Last week, we crowdsourced your favorite dystopian reads.
This week, let’s talk horror.
We’ll keep it broad this time around — no subgenres, just the entire blanket category of what you consider “horror fiction.” Poll the choir of brain cells and ask yourself: what are your top three horror reads? Books that are not only favorites but also what you could consider the essentials –?
Drop them in the comments, if you don’t mind.
On a quick administrative note, a few of you have asked when I’ll compile the results of these lists — I will be doing that, but I need that pesky thing called “time.” (If anyone out there in the crowd feels they have the time and inclination to crunch the data, I wouldn’t say no.) So, I’ll probably reserve the compiling time to do in batches. The response to these has been pretty interesting, revealing a very fascinating fluidity in what people understand about certain genres and subgenres. I suspect it’ll continue with this week regarding people’s definition of “horror.”
esselle says:
Okay. I just finished reading a book called, ahem, “Bait Dog” — I know, I know, it’s not the thing you were thinking of, but to me, an animal lover, it was horror. The horror part was that I know it really goes on out there and that there are really people like that. I don’t have to have impossible monsters, and zombies and like that. I’m horrified by the awful things we do to each other and the creatures and features of the planet. Keep writing stuff that shows that to people and maybe, just maybe, we can turn things around and you will help save the world. Thanks for saving my sleep by having it come out sort of okay and that Whitey stayed around. So I’m 75 and just starting to write shut up.
August 5, 2013 — 12:13 AM
janinmi says:
Rock on, esselle 🙂
August 5, 2013 — 10:25 PM
Mozette says:
I’ve been scaring myself since the tender age of 16… when my Mum wanted me to stick with girly romances and ‘Sweet Valley High’ books. Sorry, Mum… couldn’t do that; tried them and blech! My top 3 horror books:
‘Night Shift’ by Stephen King
‘Nocturnes’ by John Connolly
‘Just After Sunset’ by Stephen King
I know 2 of these are SK books… but he’s a brilliant story-teller and I always feel as though we’re sitting together over a campfire telling stories when he just sits down, with a marshmallow on the end of a stick and tells a story over a low fire; making sure we can’t tear ourselves away or get to sleep when we do.
August 5, 2013 — 12:17 AM
Toni Rakestraw says:
It’s been awhile since I’ve read a lot of horror. The one that sticks in my mind the most is Audrey Rose by Frank De Felitta. Read it numerous times. Also read a lot by John Saul once upon a time, but no one title comes to mind. Unfortunately I don’t get a lot of horror to edit… though I do occasionally get some delightfully chilling ones. Horrific vampires in one called Changeling by Morgan Gallagher, and a chilling visit to Chernobyl in Sarcophagus by Philip Hemplow come to mind.
August 5, 2013 — 12:21 AM
June Weiss says:
Thanks for that recommendation, I’ve been wanting to read Chernobyl-area horror and just picked up Sarcophagus for $2.99 on Kindle. I also put Changeling on my wish list.
August 5, 2013 — 11:42 AM
esselle says:
I didn’t even start on the Chris thing! Hideous way people deal with the slightest deviation from the “norm”—I am straight but because I didn’t marry till I was 61 people looked at me funny, y’know? Wonderful kid and the dad couldn’t dig it. I HATE that! Horror. You see? The only monsters that really count are people! They can do the worst and the best stuff with regular stuff in between, and not to mention, it can be all mixed up in the same person sometimes, e.g. Chomp-Chomp. Love A.B. to pieces. Wish I were her granny! I’d try to help out her mom too. I’m telling you the book got me. Thanks.
August 5, 2013 — 12:21 AM
Betsy says:
It’s a short story, not a novel, but The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a horror story that stayed in my mind for a long time after I read it.
August 5, 2013 — 12:31 AM
S.L. Fummerton, author of "Thaumaturge" says:
Well, I would have to say William Peter Blatty’s “The Exorcist”, and its sequel, “Legion”. What kept me awake was the horror/evil you cannot see, like, demonic possession. It moves into a nice kid and turns her into a monster. It’s not something outside of one like a vampire or werewolf or a psychopathic serial sexual sadist/killer, as scary as that last category can be in reality, never mind fiction. I have to admit my version of horror these days is what I read and see in the news, about Big transnationals pillaging the environment and telling the public what a good job they are doing, or others trying to patent genes. Sorry, dudes, the creator, universal energy, or whatever term you might want to use already holds those patents, you greedy morons! Also, the evil of modern day slavery is pretty damn horrifying and terrifying, especially for the parties enslaved. BTW, human traffickers are the villains in “Thaumaturge”, my novel.
