MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Oct 14, 2021 4:45:31 GMT
It's scary season, woooOOOoooooo, etc. Let's have some scary literary recommendations.
I'll go first
Pet Sematary (gotta have King in here somewhere)
House of Leaves (for those scared by impossible geometry)
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Roddy
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Post by Roddy on Oct 14, 2021 5:30:41 GMT
Oooh, horror is my fave book genre.
Scariest is possibly Little Girls by Ronald Malfi, or Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay.
Also, The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones was pretty freaky!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 14, 2021 5:42:09 GMT
Probably a James Herbert book when I was a kid. The Dark maybe it the Rats
I know I used to read them all up until the Magic Cottage and have since never read another horror book.
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Post by clemfandango on Oct 14, 2021 7:15:52 GMT
Slicer by garth marenghi
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marcp
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Post by marcp on Oct 14, 2021 7:29:15 GMT
It's scary season, woooOOOoooooo, etc. Let's have some scary literary recommendations. I'll go first Pet Sematary (gotta have King in here somewhere) House of Leaves (for those scared by impossible geometry) Was House of Leaves the one that had notes written in margins and really weird text layout? If so, that was bloody good. |
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Oct 14, 2021 7:41:06 GMT
It's scary season, woooOOOoooooo, etc. Let's have some scary literary recommendations. I'll go first Pet Sematary (gotta have King in here somewhere) House of Leaves (for those scared by impossible geometry) Was House of Leaves the one that had notes written in margins and really weird text layout? If so, that was bloody good. Yeah, that's the one. It's a book about a book, about an essay, about a documentary, about a house that's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. And it's really unnerving. |
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Oct 14, 2021 7:44:30 GMT
Also, if you want geometry horror without all the meta layers, You Should Have Left is a great, scary little novella.
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robthehermit
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Post by robthehermit on Oct 14, 2021 7:54:03 GMT
Has anyone in the history of reading ever actually been scared by a book?
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Zyrr
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Post by Zyrr on Oct 14, 2021 8:02:28 GMT
I suppose that depends how vivid your imagination is? I tend to find a well-written book that really gets you invested in the story can be really very scary indeed.
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LTK
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Post by LTK on Oct 14, 2021 8:03:14 GMT
1984 scared the shit out of me.
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Rich
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Post by Rich on Oct 14, 2021 8:06:42 GMT
I think It is the only book to ever work it's way into my dreams.
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Oct 14, 2021 8:11:10 GMT
Has anyone in the history of reading ever actually been scared by a book? Check the thread title |
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Lukus
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Post by Lukus on Oct 14, 2021 8:17:16 GMT
I've not read anything scary as an adult but when I was a kid I read a story called (I think) The Devil's Footprints, which was in a Point Horror collection.
That was genuinely unnerving at the time. But I was probably just being a massive fanny.
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robthehermit
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Post by robthehermit on Oct 14, 2021 8:17:32 GMT
Back in the day I used to read mostly horror, King, Barker, Masterton, Koontz, Herbert etc etc. and sure they were good stories, but they weren't scary, just stories. It's the same with horror films, they're not scary, they're just entertainment. Perhaps I'm wired wrong.
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Post by MysteryLamb on Oct 14, 2021 8:19:05 GMT
Has anyone in the history of reading ever actually been scared by a book? I expect back in the days before games and films lots of books gave people the heebie jeebies. Not just straight up fiction but books about religion, hell, witchcraft... |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 14, 2021 8:23:51 GMT
It's scary season, woooOOOoooooo, etc. Let's have some scary literary recommendations. I'll go first Pet Sematary (gotta have King in here somewhere) House of Leaves (for those scared by impossible geometry) Funnily enough I'm reading Pet Sematary just now. Not read it since my teens but had the urge, so bought it again last week. It's bleak and somewhat unsettling at times but I wouldn't say it's scary. Phantoms by Dean Koontz - I can remember being quite scared by that, especially early on. The Shining as well, particularly the encounter in 317.
That was when I was much younger though. Don't think I've been scared by a book for a long time. I used to get scared reading these ghost story collections by Aiden Chambers when I was in primary school. I'd stay up late reading them and then be too scared to go to sleep.
I keep meaning to buy House of Leaves as it happens.
