The Most Frightening Places in All of Literature

[BAYLOR]

The supermarket in the Steven King story The Mist

 

[Merserk]

I'd not like to find myself in the mind of H. P. Lovecraft although his works coming up to their centenary (first published in 1916 I think) they still scary the life outta m

 

[Merserk]

I’m sure, if I was physically transported to 50% of the perilous other-worldly scenarios that I encounter in print, I’d be scared witless but there are a couple that have stuck with me after I’ve finished reading (one for so many years it probably counts as trauma).

Houses already seem to be a theme, so I’d add the one from Catherine Storr’s Marianne Dreams, which my Mum innocently got me from the library when I was off school ill and in bed. If I see an isolated, square house on some moorland, I still catch myself looking for the boulders.

Then, the hidden city in Nicholas Royle’s Regicide. I was hooked by where the map was for, only to discover it was a disturbing, confusing and full-on dystopian place. To be fair it wasn’t a feel-good novel all round, but that was one nasty city.

LOL I hope your mam did mistakenly give you Marianne Dreams. Not read the book but remember watching the adaption tv series on BBC UK in the 70's, believe it was called ESCAPE INTO DARKNESS still affects me today

 

[elvet]

Probably because I'm claustrophobic, the escape under the city of Y'Ghatan in the Bonehunters really creeped me out.

 

[Darkchrome]

... Paperhouse is one of my favourite movies. The setting is very creepy as you say!

... remember watching the adaption tv series on BBC UK in the 70's, believe it was called ESCAPE INTO DARKNESS

I remember Paperhouse being shown on TV at some point but I honestly had/have no inclination to watch it!
Didn't realise there was a TV series - just wiki'd it and it was called Escape Into Night but it says the colour masters were lost so all that remains is a B&W telerecording. I suspect that would make the whole thing even worse

(I quite like the idea that my Mum had a hidden purpose giving me the book, btw - some sort of Munchausen Syndrome by Fantasy!)

 

[paranoid marvin]

The past in The Langoliers.

 

[BAYLOR]

Pickman's Model. I wouldn't want to find myself anywhere near Pickman's house.

 

[Randy M.]

Pickman's Model. I wouldn't want to find myself anywhere near Pickman's house.

You should also avoid the subway system in Richard Barbour Johnson's "Far Below," and heaven forbid any of us accidentally visit the small town in Brian MacNaughton's "The Throne of Bones."


Randy M.

 

[Bugg]

Dracula's castle. Or the Overlook Hotel in The Shining. Shudder.

I found the Nostalgia for Infinity, in Revelation Space, had a Gothic horror feel about it that was quite creepy.

 

[svalbard]

The world presented to us in Cormac McCarthy's The Road is truly a horrofic place.

 

[Curt Chiarelli]

Without a doubt, Franz Kafka's The Castle. I find its atmosphere of stagnancy suffocating and oppressive.

 

[Spade]

The arctic wasteland in The Terrror by Dan Simmons. Kept me up at night.
The underground world depicted in Descent by Jeff Long. Truly claustrophobic.

 

[BAYLOR]

The fungus infested Island In William Hope Hodgson story A Voice in The Night .

 

[Venusian Broon]

Standing just outside United States National Science Institute Station 4, looking MacReady straight in the eye as everything burns around about us.

(This is allowable as Alan Dean Foster, who also novelised Alien, did the novelisation for this film too )

 

[BAYLOR]

The mineshaft in Jeremy Cunningham's horror novel The Abyss When you find out what's down there waiting to be loosed upon the world , you just can't forget it.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I wouldn't call them specifically frightening, but in my reading of epic fantasy there are very, very few secondary worlds I would actually have the desire to visit, except from the safety of a book!

 

[Maximillian]

The Forbidden Planet, where one's Id is free to run wild, creating very real creatures no one wants to face.

 

[BAYLOR]

Arellarti the nightmarish ruined alien city in Karl Edward Wagner's fantasy novel Bloodstone. In the city there monstrous 100 yard dormant crystal entity known as Bloodstone. The city is infested with giant 9 foot tall fanged Toad creatures called Ryluti who love to sacrifice people to their crystal god. This is not a place you want to go either in the daytime or at night.

 

[BAYLOR]

The Chaos Wastes in the world of Gotrek and Felix . A very unhealthy place which can warp your mind and body.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Organ growing world in the Instrumentality. Cordwainer Smith