Horror Literature

sam_hain

To one and all, I have a question for you.

I posted a while back one or two things about Stephen King and now was wondering if people could tell me what their favorite horror books are. Im especially interested in any comments about Lovecraft as I have always thought of buying one of his books but never really got round to doing it.

Also anything that you feel maybe interesting or shared here about horror literature is welcome although if such a request violates any rules or if LoLth has a problem with me requesting this information please let me know. Not that I think they would

Btw LoLth thanks for not deleting my King posts. When I saw that there was none here on this board and then I posted mine I was certain that I was posting in the wrong area so thanks again

Anyways enough kissing up :P. Back to my main request. I hope that people can post valuable information here and that it might remain as the horror literature thread.

Thanks in advance

Sam

MrNuked

Don't know if it's already in your other thread, but "The Stand" by Stephen king is very good.

sam_hain

The Stand is a book that I have had for so long (about 10 years or there abouts) and have never read it. It is actually currently staring at me from between my speakers. I have heard from my friend that it is a good book especially if you like reading about people's backgrounds. I will one day get around to reading it, but at the moment I really don't want to read any King books yet until Sep 21st.

Sarky

I've been devouring Cthulhu mythos books for the last few months. Got the loan of all 3 volumes of the H.P. Lovecraft Omnibus off a friend to read at work, and finished them recently. They're really good. There are some stories that are pretty ropey (mostly earlier ones), and one or two are downright funny (especially if you've experienced the Call of Cthulhu RPG!), but there are plenty of really creepy stories there. More fool me for reading it during night shifts all alone in a factory with machines that suddenly go *CLUNK* in the night...

My favourites were probably The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward, for sheer olde worlde downright evil nastiness, and The Colour Out Of Space, for semi-scifi we're-all-doomed-eventually atmosphere. But pretty much all of them were compelling reading. I could hardly put the books down.

Lovecraft stories are great for evoking some really graphic terribleness without actually describing anything in great detail. The better your imagination is, the more creeped out you'll be.

I'd advise you to search for Lovecraftian stories by other authors as well, some of them are smashing. Chaosium Inc. Stocks some, but they're generally hard to come by...

sam_hain

Thanks Sarky Ill check that site out. Btw just a question about the style of writing that he does? Is it hard to read? The books that you mentioned are the ones that I keep thinking of buying btw. Hell I might just go in and buy the first one tomorrow. But I must confess that I have this problem and that is I want to get all of the stories if I like the author. If I buy the books that you have mentioned will that have the full collection of his works or is there a better buy????

Sarky

The Omnibus is big, but the man wrote a LOT of stories, and died around 70 years ago, so some are near impossible to find outside of the original Weird Tales et al. issues he submitted them to. It's generally pretty hard to find Lovecraft books, I'm very lucky that I'm good friends with someone who has collected quite a lot of books. That said, the Omnibus (three large books) is probably easiest to find, and contains his most famous work, if not his best. Try one of those first.

His writing style- He was born in 1890, so he has the mannerisms of the time. Much of it sounds very 1920's, which is hardly surprising. Not quite E.A. Poe, but more "refined" than anyone today. He rarely wrote in the third person, a lot of the tales are written in the first person, or as if someone else was recounting interesting bits of an old report on something mysterious. I suspect that back then, writers had a habit of making up their own words too, like "Demoniac". But they're self-explanatory. If you reckon you could understand a Charles Dickens book, you'll have no trouble with Lovecraft.

Good luck hunting the books down, and if you happen across anything written by someone called Abdul Alhazred, leave the shop immediately and burn it to the ground.

MrNuked

I think you can get download some Lovecraft novels as e-books for free. Try the big free ebook sites if you are interested, like project gutenburg.
Frankenstein and dracula are not worth reading in my opinion. Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde is good though.

sam_hain

Thank's for the tip MrNuked. I have downloaded one or two of his stories alright but like all the other books and stories that I have downloaded I tend to never read them that and my printer is not working the way I would like it to, so I don't print them out either. But again thanks for the tips.

As for Dracula and Frankenstein. I never really though of reading either of them until recently and that was because I was just browsing through Amazon ( the site not the jungle or river :P ) and noticed them.

Again thanks for the replies.

Sam

Sarky

Always happy to deliver more souls to Nyarlathot- I mean, to help out a Lovecraft fan.

John

I think Dracula is well worth reading. And sam, I know you like the Dark Tower books so I really would consider reading The Stand before book VII comes out

ObeyGiant

I think the Book-a-minute summary of the collected works of HP Lovecraft sums it up for me:

Narrator

I will tell you about something horrific I witnessed.

(Narrator discusses MUNDANE experiences which supposedly lead up to something HORRIFIC.)

Narrator

We're almost at the horrific bit.

(Narrator talks about more stuff that might be SPOOKY if he'd only GET ON WITH IT.)

Narrator

We're very close now.

(Narrator draws it out MORE.)

Narrator

This time I swear we're just about at the horrific thing almost.

(Narrator FINALLY gets to the HORRIFIC thing which is HUGE and POWERFUL and EVIL and LAME.)

THE END

That's not to say I dislike Lovecraft - I just find his formula a little weak if I'm not in the mood for it.

One of the greatest "horror" stories I've ever read, and I keep harping on about it to everyoen I can, is 'I Am Legend' by Richard Matheson. It's a book written in the 1950s about the sole survivor of a disease that turned the rest of the world into vampires. It sounds like a dumb premise, but it's written so well that you tend to forgive a lot of its shortcomings.

Tusky

ObeyGiant wrote:

I think the Book-a-minute summary of the collected works of HP Lovecraft sums it up for me:

That's not to say I dislike Lovecraft - I just find his formula a little weak if I'm not in the mood for it.

One of the greatest "horror" stories I've ever read, and I keep harping on about it to everyoen I can, is 'I Am Legend' by Richard Matheson. It's a book written in the 1950s about the sole survivor of a disease that turned the rest of the world into vampires. It sounds like a dumb premise, but it's written so well that you tend to forgive a lot of its shortcomings.

/me humps "I am legend" fantastic book...really really really good. I rcently rented the movie based on the book in which they are mutants and not vampires , it was terrible !!! Clive Barkers " Books of blood " are quite good. They are short stories , but be warned as they are very gory and horrific !

OfflerCrocGod

ObeyGiant wrote:

One of the greatest "horror" stories I've ever read, and I keep harping on about it to everyoen I can, is 'I Am Legend' by Richard Matheson. It's a book written in the 1950s about the sole survivor of a disease that turned the rest of the world into vampires. It sounds like a dumb premise, but it's written so well that you tend to forgive a lot of its shortcomings.

True, "I Am Legend" is a fantactic read and anyone looking for some old horror and also the inspiration to all those apocalypse books/movies would do well to read it. Written in the 50's but it reads like a modern book, very easy to pick not so easy to put back down again