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>>25589945 >>25592098 >>25619096

new Stephen Graham Jones came in at my library, sequel to The Only Good Indians

>>25589939
based red man

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>There's no such as literary horr-

The first time I ever read Laird Barron's "The Croning" was the only time a segment of a horror book ever "unsettled" or ever managed to actually, sincerely mildly "spook" me. I remember it because I relish the feeling. There's a part of the book where the main character and his family members swap ghost stories and I either must have been in the mood to FEEL spooked or maybe I was just cold at the time or something, I dunno. I remember it making my spine tingle with a lil' bit of realistic dread and its novel to me because it remains the only time that has ever happened, ever. The rest of the story isn't even particularly spooky, just that short segment and I was never able to elicit the same response ever again neither upon rereading the story years later, nor with any other work of horror fiction since.

Dunno nigguh, it's really weird.

>>25590329
Horror stories used to scare me...

Just bought the Dark Descent compilation

ÏA! ÏA! SHUB-NIGGURATH!

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>>25591528 >>25591549 >>25593946

>>25588962
I didn't expect it to have gay smut in just the third short story and now I feel conned. The second story was awful - about a quadroon native mom giving in to her white racist husband and psycho mother in law just so she can live in a gated community with a bmw and Coach bags. and now the third story is about a white dude who is seemingly a gay serial killer rapist at the beach and he collects his victims' teeth and he has a navajo tooth or something in his collection. the prose in the second and third stories feels grade school level, like i'm reading a book for 6th grade level understanding. I haven't read fiction published in the last decade but didn't know I had to drop expectations THIS low for a 2025 release. You can find Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology new in any bookstore near you.

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>>25596571 >>25600940 >>25601131 >>25601136

AI recommended this piece of shit to read
It was awful, absolutely pretentious writing
Of course it won awards because the author is a woman, POC, and bi-sexual, and the book features cringe lesbian bullshit

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>>25591513
In rape blowjobs why don't they just bite the dick off? like in the movie Fresh

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>>25591537 >>25616181 >>25616663

>>25591174
>>25590329
First reading of the cask of amontillado scared the hell out of me. That guy was such a psycho. Why did he wall him up? Also the road is scary but too perverse. Almost seems like mccarthy got off on it, especially the roasted baby stuff.
>>25589610
Any good horror books set in autumn or on Halloween day / night? Or short stories?

>>25591536
Conversations in a Dead Language by Ligotti is set on Halloween night

>>25591513
It's evidently popular enough that a sequel was recently released.

Don't think I'm gonna be reading 'Salem's Lot after all. Fuck vampires, fuck vampire stories, and fuck anything where there's bleeding. Except Let the Right One In, that's cool.

Can someone who has read Butcher of Nazareth give a synopsis better than the vague abstract official synopsis of what it is about?

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>>25591587

>>25591550
>Let the Right One In

>>25591582
That's a castrated boy btw

>>25591587
yea what was the point of that? I remember the movie having homoerotic themes because the dad was clearly gay with his "friend" coming over all the time. not sure if the book gets into it.

>>25591588
>the dad
You mean Hakan?

>>25591631
nope. the main boys dad

>>25591636
I vaguely remember that. I read that book literally half my life ago. I read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo around the same time, which it & its sequel(s) I would defo characterize as horror-adjacent (like Silence of the Lambs for example). The second book in the trilogy was way different from the first book which is really more of a mystery while The Girl Who Played With Fire was more like espionage and a lot of fucked up shit happens. I never finished the third book for some reason.

I finished Vampire Hunter D book 5: The Stuff of Dreams. I think this is the best book yet. It continues being a unique setting that I have come to like for the series where you have a guy ride a wooden elevator down to a basement where a guy with a photon-laser rifle is waiting or dragon drawn wagons. But that aside since all books have that kind of stuff the story was my favorite. It's all about strange dreams people are sharing and a girl who bitten by a vampire has been asleep and age 17 for 30 years. Interesting premise plus the dreams add colorful scenes of people in a giant ballroom dance.

>>25589939
I thought Buffalo Hunter Hunter sucked. It was going okay for most the book but the ending completely ruined it. Are the rest of his books better?

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>>25602618

>>25589610

>>25591549
That's more frightening than the stories themselves.

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>>25594742

Done with Black River Orchard and it's +600 pages of pure dog shit from start to finish. I honestly don't understand how it got 4 stars on goodreads, it's baffling.

