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Just finished the new Nevill book All the fiends of hell and it was pretty good. It was a fun take on the invasion/extermination plot and everything was so bleak. The book was maybe a little longer than it needed to be but that was my only real complaint.
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May 4, 2024 01:07
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That sounds great, I might make that my next read after Rogue Moon.
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May 4, 2024 01:16
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Good Citizen posted:Just finished the new Nevill book All the fiends of hell and it was pretty good. It was a fun take on the invasion/extermination plot and everything was so bleak. The book was maybe a little longer than it needed to be but that was my only real complaint. I'm about halfway through and I'm loving it. Convincingly creepy with how hopeless it is but still does a good job of injecting the cast with some personality enough to sell the stakes.
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May 4, 2024 01:48
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Finished Between Two Fires. Glad to have some good medieval horror. Weird that there's not more of it, honestly. You'd figure that a time period where you don't have ways to easily escape a scary monster or situation like cellphones, cars, etc., would be great for horror, but I can't think of much beyond this, Berserk, some bits of The Northman and The Green Knight, and maybe the manga Shigurui (where the horror is feudal Japanese society and social mores).
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May 4, 2024 01:56
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Hell House loving sucked. Hell no.
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May 4, 2024 12:12
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I read HEX today, really enjoyed it so on to Oracle 
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May 5, 2024 06:18
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Almost halfway through Oracle it it's only been getting better. Makes me wonder if his 2019 release, Echo, is as good. I haven't heard much talk about it.
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May 5, 2024 06:38
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Whirling posted:Finished Between Two Fires. Glad to have some good medieval horror. Weird that there's not more of it, honestly. You'd figure that a time period where you don't have ways to easily escape a scary monster or situation like cellphones, cars, etc., would be great for horror, but I can't think of much beyond this, Berserk, some bits of The Northman and The Green Knight, and maybe the manga Shigurui (where the horror is feudal Japanese society and social mores). You might find H. Rider Haggard's Red Eve interesting.
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May 5, 2024 07:13
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Whirling posted:Finished Between Two Fires. Glad to have some good medieval horror. Weird that there's not more of it, honestly. You'd figure that a time period where you don't have ways to easily escape a scary monster or situation like cellphones, cars, etc., would be great for horror, but I can't think of much beyond this, Berserk, some bits of The Northman and The Green Knight, and maybe the manga Shigurui (where the horror is feudal Japanese society and social mores).
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May 5, 2024 08:34
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Good Citizen posted:Just finished the new Nevill book All the fiends of hell and it was pretty good. It was a fun take on the invasion/extermination plot and everything was so bleak. The book was maybe a little longer than it needed to be but that was my only real complaint. Just finished it as well and loved it. The ending where Karl catches up Ellen on the plot of the book we've already seen might've been a little unnecessary but I kinda appreciated a debriefing and wind down after how relentless and bleak the previous 300 pages were. Also boy does Bob really get got in proportion to how much they make you hate the guy.
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May 5, 2024 13:44
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Wachter posted:Hell House loving sucked. Hell no. Matheson's Hell House, and not some other book with the same name? The reason there isn't more mediaeval horror is that stories with a monster in a mediaeval setting are more commonly described as fantasy.
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May 5, 2024 14:14
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I mean there's not much horror fantasy in mediaeval-style settings either
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May 5, 2024 15:05
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Jedit posted:Matheson's Hell House, and not some other book with the same name? Yeah, Matheson. The prose is bad to the point of incoherence. The word "no" is used as an exclamation about 2,000 times, giving every character a stilted, robotic voice, and those characters are wafer-thin. The book is named for a location which is then given no sense of place whatsoever. This is a personal quibble of mine, but the back-and-forth between Professor Sceptic von Hubris and the beatific spiritualist over whether the source of her very real magic powers is "residual energy" (serious science) or ghosts (preposterous nonsense) is interminable and consumes most of the plot. This was also my least favourite part of The Exorcist (the book, I mean - the movie adaptation wisely downplayed this aspect). It's like one character scoffing about another character's belief in unicorns while expounding their own theory of leprechauns. But the icing on the cake - and what makes it read like a screenplay for a lost episode of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace - is that they eventually defeat the big bad ghost by discovering he was short in real life and insulting him. It's an exorcism by mogging. It was all just pretty risible from start to finish.
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May 6, 2024 00:54
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R.L. Stine posted:Almost halfway through Oracle it it's only been getting better. Makes me wonder if his 2019 release, Echo, is as good. I haven't heard much talk about it. I've read it! I liked Echo but it's definitely a lot slower paced and more introspective than Hex was (haven't read Oracle yet so can't speak to that) -- but I still enjoyed it as a piece of mountain/folk horror.
