Please check out my BOOKS FROM THE DARKSIDE @ http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...hreadid=103442 for a definitive list of best horror books and authors.

My current favorite horror novel is House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski.

Favorite author occasionally working in the genre is Iain Banks (especially The Wasp Factory and Complicity).

;) dt

[Edited by darktrippers on 04-26-01 at 03:35 PM]

Has anyone tried Algernon Blackwood? The Wendigo, The Willow, and The Listener are among the creepiest and most effective ghost stories I've read. I also agree Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House is one of the best all time horror novels published. I was elated when I heard a movie of it was being made and stupified when I saw the end product.

I loved loved Stephen King while in high school but have for the most part outgrown him over the years. It doesn't help that he seemed to have run out of original ideas lately. Incidentally, his non-horror novel The Talisman remains one of my favorites.

Edgar Allan Poe. He was the first to get me started into Horror.

H.P. Lovecraft. He's really creepy and original. Admittedly, his style is definitely something you either like or you don't, and he does recycle some themes, so it's best not to read the stories one after another, but he's absolutely worth reading.

He mostly wrote short stories -- one of my favorites is "The Shadow over Innsmouth." Of his longer works (which are still very short), I like At the Mountains of Madness and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath is really interesting too... it's not exactly horror, more like creepy fantasy in the style of Dunsany.

What happened to that thread?

Do a search, newbie!
 

:p<small> <A HREF="http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=104155" target-"_blank"></small>Definitive HORROR Reading List... [Dark Fantasy: BOOKS FROM THE DARKSIDE]</a>

I think Salem's Lot is one of King's scariest.

Re: Do a search, newbie!
 

:lol:

I did a search and it dug up this thread. Must be using the wrong search terms. :)

Thanks! :thumbsup:

Classic: I AM LEGEND by Richard Matheson

Contemporary: To acknowledge a title that hasn't been mentioned yet, I'll recommend Robert Devereaux's DEADWEIGHT. It's an out-of-print paperback that's still fairly easy to find in used shops. If you like grisly horror, be SURE to check this one out. Whooo-boy!

King is undoubtedly the most prolific horror writer of all time and probably won't be accepted as the best horror writer of all time until well after his passing.

That said, I think he's the best now and my favorites are:

Night Shift (still the best collection of short horror stories ever IMO- I'll never forget Grey Matter, Graveyard Shift, The Mangler, etc...)
The Stand (no words)
The Shining (thank you Mick Garris for correcting Kubrick's wrong)
The Dead Zone (Johnny Smith is one of the best characters King created)
Cujo (a relentless story)
Pet Sematary (I read this straight through in one night...Halloween night in 1983- chilling)
It (A masterpiece of fiction)
Misery (maybe his last great horror story)

Finally, The Dark Tower series must be mentioned here even if they aren't entirely horror. IMO, the finest lengthy series of books since Lord of the Rings and Dune. If anyone out there has been putting off buying/reading these novels, now's the time because by the end of 2004 the 7th and final installment will have been published. A story that had its genesis back in 1970. 34 years in the making! Interestingly, King has re-written the first book, The Gunslinger as he didn't think it 'fit in' with the others. I love it and have read it dozens of times. It'll be curious to see how he updated it.

As for horror novels other than King:

Finishing Touches and Rapture by Thomas Tessier
By Reason of Insanity by Shane Stevens
Shadowfires by Leigh Nichols (Dean Koontz)
Watchers and Strangers by Dean Koontz
Invasion by Aaron Wolfe (Dean Koontz...maybe Stephen King)

That's all I can think of at the moment. I'm sure there's more.

Ditto. At least he recently published Speaks the Nightbird (but wrote it ten years ago) which was really very good, if not quite what we've come to expect from him. The paperback comes out in September.
http://www.robertmccammon.com/images/stn_30_1_pb_S.jpg

Check out Hunter Groatley's Robert McCammon site if you haven't already. There's a forum and lots of good info. :up:

As for best author and book, sorry folks, but I just don't see King, McCammon, Koontz or anybody modern as being "the best". I love McCammon, and love King's older and shorter fiction, but they just don't surpass the likes of Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, Clark Ashton Smith, H.P. Lovecraft, Sheridan Le Fanu, and Dennis Wheatley.

While not as prestigious, in my mind, a writer as the previously listed, I think Bram Stoker's Dracula is probably the best horror novel I've read. He nailed it on that one.

Wow. I posted in this thread 2 years ago! Now, I'm gettin' quoted!

I still think McCammon is one of the very best. Speaks the Nightbird was amazing. The paperback, by the way, is being published in 2 volumes. Gotta buy 'em both to get the whole novel.

No one has mentioned Richard Laymon. He is a must for any horror fan. Check out Funland, The Traveling Vampire Show, Savage, Island, In the Dark just to name a few. He has several of his long out of print works back in print from Leisure.
Many consider his first novel, The Cellar to be a defining work of the genre, myself included. It is a classic.

Give Richard Laymon a try. He is actually surpassing my love for King's novels.

The Ceremonies by TED Klein for best novel. I'm getting ready to read it again since summer is here. It's the perfect book to read when it starts getting hot outside.

I don't know who to pick for best author. I like most of the ones already mentioned, especially King, McCammon, Laymon, and Lovecraft.

Necroscope - now that's horror
 

I think you have to give Brian Lumley's Necroscope series a try, I love the anything BUT romantic take on the vampire genre. I liked it from the start but he really hits his stride in the third volume, if memory serves. It's been more than a few years since I read them.

Those are on my list 'squatch. I've got them on the shelf, always calling me, along with the other hundreds. :lol:

Ray Garton's "Live Girls" was pretty cool for hard boiled vampire action. You may dig that.

I liked Boys Life (Robert McCammon) and Weaveworld (Clive Barker) a lot.

For best horror author, I'd say Stephen King. He hasn't written my favorite anything, but he's written a phenomenal number of pages, and I've liked much of what he's written.

It by Stephen King (novel)
In a Lonely Place by Karl Edward Wagner (short stories)

Thanks Mutley, I appreciate the tip. I'm on that like a vampire on a rare steak.

Stephen King and It

The Matrix
 

No, no, not that Matrix.

There's quite a bit of good stuff in this thread but rather than going for the McCammons and Kings I suggest a wonderful little book called 'The Matrix' by Jonathan Aycliffe. Might be hard to find but nice and eerie and steeped in atmosphere. (I think he writes thrillers (or some-such) as Daniel Easterman?). Either that or 'Survivor' by James Herbert - scared the crap out of me some years ago but it might have dated a bit(?).

"The Store"
"The Association"
"The Ignored"
"The University"

all by Bentley Little...none of the other current horror writers can touch this guy.

Bentley Little has a new book coming out in September called The Policy. Any idea what it's about?

I'm a big Bentley Little fan too.

Are these short stories? I'll look for these. :D

Adding to my list:

"Sticks" by Karl Edward Wagner
"The House on Cemetery Street" by Cherry Wilder
"Good Country People" by Flannery O'Connor
"Evening Primrose" by John Collier

Kind of funny that 3 out of 4 of these are in The Dark Descent, but I've really liked every David G. Hartwell anthology I've read.

I'm going to get the Policy when it comes out, no idea what it's about.

Those are all normal books. He does have a collection of short storys called "The Collection"...it's kinda hit and miss.