>>25592232
The proletarian masses (the ones who are literate, anyways) just have bad taste.

>>25591513
>white dude who is seemingly a gay serial killer rapist
Sounds like it reflects reality pretty well.

read Aickman's Meeting Mr. Millar for the first time in quite a few years and it remains as baffling as I remembered

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>>25594221

Almost done my current book. Should be starting A Short Stay in Hell today :]

>>25594210
Wouldn't really call that one horror. It can give you a sense of existential dread but it doesn't really have any concepts you haven't already thought about before if you've spent any time reading philosophy and/or metaphysics

>>25594221
Shhhhhhhhh.

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>>25592098
If you didn't like the ending to BHH, you will hate Only Good Indians. His shorter stuff is a little better

Is the Dawn of the dead novelization any good? I didn't even know it existed until I picked up a copy at some Dutch book store with outrageous prices

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>>25596885

>>25592950
Imagine reading +600 pages of pure dog shit from start to finish.

Is The Masque of the Red Death any good? I've generally found the majority of Poe's stuff lame but the last time I was ever actually forced to read him was probably about seventeen/eighteen years ago during some dumb junior/senior literature class. Is all his stuff basically just as uninteresting as The Raven and The Telltale Heart are?

>>25594842
>Thinking "The Tell-Tale Heart" is uninteresting
I hate to say it anon, but you got filtered pretty hard

>>25594554
never knew this existed. people online say it's good. is the copy in english? I'm seeing it go for a lot of money on ebay.

>>25594940
>t.performative male
It's not an interesting story.

>>25595043
oh you're actually just retarded
find another board

>>25595436
Sorry you thought the shit you were force fed in school was the end-all-be-all pinnacle of literary fiction, you dumb, cocksucking FAGGOT. Cultivate some taste, mongoloid.

>>25595511
Sometimes the things school makes you read are actually good.
Poe is one of those instances.

>>25596170
Nah

>>25594958
It's in English. Wouldn't recommend it if you have already seen the movie. It's hard to fag up Dawn of the dead, but so far the author, some bitch I've never heard of, almost manages to make it sound like shit (romanticizing war, making everyone drool over the nigger etc ) I'm not very far yet though, maybe it will get better lateron.

>>25595511
Yeah no, thinking Poe is ass is an L take

>>25591520
>>25596152

also fuck this piece of shit captcha, it expired while I was scrolling through it, I'm not buying a pass you god damned gook

Any good cryptid horror?

read Keith Rosson!

Eric LaRocca is absolute dogshit and it pisses me off every time I see a book of theirs being peddled out.

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>>25594742
>maybe it will get better
>only 150 pages to go might as well...

Binge-read A Short Stay in Hell last night. I went into it knowing it was moreso existential horror than actual scare-horror, but I wasn't expecting it to be so goddamned SAD.
Now onto Butcher of Nazareth...

>>25595511
No? To Poe? Woe!
Go grow.

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>>25600559

Started in on BUTCHER OF NAZARETH. I'm liking this. Also I didn't realize but it was published this year. This will be the first fiction book I read the same year it came out, in...many years, since the last Harry Potter book came out I reckon.

Bump in the night

>>25599570
Thank you fellow based horror anon \m/

>>25589610
Forgotten horror writers you love?
Mine are:
Herbert S Gormon
Fergus Hume
F. Marion Crawford

>>25600017
Which works by them would you recommend? (Other than The Complete Wandering Ghosts for Crawford)

>>25597657
How is it

It's October so I had to indulge in some horror
>>25591257
>Lovecraft
Recently got through Call of Cthulu. I'm not going to lie, I am probably filtered on Lovecraft. I didn't find it unnerving, it's too "clinical?" though I did kek at his racism making an appearance a few times. I wanted to get into the Cthulu Mythos but it's not hooking me.
>>25594842
On what has scared me would be Cask of Amontilado. That shit still unnerves the fuck out of me, I think it's Poe's best. I get a pit in my fucking stomach, like my flight reflexes get mildly triggered. Tell Tale Heart is so overrated in comparison

>>25600559
I like it, but it's rather inconsistent with the horror aspect. It tries to be transgressive at times but just makes me wish I was reading The Eyes by Aldapuerta again. It's got a compelling narrative though and I'm not even halfway thru it yet, so obviously I'm not going to have my full thoughts until I'm finished.

