Horror Lit - Books Reviews, News and Discussions

It’s been another massive year for horror, whether we’re talking about film, TV, or books. On that note, the literary world is teeming with spine-tingling graphic novels, nonfiction books, and unsettling novels to keep you busy this Halloween season and beyond.

books mentioned in the article:

• Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees by Patrick Horvath
• David Cronenberg: Clinical Trials by Violet Lucca
• Horror Movie: A Novel by Paul Tremblay
• House of Bone and Rain by Gabino Iglesias
• I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones
• Influencer by Adam Cesare
• Monsters, Movies and Me – True Tales of My Journey Into Cult Horror Films by Frank Dietz
• Pay the Piper: A Novel by George A. Romero and Daniel Kraus
• The Queen: A Novel by Nick Cutter
• Terrifier 2: The Official Movie Novelization by Tim Waggoner

Additionally, the article highlights two new books related to John Carpenter's films:

• Escape Artists Vol. 1: Escape from New York Interviews by Andreas Johansson
• Escape Artists Vol. 2: Escape from L.A. Interviews by Andreas Johansson

Curdle Creek By Yvonne Battle-Felton

Nether Station By Kevin J. Anderson

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21340577

As readers and writers, there are many immediate images that we conjure when imagining the weird tale.

Jeff and Ann VanderMeer from their site Weird Fiction Review give an excellent overview and definition of the Weird and by association the weird tale:

“As a twentieth and twenty-first-century art form, the story of The Weird is the story of the refinement (and destabilization) of supernatural fiction within an established framework but also of the welcome contamination of that fiction by the influence of other traditions, some only peripherally connected to the fantastic.” (...)

Books suggested:

• The King in Yellow By Robert W. Chambers

• Zothique: The Final Cycle - By Clark Ashton Smith

• The Great God Pan By Arthur Machen

• The House on the Borderland By William Hope Hodgson

• The Horla and Others By Guy de Maupassant

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/18950890

The balancing point of “cozy Lovecraftian horror” is going to be subjective. It needs to at least work as a weird tale on its own; it needs to be a part of or allude to the Mythos in a way that the readers can recognize and respond to. Jose Cruz’ four elements of Familiarity, Sensuousness, Distance, and Fun are all important—but three of those, at least, are typical of most Mythos stories by default. Readers rarely identify with finding our great-great-great-grandma was a Deep One or Ape Princess, or experience the anxiety of living in the attic room of a witch house and dealing with an extradimensional rodent infestation when they really should be focusing on their finals. The Fun aspect of cozy horror is probably the trickiest and most argumentative aspect of the whole business.

That being said, I believe “On Safari in R’lyeh and Carcosa with Gun and Camera” (2020) by Elizabeth Bear stands out as a very good representation of cozy Lovecraftian horror. The overall shape of the narrative is intensely familiar: how many scions of Innsmouth (never mentioned under that name) have come back home, in how many different variations? Yet the way the story is told is relatively light and novel: a fifty-something female physics professor with tenure and a penchant for sushi. A perfect setup for any number of funny-because-its-true comments about the lives of women in academia.

...

It is the kind of good, clean fun that you can have when you learn to stop worrying and love the Lovecraft Mythos—and it managed to do it without naming Deep Ones, without running across a copy of the Necronomicon, and only mentioning Miskatonic Univeristy once and in regards to a failed graduate thesis in genetics. If the rules at play seem to owe a little more to the Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying Game than Lovecraft’s original, then at least Bear has the good sense not to recapitulate the entire Mythos, August Derleth style. She gives just enough lore to keep things moving, and no more.

https://lithub.com/10-works-of-literary-horror-you-should-read/

Like all genres, literary fiction included, horror is a watery one. What makes something horror? What makes something literary? No one can say exactly. (...) I suppose my idea of literary horror is similar to the “suggestive horror” that Brian Evenson discusses during an interview at The White Review: “The notion of a more suggestive horror, which raises the spectre of an insidiously elusive reality, is much more frightening than a lot of what gets called horror, and more realistic than what gets called realism.”