There are more enslaved people now then at any time in human history, and many of them are children. That is truly horrifying.
Thanks for reading this.
August 5, 2013 — 12:39 AM
brigitte muir oam says:
Hey Chuck, where is my ebook? Apologies for posting here, but I cant find an email for you. Best, B.
I m jumping up and down here!!! 31 Jul 2013 Payment To
Charles Wendig
Completed
Details Payment To Charles Wendig 4YR87177W42779331 -$2.99 USD
August 5, 2013 — 12:45 AM
Jon Jefferson says:
Shadowland from Peter Straub. Any of the books of blood by Clive Barker. The Shining by Stephen King.
These are ones that come to mind right now.
August 5, 2013 — 1:24 AM
Nikki Howard says:
Lots of people talk of Lovecraft and King when horror is mentioned, but there are some newcomers and the not-so-new who can write their socks off as well.
1. Thrall by Mary SanGiovanni (loved this atmospheric read)
2. Biohazard by Tim Curran (whose imagery is excellent. When he writes of snow, I shiver.) Apocalyptic Horror
3. The Rain Dancers by Greg Gifune (This guy has a real gift. You may not “get” what you want out of his stories, but the talent is always there.)
Just in case you’re interested in essential authors:
1. Jack Ketchum
2. Richard Laymon
3. John Skipp and Cody Goodfellow
Have a good one Mr. C~
August 5, 2013 — 1:39 AM
22pamela says:
Apaches: A Novel of Suspense by Lorrenzo Caracaterra
Kiss the Girls by James Patterson
…and Helter Skelter: The true story of the Manson murders byVincent Bugliosi
August 5, 2013 — 2:04 AM
22pamela says:
sorry…I now see the operative word…”fiction”….so let’s remove Helter Skelter and replace it with Macbeth by William Shakespeare
August 5, 2013 — 2:07 AM
Jeremiah Boydstun says:
Definitely have to go with Stoker’s Dracula. I always found the use of epistolary to be a very intimate form of storytelling, something which really ramps up the level of tension. Plus the book is just friggin terrifying. I think that’s one of the reasons I like Brooks’ World War Z so much; the use of the diary / interview method of storytelling somehow made the story more real.
Love Dean Koontz’s Stange Highways. Major chicken skin.
I also appreciate stories that use monsters as devices for foregrounding how crazy and f**ed up human beings can be. Kirkman’s The Walking Dead and most stories by King (The Mist is a great example) most readily come to mind.
August 5, 2013 — 2:15 AM
afteroldjoe says:
Shirley Jackson The Haunting of Hill House, M.R. James Complete Ghost Stories, and David Schow Seeing Red.
August 5, 2013 — 2:48 AM
Emma Haughton says:
The Ritual – Adam Nevill. Terrifying.
August 5, 2013 — 4:41 AM
Fi Phillips says:
Black House by Peter Straub and Stephen King. Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
August 5, 2013 — 4:46 AM
Ashley R Pollard says:
The Keep F. Paul Wilson
Salem’s Lot Stephen King
Vampire$ john Steakley
August 5, 2013 — 4:52 AM
anninyn says:
I feel like King’s gonna get more than enough props in this thread, so shall we just keep him aside and assume I said I love him? Cause I did.
Sooooooo
Dracula, of course, which as well as Horror I think should get a nod as the first tech-thriller (seriously, it’s all about using what would have then been cutting-edge tech to help solve the mystery and destroy the count)
And it’s more of a novellette, but Carmilla
August 5, 2013 — 5:15 AM
Joe says:
My top three are all Stephen King books (sorry, he’s my fave): Christine, Needful Things, Pet Sematary
August 5, 2013 — 5:26 AM
Angel Croitor says:
My top three are:
1. The Island Of Dr.Moreau by H.G. Wells.
Holy fucking shit. The book of all books to scare me. The only reason I find this book so frightening is the concept of being trapped on an island with all these beasts. The last chapter is the most chilling fiction I have ever read.
2. Garbage Man by Joseph D’Lacy
D’Lacy really knows how to write wonderfully vile pieces. As a citation from the blurb by Andy Remic ‘Leads the reader by the hand, then breaks his arm with a grin…Masterful’.
3. The Call of Cthuluh by H.P. Lovecraft
This. This is just horror. From the vivid imagery of the voodoo dances of woman-and-child-charring swamp priests to a horrific awakening at sea; I could never leave H.P. Lovecraft out of any list of horror fiction. The man experienced the horror first hand in his night-terrors and it is that sense of tangible detail in his works that make it a truly horrifying experience.
