Horror Novels/Short Stories: S/D

Book is undoubtedly a source for king’s shining

I think he's acknowledged that, yeah

Anyone read the Ceremonies by Klein?

Yes... about 20 years ago. My recall of it is hazy but it’s on my reread list

Just two weeks ago!

I read it relatively recently too. Felt like all sizzle and no steak to me. Plus the villain is lame

The villain is a centuries-old charred treehugger with one eye. Not lame at all.

He's a little old man who runs around giggling a lot

That's the sidekick.

Familiar perhaps. But he has a lot more screentime

I see it's discussed way upthread, but it's new to me:

I'm working my way through the VanderMeer-edited The Weird anthology, and so far it's the best-curated collection of this kind I've seen. I like the way it's limited to the 20th and 21st centuries, with all the texts presented in chronological order, and I especially like the way stories by the canonical English-language writers sit side-by-side with equally strong works in translation (many of them newly translated for this book). About a quarter of the way through, my biggest discovery has been the Belgian writer Jean Ray, represented by two quite different but equally unnerving stories. I've already downloaded some more of his work for future reading.

I'm glad I've got The Weird on my iPad -- handling the dead-tree edition would be a strength workout.

Wow - 110 stories, you’re not kidding

my gf got me the dead-tree anthology and i always feel terrible for not reading more in it but it's not exactly a book i can toss in the bag for an idle moment.

xxp description of The Weird also applies to the VanderMeers' massive Big Book of Science Fiction, which suggests to BB reader me that you should brace yourself for recurring bouts of inconsistency, esp. when DO YOU SEE social commentary trumps art & entertainment value. But keep on keepin' on.

I’m only a horror dilettante but find myself drawn to it more and more. Including the last two books I’ve read — “Hell House” by Richard Matheson and “The Loney” by Andrew Michael Hurley. I read Hell House because I like Matheson and it has this rep as the ultimate haunted house story — found it sort of gaudily entertaining, but very over the top AND plagued by sexist depictions of women in general and women’s sexuality in particular. Memorable setting, but ludicrous plot.

The Loney is good — gothy folk-horror set in a grim little British seaside in the ‘70s. Hurley’s a good writer and he finds a thousand different ways to say gray/rainy/murky. I liked how little was spelled out even as it becomes more and more apparent what’s going on. Has anyone read either of Hurley’s other books?

I enjoyed that Matheson novel but the ultimate haunted house story is probably Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House

Which I haven’t read and obviously should. I read that Matheson wrote Hell Housepartly as a response to the Jackson book, which he thought was too atmospheric and not spooky scary enough. I have a feeling I will probably like Jackson’s approach more.

Jackson's book is quieter and more disturbing. I had fun reading Hell House, but it still bothers me to think about Hill House.

Matheson deserves more love than he gets, for his screenplay work as well as his fiction.

Hill House is magnificent. Still think the best haunted house book is House of Leaves but I know it's not for everyone.

Bit of an adjunct but this is great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mexs39y0Imw

Has anyone read either of Hurley’s other books?

I read Devil's Day, very evocative prose but too much of a tendency to lapse into melodrama. Although I guess that goes with the territory in gothic fiction. It's not often I say this kind of thing and I hate to sound like a literary critic obsessed with 'proper' books, but I thought The Loney would have been more effective without the swerve into the supernatural. It was uncanny enough anyway!

I recently seen someone say it's impossible to sell certain kinds of historical fiction, so authors end up adding in fantasy elements to sell them to the fantasy market. Even Robert E Howard did this I think (also partly in fear of historical fans who might catch him out if the accuracy wasn't impeccable). I wonder how much horror does this? I've definitely read a few horror short stories where it feels like an overt supernatural element was tacked on.

xp

I can see that. I had read about it as "a folk-horror book," so I guess I was prepped for some kind of spooky action. As it was, I thought it was nicely suggestive about the whole thing — and interestingly conflicted about which forces were or weren't fully malevolent.

For anyone who's interested, here's a list of various online short story publications with at least a partial focus on horror:

Nightmare - http://www.nightmare-magazine.com
The Dark - http://thedarkmagazine.com
The Deadlands - https://thedeadlands.com/
Gamut - https://houseofgamut.com/
Apex - http://www.apex-magazine.com/
Seize The Press - https://www.seizethepress.com
Cosmic Horror Monthly - https://cosmichorrormonthly.com
Skull and Laurel - https://tenebrouspress.com/
Ergot - https://www.ergot.press
The Drabblecast - http://www.drabblecast.org
Weird Horror - https://undertowpublications.com
Pseudopod - http://pseudopod.org
Tales to Terrify - https://talestoterrify.com/

I've definitely read a few horror short stories where it feels like an overt supernatural element was tacked on.

I don't think I've encountered this, but it sounds like an interesting switch from the "explained supernatural" endings of Radcliffe, old dark house mysteries, Scooby Doo, etc.

Haven't read xxxpost Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, though I liked the movie. and expect the novel might be better, not just because they often are, with the suthor's voice and more room for detail etc, but also because I have read her We Have Always Lived Lived in the Castle, the edition with Jonathan Lethem's afterword, to which I enjoyed comparing mu own cold-read impressions (there should be more afterwords ). Awesome book, and short enough to have the tightness and impact of first-rate short stories, with room enough for more headsnaps. It's their house and they live there.

Yeah We Have Always Lived in the Castle is great, one of my favorite unreliable-narrator stories.

