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Grislygus · #1

What's new in horror? I've read the crap out of all the mainstays, and I'll be damned if I'm going to wade through all of the goth crap in the local bookstore to find some new authors on my own.

Fathom Zero · #2

Brian Keene is a good horror writer though he deals primarily with zombies.

But he did write this book about giant worms destroying the world:

Sethomas · #3

I've been debating whether or not I should read the entire Hannibal series, of which a background story has just come out. I just find Hannibal Lecter to be too contradictory and thus far-fetched. He eats people out of degradation because he sees himself above the common run of man, he's a brilliant psychologist, yet he doesn't realize that he's trapped in this paradigm. Or, if he does realize it, he does nothing but perpetuate it. I can understand certain aspects of him and his eating of CERTAIN characters, but mostly I think he's a poor taboo-clutching schtick. It's always hard to write about a genius when you're not one yourself (as is my situation), but I doubt Harris has the qualifications to make an Übermensch who eats people because of his troubled childhood.

Grislygus · #4

I haven't read Hannibal Rising, so I'm not privvy to his actual psychological profile. I prefer him being a psychological enigma in the first three.

Zomboid · #5

Pick up clive barker's books of blood. Old but GOOD.

Grislygus · #6

Hell yes, I've pretty much read all of Clive Barker. First I read a lot of King, then all of Lovecraft and most of Barker, a bit of Koontz, and then the sheer badassery of Richard Matheson. Now I'm bored.

xbxDaniel · #7

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sethomas

I've been debating whether or not I should read the entire Hannibal series, of which a background story has just come out. I just find Hannibal Lecter to be too contradictory and thus far-fetched. He eats people out of degradation because he sees himself above the common run of man, he's a brilliant psychologist, yet he doesn't realize that he's trapped in this paradigm. Or, if he does realize it, he does nothing but perpetuate it. I can understand certain aspects of him and his eating of CERTAIN characters, but mostly I think he's a poor taboo-clutching schtick. It's always hard to write about a genius when you're not one yourself (as is my situation), but I doubt Harris has the qualifications to make an Übermensch who eats people because of his troubled childhood.

It's an entertaining prequel, at least I think so. It's interesting to read about his early years, and then to see his mental downfall after a key event. If nothing else, it's a good read. Movie comes out this Friday, too, if you care for the films.

Not Harris' best work though.

King Hadas · #8

Can't give you a personal recommendation on this one since I haven't actually read it myself but I've heard House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski is a great horror novel (I've seen it compared to Silent Hill on more than one ocassion) but I've also heard it's written in a really goofy format. It's sitting on my bookshelve right now, I just haven't quite gotten around to reading it yet. The only book I can personally recommend that you probably haven't already read is The Wasp factory by Ian Banks, not out right scary (most books aren't) but it definetly has it's disturbing bits.

Stephen King's Danse Macabre is another book you might want to look into, the book itself isn't that great (just a long rant about the horror genre) but in the back there's a list of some of King's favorite horror novels, might find something you like there.

If nothing up there caught your fancy here's a short story by Harlan Ellsion called "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream."

Grislygus · #9

Hadn't heard about any of those, thanks. I'll check out Dans Macabre immediately, seeing as I already own his On Writing book. I've read one essay King did on horror, and it was pretty interesting. The one where he talks about "keeping the alligators fed".

sspadowsky · #10

House of Leaves is good, but very strange in terms of both its layout and its overlapping story lines. It's one of those books that you'll probably have to re-read multiple times and in multiple ways. I wish I could explain it better than that, but I've never read another book quite like it. Definitely take the time to read it.

kahljorn · #11

house of leaves at part looks like clippings from a newspaper or crayoned in writings and stuff like that. I haven't read it but I've flipped through it and it's weird looking. My girlfriend has read more than I did.

GADZOOKS · #12

Say Cheese and Die

Blue Fox · #13

The Egg Monsters From Mars

Actually, King came out with one recently called Cell. I read the first few pages and it was pretty good.

sloth · #14

garth marenghi

Grislygus · #15

Darkplace rules.

Yes, I've read Cell. I didn't even know he had a new book out until I bought the hardcover for three bucks at the local library sale. I'm going through House of Leaves right now, it's awesome.

One of the people from Journalism recommended something called "The Historian", except he couldn't remember what it was about, or who wrote it. But he was absolutely sure that it was a damned good book and won some awards, which is a lot of friggin help.

Sethomas · #16

I have a hard time thinking of House of Leaves as horror. Yeah, it has certain aspects of the horror genre, but mostly it's just one of those things that's creepy due to its incessant weirdness.

I usually avoid most contemporary literature, but House of Leaves totally absorbed one of my best friends' lives and she demanded that I read her copy of it. The singer Poe made a cd that kind of goes along with it, although it's also largely devoted to her late father. It just makes it interesting to listen to the cd having read the book, and vice-versa.