Hi!

I haven't really read any horror books, though I'm interested in reading one.

Can you guys recommend me some books? Maybe your favorite ones, or the ones that you think might be suitable for a new reader?

Thanks!

E: Oh, and ++ if the book has been translated to finnish.

Hi Dremen,

I'm not sure on translations, but I would highly recommend:

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

A Choir of Ill Children by Tom Piccirilli

The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum

Every Dead Thing and Dark Hollow by John Connolly

I'm reading The Unblemished at the moment, it's by Conrad Williams. I have to say I'm not a fan of his writing style, but the story is pretty gruesome and well thought out.

Hope that helps

Cheers
ART

Dremen,
Well not necessarily in any order but

Salem's Lot by Stephen King, anything by H.P. LOVECRAFT, I might even throw in Caleb Carr's Alienist/ANgel of Darkness in the mix but I suppose most folks would classify that as historical crime fiction.

But I have to say I am checking this thread out as well. My knowledge of current horror fiction is severely lacking...

Thank you for all the posts.

I gotta check out what these books are about, the posts from here on, could you please tell a bit about the book?

Anyway, thanks again!

E: The Road, Girl Next Door and Salem's Lot seemed quite interesting. I'll check more later on. Smile

Depends on taste of course but I'd echo the HP Lovecraft advice. His style often throws a lot of people off the scent but something about his stories creeps up on you. They are so effective that there are a number of people who refuse to believe that he made them up and suggest that he was tapping into a horrible truth beyond normal human understanding.

I would also advise reading the shorter stories by Poe. If you start with the five page "Tell Tale Heart" you'll soon become an addict and find yourself seeking out everything he ever wrote.

While on the subject of short stories see if you can track down the short horror stories of Guy de Maupassant. They were once available in a single volume called "Tales of Supernatural Horror". These are worth reading again and again and again until the book falls apart at the seam.

Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House" and Richard Matheson's "I Am Legend" are riveting beautifully written books but might seem overly familiar due to having been turned into so many films.

There are a number of more recent horror novels that take about a thousand pages telling you a story that could have probably been told better in twenty but I'd advise reading anything by Clive Barker before he turned from horror to fantasy (Books of Blood, The Damnation Game) and anything by James Herbert when he still wrote with a pulp fiction sensibility (The Rats, The Fog, The Spear, The Dark, The Survivor).

Horror is a very personal matter. What makes one person almost afraid to take a trip to the bathroom in the middle of the night leads another to slip into easeful sleep. You have to find what works for you but I think the titles mentioned already in this thread would probably all make decent starting points.

Agree with Jago. It's a good starting point, but books are even more a thing of personal taste than films.

The Road is a sort of post apocalyptic novel set not long after some disaster has happened (from memory, i don't think it's elaborated on) and follows The Man and The Boy as they try to survive in the harsh environment whilst searching for some sort of peace/existance?? I know, I know. It sounds like every other Post Apoc story, but it's so beautifully written and full of a weird and bleak creeping dread that I was really surprised the effect the book had on me. It's almost a ten a penny idea written by an absolute master.

The Girl Next Door is based on a true and horrific abuse case. It tells the story fro the perspective of the boy living next door to a family where the most horrendous stuff is being perpetrated on a young girl in the mothers care. He ends up befriending the girl and it sort of carries on from there.

Hope that helps

Cheers
ART

I vote for The Road as well, it is not "horror" per say but it is pretty horrifying.

Also the novella "Hellbound Heart" by Clive Barker, it is shorter than a novel but meatier than a short story and it is really good. "The curious case of Dexter Ward" falls into that category as well, it is longer than most Lovecraft stories but it is no novel.

I've noticed that some of Clive Barker's writings have been translated to Finnish (Books of blood, The Damnation Game and Cabal).

Almost all of Lovecraft's books have been translated too. Could you recommend any of his books? I mean he has a lot of them.

E: Is there a big difference if I read the books in original language, or translated? I just wish the original awesomeness doesn't change or anything, though it's easier to read in Finnish.

It's very hard to make a comment on the quality of translations.

Lovecraft does have a very individual style of writing which includes a wealth of unusual words and phrases that had me, as a child, forced to read with a dictionary by my side. I suspect, however, that most translators would take that style into account and find a kind of poetry in the new language. I've only ever read Maupassant, Proust and Hesse in translation and sometimes I wonder if had I read them in their original language I'd have been as affected by them. Sometimes an old book with a modern translation might be clearer than the original would be to a native speaker.

As for Lovecraft's books... There aren't all that many but the various collections often have overlaps which makes it appear as though his output was as prolific as Stephen King's. I think "The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward" makes a decent starting point as it is his only novel. Because it is a very short novel, however, it is often included in a volume with some other stories (much like HG Wells' "The Time Machine").

1.
McCarthy, Cormac
Road, The

2.
Lovecraft, H.P. Joshi, S.T. Joshi, S.T.
Call of Cthulhu, The: And Other Weird Stories

3.
Clive Barker
The Damnation Game.

I was thinking about getting these, good choices? : -)

Yes, Yes, Yes.

For Lovecraft I recomend starting with stuff not directly connected to the mythos so if that collection contains "the colour out of space" that is a great start, weird and scary but not steeped in lore.

I am also enjoying "The King in Yellow" by Robert W. Chambers. His work was inspired by Edgar Allen Poe and in turn inspired Lovecraft, and it rests in a nice space between the two. Similar to Poe it has a sense of humor and interesting characters but like Lovecraft it has a vague dread that is never entirely manifested or explained.

Ok, good. I already bought them, so I can't start with another Lovecraft book. So are these "Mythos" books related to each other? If so, is there a book which starts this whole thing? I mean i just hope I'm not starting from the middle in the big plot. : -D

Oh, dont worry about the mythos stuff, it is all vaguely hinted at and midly connected. Think of it as Star Wars trivia... a lot of the stuff that most fans know is extrapolated, uninentional or derived from secondary sources. But in a sense the less you know the better.

Great!

Thank you for all the posters! I've got my books ordered and I'll check more later when I've read them.

You guys can keep posting more, it might help some other people or maybe me after some time.

-Dremen

Good choices sir!

Let us know how you get on.

Cheers
ART