Then there's this.from Rolling Speculative---the first comment is mine:

Also Richard Matheson, who wrote a lot of the best Twilight Zones, Speilberg's Duel, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, which Chris Carter credited with inspiring him to create The X-Files, also novels like The Shrinking Man and I Am Legend, which could be an ancestor of Breaking Bad, with the one Normal terrorizing a world of vampires, although in his mind, of course, he's Making Good. Also lots of short stories---Ward Fowler scared the crap out of me by posting this 'un on the old Rolling sf etc. thread:

http://magicmonkeyboy.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/drink-my-red-blood-by-richard-matheson.html

my fave matheson short story, which deeply affected horror-obsessed-young-me when i read it as a boy. the whole treatment of vampirism seems very similar to the vibe that george a romero was going for w/ his movie martin, and i know romero admitted that matheson was the primary inspiration behind NOTLD. you can see why stephen king is such a big matheson fan, too - that 'naturalistic'/everyday treatment of the supernatural. again, this story reminds me v much of parts of the tobe hooper tv movie of salem's lot - vampirism as teenage yearning/disaffection

― Ward Fowler, Sunday, September 9, 2012

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/740011/capitalism-a-horror-story-by-jon-greenaway/

It’s theory not a horror novel itself but this is good and there are good recs in there.

Just read a Matheson short story collection a few months ago, dude was fucked up

Thx treeship, that looks like a good read.

I picked up a Robert Aickman short story collection from the local bookshop a few weeks ago. It had one of those staff recommendation blurbs and a cover description that made it seem up my street, but I ended up feeling a bit bored with it and ultimately missold, like yeah the stories are a bit 'weird' but they are slow and often vague and don't impart enough creepiness or dread or unease for me.

The most unsettled I felt was when I went to shelve the book and saw that I already own another Aickman collection that I have absolutely no memory of purchasing, which is super unusual for me because With almost all of my other books I remember why or where or when I got them, but the circumstances of this one are a total mystery to me. A bookmark a couple stories in suggests past me didn't really get on with him either.

I recently read my first Daphne Du Maurier, Don't Look Now, AKA Not After Midnight: long stories, but didn't seem too slow or vague, def got creepiness, dread, unease.

Re-titled Don't Look Now, at least for US, after the movie came out.

Aickman rules. 'Swords' is one of the most disturbing stories I've ever read.

The Aickman anecdote about not realising you already had an Aickman collection is quite Aickman-esque, one of his lesser tales maybe.

What the fuck, I also bought an Aickman collection this week (but I knew I already had one.) Which has "The Swords" in it. Fucking amazing and awful.

there is a new stephen king story collection with previously unpublished stories including a post-pandemic cujo-related novella!

also this:

"Paying tribute to author Cormac McCarthy upon his death in June 2023, King previewed The Dreamers, a story he had written while reading McCarthy's 2022 book The Passenger. He described The Dreamers as "very much under the influence of McCarthy's prose" and "very much in McCarthy's style". In August 2023, King noted The Dreamers as a rare example of one of his stories that he himself was scared by, describing it as "so creepy" that he "couldn't think about it at night". The Dreamers was published in 2024 as part of King's collection You Like It Darker. The story was dedicated to McCarthy, and to the fantasy author Evangeline Walton."

i haven't read king in decades though...

i have a nice first edition of this and i still haven't read it.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81j72EuMubL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg

aickman had a good look.

https://blogs.bl.uk/.a/6a00d8341c464853ef02a30d444d9a200b-pi

The Aickman anecdote about not realising you already had an Aickman collection is quite Aickman-esque, one of his lesser tales maybe.

And one of the more concise and clear ones, yes.

Neither of my collections have Swords. I feel left out!

I really enjoyed 3 of the 4 Aickman stories I've read but never felt compelled to bump him up the to-be-read pile, just someone I hope to read more of eventually. His body of work has a sparkling reputation for consistency, being able to keep exploring the same obsessions with novelty and freshness (or so I hear)

New Laird Barron is good. Thematically / stylistically closer to Swift To The Chase and with some recurring characters so YMMV if you strongly preferred the first two collections. Still a cut above everyone else in his field.

was just checking my wishlist and was pleasantly surprised to see those aickman compilations are currently discounted on Amazon in the uk (amz has Unsettled Dust and Wine Dark Sea for 99p and Cold Hand In Mine and Dark Entries for 1.79, Kobo has just the first two)

In addition to Mariana Enriquez's stories mentioned on the WAYR thread, I recently finished A Different Darkness by Luigi Musolino, disturbing chthonic folk horror stories in modern settings from Italy.

It was so good. SO GOOD. Properly macabre and unsettling and atmospheric and weird.

Yep, Valancourt have been strong on translated horror recently. Attila Veres’ Black Maybe also very good.

A Different Darkness is probably the most horrific horror I've read since the Black Maybe a few years ago. I think Veres was more disturbing overall but Musolino has the better stories.

I’m really into Clive Barker right now. Read The Damnation Game last month (feverish, depraved, slightly campy) and am enjoying Books of Blood right now. It’s so fucked up, I love it.

Any good recommendations for literary horror with not too much reliance on gore or monsters? Well written madness (or gaslighting), architectural horror, ghosts/hauntings, nature horror, being lost or alone in either vast or tiny places, the real horror is society etc etc. I've read a lot of old classics but am totally not up to date on anything modern aside from a bit of Ligotti.

The Musolino sounds interesting, but 'most horrific horror' might indicate a bit too much splatteriness? I have also read a bit of Enriquez but while I liked it I didn't love it.

https://www.fantasticfiction.com/a/sofia-ajram/coup-de-grace.htm

I haven't read this yet but it seems to have the labyrinth quality and a bewildering number of writers have given it praise. It looks very short too.