Book suggested:

• The Changeling by Victor LaValle
• Last Days by Brian Evenson
• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• .Piercing by Ryu Murakami
• The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
• A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
• After the People Lights Have Gone Off by Stephen Graham Jones
• Blood Crime by Sebastià Alzamora
• Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
• House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

Horror books teachings.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/20741287

This post is all about 23 must-read Cosmic Horror Books, you need to read as soon as possible!

1. Monster by Christopher Cunningham

2. A Song for the Void by Andrew C. Piazza

3. A Lush and Seething Hell by John Hornor Jacobs (Author), and Chuck Wendig (Introduction)

4. Periphery by Michael Winter

5. Violent Wonder by Fredrick Niles

6. Tales from Brackish Harbor by Cassandra L. Thompson

7. By the Light of Dead Star by Andrew Van Wey

8. Dead Sea by Tim Curran

9. Tales From the Gas Station by Andrew Van Wey

10. Suburban Monster by Christopher Hawkins

11. You Shall Never Know Security by J.R. Hamantaschen

12. Coffinwood by Aaron Beardsell

13. Dead Shift by John Llewellyn Probert

14. The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling

15. What Lurks Beneath by Ryan Lockwood

16. Cthulhu Reloaded by David Conyers

17. What Lurks Beneath by Eddie Generous

18. Let Sleeping Gods Lie by David J. West

19. Head Like a Hole by Andrew Van Wey

20. Kraulaak by S.R. Marks

21. Shadow over Odiome by Seth W. James

22. Terror at Twll Du by J.S. Douglas

23. The Recluse by David Barker

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/18035169

Powerful. Brutal. Bursting at the seams with cosmic horror, ennui, violence and self-annihilation. There are many ways to describe Laird Barron’s latest collection, NOT A SPECK OF LIGHT: Stories (Bad Hand Books, 370 pp., paperback, $19.99), but superb works just fine.

A murderer recounts his most memorable kills and how his victims have haunted him in “The Glorification of Custer Poe.” In “Joren Falls,” a retired couple learn to live with the hungry abomination that dwells in their attic. “The Blood in My Mouth” follows a man whose partner will do anything to see her dog again, even if it means delving deep into the supernatural.

Recurring elements across the 16 tales in this collection — space as a threatening place full of monsters; Alaska as the cold, unforgiving backdrop where death lurks at all times; violence as the answer to most questions — give it a pleasing sense of cohesion. Barron’s work is where eldritch horrors and unflinching brutality collide with poetry. “Not a Speck of Light” proves Barron belongs on the Mount Rushmore of dark speculative fiction.

The five books are:

• Not a Speck of Light by Laird Barron
• The Night Guest by Hildur Knutsdottir
• Incarnate by Richard Thomas
• Sinophagia: A Celebration of Chinese Horror, translated and edited by Xueting C. Ni

“With this debut novella, Ajram delves into shadowy liminal spaces, allowing readers to guide the main character deeper into a nightmarish labyrinth with no escape.”

Vicken’s plan is to throw himself into the Saint Lawrence River in Montreal and say goodbye to everything. Seems fitting after a life of nothing but depression and pain. But when he steps off the subway, he is soon caught in an endless, looping station.

Determined to escape, Vicken explores the corridors and rooms in the station. No matter how many hallways he goes through, or vast cathedral-esque rooms, the exit is nowhere to be found.

The more he explores, the more Vicken is convinced that being trapped in his strange new prison isn’t an accident. And while walking through the shadows, he comes to realize that he almost certainly is not alone. (...)

Full Article

We’re coming into my favorite time of year, and if you’re a horror fan like me, you’re probably just as excited as I am for the autumn months. Of course, we read horror all year around, but there’s something about reading horror in the fall that just hits different. They don’t call it spooky season for nothing, after all! And in fall 2024, we’re getting so many exciting new horror reads to get us through our favorite season.