>>25600663
What's the actual plot synopsis? Everything online gives marketing pitches that are vague and mysterious without any substance to what the book is actually about.

>>25600663
Oh hey Aldapuerta anon, good to see you again

>>25591520
Dumbshit AI cultist, got what you deserved.

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>>25601565

>>25591520

>>25591520
AI (except paid grok with specific prompts) will always recommend the most popular recent thing with a bias towards browns, foids, and fags. You should know better.

Robert E. Howard is really good. I like his style more than Lovecraft's. He's definitely so much more than Conan

>>25600027
Start with "The Place Called Dagon"
It was good enough that I read it in a day

>>25601131
Kek, why is diaspora literature by asian authors all the same
Maxine Hong Kingston is the only one I enjoyed

>>25600017
>F. Marion Crawford
Indeed. This writer used to sell like hotcakes in his day and after he died he was totally forgotten except for some short stories.
I won't be surprised if the same happens to Stephen King.

>>25600896
I've been here all along, m8 :]

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>>25602109 >>25602638 >>25619167

just finished pic related

the protagonist fucks a fish monster...

>>25602035
Yes, yes... We all know John Langan sucks shit.

>>25592151
Pretty great list except
>no Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons
>no The Ceremonies by T.E.D. Klein
>no It by Stephen King
>no Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
>no Legion by William Peter Blatty
>no Cold Moon Over Babylon by Michael McDowell

>>25602035
learn how to censor spoilers, idiot

>>25601314
Agreed
Horror from the Mound, The Black Stone, Black Canaan, Pigeons from Hell, the Noseless Horror, great stories

>>25602618
I didn't want to have too many double entries for authors (and I probably shouldn't have any to begin with, unless it's critical for readers to read both).
Also Stephen King's It really isn't one of his best works.

>>25602783
Disagree on that I think it's better than The Shining desu

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>>25603098

gonna get the hellbound heart and there's 2 versions available

which of the covers should I get?

>>25602955
That's just up to personal taste, whichever you think looks nicest.

>>25594842
"The Black Cat" fucked me up

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I read half of this books because they said it had a good ending, but it's reddit cringe so I had to stop.
I just want an horror with a good ending, no matter how many bad things happen the good guys have to win.

>Why yes, I deliberately wrote my 500+ pages horror fantasy epic in the most archaic prose imaginable, how could you tell?

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>>25604241
Shit forgot pic

>>25604241
Which writer did this?

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Just ordered myself a copy of Communion. I read 90% of it years ago (the last ~50 pages you really do not need to read) but I don't have a physical copy and I'm considering reading it again so I thought I'd buy myself a copy :] I also bought pink bunny slippers as a Christmas gift for my mum along with it so I could get the free shipping over $35.

>>25604276
The one with the title I always confuse with House on the Border Lands

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>>25604562

Been reading pic related. Stunned at how Mcammon collected so many tropes of 80s media in a single story and still failed to get a movie deal for this one. Actually baffled it never got a movie.
Decent mass media paperback schlock.

>>25604552
Eh.

I'm reading Butcher of Nazareth and I'm seriously starting to suspect it was written w/ AI.
Not that it's bad, it's quite good actually. However, the constant ChatGPT spacing is suspect. I think the press that released it is really small tho so maybe the editors are just zoomers subconsciously aping the constant paragraph breaks that LLMs do. I wouldn't put it past them. I had a convo a few months ago w/ a young colleague who was giving me tips on promoting our business on social media and he we had a discussion over paragraph breaks (as in, in relation to social media posts). I told him that's just not how I learned to write in school; he didn't know what a paragraph indent was by the way.
Anyways, I think everyone has caught on to this anyways, and everyone hates AI, so it's not a good look to ape the formats LLMs use regardless.

>>25604698
How is the book? What's it about? A serial killer in Biblical times?

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>>25590329
yeah same, the Croning is really good with the spooky bits. funny thing is that the ghost story in the segment you're referring to doesn't really go anywhere, because it's just a funny tale (until it isnt) without much connection to the really spooky world of the book.
about the same time in the book or a few pages before, there's a part where the protagonist and his son clear out an old attic. if you've read other laird barron books before, the part where they sort through the old photos gives you really uneasy vibes.

the Croning is a really good book and Barorn is one of the few authors that I'll be genuinely upset when they pass. every time I open one of his books, I hope the fucking american healthcare systems doesn't let him die from his lung infection or whatever he managed to catch last year.

if you're new to his work, you'll definitely want to read his short stories Tiptoe and Proboscis (you can find most of them in his anthologies). this is the perfect weather for some really spooky lit, just to it.

