Autumn, scary books

[Winterfella]

Duma Key was very very good.  Joyland was very good.  I pretty much liked Doctor Sleep too.  I think he's just more hit or miss post-accident.  But yeah, Dreamcatcher was shit, literally and thematically.

I just found out that Jeffrey Ford, who is criminally underrated and I love, released a new novella, Twilight Pariah, which seems to be classified as horror, so I will probably give that a shot as my first autumn read of the year.  That is, after I finish The Fifth Season, and if I can bring myself to not immediately continue that series because it is such an awesome book.

[Astromech]

I may pick up Zelazny's A Night in the Lonesome October (if I can find it) and Bradbury's The October Country just to get in the mood.

[RedEyedGhost]

23 hours ago, Astromech said:

I may pick up Zelazny's A Night in the Lonesome October (if I can find it) and Bradbury's The October Country just to get in the mood.

I've had the former on my list for several years, still waiting for the kindle edition. The latter has some excellent stories in it, here's what I wrote when I read it several years ago (when I had the time the inclination to do so) 

Quote

It took me a bit longer than expected for its size, but with it being short fiction it took about as long as I thought it would. I'll just divide the stories into three categories:

Really liked:

The Dwarf
Skeleton
The Jar
The Lake
The Scythe
The Man Upstairs
Homecoming
The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone

Alright:

October Country
The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse
The Emissary
The Crowd
Jack-in-the-Box
There was an Old Woman

Didn't Care For:

Uncle Einar
The Next in Line
Touched with Fire
The Small Assassin
The Wind
The Cistern

Not a bad collection overall.

 

[Astromech]

Thanks

[Centrist Simon Steele]

So, as I finish No One Gets Out Alive, I want to read another horror story. I am thinking I might pick up the Ritual again, but I also wouldn't mind suggestions--but I want horror writers who have good command of the writing craft. Nevill, despite my early struggles with him (I always do this, struggle with good writers and then come around), obviously has command of his writing craft. The writer of Hex...not so much. I'm more into characterization than "snappy" writing.

I don't want to read Stephen King as I've read a lot of his work. Something new. I love Ray Bradbury. October Country was great. All of his Halloween themed stories are wonderful. Something Wicked, Halloween Tree, the short stories, etc. I am a fan of Gaiman, but he doesn't feel particularly scary. 

My true love of horror comes from the movies--from the 80s. John Carpenter is my favorite. 

Some of the "big" names in horror that I've tried and could not finish due to the overwriting: McCammon, Ketchum, Little.

What do you guys think?

 

[Darth Richard II]

Have you tried any Joe Hill?

[Centrist Simon Steele]

On 9/18/2017 at 9:25 PM, Darth Richard II said:

Have you tried any Joe Hill?

Heart Shaped Box--it was okay, if I remember, but it didn't grab me. 

[RedEyedGhost]

On 9/18/2017 at 9:23 PM, Simon Steele said:

So, as I finish No One Gets Out Alive, I want to read another horror story. I am thinking I might pick up the Ritual again, but I also wouldn't mind suggestions--but I want horror writers who have good command of the writing craft. Nevill, despite my early struggles with him (I always do this, struggle with good writers and then come around), obviously has command of his writing craft. The writer of Hex...not so much. I'm more into characterization than "snappy" writing.

I don't want to read Stephen King as I've read a lot of his work. Something new. I love Ray Bradbury. October Country was great. All of his Halloween themed stories are wonderful. Something Wicked, Halloween Tree, the short stories, etc. I am a fan of Gaiman, but he doesn't feel particularly scary. 

My true love of horror comes from the movies--from the 80s. John Carpenter is my favorite. 

Some of the "big" names in horror that I've tried and could not finish due to the overwriting: McCammon, Ketchum, Little.

What do you guys think?

 

If you haven't read it, you need to read Southern Gods by John Hornor Jacobs, he has a very good (but standard) zombie book too - This Dark Earth.

 

[Lady Noble]

I'm not seeing any of the books I've read recently on there so I'll bite:

I enjoyed The Forest of Hands and Teeth series. I found them scary, but anything about isolation and being alone scares me.

The Dead Walk the Earth (Luke Duffy) gave me some chills, too. It's such a macho book, though. I liked all the testosterone, but some women may get offended.

The Girl With All The gifts creeped me out too.