August 5, 2013 — 6:01 AM
lillian888 says:
Ghost Story by Peter Straub
Ramsey Campbell’s work
Usher’s Passing by Robert R. McKimmon
August 5, 2013 — 6:04 AM
urdith says:
Already grabbed two of my three suggestions. Seriously, read through Peter Straub and Ramsey Campbell’s cannon. Add on a good bit of Clive Barker, especially his early work, and you have touched the live wires of my horror reading.
Also: Shirley Jackson, anything by Caitlin R. Kiernan and John Bellairs. Yes, John Bellairs wrote children’s horrors, but “The Curse of the Blue Figurine” and “The Mummy, The Will and the Crypt” chilled me to no end.
August 5, 2013 — 10:03 AM
Jessica Quest says:
I’m shocked no one’s mentioned Lovecraft yet! I’m hardly well-versed in his stories but The Music of Erich Zann might be the only story I’ve ever read still gives me shivers years after reading it. Also maybe it’s cheating to mention manga, but Junji Ito’s The Enigma of Amigara Fault really freaks me the hell out.
August 5, 2013 — 6:11 AM
D. W. Coventry (@DWCoventry) says:
I feel that Lovecraft is influential in the way that Dickens is influential – someone whose themes and images are pervasive but whose prose and narrative structure is long out of fashion. Interestingly enough, Mary Shelley and Edgar Allen Poe predate him by a significant margin but their prose feels far less stilted.
August 5, 2013 — 7:54 AM
Foxed says:
Gonna be that guy. The one who recommends:
1. IT by Stephen King. One of my first, and still one of the best. The fact that the ending doesn’t fizzle out and fall apart puts it above most of the rest of King’s oeuvre.
2. The Rats in the Walls by HP Lovecraft. Nice slow burn, great conclusion.
3. 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill.
August 5, 2013 — 6:57 AM
D. W. Coventry (@DWCoventry) says:
Now this should be a good one! Let’s see what I can come up with before coffee (always a dangerous prospect)…
I had to break up modern horror into three major components or themes, it would probably be “The Bad Place”, “The Invasion”, and “The Abomination”. The Bad Place is that element of wrongness in the world, a physical location where people were not meant to tread. The Invasion is the opposite of the Bad Place, where a normal setting is upended by aliens, zombies, taxidermists, whatever. The Abomination is different from the Invasion in that a singular unexplained (and usually unknowable) entity has come into being to plague the protagonist, whether it is a Lovecraftian nightmare or a vengeful ghost.
So, with all that front end, I give you the essentials.
“The Bad Place” – The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons. A great take on how a “bad place” can exist in an otherwise idyllic setting. Some elements are jarringly dated though period-accurate (Vietnam issues, less-than-enlightened views of homosexuality) but it’s a hell of a lot scarier than the more famous Haunting of Hill House.
“The Invasion” – ‘salem’s Lot by Stephen King. Before you roll your eyes at another King novel, this is a great combination of classical vampirism combined with Romero-esque zombie horror. It’s a great look at how an unnatural presence slowly amplifies the dark side of a town until it devolves into a nightmare. Also one of maybe five King novels that has an honest-to-goodness satisfying ending.
“The Abomination” – House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. The less I say about this the better for the uninitiated reader. The tape is an abomination. The book is an abomination. The ******** is an abomination. As the book so elegantly puts it, “This is not for you.”
August 5, 2013 — 7:05 AM
S.W. Sondheimer says:
NOS4A2 by Joe Hill
and I’m going to include Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn because the way humans treat one another is even more horrifying than anything Lovecraft could pull out of his cauldron.
August 5, 2013 — 7:08 AM
Laura Quirola says:
I’m a huge horror fan, so it was rather difficult to restrict myself to picking only three, but here goes:
Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Steven King’s IT
and H.P. Lovecraft’s The Thing on the Doorstep. Most people, I think, say the Call of Cthulhu, but there you have it.
In addition to being a writer, I’m also an exercise scientist and do my fair share of statistics. So, if any number crunching help is needed…. *just going to leave that here for you*
August 5, 2013 — 7:33 AM
aileenmiles says:
The first horror novel I read was The Shining, by Stephen King. I’m going to have to stick with that because the things that were scary to the kid in that were the same sorts of things I had nightmares about when I was little, even though I found the ending to be a little lame (I often don’t much like the endings of Stephen King’s novels). I’ve probably read more King than any other horror writer and this is one of his better ones.
Night Shift, also by Stephen King was also an early read for me that I am still fond of (if you can be fond of horror stories), and I think this would definitely count as an essential for the genre.
