Good New Horror

[Fumi]

I really enjoyed Terror by Dan Simmons. Simmons does an amazing job of researching the historical event of an expedition that gets stuck in the ice in the arctic sea for 3 years, and then creates an amazing fictional monster and story telling the demise of the crew.

Thanks for that. I'll be sure to check it out.

 

[Randy M.]

A few titles to add.

The Croning by Laird Barron: Barron continues with his Lovecraftian ways. Like a lot of the better fiction springing from HPL, this isn't about the various entities and the rituals for summoning them, it's about how they affect people, in this case a married couple and their family. The husband has memory lapses and is sure his wife keeps secrets, but he can never quite put his finger on what has happened. I wouldn't say it's as effective as Caitlin Kiernan's recent novels, but it has some of the same feel to it and is a strong contribution to the novel of cosmic awe.

Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters by John Langan: I really loved the title story and "On Skua Island" (which struck me as having a kind of kinship with The Croning). The other three stories were good, but not what I was looking for, so maybe I didn't appreciate them as much as I might have another time. House of Windows by John Langan: is another strong contribution to the novel of cosmic awe, also a fine haunted house novel. Strong characterization of people you may not entirely like, but should come to understand.
(someone mentioned the Langan's earlier in the thread)

The Ritual by Adam Nevill: a little bit Blair Witch, a little bit Machen and Blackwood, a little bit ... I'm not quite sure; it's not as pared and ruthless as Cormac McCarthy and I haven't read James Dickey (both of whom Nevill acknowledges). Four young men, friends at college, hike through old growth forest in Sweden and stumble on a deserted village whose inhabitants apparently worshiped and sacrificed to a local god, who may be watching them on their hike. Grueling in spots, well-written and imagined.

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill: Could be the biggest crowd-pleaser of this lot of books. Vic can find things by concentrating on them hard while riding her bicycle until she goes into trance. Charlie Manx has a car that will take him to Christmasland, where all kids are happy, and all it costs is the soul of a child. They are bound to meet and they do Reads a bit like Hill is influenced by Stephen King -- since he's King's son, not surprising. But magic in this has a rather Tim Power's-like cost. This is a really good read in the King tradition.

Deadman's Road by Joe R. Lansdale: story collection including short novel Dead in the West, all featuring Reverend Jebidiah Mercer. Nothing new here, but Lansdale's voice and concision and ability to make what happens seem like a natural progression of events propel the reader -- at least, this reader -- at a break neck pace. The short novel is quite good, one of my favorite zombie stories, and I generally don't care for zombie stories.


Randy M.

 

[Fried Egg]

Thanks for the update Randy, it's much appreciated.

 

[Fried Egg]

Matt Cardin has announced that he has signed a contract with Hippocampus Press, for a collection of weird fiction entitled TO ROUSE LEVIATHAN. The book will contain all of the fiction from DARK AWAKENINGS plus the entire contents of his other book of fiction, DIVINATIONS OF THE DEEP, plus some newer tales. Hippocampus will then publish a collection of Matt's non-fiction, including all of the essays from DARK AWAKENINGS! Awesome!

Does anyone know what happened to this? I can't see any sign of it...

I've nearly finished reading "Dark Awakenings" and I'm blown away by it. Absolutely brilliant and I would love to read more of his fiction.

 

[Randy M.]

Wish I had an answer for you, Fried Egg. I liked "Teeth" a lot, and the other stories I've read by Cardin have been, at least, intriguing.

Since the thread is back up top again, I thought I'd add another new book to the list, one that was also inspired by Lovecraft: Daryl Gregory's We Are All Completely Fine.

More comments here,
http://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/549143/page-5#post-1837984


Randy M.

 

[River Boy]

Not Far From Aviemore by Michael Reuel. Gets under your skin, more creepy than scary and original in its ideas. You don't see where the plot is going.

 

[Randy M.]

Since I'm in the neighborhood ...

The Ridge by Michael Koryta: Stephen King has recommended Koryta. In spite of that I read this novel anyway. Just kidding ... mostly; I might not have tried him if some fans of older ghost/horror stories hadn't raved about his work.

Wyatt French has built a lighthouse in the woods. As a drunken eccentric no one bothered to ask why until just before killing himself he phones the sheriff and a reporter, nudging them to look for the reasons behind his suicide. The sheriff, Kimble, and the reporter, Darmus, become uneasy allies, along with the widow who runs the new big cat preserve as they learn the secret of what the lighthouse was guarding.

