Any good horror book recommendations for Fall/Halloween season? Dark Fantasy or Horror or Creature Features I prefer.
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I do A Night in the Lonesome October by Zelazny every year. Quick easy chapters that you ideally read one a day until Halloween.
John Langan - The Fisherman
Augustina Bazterrica - Tender is the Flesh
Ray Bradbury - Something Wicked this Way Comes
John Skipp & Craig Spectar - The Light at the End
Katherine Dunn - Geek Love
Richard Chizmar - Widow’s Point
CJ Leede - Maeve Fly
Anthology - End of the World As We Know It ( Varied Anthology in The Stand Universe, absolutely don’t need to have read The Stand for it to work.)
Nat Cassidy - Rest Stop (for a shorter Novella) When The Wolf Comes Home (for something longer and kinda/sorta Creature Bits)
Will Add More As I Think of Them.
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Thought this would be pretty pitch perfect for this crowd. Told all through emails, reviews, forum posts, etc, to tell a story about…a haunted TTRPG? Maybe?
Not sure but you can I bet I pre-ordered it from my local shop.
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Love this book! It’s so fun.
My wife brought home a free review copy from work. It does look interesting. But the faux vintage look…lol..
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Yeah, I have a strong disdain for that faux tattered look. Feels akin the pre-distressed jeans. Don’t worry pubs, I’ll mess up my own books, thank you very much.
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I read the first two a long time ago and enjoyed them both. I own the third but haven’t read it, and now I feel like I’d need to restart the whole thing. I guess I should track down a summary. Hope you enjoy it!
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Am I allowed to say I am reading my own novel… which is my first novel? Because I am reading it again and again. It’s a grimdark, maritime fantasy. I playfully call it “Dexter meets Pirates of the Caribbean.” I am actually quite excited about and advanced readers have been giving me really great feedback.
More info on my website: https://www.anvil-and-loom.com/
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And I just noticed I received my very first review on Goodreads yesterday and I am beyond grateful and elated.
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Awesome I will check this out!
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Congratulations! This is super exciting and I hope you take a minute to just sit in the joy of it all for a moment or two.
You wrote a book, that’s rad!
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I’m going to be starting the series over again once I finish The Ocean at the End of the Lane. I’ve only ever gotten through book 4, so I’m hoping I’ll be inspired to go through the whole series this time.
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I am interested in exploring some Psychological Horror Fiction and looking for any recommendations based on my favorite video games as reference to what I am into;
Silent Hill 2, Resident Evil 0-3, Amnesia (all), SOMA, The Room, Superliminal, Portal, ALIEN, The Terminator, F.E.A.R., Fran Bow, Inside, What Remains of Edith Finch.
I also enjoyed the Marble Hornets/ Everyman HYBRID series’ on Slenderman.
I much enjoy Kane Pixels; Backrooms series.
The Blair Witch Project is my favorite horror film. I love Cabin in the Woods…, The Ring was good.
There is a bunch more that slips my mind.
Anything is helpful.
(Not really into torture, explicit death, or gore.)
Oh! Anything about false reality, the nature of reality, alternate dimensions, dream worlds or travel. (Total Recall, The Matrix, The Maxx, Carlos Castaneda)
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Many of your examples have a contemporary or futuristic setting. If that’s negotiable, the three below might be options – unless you’re not keen on graphic novels, in which case only the first below might do.
- Hodgson’s The House on the Borderland. Solitude. Grief. Alienation and the uncanny. Time, space, and madness. There’s a BBC audiobook version on archive dot org that doesn’t stray too much from the text.
- Moore’s From Hell. Somewhat “the deep end” for graphic novels, long and dense, but it checks all your boxes. Magical and maniacal murder stitching scenes of everyday brutality (a.k.a. civilization) from then til now. Does have some gore but less than you might guess. It will not make complete sense.
- Cha & Otsmane-Elhaou’s The Sickness. Self-consciously inspired by From Hell. I’m currently reading it for the first time. I’m finding the writing sophisticated but taxing. It has some of the richest visual depictions of terrifying hallucination I’ve come across. Not gore per se but horrific depictions of bodies and innards.
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Thank you!
I added these to my book shopping list, I appreciate the time and effort.
Glad to see that From Hell isn’t some sprawlingly endless series like AKIRA or Sandman, or Dragon Ball.
(Maybe these examples aren’t sprawling as I remember them, but Dragon Ball definitely is.)
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I’m a big Blair Witch Project fan as well and Chizmar’s Widow’s Point is one of the best ‘found footage’ type horrors.
If you’re leaning more toward the folk horror aspect of it, Starve Acre by Daniel Kokotajlo is solid.
False Reality stuff, House of Leaves kinda blends into the found footage stuff too and is pretty beloved but some folks feel the rest drags. The Man in the Watch Still Visits Me at Night by Joshua Chaplinksy is getting a lot of buzz (have it on hold but my library doesn’t have it yet. A smaller book I love from this genre is, And Then I Woke Up by Malcolm Devlin.
Dead Silence by SA Barnes was really likened to Alien but felt more like AlienS to me so I never finished but folks loved it.
If you dig the YouTube surrealism stuff, Uketsu has written, I think, two books now. Their Strange Pictures was a lot of fun.
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Thanks so much! Will look into these.
Thanks for the reminder on House of Leaves, I keep meaning to read my partners copy which is some really special multi coloured addition.
Got my own copy. I sold my copy of Silent Hill 2 and reinvested it in some Horror Literature, I think it was a very good trade.
I am 2-3 chapters in depending on how you look at it. I absolutely love it so far. It is hitting so many notes of my favorite kinds of film and video games. Essentially the novel is like a game to me. I immediately started my own accompanying note book.
It is a game, an alternate reality game, reminiscent to me of EverymanHYBRID. A YouTube (and cross-platform) ARG on Slenderman that me and my partner were lucky enough to be involved with as it happened. An absolutely unique and potentially once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Another of my favorite series, I believe I forgot to mention, of all time is LOST.
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That’s so good to hear! I know he had another book, Tom’s Crossing, come out recently that is supposed to be really good. I can never remember dude’s name, just Poe’s Brother in my head.
That was actually why I picked up House of Leaves at all, thought he must cool if he was related to her. Haha.
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