko!

# ¿ Jun 20, 2023 20:33

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

I managed to scare myself recently (as opposed to the ordinary anxieties of, yknow, living in our world) when I was falling asleep after reading a bunch of the recent UFO gossip. I read that stuff because I love it, not because I'm invested in it being true or untrue. One of the running themes in the UFO lore is that it's all being kept secret because there's some horrible truth to it which makes presidents cry, would disrupt society, etc etc.

As I was in that delirious moment right before sleep I began to imagine that the aliens were interested in us primarily as a natural experiment, and that the moment we die (or shortly before) the aliens lift our neural patterns and begin running Experiments. And that's what the afterlife is�just an eternity of being subjected to increasingly insane, coldly parametrized experiences, forever. We all go there when it's over and we never get out. Like Roko's Basilisk but without the goofy reheated nerd Calvinism. Presidents know it, governments know it, there's just absolutely nothing to be done about it.

Obviously this fear passed pretty quickly in the light of day but for a few moments it was remarkable to feel like a child hiding in the dark again. You can all make fun of me for my goony fear now

# ¿ Jul 10, 2023 20:58

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Probably because the UFO horror sequence in Fire in the Sky is insanely

e: meant to say �insanely good� but honestly this is better

# ¿ Jul 11, 2023 20:18

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

I like that Gone World is so openly about "True Detective but the cosmic horror stuff is Really Definitely Out There And Coming For Us". I admire its frankness.

It even performs the same trick of reification on True Detective's narrative structure, changing the multiple timeframes of the investigation from a nonlinear narrative device to an actual, in-universe investigative technique.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2023 15:13

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

It absolutely was not a World of Darkness inspiration but I really like THE DEVOURERS by Indrapramit Das, an Indian werewolf novel. CW for sexual assault and lots of piss.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2023 16:30

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Lil Mama Im Sorry posted:

Anyone read Neuropath by R Scott Bakker? I guess it�s not officially horror but I saw it mentioned in a Gary J Shipley philosophical anthology about serial killing. But everything I read about it is like THIS BOOK WILL KILL YOU and I want it to be that good.

It�s one of only two books I�ve ever actually spiked into the trash and the other one was the novelization of Baldur�s Gate 2.

The author also sucks in a number of ways, it�s hard to say if his beliefs about men or women are more hosed up.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2023 02:03

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

GhastlyBizness posted:

Started in on The Cipher by Kathe Koja and already it's brilliant. Real creepiness - the Fun Hole itself but also the creepy sex - and awful relationships between awful people. Love the embittered, self-pitying, former english student prose-turned-crustpunk voice of the narrator, I think this is what I wanted from the Johnny Truant bits in House of Leaves.

It's insanely good!!! I am constantly recommending it

# ¿ Oct 1, 2023 22:37

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 10:14

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Count Thrashula posted:

Yeah I really loved The Cipher even if I had no clue what was going on at parts

Love is a hole in the heart

# ¿ Oct 2, 2023 17:20

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > The General Horror Book Thread: Between Two Fires fucking RULED! Hell yeah!!!!