Horror Recommendations for the Unenlightened

[j d worthington]

Psychological type. It kinda plays on your mind. I suppose it is harder with books against Games and Movies.

I wouldn't want to lay any money on that.... Certainly, when it comes to playing with (rather than on) your mind, there are plenty of books that manage that quite well: speaking of Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is certainly one, as are several of the stories collected in The Lottery. Another Thomas Tryon might fit the bill, given that description: The Other (his first novel). Ramsey Campbell is very good at this sort of thing, too. Try The Face that Must Die, or several of his story collections, for instance. He puts you in some very uncomfortable places... especially when you begin to recognize elements of some of the characters in yourself.....

Richard Matheson is also quite good at psychological horror, from I Am Legend to The Shrinking Man to Hell House to his story collections... and on....

 

[Connavar]

I would say its much easier for a good pschological horror book to mess with your mind compared to games and movies

What they can come up visually is nothing compared to the sick things your brain can make you see !

 

[Nesacat]

I'll second Connavar and JD here. A well written book and take you into places more frightening than any movie or game simply because the mind can conjure up so much more and understands your fears so very much better.

You read the words and they spiral inside you and turn the safe, warm room into a raft afloat in a sea surrounded by the most terrible things. Give any of them a try. Jackson or Matheson. Ramsey Campbell or James Herbert. Even some of Stephen King. Or go back and read Poe and maybe even Lovecraft. Then there's Thomas Ligotti and some of the things Dan Simmons has done.

 

[easygoingman]

Hi all

The best horrors I've read have been two similar long novels:
'It' by Stephen King & 'Summer of Night' by Dan Simmons
both concern strong memories of childhood in smallish towns, with many characters with terrible events in the past coming to haunt the children, terrify and kill some of them them. There is such incredible detail in both novels, the only downside is the final scenes with the monsters at the end in both novels can never can quite match all the 1000 page ish length buildup but they are still 9.5/10 best ever horror stories for me

 

[AE35Unit]

Mine would be James Herbert's Moon, The Magic Cottage and The Dark
Stephen king's Dark Half and Needful Things
Edgar Alan Poe's The Raven, Descent into the Maelstrom,Pit and the Pendulum, truly scary stuff!

 

[suupaabaka]

Hi all

The best horrors I've read have been two similar long novels:
'It' by Stephen King & 'Summer of Night' by Dan Simmons
both concern strong memories of childhood in smallish towns, with many characters with terrible events in the past coming to haunt the children, terrify and kill some of them them. There is such incredible detail in both novels, the only downside is the final scenes with the monsters at the end in both novels can never can quite match all the 1000 page ish length buildup but they are still 9.5/10 best ever horror stories for me

I will second, third and fourth IT (if I may ). An incredibly unsettling novel.

 

[AE35Unit]

Twice I've tried to read IT but its just too long winded at the start,the film was great but my god its a big book!

 

[Cayal]

I would say its much easier for a good pschological horror book to mess with your mind compared to games and movies

What they can come up visually is nothing compared to the sick things your brain can make you see !

But there is no other type of horror is there for books? No, unexpected dog jumping out of the window type fright.

 

[j d worthington]

But there is no other type of horror is there for books? No, unexpected dog jumping out of the window type fright.

Well, for one thing, that's not truly a "fright". It has become confused with genuine fear due to lax usage and intermingling of the terms in common, unthinking speech. This sort of thing is more being startled, caught off-guard, surprised. There is an immediate adrenaline rush when something unexpected like this (or missing a step, or putting your foot into a sock and seeing the end of the sock waving around because there's a bee in it -- a personal experience, that last) but it is momentary and almost immediately replaced by a second rush of calm as the mind recognizes what might have been a threat, categorizes, and effectively reacts to it.

And it is rare in written form because of the time-lag involved in reading/codifying/visualizing as opposed to an immediate visual trigger recognized as a potential threat because of its movement; something which, of course, print does not have. When it comes to writing (just as with film), this is one of the "cheap tricks" because it's gimmicky and takes no imagination, thought, or real effort. The closest thing I can think of, right off, are the endings to "The Golden Arm" or "Teeny-Tiny"; which sort of shows the level at which such a technique lies....

 

[Pyan]

Well, for one thing, that's not truly a "fright". It has become confused with genuine fear due to lax usage and intermingling of the terms in common, unthinking speech. This sort of thing is more being startled, caught off-guard, surprised.

Unless the dog is ten feet tall, has six legs,glowing red eyes, is as black as night, and has huge, slavering, blood-flecked jaws, of course...

 

[j d worthington]

Unless the dog is ten feet tall, has six legs,glowing red eyes, is as black as night, and has huge, slavering, blood-flecked jaws, of course...

Adding anything to that comment would be gilding the lily... so I concede the kudos to you, sir....

 

[nomadman]

Anyone interested in acquainting themselves with the classics should check out Wordsworth's new series "Tales of Mystery & the Supernatural". Their full list of titles can be found here:

Wordsworth Editions Ltd

 

[j d worthington]

Thanks for that; reminded me of that series, which I'd been meaning to look into again (I've got a few, but hadn't kept up with, especially as several of the things they've put out I already had). Several in there now that I don't have in any form (or only a few scattered stories, such as those by A.C. and R.H. Benson -- E.F. is another matter.....) But why "The Loved Dead" as a title piece? Hardly among the best of Lovecraft's revisions (though quite enjoyable... very tongue-in-cheek....)

