What horror novel/short story are you reading?

lovecraft Rats in the walls

I just finished Nails, but Fiona Dodwell. Outstanding. Then I dug into They Rise by Hunter Shea. Totally cool icky bug from the sea. Then Scorpions by Mike Cook. Good b-movie icky bug with actual icky bugs. Now I'm reading Cthulhu Rising by Sean Hoade. Good so far.

I bought a batch of them from Amazon since I can't get them at any local bookstore. Such a shame that this stuff isn't available at bookstores and we have to resort to on-line to find them. The "big five" don't consider anything but Stephen King and very few others worthy of their attention, I guess...

Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury.

Just finished Cthulhu Attacks! by Sean Hoade and am starting The Shift by Fiona Dodwell.

Been reading the short stories in Stephen King's Skeleton Crew Anthology. I'm halfway through, but it's pretty good that only one short story and one poem managed to bore me. The latter isn't so surprising, considering that Stephen King is better known for his prose.

Just finished The Dumb House by John Burnside. Twisted stuff. But I love his writing.

Sean Hoade stole one of my titles. Grr.

THE MEPHISTO WALTZ by Fred Mustard Stewart.

Currently working my way through my complete Lovecraft anthology along with House of Leaves. Both great. Both making me extremely distrustful of architecture.

Finished The Shift by Fiona Dodwell. Loved it. Then I read Sawfish by...can't remember the author. Anyway, great b-movie icky bug. However, it was written in omniscient. Not my favorite POV, but I still liked the monsters and mayhem.

Now I'm reading The Consultant by Bentley Little. This is the last of the big batch of icky bug I got from Amazon and it will be back to conventional books from Barnes & Noble for a while. Anyway, The Consultant is classic Bentley Little. Love it so far and I'm a little over a third through. One day in the future, I'll have to order another batch of icky bug from Amazon. I'll certainly never get them in any bookstore!

That's one I don't remember reading, Feidb. And I've read a ton of his stuff. Let us know how you like it when you're done, okay?

Adam Nevill's Last Days. ​Dear God that's a scary book.

Haggis said:

That's one I don't remember reading, Feidb. And I've read a ton of his stuff. Let us know how you like it when you're done, okay?

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I sure will. I'm about 2/3rds done now and it's getting pretty intense. It reminds me a lot of The Store.

Haggis, just finished The Consultant. Very creepy and typical Bentley Little. Think of a mixture of Lemmings and Lord of the Flies and The Store and just wanting to smack those idiots up the side of the head. If you read it, you'll know what I mean. The end was weird also. Still, I liked it and have an autographed edition, #82 out of 500. Guess I'll have to keep it! Had no idea when I ordered it...at least I don't remember that being part of the deal when I did. Glad I got it but would've preferred a more personalized copy.

Was working on an epic fantasy before I picked up ransomware that ate up the books in my computer's Kindle reader. Really fried my eggs. So went back to Poppy Brite's Lazarus Heart. It's from the Crow-verse and is very layered. Creepy people doing creepy things and a spirit of vengeance coming back to even the score. Digging it so far.

Little likes to write about people who piss him off. I started the Association a while ago. I need to finish that one.

I've been really into creature feature type books for the past couple years. I'm currently reading the most recent book in the Meg series by Steve Alten. Before that I was reading Burial Ground by Michael McBride, but I didn't enjoy that nearly as much as his two Snowblind books and Sunblind.

Was a few months ago but Dan Simmons': The Terror and Drood.

I just finished MEG Nightstalkers. I've shied away from the MEG series because Mr. Alten had a penchant for writing in present tense, and that just drives me nuts and I find present tense unreadable. Finally, with Nightstalkers, he switched back to past tense and I loved the book! He brought back a lot of the old characters and some new ones and introduced some new icky bugs, at least to me. I'm looking forward to the next installment, but with trepidation, because I'm worried he'll slip back to using present tense again, and of course, I won't bother reading it if he does. Oh well...

Right now I'm reading Pressure by Brian Keene. Great book so far. Don't remember ever reading him before but this one is great icky bug and actually has one, so far. Another deep sea adventure with all the trimmin's. I'll let you all know how it turns out.

Pike said:

Little likes to write about people who piss him off. I started the Association a while ago. I need to finish that one.

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Little's one of my favorite horror writers. I'm convinced he's a pantser because his endings are, like King's, sometimes disappointing. But the read is a always worth it.

You need to finish The Association. One of the scariest books I've ever read.

Finished Pressure and it was great. A lot of fun. Short but sweet, figuratively speaking. Now I'm back to reading thrillers again. Probably won't be reading icky bug for a while. Oh well...

Haggis said:

Little's one of my favorite horror writers. I'm convinced he's a pantser because his endings are, like King's, sometimes disappointing. But the read is a always worth it.

You need to finish The Association. One of the scariest books I've ever read.

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I haven't read Little in ages and, as you mentioned, it's his endings that kind of put me off him. Not that I'm boycotting him or anything so dramatic, or that his ending are that bad, but I'd certainly agree he's best when it comes to establishing a strange mood, invoking an odd world, etc. I'd still put The Store right up there against some of the best stories I've read. Very surprised we haven't seen a movie version yet. To me, it's just got the vibe of something that a producer would love.

As to the question of what novel/short story I'm reading now, I've got nothing on the go -- in terms of horror. Checking out Neil Gaiman's latest non-fiction work instead.

I just read The Hatching by Ezekiel Boone. Pretty good icky bug with the inevitable sequel material. I'm up for the second one!

Flowers in the Attic.

I'm not so sure it's a horror story, though. But it's good.

Clara Salaman's The Boat. Not quite horror, but has vibes of it. People tend to be worse than monsters sometimes. Picked it up in a warehouse sale. Pretty good so far despite grammatical errors.