CHUD.com Community › Forums › ARTS & LITERATURE › Books and Magazines › Scary book suggestions?
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Scary book suggestions?

post #1 of 19
5/24/02 at 11:17pm
Thread Starter 
A GOOD scary book. None of the old standby's...(King,Koontz..blah blah blah)

I want something with a hard edge. Something unmerciful. Something uncompromising. Something that will scare the hell outta me.

I've been reading non-fiction almost exclusively for a long time, and now I want something entirely different to plunge into. I have a back log of books to read, but want a scare before I dive into them....

Suggestions?

Reply
post #2 of 19
5/24/02 at 11:18pm
Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum.
Reply
post #3 of 19
5/25/02 at 12:05am
A Winter Haunting.

Reply
post #4 of 19
5/25/02 at 12:58am
Try 'Summer of Night' by Simmons before 'A Winter Haunting.'

But if you want really intense, try Jeff Long's 'Descent.' I'm not shitting you. Ask Nick.
Reply
post #5 of 19
5/25/02 at 1:02am
The Nightrunners by Joe Lansdale

The Light at the End by John Skipp & Greg Specter

Creekers by Edward Lee
Reply
post #6 of 19
5/25/02 at 1:26am
I second Nightrunners, and Creekers fooking RULES! I read Light at the End but don't really remember it. I do LOVE the Book of the Dead anthologies edited by Skipp & Spector!

Summer of Night is a great book but I think Song of Kali is much more fucked up and disturbing. Also, Carrion Comfort is pretty horrifying/scary. I have not read Descent.

Sorry to jump in w/my 2c but it's great to see books I love mentioned in this thread!
Reply
post #7 of 19
5/25/02 at 4:05am
If you want a "balls to the walls" all out fast paced, ( VERY ) gory, suspenseful quick read try to get your hands on a copy of OFF SEASON by Jack Ketchum. It's out of print now, but I often run into copies at used PB shops. It's a classic. Not one you're likely to ever forget!

Another good quick read that is guaranteed to send chills up your spine is TAP, TAP by David Martin. If this one doesn't tempt you to check under your bed & sleep with your lights on after finishing it no book will!

If you're in the mood for something a bit longer with a bit more meat to it, I highly recommend my favorite novel THE CEREMONIES by T.E.D. Klein. It's got a great plot, an isolated, creepy lacation & genuinely interesting charecters. Oh & some damn good scares too!

I could go on all night long with suggestions, but I'll leave it at these 3 for now. Good luck!

-Jim
Reply
post #8 of 19
5/25/02 at 10:15am
I can't remember reading a book that really scared me ever. But the one book that ruined my week because it was so disturbing was the Long Walk by Steven King writen under his pen name which eludes me right now. It is about a walk across New England being taken by 100 teenagers. The boys have to keep walking above 4mph for as long as they can (no bathroom breaks what so ever allowed)and if they can't walk any longer the kid will be shot dead. In this race everyone will die until there is only on boy left walking. and the boy who is left at the end will get any thing that he wants for the rest of his life. Kind of frightening how king wrote a book about the possible extreams that reality TV could take.

Personaly I couldn't finish the Long Walk it fucked me up making me be so depressed that I thought about commiting suicide. I'm better now
Reply
post #9 of 19
5/25/02 at 11:39pm
HOUSE OF LEAVES will FUCK you up.
Reply
post #10 of 19
5/26/02 at 1:08am
A house larger on the inside than the outside? I'm there, dude.
Reply
post #11 of 19
5/26/02 at 1:38am
Clive Barker. Weaveworld.

Oy.
Reply
post #12 of 19
5/26/02 at 1:50am
Thread Starter 
picked up Summer of Night this evening. Keep the suggestions going, or just keep talking about horror novels that got you frightened like a little girl.....
Reply
post #13 of 19
5/26/02 at 3:24am
Quote:
Refrozen Seabass:
Clive Barker. Weaveworld.

Oy.
Weaveworld is a great book to start with by Barker
some others you might like are Brian Lumleys Necroscope books.
The Shee and Still Life(really good)by Joe Donnelly.
The Man In The Moss by Phil Rickman
Reply
post #14 of 19
5/26/02 at 11:09am
Few horror books scare me, because there are relatively few horror writers who know how to scare me. But those who can scare me usually do it well and do it consistently. Some books and writers that have:

Ramsey Campbell--Just about anything he's written, but particularly:
[Novels]
Incarnate

The Influence (a low-key ghostly chiller that features a couple of the scariest scenes I've encountered in a novel)

Ancient Images

The Nameless

[Short story collections]
Dark Companions

The Height of the Scream

Much of Waking Nightmares

Alone with the Horrors (reprints)

Most of Strange Things and Stranger Places (especially the relentlessly creepy and nightmarish novella Needing Ghosts)

The Year's Best Horror Stories series of annual anthologies which was discontinued with the death of Karl Edward Wagner, who edited the final 14 volumes.

Robert Aickman--Just about any of his short stories.

M. John Harrison--The Ice Monkey (short stories)

Joel Lane--The Earth Wire (short stories; bleak urban horror: emotionally desolate, bizarre and chilling)

There are plenty more, but this list includes many of my current favorites.

Frankly, when it comes to scaring the audience, movies have it a lot easier, since while we're watching a horror movie everything is thrown at us from the screen and we have to be 'in the moment' to react to it. A book has to be a much more sophisticated in its approach to affect or unsettle me.

Reply
post #15 of 19
5/26/02 at 11:18am
Thread Starter 
Barker's Books of Blood series? Anyone read one, or all of those? A few of the stories there freaked me out. One in particular stands out. The story concerning the monsters in the desert who lure the townspeople out into the wilderness and.......
won't spoil it for anyone.
Reply
post #16 of 19
5/26/02 at 11:39am
I loved the Books of Blood. My favorite story was In the Hills, the Cities, with the people climbing on each others' bodies and turning into a massive single being crashing through the countryside?

I will second Ramsey Campbell as well. Also, Jack Ketchum's writing is chilling. I also chime in on the Year's Best Horror Stories collections, edited by Karl Edward Wagner, and also The Skin Trade, another anthology. I also dig Ed Gorman and John Shirley.
Reply
post #17 of 19
5/27/02 at 5:52am
Clive Barker in Books of Blood-mode is awsome. I loved Cabal, and I've read it more times than I can remember, but I still haven't seen the movie! So is it any good?

Does H.P. Lovecraft count as an old standby? At least at these boards he does, I guess...
Reply
post #18 of 19
5/27/02 at 2:05pm
Clive Barker's Coldheart Canyon will also FUCK YOU UP.
Reply
post #19 of 19
5/31/02 at 5:45pm
In the Hills, the Cities is the only Clive Barker story that has really stayed with me, what imagery...

Faery Tale a horror/fantasy by Raymond.E.Feist had some truly creepy moments in it...It may be out of print though.
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Books and Magazines
CHUD.com Community › Forums › ARTS & LITERATURE › Books and Magazines › Scary book suggestions?