Generation H

[BAYLOR]

I haven't read Books of Blood, but I loved The Damnation Game; but it was so long ago I don't have memory of Barker's prose; and as a teen prose wasn't yet a major aspect for me to focus on. But what an imagination! The book had some crazy imagery!

I love prose that lyrically describes horrible stuff; for me a major purpose of prose is to ennoble anything, including the horrible, through beauty. But then again I'm a big fan of William H. Gass' The Tunnel.

Escardy Gap by Peter Crother and James Lovegrove
Rim of the Morning Two Tales of Cosmic Horror by Willian Sloane
Red as Blood (and Other Dark Fairy Tales) by Tanith Lee
Waxworks by A M Burrage
Darker than You Think by Jack Williamson
Donovan's Brain by Curt Sildmak
Johnny Got his Gun by Dalton Trumbo
The Earth Brain by Edmund Hamilton
Upon the Dull Earth by Phillip K Dick

 

[JunkMonkey]

Stephen King is a great writer and I suppose with some application you could say some of his work is more literary but I’m struggling to think of anything lyrical. Certainly I consider the wonderful Buick 8 more literary in terms of character observation but it’s also one of the most unpopular of his works amongst his fans.

Is he? I know he sells a lot of books and the couple I've read have been competent but not 'great'; they were very... I dunno, mechanical? is that the word I'm looking for?

If someone would point me at what could be considered his best book (a short one please, I just don't have the patience for stonking great doorstops) I will gladly have another go.

 

[Toby Frost]

I would recommend The Shining and Salem's Lot, which are the best novels of his that I've read. Salem's Lot is shorter. He's very variable, I think, and can be both pedestrian and schmaltzy. I don't think his prose is particularly sharp or beautiful, but it does the job.

My favourite books by King, though, are non-fiction: Danse Macabre and On Writing.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Is he? I know he sells a lot of books and the couple I've read have been competent but not 'great'; they were very... I dunno, mechanical? is that the word I'm looking for?

If someone would point me at what could be considered his best book (a short one please, I just don't have the patience for stonking great doorstops) I will gladly have another go.

I think my favourite SK books are Duma Key and From a Buick 8 but I struggle to pinpoint what it is about FAB8 that lends it such a literary feel. Mind you I haven’t a clue why Catcher in the Rye is lauded so much as literary so I’m probably not the most objective person.

I also suspect it’s easier for North American readers to get more from SK in a literary sense because his prose is so rooted in Americana.

Rather than his novels. I’d recommend some of his short stories, for example, All That You Love Will Be Carried Away.in which a man contemplates suicide. It’s a beautiful bittersweet short.

Other than Revival, I’ve not read SK new output since Doctor Sleep. I couldn’t inish that because of the child torture which seemed to hit differently and deeper than the ones in IT.

Nowadays I stick to new horror authors. There’s not so much lyricism outside of Ligotti or Langan but there are good tales out there.

I’d like to read more existential type horror along the lines of Kafka but that’s often labelled as Weird Fiction.