I have finished book 6 of Vampire Hunter D Pilgrimage of the Sacred and the Profane. This one like 5 was also better than the first several. I think the writer has the swing of things now and has found his groove. The characters while still cheap cliche characters are more fleshed and have more personality and the story carries it better. While the first few were carried by the original setting and some unique out there ideas the last two (vol 5 and 6) work with their plots and characters.
Book 6 is D is tasked to travel through a desert and several people travel along with him for their own reasons ranging from following a strong person to be there with them in case of trouble or more antagonist ones. They encounter trouble and end up in a living desert out to capture and keep them there. Pretty interesting and of course it continues with fun creative fantasy sci fi like a warrior who uses a harp to attack with the music and a guy who fights while asleep.

I recently finished Dracula and I feel like it gets really weak around the half-way mark, the sense of danger is greatly diminished. There’s no consequences for bad or risky decision making. The vampire hunters decide to try and exterminate Dracula in Carfax. They go in the middle of the night and the most danger they face is a swarm of rats which are quickly routed by dogs bought off-screen. Mina starts getting attacked by Dracula, and everyone ignores it despite the fact Lucy died in the exact same way, and they catch the vampire in the act at the last second. Mina gets a psychic link to Dracula which allows her to act as a spy both ways. She’s allowed on the trip to continental Europe to pursue Dracula and it turns out her psychic link is only a good thing now because Dracula has a “child-mind” which prevents him from thinking of using his powers that way. In the beginning of the novel Dracula killed an entire ship of people and got around Lucy’s garlic and crucifixes but he barely kills anyone after Lucy’s death. He kills Renfield who had betrayed him at the last second and some random guy in continental Europe to cover his tracks. The characters are kinda disappointing as well. Half of them could all be swapped with each other and it would have no effect on the plot and Renfield who had been teased as Dracula’s servant for half the book and constantly trying to escape turned out to accomplish absolutely nothing. It’s no wonder he betrayed Dracula considering Mr Count of Darkness and student of Satan with 20 magic powers couldn’t free a single prisoner from an asylum who did half the job himself.

In the second half of the book Dracula’s a jobber

>>25604276
William Hope Hodgson, in his novel The Night Land.

>>25605145
Yep. That was my assessment too. The whole third act felt sloppy.

>>25604562
Great discussion, thanks for your input

Recommend me some of Barker's books.

I heard from someone that Weaveworld is good.

>>25606638
Books of Blood and Cabal are great starting points.

>>25591550
You're not missing much, it's pretty boring

>>25604771
S̶a̶t̶a̶n̶ YWHW commands an old man who had participated in King Herod's slaughter of the innocents to avenge himself by hunting down & killing the only one to have escaped (Jesus Christ) in order to stave off YHWH's deluge of fiery judgement.

>>25606638
i've read the first three books of blood, weaveworld, great and secret show. Loved all of them, he is famous for the horror stuff but i think that the fantasy is where he truly shines

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Has anyone ever made a chart for trashy or so-bad-its-good horror books? The types written by the likes of Richard Laymon, Guy N. Smith, Shaun Hutson, etc.

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>>25612778

This one is creepy and original.

With a Voice that is Often Still Confused But is Becoming Ever Louder and Clearer

J.R. Hamantaschen

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>>25612778

Same. He has modern themes but with a very twisted creepiness in normal contexts.

You Shall Never Know Security

J.R. Hamantaschen

Watched Obsession last night and immediately I had to go and listen to Don't Fear the Reaper. It just fits, I dunno how else to explain it.

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>>25614296

Only 8 days until Hallowe'en!

Bump in the night

Going on a hiking trip next week, what should I bring to read?

>>25610544
Some early Ramsey Campbell. I recommend "The Inhabitant of the Lake."

>>25610544
Algernon Blackwood, whatever has The Willows and The Wendigo

>>25605126
Of the first 6 books, Pilgrimage was easily the best, followed by Tale of the Dead Town.
Next volume is the first of the multi-parter installments (and where the numbering gets fucked up between Japan and English releases).