I feel like there should be some Cthulhu mythos stuff on this list, but I am not a big fan of Lovecraft. I really love William Browning Spencer’s Résumé with Monsters, but it’s more of a satire of Cthulhu-ish stuff than horror, I think. I’m not entirely sure Clark Ashton Smith’s work counts as horror since it is very fantastical. So I’ll go with Poe and say the Telltale Heart or the Cask of Amontillado.
August 5, 2013 — 7:58 AM
Blue Cole says:
The Necroscope Series, by Brian Lumley. it’s a vampire book, and easily the baddest ass vamps out there. Ann Rice? Phfffft. Meyers? Turn them into a little pile of gravel. Also incorporates ESP, parallel worlds, time travel (to a degree).
Read the first 5, then there’s a trilogy. So the first 8. There’s another trilogy, but it’s ok.
Thanks,
B.
August 5, 2013 — 8:09 AM
jim heskett says:
IT, by stephen king. freaked me so much when i was a young teenager that i couldn’t read it after dark
August 5, 2013 — 8:15 AM
Andrea P says:
“Bloodchild and Other Short Stories” by Octavia E. Butler
This was one I read as a child based on the cover art. I used to walk around the library looking for whatever weird thing jumped out at me. And I don’t know if it would be as frightening to me now as an adult, I haven’t read it since, but I do remember being very horrifically aroused back then, particularly by the title story.
“Blindness” by Jose Saramago
This one’s not really overt horror, there’s no hairy monster or evil spirits or wicked witch. But it is a great and scathing commentary on the hairy, evil, wicked monster that lives inside each of us and in humanity as a whole. My favorite horror stories are the ones that I can imagine actually happening, and this book has that aspect.
“The Shining” by Stephen King
I love this book because it’s simply unrelenting in its horror. Seriously, that is all!
August 5, 2013 — 8:26 AM
Jeremiah Boydstun says:
Good choice with Saramago. That book is a serious mind job. Stylistically, he even makes feel like you’re blind.
August 5, 2013 — 2:03 PM
Bess Gilmartin says:
Charnel House by Graham Masterton, The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson,and The Landlady by Roald Dahl.
August 5, 2013 — 8:45 AM
Gregor Xane says:
Books of Blood, Vols. 1-3 Clive Barker
The Throne of Bones Brian McNaughton
The Wasp Factory Iain Banks
August 5, 2013 — 9:00 AM
Belly Peterson says:
Here you go, Mr. Wendig:
My Work is Not Yet Done by Thomas Ligotti
Child Of God by Cormac McCarthy
Last Days by Brian Evenson
August 5, 2013 — 9:02 AM
angel011 says:
Books of Blood by Clive Barker. Books 1-3 were brilliant, so imaginative and weird and with the wonderful “embrace the monster” attitude. Books 4-6 were not that good, but were still worth a read.
Misery by Stephen King. The movie is mild compared to the book, probably so it doesn’t spook the audience so bad they never enter the cinema again.
The Pit and the Pendulum, by Edgar Allan Poe. The haunting atmosphere, the madness… Creepy.
August 5, 2013 — 9:25 AM
kristanhiggins says:
The Exorcist, The Shining, and that one by Dean Koontz with the wicked smart Golden retriever.
August 5, 2013 — 9:30 AM
Eric H. says:
“Pet Semetary” is my go-to King. It’s an excellent mix of unseen horror, threatened family, and creepy children.
NOS4A2 by Joe Hill is really exccelent. It shot right to the top of my list as soon as I read it.
The Hollow by Brian Keene
August 5, 2013 — 9:33 AM
Jamie says:
Pet Sematary is the scariest thing Stephen King ever wrote, IMO (aside from 1408, the short story). His best? Probably not. But the scariest.
The Red Tree, by Caitlin Kiernan. She says it’s not horror, but it scared the bejesus out of me on an airplane in broad daylight, so I beg to differ.
And, like somebody else said, House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski. It will make you get up at night and turn all your lights on and check every room in your house for weirdness.
Bonus round: John Dies at the End, by David Wong.
August 5, 2013 — 9:34 AM
mikes75 says:
1. The Shining: Stephen King
2. From Hell: Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell
3. Hater David Moody
Particularly Hater, which is the least known of the three, but fucking anxiety-inducing.
August 5, 2013 — 9:37 AM
Simon says:
Rasputin’s Bastards – David Nickle
Pontypool Changes Everything – Tony Burgess
Darkly Dreaming Dexter – Jeff Lindsay
August 5, 2013 — 9:45 AM
Joe says:
My 3 essentials are:
‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
Dracula by BS
The Shining by SK
August 5, 2013 — 9:50 AM
niknak985 says:
1. Richard Matheson’s “I Am Legend”
2. Stephen King’s “The Stand”
3. William Peter Blatty’s “The Exorcist”
In that order.
