It took me a scant few hours to get through Richard Matheson's "I Am Legend", and apart from a little-less-than-satisfying ending, it was well worth my time.

Pick it up, if only to see how a lot of modern authors have ripped him off :)

A lot of people as usual seem to be confusing the words "best" & "favorite".

There is now way we can argue "best" horror author ever. But probably my favorite, who haven't seen anyone mention yet is . . .

Brian Lumley & his Necrescope series. It's really one the first 3-4 books that I really love & are some of the single BEST horror books I've ever read. After that it kind of falls into the pointless sequals category, but the first 3 books especially are MUST READS for any horror fan.

:lol: :up:

Wow, lots of books and authors in this thread that I've never heard of, I'm definitely going to check some of them out. It's been quite a while since I read a good horror novel.

One of my favorites is Mirror by Graham Masterton. He's written several good ones, but this is the creepiest.

Of course, I'll repeat previous posts and vote for It and Night Shift too.

Regarding those Bentley Little books, are they part of a series or stand-alone novels? I hate when I start a book and realize that it's a Part 2.

http://charliegoose.homestead.com/files/goose.jpg Honk!

IMHO, the best horror book I've read is At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft.

No love for John Shirley? Wetbones kills anything Layman, King or Ketchem has ever done.

Another great Bentley Little is The Mailman. :D:up:

Favourite book? How can you choose between King's best, impossible.

Having said that my favourite Horror author, although not strictly in the genre is Laurell K Hamilton.

I must also give a big shout for M.R.James, there's no one like him for classic ghost/horror. If I want a quick dose of fright I read one of his short tales.

You're not alone bud. It was(and still is)for me the scariest book I've ever read. It definitely preys on your childhood fears, and I still can't look at a clown the same way.

That being said, I do believe that Stephen King is the best at writing horror. I also think HP Lovecraft was pretty damn good, too.

I think King's greatest gift is the way he writes people. He is one of the few authors where you really care about the character. There are many authors who can nail mood, but their characters are lacking.

King not only can nail the mood, but he can write a damn good character.

I agree. Some of his plots and endings leave a bit to be desired though.

It's not a novel, but Clive Barker would be my choice for Book's of Blood (his novels, which I also like a lot, aren't exactly horror, I don't think, even though they have elements of it).

I also like Stephen King a lot, especially early stuff. The Shining has totally spooked me every time I've read it. I like Peter Straub, who also seems to get classified as horror, but more for the fantasy elements.

I've tried and tried, but never been able to get into Lovecraft.

S. King has scared me growing up. I also like Robert McCammon. Was deeply engrossed in Swan Song (very similiar to The Stand) - i recall reading a vampire story by Robert McCammon - cant recall if it was They Thirst or if it was from an earlier collection of short stories - but recall a slight chill the next several days. Glad to hear he has a new novel out. Next on my summer reading list.

Two books I think are best-Stephen King's Pet Sematary and Peter Straub's Ghost Story. I'm currently reading a collection of short stories by M.R. James, and I think he's up there with the best authors.

So nobody has read any John Shirley?

I've got a lot of reading to catch up on...

SO. What's the last book that scared the hell out of you?

Never caught this thread the first time around, but I can't believe it took a page and a half before Edgar Allen Poe was mentioned.

Stephen King. the Stand, and a handful of stories out of skeleton crew.

Robert McCammon's Swan Song is the best pulp horror novel I've ever read. I liked one of his earlier books, They Thirst but the amount of improvement he makes between the former and latter works is simply staggering. If you didn't know it was the same writer I think it would be hard to connect up the two books in terms of style and complexity. Stephen King is my favorite overall writer and I would put his early work up against just about anyone contemporary. Some of his later work is also superb but he's recently developed a tendency to dish out some bloated prose, ala The Tommyknockers.

Read Richard Laymon.

While The Stand and It are my overall favorite books of all time, Laymon's Beast House series gives King's work a run for it's money. :)

I can't believe nobody has mentioned Cujo yet. One of my all time favorites.

i'm suprised it took so long to get Poe in here too. :) always classic, and most certainly a leader in the genre.

as far as the book that scared me the most when i initially read it, that would have to be Pet Sematary by King. The Skeleton Crew does indeed have some good, chilling short stories in it. (i always found The Mist very creepy!)

Koontz often gets credit in the horror genre, but i've never found any of his book to be very frightening. some are fascinating, some just ...bleh, but not scary.

Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin is a great book. The film adaptation is essentially the book word-for-word, but there's more to the novel.

Psycho by Robert Bloch - even though you've seen the film, do yourself a favor and spend a few hours with "Mary" Crane and Norman Bates in a more intimate way. You get to also meet Norman's mother in more depth.

In regards to what someone said a few years ago, about Stephen King not having good endings to his novels - I wholeheartedly disagree and must defend his endings. His endings usually leave me with chills and goosebumps, and have me staring at the last paragraph longer than what is considered normal - essentially because I'm stunned. Especially the ending for the novel "It", where he writes about Bill Denbrough trying to remember his childhood, and the friends with whom he shared it.

Just read my first Koontz book, Phantoms. Bleh.

A few friends tell me to give him another try, and that the Odd Thomas series is good. I'll give it a go.

But I think I'll hunt down The Keep next.

Affleck was the bomb in Phantoms yo!

I really like Richard Laymon - The Stake was a very good story.

Stephen King at his best is great - I would vote for The Dead Zone as my favorite.

Clive Barker's The Damnation Game is also worth a read.

One of the scariest, most suspenseful books I've ever read is Thomas Harris's Silence of the Lambs. I think it could easily be categorized as "horror," along with the precursor Red Dragon.

Unfortunately, ever since Hannibal, Harris as a writer has become a caricature of what he was. His continuing, greedy obsession with Hannibal Lecter is a huge literary tragedy.

omg i love that book