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Oct 14, 2021 8:28:35 GMT
I'll grant that books don't really do jump scares particularly well, but imo that kind of horror is pretty shit anyway.
The better kind is the slow, creeping, inevitable feeling of dread. And good prose can most definitely create that feeling, in some ways even more effectively than movies or TV can. Because more things are left to the imagination, and that can be way more scary than anything a director can film.
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Ulythium
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Post by Ulythium on Oct 14, 2021 8:30:20 GMT
Prey by Graham Masterton scared the crap outta me when I was probably too young to be reading it in the first place.
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LFace
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Post by LFace on Oct 14, 2021 8:35:01 GMT
Does the Tory manifesto count?
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Post by MysteryLamb on Oct 14, 2021 8:37:01 GMT
Does the Tory manifesto count? The one they publish or the secret real one? |
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Zyrr
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Post by Zyrr on Oct 14, 2021 8:38:02 GMT
Fun fact: I went to the same university as one of Graham Masterson's sons and we shared a house for a while in North London. Got invited to a party at the big family house in Surrey, got really very drunk and made an absolute arse of myself.
I didn't get another invite lol
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 14, 2021 8:48:58 GMT
There was a short story I read when I was a kid about six fingered children that scared the absolute bejesus out of me... no idea what it was called though. I feel like it's far harder to be scared shitless by horror fiction once you reach your teens and beyond, which is kind of a shame really.
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Post by clemfandango on Oct 14, 2021 8:59:33 GMT
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 14, 2021 9:27:16 GMT
That sounds good but is it in that irritating Scottish dialect the whole way through? Och no ma wee dug fell in the Loch!
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JYM60
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Post by JYM60 on Oct 14, 2021 9:28:31 GMT
Back in the day I used to read mostly horror, King, Barker, Masterton, Koontz, Herbert etc etc. and sure they were good stories, but they weren't scary, just stories. It's the same with horror films, they're not scary, they're just entertainment. Perhaps I'm wired wrong. Same. Except when it comes to games! I can barely play Outlast or RE7. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 14, 2021 9:33:43 GMT
Slicer is a masterpiece.
"anything but ma brain...please don't slice ma brain... no, no... not the brain...och, no..."
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Post by clemfandango on Oct 14, 2021 10:04:31 GMT
Slicer is a masterpiece. "anything but ma brain...please don't slice ma brain... no, no... not the brain...och, no..." He was also a master at throwing in some erotica... “He whisked off her shoes and panties in one movement, wild like an enraged shark. His bulky totem beating a seductive rhythm. Mary's body felt like it was burning, even though the room was properly air-conditioned. They tried all the positions - on top, doggy, and normal. Exhausted they collapsed onto the recently extended sofa-bed. Then a hell beast ate them.” Eat your heart out King |
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Post by rawshark on Oct 14, 2021 10:19:45 GMT
Slicer is a masterpiece. "anything but ma brain...please don't slice ma brain... no, no... not the brain...och, no..." He was also a master at throwing in some erotica... “He whisked off her shoes and panties in one movement, wild like an enraged shark. His bulky totem beating a seductive rhythm. Mary's body felt like it was burning, even though the room was properly air-conditioned. They tried all the positions - on top, doggy, and normal. Exhausted they collapsed onto the recently extended sofa-bed. Then a hell beast ate them.” Eat your heart out King Was wondering if that was serious or not but then I scrolled up and saw the author. A titan of horror on screen and off. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 14, 2021 10:25:38 GMT
House of Leaves is the one.
Books tend to do unsettling much better than scary, and House of Leaves is definitely unsettling. Took me through a real range of emotions, and it's as bewildering as it is gripping.
One of my all-time favourites.
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marcp
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Post by marcp on Oct 14, 2021 10:34:18 GMT
Oooh, horror is my fave book genre. Scariest is possibly Little Girls by Ronald Malfi, or Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay. Also, The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones was pretty freaky! Not read a good horror in ages so just ordered both of these. This is a long shot - I've looked all over the internet and I'm fucked if I can find it. As a kid I used to read all these horror short-story collections, a lot of which were compiled by Helen Hoke. One of them had a story about a couple that had a baby and a robot nanny, and the nanny decided that the mother was unnecessary and smothered her. I've been trying to find out which volume it was in for a good few years now, no luck. Just one of those kid things I'd like to own again. |
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