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What are some good horror novels that deal with institutions? I'm thinking of schools, corporations, or other organizations with strict hierarchies and rules. Authority from the Area X trilogy would count, as would the darker parts of Kafka's The Trial. I'm also looking to check out Andres Barba's Such Small Hands, which is about a girl's orphanage.
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Aug 29, 2018 17:26
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| # ¿ Apr 24, 2024 06:49 |
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Skyscraper posted:Do you specifically mean institutions not counting the military or clandestine services? Good question! No, I'm not really interested in military or espionage horror.
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Aug 29, 2018 18:14
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Skyscraper posted:Well, would you consider the work sites and town management in Thomas Ligotti's stories to be this kind of thing? chernobyl kinsman posted:thomas ligotti's my work is not yet done I've only read Ligotti's "The Town Manager" and I enjoyed it quite a bit, but I'm not aware of his other work. It's definitely worth looking into! grobbo posted:I don't think he ever quite strays into horror, but since you mentioned Kafka - Kobo Abe's books often feature a hapless hero trying to navigate a mysterious institution with its own set of bizarre and unbreakable rules (The Woman In The Dunes, but also Secret Rendezvous and Kangaroo Notebook) This sounds really interesting too! I might have given the wrong impression when I mentioned Kafka and Vandemeer. I'm hoping to find something more visceral, but I do like the surreality of those and Ligotti. BurningBeard posted:How about The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle? A man is admitted to a psych ward and has to navigate the institution itself while enduring what may or may not be a hallucinated malignant presence. It's just as much about the facility and patients as it is about the horror. This sounds right on target! Franchescanado posted:Are there any good horror books/stories with about people forced into a survival-of-the-fittest/kill-or-be-killed anarchy game? The Barba book Such Small Hands I mentioned before is about girls at an orphanage playing weird, violent games with one another. I haven't read it, so I don't know if it actually develops into a survival scenario, but it does have the violent game in a confined setting. The Troop by Cutter doesn't have a game, but it's about a Boy Scout troop in a violent survival situation on a deserted island.
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Aug 29, 2018 22:39
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Conrad_Birdie posted:I think it was someone in this thread that recommended I'm Thinking of Ending Things. Couldn't put it down, finished it in a couple hours; it was a wave of relief after being supremely disappointed in a book that I had been looking forward to reading ended up being a pretentious slog. But I had no expectations going in to ITOET, and it knocked me off my feet. One of the best novels I've read this year. I just finished it too! It's a super engaging read, and I liked it well enough. There was a little frustration during the first half waiting for the book to get on it, but it does pay off. The conversations are pretentious, I suppose, but they're pretentious characters and it's passably interesting. I imagine they also reward a re-read with the ending in mind, but I just don't have the attachment to the characters that would prompt me to do that. A major criticism: I thought the introduction gave away the game too early. It read more like suicidal ideation than someone planning a break-up, and although the book does a good job of getting you back on track, the asides also kind of hint at a suicide too early. It doesn't give away the exact twist, but I wasn't as worried about the girl as I should have been. It reminded me a little of Emily Fridlund's History of Wolves, which isn't about wolves, but does have similar themes of isolation, misanthropy, and memory. It's more of a thriller than ITOET, but it gets similarly intense. chernobyl kinsman posted:does i'm thinking of ending things have any supernatural elements or is it all psychological Mild, non-specific spoiler: It has supernatural imagery and has a spooky tone. There's no monster. It's more horror than thriller, I'd say. pospysyl fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Aug 31, 2018 |
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Aug 31, 2018 00:04
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The imaginary girlfriend was very well done. The fantasy manic pixie dream girl aspects are obvious in retrospect (constantly asking for definitions of only somewhat difficult vocabulary words was a nice touch), but it was subtle enough that the relationship was actually believable.
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Aug 31, 2018 18:16
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snoremac posted:Is there any must-read Michael McDowell after Blackwater and The Elementals? I just read Cold Moon Over Babylon and found it paled in comparison, and the synopses of his other books don't seem that appealing. I liked Blood Rubies well enough, though I wouldn't call it a "must read".
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Oct 12, 2019 16:32
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Franchescanado posted:What are some literary sources that inspired or relate to The Lighthouse? I'd recommend the psychological Gothic horror that was written during the 1890s. Stories like The Yellow Wallpaper or novels like Turn of the Screw or The Great God Pan. Arthur Machen in particular would be an author to check out. I think the Lovecraft comparisons were drawn because Lovecraft himself was so taken with those stories. pospysyl fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Nov 6, 2019 |
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Nov 6, 2019 23:32
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StrixNebulosa posted:Anyone in here read Caitlin R Kiernan? Because I finished the Drowning Girl yesterday and it's not horror, but it doesn't really fit into any other thread here. It's haunting me. The imagery and mood of it was just devastating and I keep thinking about it. I'm a big fan of her short fiction, less so of her novels and novellas. I did read The Drowning Girl and I thought the passages where the protagonist's gamer girlfriend taught her about Halo were pretty funny.
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Nov 18, 2019 18:29
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Anomalous Blowout posted:I was surprised to see that Iain Reid’s short novel I’m Thinking of Ending Things is getting a Netflix adaptation. It generated a decent amount of buzz back when it was released, but I was very whelmed by it at the time. It felt like most of the praise I saw for it describing it as so unique and mind-bending were reviews written by people who have apparently never read the gothic horror genre before. They were so excited by the concept of (twist ending spoilers ahoy) the real villain being MADNESS and the weird evil boyfriend and the worried girlfriend actually being two facets of the same mentally ill person’s personality! I pretty much agree with this. My only quibble would be that I wouldn't call it gothic horror, exactly, but then I don't know that I have a specific genre in mind that it would fit. I would definitely recommend that people wait for the movie before reading the book. I also think that Plemons is very well cast as the lead.
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Jan 11, 2020 18:30
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Just finished up Bonding by Maggie Siebert, which you can find here courtesy of Siebert herself: https://twitter.com/maggiecsiebert/status/1412948010594672643 Contentwise, the stories have a running theme of traumatic body horror, but tonally they run the gamut between conceptual satire, cosmic horror, and splatterpunk. The stories are short and punchy too. Highly recommended.
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Jul 23, 2021 21:11
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A little late, but I can't recommend The Boatman's Daughter. It really could have used a big twist or two, either in the plot or characterization, because as it is it's obvious from the beginning that it's going to end in a big fracas between the good guys and the bad guys and so the rest of the book is just a repetitive exercise in delaying the inevitable by going up and down this river again and again. It's not a complete failure - it's a unique and compelling setting and the prose evokes a spooky, swampy atmosphere very well - but it doesn't sufficiently elaborate from that kernel.
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Sep 11, 2022 15:14
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Just finished Jawbone by Monica Ojeda, translated from Spanish by Sarah Booker. Great, great book, probably my favorite I've read this year. It's much more literary than I expected picking it up, but it definitely has the goods. Basically, it's cosmic horror where the ancient unknowable evil is women's bodies and puberty.
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Nov 5, 2022 22:02
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