 

[nomadman]

Thanks for that; reminded me of that series, which I'd been meaning to look into again (I've got a few, but hadn't kept up with, especially as several of the things they've put out I already had). Several in there now that I don't have in any form (or only a few scattered stories, such as those by A.C. and R.H. Benson -- E.F. is another matter.....) But why "The Loved Dead" as a title piece? Hardly among the best of Lovecraft's revisions (though quite enjoyable... very tongue-in-cheek....)

The Temple of Death isn't a bad collection, though I find the moralistic tone of some of the stories a little irritating. Surprising scenes of brutality though, in all three brothers' works, and some wonderfully dark and tortured characters. Some others I've enjoyed: The Beetle by Richard Marsh, a novel at one time as popular as Dracula, an odd and anachronistic tale involving a threat from Ancient Egypt that is never quite known or perhaps unknowable, and a cast of characters as grotesque in their own way as the thing they seek to combat. Sweeney Todd (the original penny dreadful) is a helluva fun book, much better written than one might assume, though a little uneven in places--unsurprising given its multiple authors. Kwaidan and In Ghostly Japan by Lafcadio Hearn: Hearn's style is subtle and without pomp; he delivers his horrors plainly and naturally. An unsettling experience. Then there are the names everyone knows: James, Stoker, Lovecraft, Le Fanu, etc, and some writers I've never read, namely Caldecott.

 

[j d worthington]

I've occasionally come across Caldecott; I'm wondering if the James has his complete ghostly tales... there was a volume simply titled The Ghostly Tales of Henry James put out some years ago (took me the devil of a time tracking that one down, oddly enough). Very glad to see The String of Pearls back in print, as I've been wanting to read the original tale for some time now; either I've just completely missed its presence, or it's not been available here for a long time. And yes, my few encounters with the Benson brothers matches what you say here... still, they are interesting tales, and certainly don't deserve the neglect they've long suffered -- even if they're not quite on the level with their better-known brother (who indeed wrote some of the classics of the field)....

I have a copy of The Beetle in a book titled Victorian Villainies... wonderful book, containing The Great Tontine, by Hawley Smart, The Rome Express, by Major Arthur Griffiths, "In the Fog", by Richard Harding Davis, and The Beetle, by Richard Marsh. It still has something of a reputation even today, being mentioned by such as Ramsey Campbell (and included in HPL's essay....)

Nice to know someone else out there reads (and enjoys) these things.....

 

[nomadman]

I've occasionally come across Caldecott; I'm wondering if the James has his complete ghostly tales... there was a volume simply titled The Ghostly Tales of Henry James put out some years ago (took me the devil of a time tracking that one down, oddly enough).

The James is simply a reprint of the older Wordsworth Classics edition, I think.

I have a copy of The Beetle in a book titled Victorian Villainies... wonderful book, containing The Great Tontine, by Hawley Smart, The Rome Express, by Major Arthur Griffiths, "In the Fog", by Richard Harding Davis, and The Beetle, by Richard Marsh. It still has something of a reputation even today, being mentioned by such as Ramsey Campbell (and included in HPL's essay....)

Nice to know someone else out there reads (and enjoys) these things.....

Funny, I first picked up The Beetle on little more than a whim; I must have totally overlooked its mention in Lovecraft's essay (Supernatural Horror in Literature?). Strange how books like this call out to people through the ages.

 

[AE35Unit]

Someone mentioned Chthulu,just how many of these works of Lovecraft are there? I need to find some of his stuff,but i know nothing about him. Is he a contempary of Edgar Allan Poe?

 

[j d worthington]

Funny, I first picked up The Beetle on little more than a whim; I must have totally overlooked its mention in Lovecraft's essay (Supernatural Horror in Literature?). Strange how books like this call out to people through the ages.

Yes, SHiL it is (though your overlooking it is not surprising, given the brevity of the mention):

Dracula evoked many similar novels of supernatural horor, among which the best are perhaps The Beetle, by Richard Marsh, Brood of the Witch-Queen, by "Sax Rohmer" (Arthur Sarsfield Ward), and The Door of the Unreal, by Gerald Biss. The latter handles quite dexterously the standard werewolf superstition.

 

[j d worthington]

Someone mentioned Chthulu,just how many of these works of Lovecraft are there? I need to find some of his stuff,but i know nothing about him. Is he a contempary of Edgar Allan Poe?

Lovecraft's entire fictional oeuvre (save for a few scattered oddities such as "Some Reminiscences of Dr. Samuel Johnson") are available in three trade pb collections: The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories, The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories, The Dreams in the Witch House and Other Weird Stories (all available from Penguin), and The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions (available from Del Rey).

No, he wasn't a contemporary of Poe, though he was quite influenced by him. Poe died in 1849, whereas Lovecraft was born in 1890 and died in 1937....

 

[AE35Unit]

Thanks j.d,i think I'll have a look on bookmooch :d
I love Poe,a lot scarier on paper than on silver screen!