The truth of the region and what has visited it is gradually unveiled through a logical progression of event and incident, and the mapping and gradual understanding of those incidents by Kimble and Darmus is believable. Which leads to a quality of the novel I really appreciate: Koryta’s characters do not spend a lot of time disbelieving. Of course they do at first, but when all of the evidence they acquire points to the supernatural, they accept that they are facing something supernatural and try to find ways to contend with it. I found The Ridge well-written and well-thought out, an altogether entertaining thriller.


The Cypress House by Michael Koryta: I enjoyed The Ridge so much I read this one, too, and enjoyed it even more.

Since his time in the Belleau Woods during the first World War, Arlen Wagner has recognized people about to die. Seeing danger on a train headed to a Florida work camp, he manages to get himself and his young friend, Paul Brickhill, off and safe. But not truly out of danger since the small Florida town they land in is rife with corruption.

Koryta started out writing about a private detective. His background in mystery/thrillers shows here as he works out the plot in which these two have become embroiled and Wagner's maneuvers to avoid death.


It's a pleasure to come across well-written, well-thought out and well-executed thrillers that don't insult your intelligence and do not read like a writer more influenced by action/adventure movies than by other writers.


Randy M.

 

[Mark Ragland]

A few titles to add.

The Croning by Laird Barron: Barron continues with his Lovecraftian ways. Like a lot of the better fiction springing from HPL, this isn't about the various entities and the rituals for summoning them, it's about how they affect people, in this case a married couple and their family. The husband has memory lapses and is sure his wife keeps secrets, but he can never quite put his finger on what has happened. I wouldn't say it's as effective as Caitlin Kiernan's recent novels, but it has some of the same feel to it and is a strong contribution to the novel of cosmic awe.

Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters by John Langan: I really loved the title story and "On Skua Island" (which struck me as having a kind of kinship with The Croning). The other three stories were good, but not what I was looking for, so maybe I didn't appreciate them as much as I might have another time. House of Windows by John Langan: is another strong contribution to the novel of cosmic awe, also a fine haunted house novel. Strong characterization of people you may not entirely like, but should come to understand.
(someone mentioned the Langan's earlier in the thread)

The Ritual by Adam Nevill: a little bit Blair Witch, a little bit Machen and Blackwood, a little bit ... I'm not quite sure; it's not as pared and ruthless as Cormac McCarthy and I haven't read James Dickey (both of whom Nevill acknowledges). Four young men, friends at college, hike through old growth forest in Sweden and stumble on a deserted village whose inhabitants apparently worshiped and sacrificed to a local god, who may be watching them on their hike. Grueling in spots, well-written and imagined.

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill: Could be the biggest crowd-pleaser of this lot of books. Vic can find things by concentrating on them hard while riding her bicycle until she goes into trance. Charlie Manx has a car that will take him to Christmasland, where all kids are happy, and all it costs is the soul of a child. They are bound to meet and they do Reads a bit like Hill is influenced by Stephen King -- since he's King's son, not surprising. But magic in this has a rather Tim Power's-like cost. This is a really good read in the King tradition.

Deadman's Road by Joe R. Lansdale: story collection including short novel Dead in the West, all featuring Reverend Jebidiah Mercer. Nothing new here, but Lansdale's voice and concision and ability to make what happens seem like a natural progression of events propel the reader -- at least, this reader -- at a break neck pace. The short novel is quite good, one of my favorite zombie stories, and I generally don't care for zombie stories.


Randy M.

Loved NOS4A2!

BTW, did anyone here know Joe Hill is Stephen King's son?

 

[Arthur Kirkland]

Anne Rice is a good horror author

 

[Pedro Del Mar]

Anyone tried Graeme Reynolds? His High Moor series is being praised. I've got them on the Kindle and thinking of starting this evening

 

[Fried Egg]

Just thought I'd report back and let people know about a great new horror author: Jon Padgett.

I'm just reading his fabulous collection 'The Secret of Ventriloquism' now and it's absolutely amazing. Very Ligotti-esque!

 

[Teeny51]

Not Far From Aviemore by Michael Reuel. Gets under your skin, more creepy than scary and original in its ideas. You don't see where the plot is going.

