Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2016 14:30:13 GMT -5
what is good
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Ice Cream Planet
AV Clubber 
I get glimpses of the horror of normalcy.
Posts: 3,833 
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Post by Ice Cream Planet on Jan 26, 2016 16:22:43 GMT -5
Shirley Jackson is a genius, and I can't recommend The Haunting of Hill House enough. It's a masterpiece.
If you are looking at older examples of horror, obviously classics like Frankenstein, Dracula, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and the works of Edgar Allen Poe are all worth a peek.
If you are looking more contemporary examples, it's an obvious choice, but Stephen King.
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Post by HipsterDBag on Jan 26, 2016 19:04:56 GMT -5
Dracula is a truly excellent classic horror book, I heartily agree.
As far as Stephen King goes, his ouvre is obviously vast and intimidating, but I think a good place to start is with his short story collections, because they're largely strong on quality and give you a pretty wide variety of various horror tropes. Skeleton Crew, Night Shift, Everything's Eventual, Nightmares and Dreamscapes, Just After Sunset, and The Bazaar of Bad Dreams are his short story collections. Some of the short stories can run towards novella length (especially in The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, which has at least three short stories which come close to being standalone novellas). I think that's a great place to start, though.
Ghost Story by Peter Straub is excellent.
Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House is excellent.
Stephen King's son Joe Hill is surprisingly good. As far as straight-up horror books go, I think his first one was the best -- Heart Shaped Box.
House of Leaves is a great story if you can get into it (it's incredibly complex and requires multiple re-reads to fully enjoy).
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Post by MrsLangdonAlger on Jan 26, 2016 23:41:20 GMT -5
If you want some shorter stories or novellas, try Algernon Blackwood. The Wendigo, The Willows, and the Damned are all good. HP Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness is also great!
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Dellarigg
AV Clubber
This is a public service announcement - with guitars
Posts: 7,634
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Post by Dellarigg on Jan 27, 2016 2:20:41 GMT -5
James Herbert was the UK's 'answer' to Stephen King. He's nowhere near as good, but if you agree with me that there's room in horror for knowing, pulpy dreck, with chapter-long sex scenes, then give him a try. The Fog may be all you want.
Also Clive Barker, Ramsay Campbell.
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