August 5, 2013 — 9:57 AM
Bob Pastorella says:
The Ceremonies by T.E.D. Klein
Floating Dragon by Peter Straub.
The Cipher by Kathe Koja.
If you know these titles, then you know Horror.
August 5, 2013 — 10:00 AM
mirymom says:
I’m especially fond of ghost stories. If we can get a creepy, evil child in there so much the better.
So:
Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
Jane-Emily by Patricia Clapp
The Bad Seed by William March
August 5, 2013 — 10:04 AM
Hillary says:
THE SHINING by King – toss up between this, PET SEMETARY, and IT for what scared me most, but I think this is the better book.
FEED by Mira Grant – probably my favorite zombie book ever. THE ENEMY by Higson was a close second.
THE TURN OF THE SCREW by Henry James – my first introduction to psychological horror, and it stuck with me to this day.
August 5, 2013 — 10:08 AM
Steve Vernon says:
I’ve always been a fan of those sort of horror novels that center around the theme that there is something weird out there in those woods, that field, that lake, those caves – and that folks around town prefer to stay away from.
I like those creature-features where the monsters are coming out of the woods and eating up people every second chapter or so. I’m a great fan of rubber-suited monsters. I have no patience for subtle creeping horror. Put on a Frankenstein mask and jump out of the shrubbery and yell “Booga Booga!” at me and I am a happy camper.
Richard Laymon’s THE BEAST HOUSE.
Owl Goingback’s CROTA.
Brian Keene’s DARK HOLLOW.
Stephen King’s SALEMS LOT.
Ray Garton’s LIVE GIRLS.
Ronald Kelly’s FEAR.
Robert Mccammon’s STINGER.
Ronald Malfi’s SNOW.
Douglas Clegg’s THE ATTRACTION.
I could probably mention a few others – but I’d have to go downstairs to the library to look them up. My memory is just not as sharp as it used…what was I saying again???
August 5, 2013 — 10:10 AM
Matthew MacNish says:
I’m going to narrow it down to YA Horror, since YA is mostly what I read, and I haven’t read any adult horror in a decade. So, YA Horror, in no order:
Rotters, by Daniel Kraus
The Marbury Lens, by Andrew Smith
This is Not a Test, by Courtney Summers
August 5, 2013 — 10:37 AM
Matthew MacNish says:
If I did go adult, it would be Lovecraft. The Colour out of Space is a favorite.
August 5, 2013 — 10:39 AM
Rob B says:
Summer of Night by Dan Simmons. Some very subtly, creepy scenes
The Shining by Stephen King
I am Legend by Richard Matheson
August 5, 2013 — 10:39 AM
Daniel Lomey says:
I haven’t read much horror as such, but I had a particularly chilling book recommended to me that still makes me look twice in the dark and out in the open.
172 Hours On The Moon by Johan Harstad.
August 5, 2013 — 10:42 AM
Enzo Nakamura says:
Wow, I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned Jack Ketchum or Richard Laymon yet (at least as far as I can tell). Laymon’s BEAST HOUSE trilogy is pretty good. Ketchum, though, is a MASTER. He’s the guy Stephen King thinks is the scariest and best in America. He’s also, from a mentor POV, descended from Lovecraft. HPL mentored Robert Bloch, Bloch mentored Ketchum. The major Ketchum titles are: OFF-SEASON, which was his first hit in 1980, HIDE AND SEEK, which is the closest thing he’s done to a YA novel, LADIES NIGHT, and, probably my favorite, PEACEABLE KINGDOM, a short stories collection that evokes the best of Bloch, Mathieson and Shirley Jackson. Lately, he’s been partnering with writer/director Lucky McKee (I’m not a huge fan of his movies) and they co-wrote a terrific novella called I’M NOT SAM. It’s on Kindle for cheaps and is a good place to start. I think it’s up for an award. Warning: OFF-SEASON and its sequels are brutal. Read with an empty stomach.
August 5, 2013 — 10:53 AM
June Weiss says:
I read a lot of horror and urban fantasy, which often overlap. There are two authors spring to mind immediately when I think of who can scare the bejesus out of me:
Brian Lumley – the Necroscope series (several different series, but most especially the first 5) scare the crap out of me in the best possible way.
Tim Powers – The Stress of Her Regard/Hide Me Among the Graves which are loosely sequential, and especially his Fisher King trio (Last Call, Expiration Date and Earthquake Weather).
If I had a desert island horror read ultimatum, those 10 books above would be going with me!
August 5, 2013 — 11:37 AM