I found this unreadable......poorly conceived and written. I was disappointed given what people had said about it.

 

[J-Sun]

This may be a pointless post as I'm not very familiar with horror and some of these don't have books out and some aren't exactly horror (and those that are may be SF-horror, though usually fantasy-horror) but some people who have either written some horror stories in the past year which struck me to some degree or other (which I link to) or wrote something that struck me and do have horror books out were:

• John Hornor Jacobs - a few novels and stories since 2011; Southern Gothic (“Luminaria”)
  
• Stephen Graham Jones - many novels and stories since 2005-6 (the story I read was SF, but it was good and he's mostly horror)
  
• Kathleen Kayembe - two stories this year; both with plotholes but good substance (“You Will Always Have Family: A Triptych”, “The Faerie Tree”)
• Rich Larson - no books but a billion stories since 2012 (“The Ghost Ship Anastasia” and, from last year, "Extraction Request" - both of those are SF-horror. For a fantasy-horror I didn't like as much, there's "Dark, Warm Heart" - and, for more SF-horror I didn't like as much there's "Travelers" (apparently in response to a movie called "Passengers") and "You Too Shall Be Psyche" (Ellison derivative) - point is, he's got a lot and can be excellent and is never uninteresting
  
• Bruce McAllister - veteran author of a trio of novels (none horror, as far as I know) and many, many stories (since 1963), some of which are horror (“This Is for You” - an SF sort of horror - and, from a couple of years ago, "Dog" - fantasy-horror)
  
• Kelly Robson - several stories since 2015, at least one of which (“A Human Stain”) is very much horror (a little too visceral for me, really, but not for most horror folks)
  
• Jessica Amanda Salmonson - several novels and a bazillion stories since 1973 (“The Garbage Doll”)
  
• Nate Southard - several novels and stories since 2006 (“Things Crumble, Things Break”)
  
• Lucy Taylor - a few novels and many stories since 1988 (“Sweetlings”)

These may not be horror so much as dark fantasy or are otherwise a stretch but might have some interest.

• Ashley Blooms - two stories this year; both good; both strange; neither exactly horror but dark and weird (“The Dead Father Cookbook”, “Fallow”)
  
• Max Gladstone - several stories and novels since 2009, at least some on the edge of horror (“Crispin’s Model”)
  
• Maria Dahvana Headley - many stories; some novels since 2011; maybe more dark fantasy (“The Thule Stowaway” and, from a couple of years ago, "The Scavenger's Nursery")
  
• Carlie St. George - a few stories since 2013, at least one of which is a YA ghost story (“Three May Keep a Secret”)
  
• Jeremiah Tolbert - many stories since 2004, some at least partly dark fantasy (“The West Topeka Triangle”)
  
• Ursula Vernon - Many short stories and novels since 2004, sometimes as T. Kingfisher, sometimes YA, at least some of which are at least dark fantasy (“The Dark Birds”)

 

[Randy M.]

While poking around I thought I'd add an update.


Christopher Fowler: Hell Train & Nyctophobia
Two solid novels. Hell Train is a homage to Hammer Horror, the studio that brought us Christopher Lee as Dracula and Peter Cushing as Van Helsing, among other characters. This follows a script writer’s introduction to Hammer and the script he writes for them. The novel combines a young woman’s coming-of-age with travel adventure and a deal-with the devil.

Nyctophobia is an imaginative take on the haunted house story, merging a family story with a novel example of a haunted house. Designed so the front rooms are always in sunlight while the sun is out, Hyperion House has a peculiar effect on Callie and her new husband, Mateo. A trained, skilled architect out of work after the economic turndowns of the late Oughts, Callie finds Hyperion House charming and a challenge: Why was it designed just so?

Tananarive Due : Ghost Summer
One of my favorite recent collections. The title story, novella length, is one of the better recent ghost stories I’ve come across, written from the perspective of a young boy who comes to understand the history around the town where his grandparents live:
“I wasn’t gonna say anything to you kids – but there’s bodies buried over on that land across the street, out beyond Tobacco Road. McCormack’s land. They found an old burial site, the bones of people who lived ‘round here a hundred years ago. And not a cemetery neither – this has been McCormack land for generations. …”

It was the coolest thing Grandma had ever said.
– from “Ghost Summer”

The other stories in the collection include s.f., horror and a couple of less definable tales, all written deftly, often with humor and occasionally with a Twilight Zone feel.

