Best of Horror

No matter where my reading tastes lead me, they inevitably come back to the unexplained, chaotic, mysterious, weird, and downright horrifying.

The ghosts and witches in Hamlet and MacBeth, Rossetti's goblins, Shelley's monster, Stoker's foggy, craggy terrain and life-sucking creatures, Bradbury's underground tunnels of mummified dead and twisted carnivals, etc, provoke my imagination in a way which few other characters/settings/themes have.

Recently, I've read three horror authors (one for the first time) which have really stuck with me and thought I'd share in hopes someone else has read some of these authors' work and have any critique to share or otherwise to recommend these works to you.
Laird Barron Occultation is an excellent horror analogy which left me thinking (and shuddering) for days after I'd devoured the last page.
I think Strappado was the one which had me wondering the most. It had a similar vibe to An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, which kind of devastated me when I first read it, but also blew my mind. If that makes sense.
Tom Tryon's Harvest Home was another I just recently finished but which really kept my mind going after the book was over.
What I got from that one was a reminder that my romantic vision of the past is ridiculously naive and that farmers in particular must have been very superstitious people considering all their efforts impinge upon many mercurial and capricious factors.
I really enjoyed how the true horror of the story slowly came into vivid focus.
Joyce Carol Oates Small Avalanches is the last book I'd like to mention. Her work is verge of adulthood based, and really speaks to an aspect of growing up which I haven't seen in many works. Her story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" is loosely based on a true life killer who had posed as a teenager to lure young girls, but was in his late 20s or early 30s. He also stuffed his boots to look taller. So weird and horrifying to think about.
Her story "Haunted" has one of the scariest ghost scenes I've read
"Small Avalanches" is real world horror and enough is left unsaid to be real interesting.
How about your favorite horror authors? Have you read any of the above mentioned?

a reply to: zosimov

I really enjoyed house of leaves.

Don’t want to give it away. Check it out.

Currently I’m reading The adventures and misadventures of Maqroll.

H.O.L amazon

The adventures —— amazon

a reply to: TheAlleghenyGentleman

Augustus cued me in on that one--a great read (House Of Leaves) with a very unsettling and horrifying vibe.
I agree that it was an excellent work of horror.

The book you're reading looks really good!

a reply to: zosimov

I’m enjoy Maqroll. I’m reading it in Spanish. It is slightly poetic but not overly so. The main character has a charm about him that gets him in and out of trouble. I am only one story in. There are 7 I believe.

This is a great topic, and I am looking forward to everyone's responses. I recommend both Summer of Night and A Winter Haunting by Dan Simmons. If you enjoy blues music, the Pine Deep trilogy by Jonathan Mayberry is a worthwhile read. I also really enjoyed Night Film by Marisha Pessl.

a reply to: zosimov

Recently finished this one and it's highly disturbing and highly recommended.

Pic

An utterly unpredictable and macabre mystery, Under the Skin is a genre-defying masterpiece.

originally posted by: TheAlleghenyGentleman
a reply to: zosimov

I really enjoyed house of leaves.

Don’t want to give it away. Check it out.

Currently I’m reading The adventures and misadventures of Maqroll.

H.O.L amazon

The adventures —— amazon

I gave away my copy of house of leaves because I didnt undersgand it

a reply to: zosimov

Arthur Machen's " Novel Of The Black Seal "

A synopsis.

www.oldstyletales.com...

If you can't find the book, here is an audio version. It starts at 22.42 mark.

a reply to: Pillywiggin

Thanks for the great suggestions! That Deep Pines trilogy looks especially interesting to me.

a reply to: karl 12

Oooh yes--this one looks great, and I do judge a book by its cover.

Thanks for the tip and if/when I read it I'll post my impressions here!

a reply to: alldaylong

Appreciate the links--I always love a good horror blog.

Machen's work/themes look really interesting. Thank you--I'll let you know what I think when I read it.

a reply to: Brotherman

Read it again. Just don’t read the cluttered annotations on the pages edge.

The base story is outstanding.

a reply to: TheAlleghenyGentleman

Shortly after reading it, I read about a house which reportedly had similar features to the one in HoL but lost track of the story and haven't been able to find it since.

Aside from the uncanniness of the story, there's an underlying theme which really fascinates me. I really did enjoy that one immensely.

a reply to: zosimov

I unfortunately keep hearing tale that “they“ want to make a movie/tv show on h.o.l.

I just don’t know how you could have a show about such peril of isolation and madness week after week.

The depths, the noise, the blackness, the never ending twists and turns.

Great book.

H.P. Lovecraft is my top horror writer.

originally posted by: TheAlleghenyGentleman
a reply to: Brotherman

Read it again. Just don’t read the cluttered annotations on the pages edge.

The base story is outstanding.

unfortunatly i gave it away =(

originally posted by: zosimov
a reply to: karl 12

Oooh yes--this one looks great, and I do judge a book by its cover.

Thanks for the tip and if/when I read it I'll post my impressions here!

Yo my friend would be honoured if you read it - it's genuinely (and brilliantly) disturbing.

Will actively try to read your recommendations in the first post and would say if you enjoy a bit of wholly original fantasy horror then China Melville is well worth a look.

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Winner of the August Derleth award and the Arthur C. Clarke Award, Perdido Street Station is an imaginative fantasy thriller, and the first of China Miéville's novels set in the world of Bas-Lag.

The novel's publication met with a burst of extravagant praise from Big Name Authors and was almost instantly a multiaward finalist..

a reply to: zosimov

House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski

And anything by Richard Matheson.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Have you read this short story by Harlan Ellison?
wjccschools.org...

Pretty horrifying stuff. I recently watched Terminator again and in the credits there was a reference to Ellison's short stories as having inspired parts of the movie, and this one for sure had a part in it.

a reply to: zosimov

Yes.

My favorite line: "...it was already too late for us to
realize that, once again, AM had duped us..."