There’s so much good horror coming out this September. It was hard to narrow it down to just ten titles to share with you. Included in this list are some of my most anticipated horror novels of the whole year. Along with some classic scary things like ghosts and vampires (a whole lot of vampires), September is coming through with fresh new horror concepts you’ve never read before. Scary horror video games. A violent world with no fear. A home improvement show with a spooky twist. The list goes on.

Every book on this list deserves to be on your TBR this season. So grab a PSL, put up your creepy Halloween decorations, enjoy the cool breeze and the changing leaves outside, and most importantly, pick up these horror books as soon as they hit shelves. (...)

Here are eight great weird horror novels to lean into that feeling of being unsettled for no discernable reason.

• Chlorine by Jade Song
• Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
• The Vegetarian by Han Kang
• We Spread by Iain Reid
• Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova
• The Fisherman by John Langan
• Universal Harvester by John Darnielle
• Bunny by Mona Awad

https://screenrant.com/horror-books-terrifying-not-scared-easily/

Summary

• These 10 horror books, including The Hunger and The Troop, are sure to send chills down your spine with their gripping plots and terrifying imagery.
• The authors, like Stephen Graham Jones and Grady Hendrix, craft intense atmospheres with their details and sensations, immersing readers in chilling stories.
• With novels like Pet Sematary and Tender is the Flesh, readers will be haunted by themes of resurrection and inhumanity long after turning the final page.

All Tomorrows book - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Tomorrows

pdf - https://archive.org/details/book-all-tomorrows

Brad Anderson’s Session 9 has been one of my favorite psychological horror films ever since I caught a theatrical screening of it at a 24 hour horror marathon in 2001, so it’s cool to hear that horror and dark fantasy author Christian Francis – who has previously written novelizations of the films Wishmaster, Titan Find/Creature, and Vamp – is giving Anderson‘s cult classic the novelization treatment, with Echo Horror Publications planning to send the book out into the world on October 4th – just in time for Halloween season reading!

Kara, a 34-year-old woman who, after a divorce, moves back into her childhood home—the Glory of God Museum of Natural Wonders, Curiosities, and Taxidermy, owned by her eccentric Uncle Earl. There she takes on the responsibility of running the museum while her uncle undergoes surgery. As she explores the museum, she and her friend Simon stumble upon a portal that leads to a bizarre and dangerous dimension. This dimension, referred to as the "Hollow Places," is characterized by its eerie landscapes and monstrous entities that seem to respond to fear.

REVIEW

sublimehorror.com | grimdarkmagazine.com | goodreads.com |

The book was heavily inspired from classic horror short "The Willows" Algernon Blackwood and have elements of Lovecraftian horror.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55120033-the-worm-and-his-kings

New York City, 1990: When you slip through the cracks, no one is there to catch you. Monique learns that the hard way after her girlfriend Donna vanishes without a trace.

Only after the disappearances of several other impoverished women does Monique hear the rumors. A taloned monster stalks the city’s underground and snatches victims into the dark.

Donna isn’t missing. She was taken.

To save the woman she loves, Monique must descend deeper than the known underground, into a subterranean world of enigmatic cultists and shadowy creatures. But what she finds looms beyond her wildest fears—a darkness that stretches from the dawn of time and across the stars.

Clive Barker's Books of Blood is a collection of horror short stories publicized in the mid-1980s. The series, which comprises several volumes, showcases Barker's unique blend of visceral horror, dark fantasy, and psychological depth. Introduces readers to a range of stories, each distinct yet interconnected by themes of violence, existential dread, and the supernatural. The stories are characterized by their exploration of human fears and desires, often delving into the grotesque and the macabre.

My Favorite Stories

The Midnight Meat Train: A man inadvertently discovers a horrifying truth about the New York subway system, leading to a confrontation with a monstrous figure named Mahogany.

The Yattering and Jack: A story that blends horror with humor, featuring a demon attempting to possess a man during Christmas.

