Alright, horror thread time:
What are you reading now? What are you wanting to read?
Who is/are your favorite authors? What's your favorite horror/weird fiction story/novel?
I've got "The Great God Pan/The Hill Of Dreams" by Arthur Machen, "The Fisherman" by John Langan "Sylvan Dread: Tales Of Pastoral Darkness" by Richard Gavin coming in the mail in a couple days, so I'm going to have a lot of reading to do.
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Not reading anything right now (just got back to uni), but over October I plan to read My Work is Not Yet Done by Ligotti, and maybe the Hellbound Heart novella by Clive Barker. And at some point in the future, maybe over Christmas break, take the plunge on Cyclonopedia.
Don't really have a favorite as yet, but The Shadow Over Innsmouth is nice, along with certain bits out of Songs of a Dead Dreamer (mainly The Frolic and The Christmas Eves of Aunt Elise)
My collection so far. I recommend any and all of these.
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Can anyone recommend some good haunted house books? Besides The Haunting of Hill House (amazing), The Turn of the Screw (sort of), and Hell House (not a big Matheson fan).
This is high on my list of "to-buy"s.
M. P. Shiel's novelette "The House of Sounds" is bretty spooky. It's like Poe's "House of Usher" but with the weird factor turned up to 11. Lovecraft loved it. I haven't been able to find it online but it's included in the NYRB anthology Shadows of Carcosa and probably others that use HPL's recommendations in "Supernatural Horror in Literature" as a guide.
It's also part of the very literary, very dark, and very weird 'decadent' tradition. If you like Chambers's stuff, you'll like Shiel.
Thanks! I'd welcome further recommendations if anyone else has some.
I'm searching for a copy of Cyclonopedia in used book stores, just to not purposely gain a hold of it when the fates don't decree, but I'm hoping to see that day come sooner than I hold, waiting, the jungle ready to consume me.
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Imagine being robbed and the person stole just these books. How terrified would you be the rest of your life knowing that that person is out there, able to come into your space and talk about horror with you?
The Horrorist: an essay about a person who, oblivious to boundaries, seeks friendship and conversation at increasing intensities, until one night, the conversation is had.
Have you ever read Ligotti's "Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story"? Your post reminds me of it for some reason.
I don't remember if I have or not. But I know I've read his every word. Strange. Maybe I've forgotten everything, or internalised everything, and this one just seems unfamiliar for some reason I can't imagine. Wonder why?
Who is the greatest writer in modern horror fiction?
It's in Songs of a Dead Dreamer, so I'm sure you have.
>"Is this really happening to me? I mean, I'm doing my best, sir. It isn't easy, not at all. Horrible electricity down there. Horrible. Am I bathed in magic acid or something? Oh, it hurts, my love. Ah, ah, ah. It hurts so much. Never let it end. If I have to be like this, then never let me wake up, Dr. Dream. Can you do that, at least?"
>I could feel my bony wings rising out of my back and saw them spread gloriously in the blue mirror before me. My eyes were now jewels, hard and radiant. My jaws were a cavern of dripping silver and through my veins ran rivers of putrescent gold. He was writhing on the bed like a wounded insect, making sounds like nothing in human memory. I swept him up and wrapped my sticky arms again and again around his trembling body. He was laughing like a child, the child of another world. And a great wrong was about to be rectified.
>I signaled the windows to open onto the night, and, very slowly, they did. His infant's laughter had now turned to tears, but they would soon run dry, I knew this. At last we would be free of the earth. The windows opened wide over the city below and the profound blackness above welcomed us.
>I had never tried this before. But when the time came, I found it all so easy.
Strange, I've been having problems sleeping all week and could swear this reminded me of a friend who used to make a joke where he called himself Dr. Dream. It was rude and funny all at once, and I keep thinking it and the place I used to stay.
This is a meat and potatoes horror story, but it's well-done, moves right along, and has its moments:
Notebook Found in a Deserted House by Robert Bloch
jerkersearcher.com
I came across the link on an old ligotti.net post where people were listing their favorite horror stories; several people included this.
>What are you reading now?
Just started Ghost Story by Straub, lets see if it's the masterpiece everyone claims it to be.
>Who is/are your favorite authors?
Lovecraft and my favorite story of his might be Dreams in the Witch House, so much going on there.
The only one I see being spoken about in half a century is Ligotti
Thanks for this. Just finished it. It was cool to read a pastiche of so many Lovecraftian themes and tropes. Reminded me an awful lot of "The Whisperer in Darkness" (plus some "Dunwich Horror" at the end). One very cool feature of this story is the rural dialect and childish writing of the narrator, which I doubt Lovecraft himself would have been willing to use throughout a tale.