>>25607870
>>25607876
nice try Hamantaschen

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Hallowe'en is this week bros!

This might sound extremly stupid, but do you guys have recommendations for horror novels that dont try to be scary?

>>25614031
Novella, but Short Stay in Hell doesn't try to be scary. I Who Have Never Known Men, too.

>>25614031
What do you mean? Authors who write horror do so consciously, so unless I misunderstood I don't think there are such books.

>>25608972
5 days i'd say, halloween spirit has been low on /lit/ this year

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>>25615902

>>25614031
That don't try to be scary but are in fact scary, you mean? A lot of true crime fits that bill I'd say. Try The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer, or Programmed to Kill.
>>25614296
:'[

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>>25615570 >>25616265 >>25616659

Reading Ramsey Campbell's Alone with the Horrors, and there's a story about a little girl sacrificing mice so she could get fucked by an Aztec god, and she succeds.

>>25615352
Yeah, "The Man in the Underpass" is a great, unsettling horror story.

>>25614459
>>25614288
thanks for the suggestions, I will check them out
>>25614294
I did warn its a bit of a stupid request.

>>25591536
>First reading of the cask of amontillado scared the hell out of me
Imagine reading that as a teenager.

>>25589610
I have read maybe 2-3 books in my life, but I just ordered a small book called 'The Willows'. What am I in for?

>>25616236
Some great atmospheric horror. I don't want to spoil anything, but Blackwood has got fantastic prose.

>>25615352
That doesn’t scare me, I sacrifice my blood to Aztec gods in real life. Two weeks ago it made the neighborhood dogs and coyotes start howling, that was pretty cool.

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>>25616265

>>25615352
I read that in the spring, really good.

>>25591536
>Any good horror books set in autumn or on Halloween day / night? Or short stories?
The Last Feast of Harlequin by Thomas Ligotti?

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4 days!

Any books like IT that isn't IT?

I just cannot read a book with that many pages

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>>25619475

any rec's out of Robert E. Howard's horror tales?

>>25618380
>I just cannot read a book with that many pages
Me neither.

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>>25619441 >>25619893 >>25620072 >>25622930

Has anyone read any of these medieval horror novels? Would you recommend any?

>>25589939
>The Only Good Indians
I just finished that last week.

Just started The Great and Secret Show, will it be worth the 1400+ pages?

>>25619128
>1400+ pages
damn what edition did you buy? it should be at most half that

>>25602035
Based

>>25619166
>buy
Yeah, about that...

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>>25620072

If you haven't read Perfume, READ IT NOW!

>>25619088
Between Two Fires is very popular for a reason, it's good fun.
Howls from the Dark Ages has some really cool stories.

>>25618393
Pigeons from Hell, Black Canaan, Worms of the Earth, The Black Stone

>>25618380
Floating Dragon by Peter Straub

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Two days!

>>25619088
Michael Crichton is reliably good.

Don't read anything written by a woman, the odds are against you.

>>25619088
I've read The Castle of Otranto, which is a good read, and Between Two Fires, which I thought was pretty poorly written.

>>25619352
Perfume is a phenomenal novel, definitely recommend it,

I started Between Two Fires at one point, and while I liked it, I didn't get very far. I do want to read it someday soon tho.

>>25619088
Between Two Fires should be the first thing you read on that list.

>>25622930
I'm gonna get it for Christmas

The Willows arrived. can I read it in one day?

>>25623559
>He bought a singular book copy of a single short story
You could have just gotten an Algernon Blackwood short story COLLECTION for the same price you fuckin' DUMMY! There better be MORE than just The Willows in inside that fucking thing or so help me GOD...

Willows deez nuts lmfao

>>25624132
He could have just borrowed it from the library or downloaded it if he wanted time and cost efficiency.

>>25624132
>collection
soulless

>>25623559
sure, imo it's too long though

>>25624778
>shitting on collections
Are you going to read every single short story individually then or something?
(Also Oxford collections are the best)

I liked it. It wasn’t difficult to read for an illiterate like me. And I’m going to order the Wendigo next, as a single, tiny book and there’s nothing you can do about it.

>>25589610
Just finished Between Two Fires. Real page turner. I'm going to make meat braised in wine and herbs.

>>25624953
hell yeah

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HAPPY HALLOWE'EN!!!!