The Most Frightening Places in All of Literature

[BAYLOR]

What do you think are Most frightening places in all of Literature . Places that you would never want to find yourself in and what makes them so forbidding.

 

[The Bluestocking]

Mordor - Do not fancy prowling about with orcs and the like.

Hill House - Would you go into such a horrific haunted house willingly?

The Sarlacc's digestive tract* - Being digested slowly over thousands of years is possibly the worst torture ever.

*Okay, not exactly literature but it is a terrible place to be in any fictional world.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Anything before about 1950

 

[tinkerdan]

There are so many.
I don't think I could chose.
Especially since I avoid reading the kinds of books that have the worst place.

 

[Mirannan]

Oh, there are so many:

On the Tolkein theme, see you Mordor and raise you Thangorodrim.
From Dante, there is of course Inferno (Hell) and Purgatory isn't all that nice either.
From a glorified fanfic (OA) the Queen of Pain's planet isn't exactly for tourists.
From SF, Giedi Prime is probably rather unpleasant.
And of course, there are lovely garden spots from Lovecraft such as R'lyeh and Mount Voormithadreth.

 

[farntfar]

Room 101 heads on my list; especially as I know exactly what O'Brien's got waiting for me in there.

 

[Toby Frost]

Yes: the 1984 world is pretty bad, and Room 101 by definition as bad as it can get. I'd also nominate Hell from The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker. I suppose the Island of Doctor Moreau has some delightful surprises for the visitor, too.

The "advantage" with visiting most of Lovecraft's places is that the scenic view would turn you instantly mad, and you probably wouldn't have to worry about it after that. Hmm, not much of an advantage at all, really.

 

[BAYLOR]

The Derelict ship in Alien .

 

[BAYLOR]

Correction on my comment above . I was referring to the novelization of Alien as done by Allen Dean Foster. Which I read before I saw the film.

 

[BAYLOR]

The town of Moonwell in Ramsey Campbell's Epic horror novel The Hungry Moon .

 

[Jo Zebedee]

The Outlook hotel never sounded great craic. Nor Salem's Lot for that matter....

 

[Vince W]

Earth after the Triffids arrive.

 

[Zoe Mackay]

Pretty much every single place in Simon R. Green's "Deathstalker" novels.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Maine.

 

[Zoe Mackay]

Maine.

Ooooh. Particularly Cabot Cove. That place is deadly.

 

[Grunkins]

Hell, from Iain M Banks' Surface Detail.

 

[Randy M.]

Hill House: "... not sane, ..." Really, what more warning do you need????
Hell House: "The Mount Everest of haunted houses."
Zothique: the last continent, near the extinction of mankind, after necromancy has returned and somewhat before the sun goes black
Plateau of Leng: Where realities converge


Randy M.

 

[svalbard]

The mind of R.Scott Bakker

 

[Phyrebrat]

I'd love to stay at Hill House overnight...! You know it's a given after you finish the story in terms of what to watch out for...

My vote would be Never.Go.To.Derry.Ever. Why would anyone want to go there?

I'd also avoid the house from House of Leaves - there's some scary meta crap going on there!

And finally, Beldame, the isolated island spit in The Elementals by Michael McDowell

pH

 

[Juliana]

Dark Island, or the Island Where Dreams Come True, from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Narnia). It used to scare the daylights out of me as a child; the concept still does.