In the Hills, the Cities: A couple who stumble upon a bizarre and terrifying ritual in a rural setting.

Dread: This story focusing on the concept of fear and the lengths to which one might go to confront it.

For the fans of the genre this books is a must-read.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32626.Books_of_Blood

https://horrornovelreviews.com/2012/08/29/revisiting-clive-barkers-books-of-blood-volume-one-review/

https://kendallreviews.com/book-review-books-of-blood-volumes-1-3-clive-barker/

Article

Horror is having a moment in 2024. Every month, I’ve been finding new favorites, and July is not slowing down. Not at all. It was so hard to narrow it down to ten books for this list (...)

• Midnight Rooms by Donyae Coles
• Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle
• The Building That Wasn’t by Abigail Miles
• I Was A Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones
• Alley by Junji Ito
• So Witches We Became by Jill Baguchinsky
• The Blonde Dies First by Joelle Wellington
• It Came from the Trees by Ally Russell
• Ghost Camera by Darcy Coates
• Stay on the Line by Clay McLeod Chapman

It’s never too early for scares — check out our picks for the best books to get you into the Halloween mood this summer:

• Trick or Treat on Scary Street by Lance Bass
• Middle of the Night by Riley Sager
• It by Stephen King
• The Ghostkeeper by Johanna Taylor
• The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas
• Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay
• Things that Go Bump in the Day by Melinda Beatty
• The Black Girl Survives in This One edited by Desiree S. Evans and Saraciea J. Fennell
• I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones
• The Troop by Nick Cutter
• Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enríquez
• Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
• The Between by Tananarive Due

In the wake of the original 1990 movie and the largely forgotten 2017 remake, the Flatliners saga will continue with Flatliners Resurrection, a new novel that’s currently in the works.

According to Deadline’s exclusive report this morning, the upcoming novel will be penned by J.D. Barker (Dracul), and it puts a fresh twist on the original Flatliners screenplay.

Deadline explains, “The original [movie] was released by Columbia, but Barker said that scribe Peter Filardi got back the rights to his original script, and the author swayed the scribe with a twist to the original tale that takes the reanimation tale down a different road than the original or a later remake. The novel is based on that script, not the movie, and Intellectual Property Group’s Joel Gotler will broker both the publishing and screen rights.”

“We’re thrilled to have J.D. Barker on board for this project,” said Filardi. “His ability to craft suspenseful, thought-provoking stories makes him the perfect choice to reinvigorate the Flatliners franchise for a new generation.”

“The concept of Flatliners has always fascinated me,” Barker said. “I’m honored to have the opportunity to explore these themes of mortality, consequences, and the unknown in a novel format. Fans can expect a story that honors the spirit of the original while pushing into new, uncharted territories. We’re going to scare the hell out of you.”

Joel Schumacher directed the original 1990 movie, which was packed with stars including Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland, William Baldwin and Oliver Platt.

In that movie, “Five medical students experiment with “near death” experiences, until the dark consequences of past tragedies begin to jeopardize their lives.”

The 2017 remake of Schumacher’s film followed the same storyline, with Niels Arden Oplev directing and the cast including Elliot Page, Diego Luna, Nina Dobrev, and Kiersey Clemons.

Thirteen-year-old Ben is sent to a remote reform program for troubled teens by a juvenile court judge. But when he arrives at the camp, located on the edge of the vast wilderness of northwestern Montana, he immediately recognizes that there is something off about the counselors. They’re too friendly and upbeat…yet Ben can tell there’s an undercurrent of menace.

As he gets to know the boys in his cabin, he soon discovers that they each have far more going for them than whatever crime landed them there. And each has a different critical skill, one that could help them unearth what is really going on in this place—and how to make it out alive. They are inching ever closer to the truth, and the hidden evil beneath the camp’s surface will make itself known in order to deter them.

It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a "haunting"; Theodora, the lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers—and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.

“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality.” ― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

Reviews

musewithmeblog.com | goodreads.com | butfirstkafka.com | trey-stone.com