A must-read horror list

jcamkub

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I think one could learn as much about horror from Shakespeare or Victor Hugo as from Stephen King. Horror comes, not from the blood and guts, but from the fear in our blood and guts. In order for us to feel that fear, we have to feel the characters. That being said, how about "The Sign of Four" by A.C. Doyle?
 
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TedTheewen

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I fell in love with A Choir of Ill Children by Tom Piccirilli. The voice and flow of the language made the horror that much better.

Steve Niles Drugs, Guns and Monster--just because it's a lot of fun.

Sir Aurthur Conan Doyle's short story, "Call Me Jack" is a classic.

M.R. James wrote a number of short stories and if you can find a collection in a dusty library someplace, read it! The Collected Ghost Stories of M.R. James is probably the most popular.

Bill Pronzini edited a number of anthologies of short stories. I read these when I was in 4th grade and they introduced me into horror as a written art. They all had one-word titles, like Creature! and Werewolf!

Joe R. Lansdale has an amazing voice when he tells a story about his East Texas landscape. He's written some wonderful short stories and he can get downright creepy, like in Freezer Burn.

One writer I would recommend, even though he is self-published and a bit rough, is Soren Narnia. If you do a search, you can find his short-story anthology Knifepoint Horror online for free. He has a distinct style that works well and leaves an impression.
 

BigDaddyDawg1899

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Love Stephen King

I am glad to see there was alot of Stephen King's work on here. I absolutely love to read anything by him. IT and The Stand were my 2 favs, and I Am Legend is also a good book, although its nothing like the movie with Will Smith. Thanks for the list!
 

AP7

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Clive Barker's Books of Blood
Neil Gaiman American Gods
Ray Bradbury Something Wicked This Way Comes
Richard Laymon Traveling Vampire Show
Ed Lee The Bighead
 

The Resurrectionist

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-Dark Carnival - Ray Bradbury

-The Other, The Night of the Moonbow* - Thomas Tryon

-The Face That Must Die, "Heading Home", "A Street Was Chosen" - Ramsey Campbell

-Thomas Harris's Hannibal Lecter series (Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, Hannibal Rising)* - get the books, the movies for the 1st 2 were good but the other 2 movie versions were terrible.

-Floating Dragon - Peter Straub

-Desperation, Cell, Night Shift, Pet Sematary, Salem's Lot - Stephen King

-"At the Mountains of Madness", "The Dreams in the Witch-House", "The Haunter of the Dark", "The Whisperer in Darkness", "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and "The Rats in the Walls" - H.P. Lovecraft

John Bellairs wrote a number of horror novels classified YA, but they still work for adults too:
-The House With a Clock in Its Walls
The Figure in the Shadows
The Letter, the Witch and the Ring
The Curse of the Blue Figurine
The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt
The Trolley to Yesterday*
The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn*

*These are technically not "horror" as they have no supernatural component - classable as dark suspense/thrillers instead, still instructive.
 

Ria13

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putting in a word here for Robert Aickman, an absolutely essential writer if you want to write literate horror. do not expect conventional horror or, for that matter, conventional fiction.

I also want to suggest Caitlin R. Kiernan.
 

Dr.Gonzo

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Nice list, so far. I'd like to add:

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

A Stir of Echoes by Richard Matheson
 

Project Deadlight

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Stephen King - IT, Pet Sematary
Richard Matheson - The Incredible Shrinking Man

The monkeys in Koontz's Seize the Day were terrifying, but I can't read that guy as an adult - his politics are awful and they are visible on every page.
 

Debbie

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The Town - Bentley Little

Someone posted his name earlier and i'm too lazy to look.
Haven't finished this book but he describes Rumpelstiltskin as sitting in a bath house naked. Yea, creepy.
 

The_AO

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Some authors that hopefully no one has mentioned yet:

Brian Lumley writes some awesome sci/fi-horror hybrid stuff. His Necroscope series, all thirteen books, is quality.

For psychological horror, I can't recommend Michael Slade enough. His books blur the line between supernatural and non-supernatural horror so well.

Broken Prey, Eyes of Prey, and Phantom Prey by John Sandford blurs the line between supernatural and non-supernatural horror also.

Venom, by Alan Schritchfield. A hostage situation in England with a black momba running amok in the townhouse where people are being held hostage. If you are afraid of snakes, for the love of God do not read this book.
 

Vultural

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I've been reading and collecting horror awhile. I'll try not to duplicate. Going from traditional to rough.
Arthur Machen - The Three Imposters - classic English horror. Influenced HPL
Aickman - Cold Hand In Mine - English horror
Basil Copper - And Afterward The Dark - English horror
Ramsey Campbell - Height Of The Scream - English horror
gradually I drifted into harder territory
Garton - Lot Lizards, Live Girls, The New Neighbor (Garton was on fire when he penned these. Later work never matched these.)
Ketchum - Right To Life, Weed Species (consider yourself warned)
Tessier - Father Panic's Opera - genocide
Laymon - Beast House, The Cellar ... anything. Laymon was king of the hill.

Ligotti - Songs Of A Dead Dreamer, Grimscribe. not for all tastes. Ligotti is esoteric and difficult. A cult figure.

Ellison - Last Dangerous Visions - ha ha. True horror for those contributors who have waited almost 40 years (and counting) for their works to see the light of publication. Or for any of us who have received the acceptance letter ... and then nothing happened.
 

betterthanwho

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Needful things, the dark halff, geralds game, rose madder by king
the regulators, the long walk by king under bachman
heart shaped box by joe hill
 
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Sea Witch

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Horror Reading Suggestions?