 

I clearly have a thing for zombies.

[Isis]

14 hours ago, Lady Noble said:

I'm not seeing any of the books I've read recently on there so I'll bite:

I enjoyed The Forest of Hands and Teeth series. I found them scary, but anything about isolation and being alone scares me.

I really liked this too. I don't think I realised that it was a series though. Interesting.

[Lady Noble]

8 hours ago, Isis said:

I really liked this too. I don't think I realised that it was a series though. Interesting.

It's kind of like a trilogy. The stories overlap which I loved, but each book has an entirely different plot and characters. 

[Astromech]

I've also been keeping my eye open for The Penguin Book of the Undead: Fifteen Hundred Years of Supernatural Encounters.

[Darth Richard II]

OK so I decided this month is catch up on King and Jee Hill month, and I'm like 90 pages into Doctor Sleep

Spoiler

And I fucking knew as soon as the number 11 popped up in that fucking dream it was going to relate to 9/11 I know King has a hang up (has hang up, ok it was fucking horrible and haunts me and my friends dreams, etc) on it cause he thinks the hijackers got the idea from Insomnia) and I knew he was going to work it in, any boo kof his that starts pre 9/11 works it in, but it still freaked the hell out of me anyways. He also has that one short story in Just After Sunset that fucking freaked me out so bad I was up all night. Ahem

Any way its very very good so far, like, 80s era King.

[Darth Richard II]

He does. I remember him talking about it in an interview. Well, he's doesnt think it was the sole source, but they talk about it in The Dark Tower 7. Tom Clancy also had a book where a similar thing happened.

The Rage has been found in like 6 or 7 school shooters possessions, after the last one King finally demanded they take it out of print.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

3 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

He does. I remember him talking about it in an interview. Well, he's doesnt think it was the sole source, but they talk about it in The Dark Tower 7. Tom Clancy also had a book where a similar thing happened.

The Rage has been found in like 6 or 7 school shooters possessions, after the last one King finally demanded they take it out of print.

It's interesting. If you read articles about the Rage, I've seen up to 4 shooters linked to the Rage in some weird way, but only one ever having a physical copy found. Even this article written by King only cites two instances of connection, and only one of those does the shooter own a copy of his book. 

I've often wondered about pulling the book. He pulled it after Sandy Hook. I was teaching in middle school at that time. My son was in 2nd grade. It was hard for me to not imagine people really close to me in similar, horrifying circumstances as what unfolded in Sandy Hook. That day (if not so many days before) should have ended a lot debates, and I agree with King's ultimate position about real life violence--I'm just not sure about his removal of his own novel from bookshelves. I don't get it. If anything, if his book is truly so beholden by school shooters, then he's created a mythical text for them to pass around illegally. Either way, I don't buy his sense of self-worth in the debate. One student had the Rage in his locker. The themes are horribly similar. But a lot of school shooters watched/read/interacted with a lot of media that had very similar themes, and those media weren't--nor should they have been--pulled from shelves. Only King got into the moral equivocating of his fictional universes.

[The Marquis de Leech]

I intend to finally get around to reading Ann Radcliffe this month.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

10 hours ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

Most of those cases I tend to think that the shooter having read Rage was incidental. Remember how many years that people blamed Marilyn Manson for Columbine before it was finally accepted that the shooters didn't even listen to his music? Although I know there was one incident where a shooter actually did have a physical copy of the book in his locker.

Actually I think it was pulled in the early to mid 2000s. He mentions having done so in the preface to Blaze which I think was published in 2007? He did publish an essay about gun violence shortly after Sandy Hook, however (which I see you linked part of).

Maybe I misunderstood that. But I'm with you, I think the evidence is incidental and shouldn't be linked. We could get into a whole debate about the issue of the shooters, but I think it's really dangerous to link any type of art to violent behavior.

[Darth Richard II]

I agree with what you are all saying. I think it was pulled in mid 2004ish? I think wiki might have details.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

7 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

I agree with what you are all saying. I think it was pulled in mid 2004ish? I think wiki might have details.

That seems right on what I've gone back and read now. But all this to say, I want to read Rage. I think people are afraid to write about this kind of story in an honest way. I wonder if King did it. I think it'd be as scary as any story could be.

[Darth Richard II]

I read Rage in high school and remember nothing of it. Come to think of it the only Bachman book I remember at all is The Long Walk.