Gemma Files: Experimental Film
Lois is a film buff, an expert in the experimental films of Canadian auteurs. She’s also the insecure mother of Clark who has Asperger’s Syndrome. To keep her own sanity she works reviewing films and is amazed to see incorporated in a recent filmmaker’s work clips from what might be the early work of the first Canadian woman filmmaker. Remember all those books in horror stories that you’re told not to read? Well, some films hold dangerous secrets, too. This is an exceptional horror novel since it isn’t just about the scares or the powerful forces at play, it’s about a woman with more on her plate than she can handle struggling to hold up under it and fighting against her self-doubt while buoyed to some degree by a loving husband and mother.

Paul Tremblay: A Head Full of Ghosts
An excellent horror novel, this is a complex work, pulling together strands of psychological manipulation, the possibility of possession, the dysfunction of a staggering marriage, the alliance of sisters, and the selling of a household’s traumas and terrors to an entertainment industry that says it wants to reflect reality while trying to mold the family’s actions to commercial needs. Merry at 23 looks back on her sister’s possession fifteen years earlier. Their father, unable to cope with Marjorie’s behavior tries the local priest; unable to afford help, he allows a film crew in hoping the money will contribute to curing Marjorie. The show is a hit, but the attention is devastating. Besides being a family drama, A Head Full of Ghosts is a satire on reality TV and the story of possession, in particular The Exorcist, the touchstone Tremblay refers to over and again.


LOVECRAFTIANA

Daryl Gregory: Harrison Squared
Follow up to We Are All Completely Fine, featuring one of that novella’s characters in events prior to the novella. Harrison’s father drowned when Harrison was three and his mother has tried to keep them afloat since. Literally, sometimes, since she’s a marine biologist. One mystery is why his mom brought them back to the town where his father died. Another is what is going on at the high school where Harrison is now enrolled? I think this was marketed as YA and the humor fits that genre, but it’s a testament to Gregory’s skill that the humor remains funny, the suspense he builds is legitimately suspenseful, and his engagement with the racism implicit in some of Lovecraft’s work both underplayed and effective.

Jonathan L. Howard: Carter & Lovecraft
Here a descendant of HPL and a private investigator descended from Randolph Carter – in this story a real person, not just a character in HPL’s stories – come up against a sort of cult. Again, this engages with HPL’s racism, a bit less obliquely than the Gregory and like the Gregory for most of its length fairly light-hearted. By the end, the implications of what has come before begin to grow darker. Late last year a sequel, After the End of the World, was published. I haven’t gotten to that one.

Victor LaValle: The Ballad of Black Tom
LaValle is another current writer wrestling with the legacy of Lovecraft; he’s the only one of these writers who is African-American. This keys off Lovecraft’s “The Horror at Red Hook,” (as does the Howard in a different way) one of his most blatantly racist stories and LaValle tackles the issue more directly than Gregory or Howard. I would call this more dark urban fantasy that straight-out horror, but whatever you call it, it’s worth reading.

John Langan: The Fisherman
Abe lost his wife, struggled with that for a long time, eventually straightening out to some degree though the therapy of fishing. He meets Dan after Dan has lost his wife. For a time fishing helps both of them, but then one day Dan wants to go to a certain spot, a spot Abe has heard of and which seems to be one of those where the fabric separating worlds has rubbed thin. And then he hears the legend of the Fisherman. This is a fine horror novel, one of the best I’ve read in the last 10-15 years.

Matt Ruff: Lovecraft Country
Arguably the most fully realized, well-rounded work here. In the 1950s a family finds it has connections to a wealthy, White Southern family, a family of wizards. That blood tie is needed by the latest generation of wizards to call up their gods. Naturally, their plans don’t quite work out. This one has an episodic feel, incorporating a haunted house and other horror tropes, not least of which slavery and the Jim Crow laws. If you were to read only one of the books listed here under Lovecraftiana this or the Langan would be my choices, the latter for its intensity, and this one for its expansive vision of life when traversing the slippery, dangerous landscape of Jim Crow.


Randy M.

 

[Pedro Del Mar]

Thanks Randy, a relative of mine bought me The Fisherman for Christmas. I'm yet to read it but looking forward to it and good to hear you enjoyed it so much