Could some of my esteemed Horror colleagues recommend some reading for me? I'd like to educate myself on the genre.

a) A website or 2 where I could read (for free) some horror short stories or flash fiction.

b) A couple of books that are great stories and beautifully written examples of the genre.

Thank you.
 

Arch Stanton

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Check out these stories by H.P. Lovecraft:


• The Colour out of Space
• The Call of Cthulhu
• The Dunwich Horror
• The Whisperer in Darkness
• Dreams in the Witch-house
• The Haunter of the Dark
• The Shadow over Innsmouth
• The Shadow out of Time
• At the Mountain of Madness
• The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
• Azathoth
• Dagon
• From Beyond
• Herbert West: Reanimator
• Nyarlathotep
• Pickman's Model
• The Picture in the House
• The Rats in the Walls
• The Shunned House
• The Statement of Randolph Carter
• The Thing on the Doorstep
 

FOTSGreg

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Pick yourself up a copy of "Rage Against The Night". Not only is every dime going to a worthy cause, it's also got a lot of good stories in it by the likes of King, Maberry, and other modern masters.

Arch's suggestions above are from Lovecraft, but he's considered the Father of modern Horror so reading him is a must.

Check out Richard Matheson, August Derleth, Ted Sturgeon, Fred Saberhagen (neither he nor Sturgeon are well known for their horror, but they did it very, very well - in one sense, Saberhagen's Berserker series can be thought of as science fiction/horror with humanity fighting an implacable and merciless foe for decades on the frontiers of space), Brian Lumley (some of his short stories are absolutely terrifying, particularly "The Green"), Brian Keene, Ramsey Campbell, and of course, my stuff (available on Amazon for the Kindle).

<no, I'm not afraid to toot my own horn now and then>

:)
 
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Blarg

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If you want to educate yourself broadly in the genre via a sort of history/critical studies book, S.T. Joshi's book, "The Evolution of the Weird Tale" is really good. Each chapter in the book is devoted to a single key author, starting from back in something like 1880 through the present. I really liked that he not only places each author in the context of their times and of their contributions, but does so by addressing the whole of their careers, down to many analyses of even individual short stories. Yet it's not a thick or intimidating book.

Joshi is the best-known Lovecraft scholar by a large margin, and he makes a good case for his strong opinions on horror.

Figures covered include Robert Chambers, HP Lovecraft, Dennis Etchison, etc.

Another book you must read if you haven't already is Stephen King's Danse Macabre. It's a history of horror themes and horror in pop culture. Very insightful.

And finally, if you have an e-reader, you can get all of HP Lovecraft's books for free. Someone called cthulhuchick typed up all his stories, added a working table of contents, and put them out as a free kindle e-book. I dunno if it's also available in other formats. But it's great to have and it's obviously a huge labor of love. She was very attentive to things that many of the biggest publishing houses aren't -- you won't find typos, poor and unchecked OCR scans, etc. It's nice and clean and free.

I'd also suggest, if you're a Lovecraft fan or would like to be, and have an e-reader, that you download samples from as many S.T. Joshi books on him as you can find. His introductory essays are very good.

Also, a very famous book called The King In Yellow, by Robert Chambers, is in a free kindle edition on Amazon. The character created, and the evil theatrical play written of, went on to figure in many people who later wrote stories set in Lovecraft's universe or using bits and pieces of his gods, grimoires, and aliens.
 

Nissie

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I always loved Peter Straub's Ghost Story, and Shirley Jackson novels like The Haunting of Hill House. I'm actually not too much of a Lovecraft fan - his convoluted sentence structure hurts my brain - but I do love how he envisions his monsters.
 

Arch Stanton

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I always loved Peter Straub's Ghost Story, and Shirley Jackson novels like The Haunting of Hill House. I'm actually not too much of a Lovecraft fan - his convoluted sentence structure hurts my brain - but I do love how he envisions his monsters.


Yeah he can be a bit purple at times. I find myself laying down "ly" adverbs like rain on a lawn after I read him. That said, his stories are still incredible. His ability to inspire dread is quite good and the way he portrays monsters is perhaps the moste tasteful in the genre.
 

Rhoda Nightingale

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In addition to the suggestions above, I'd like to add On Writing Horror and its chapter on must read books, compiled by other authors in the genre.

I also agree that Lovecraft can be a little florid with his word choice and structure sometimes; I prefer Ray Bradbury, who has a similar narrative voice with fewer bells and whistles in the syntax and melodrama.
 

virtue_summer

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Here's a link I found doing a quick search for classic horror short stories. I noticed Lovecraft, Poe, etc, were there. It might be a place to start in terms of free online material. Oh, and one thing I've enjoyed is listening to pocasts that are radio adaptations of classic tales. This one is a good one. It's not the same as reading the story, but I enjoy it sometimes and it's led me to track down stories that were adapted that I then decided to read in their original form. Just a suggestion.

In terms of offline material I'd actually suggest maybe trying to get hold of some good anthologies to introduce yourself to new authors. I'm currently reading one titled Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror which is edited by Ellen Datlow. Two single author collections that include some good stuff I'd consider horror, although some non horror stories as well, are Ray Bradbury's The October Country (The Small Assassin is brilliant) and Joe Hill's 20th Century Ghosts. Oh, and Stephen King tends to excel at short fiction, too. As for novels, I might suggest some classics like The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Stephen King's The Shining (I consider it classic), and then for something more modern maybe Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill or The Good House by Tananarive Due. Of course my recommendations are biased toward my own taste, but I thought I'd toss them out there.