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May 6, 2024 02:10
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Wachter posted:Yeah, Matheson. Have you read The Haunting of Hill House?
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May 6, 2024 12:01
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Drunkboxer posted:Have you read The Haunting of Hill House? Yep, one of my favourites.
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May 6, 2024 14:06
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Wachter posted:Hell House loving sucked. Hell no. Hard agree on this. I hated Hell House so much. The Haunting of Hill House is one of my favorite novels, let alone horror novels, so the fact that this book references it and then is 300 pages of bad writing and childish, misogynist plot made me hate it deeply.
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May 6, 2024 15:11
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Honestly I agree with all of the criticisms that get leveled at Hell House but I still love it (and Haunting of Hill House, though for very different reasons, lol)
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May 6, 2024 15:54
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if the haunting of hill house was written in a quiet library beside a crackling fire, hell house was written during the day shift in a strip club bathroom hell house is like watching trashy horror, i know it's garbage but it's fun garbage
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May 6, 2024 18:03
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Camp Damascus is very well written but…is not very good? The plot I guess? The actual quality of text is great but the longer the book goes on the more it falls apart. That being said, looking forward to Tingle’s next book.
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May 7, 2024 22:14
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Conrad_Birdie posted:Camp Damascus is very well written but…is not very good? The plot I guess? The actual quality of text is great but the longer the book goes on the more it falls apart. That being said, looking forward to Tingle’s next book. I started to feel that way near the end, yeah. Like I never hit a point where I thought the book was bad or that I wanted to just drop it entirely, but you could kind of start to see the seams near the end of the book. It felt pretty predictable too, though in a way that a lot of horror does, in any medium--you get to a point where you can see what narrative devices the story is leaning on and can probably fill in a lot of the gaps to guess where things are going. I'm definitely interested to see what his next book is like! well, next book that I'll actually read, lol
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May 7, 2024 22:36
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I don't think Camp Damascus ever crosses over into bad, it's just got some YA fiction vibes to it that I can see not working for some readers, along with some of the horror book curse of the set up being better than any ending could be. I enjoyed it for what it was, a quick fun read I was able to finish on a long flight.
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May 7, 2024 23:19
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I think the only major flaw it has is that it's an act too short
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May 8, 2024 00:48
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Giragast posted:I think the only major flaw it has is that it's an act too short Def agreed. I like short books but Camp Damascus introduced too many important characters too close to the end of the novel and asked us to care about them.
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May 8, 2024 00:59
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My god you all weren’t exaggerating about Blackwater. This is some really excellent genre fiction. I’m two hours into the audiobook and I’m not really frightened but I am unsettled. And the machinations of this little community are surprisingly compelling.
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May 10, 2024 01:41
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It's one of the few books that I genuinely wish I could read again for the first time.
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May 10, 2024 03:22
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I love McDowell's prose and especially his dialogue.
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May 10, 2024 15:30
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Read Swedish Cults by Anders Fager, it was translated into English. I really enjoyed it, his take on Carcosa in particular.
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May 11, 2024 05:00
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RE Oracle by Thomas Olde Heuvelt Definitely more thriller than horror, but I'm glad I read it. There sure were some omens in that there book about bad omens!! [why the hell would you name your boat the Albatross I'm not sailor but even I know that's a bad idea. Imo, more dog was needed. Anyways, some newly released books. Supplication By Nour Abi-Nakhoul quote:A hallucinatory horror novel set deeply in the consciousness of a woman exploring a changed and frightening world. Ghostroots by 'Pemi Aguda [anthology, short stories] quote:A debut collection of stories set in a hauntingly reimagined Lagos where characters vie for freedom from ancestral ties. In this beguiling collection of twelve imaginative stories set in Lagos, Nigeria, ’Pemi Aguda dramatizes the tension between our yearning to be individuals and the ways we are haunted by what came before. In “Manifest,” a woman sees the ghost of her abusive mother in her daughter’s face. Shortly after, the daughter is overtaken by wicked and destructive impulses. In “Breastmilk,” a wife forgives her husband for his infidelity. Months later, when she is unable to produce milk for her newborn, she blames herself for failing to uphold her mother’s feminist values and doubts her fitness for motherhood. In “Things Boys Do,” a trio of fathers finds something unnatural and unnerving about their infant sons. As their lives rapidly fall to pieces, they begin to fear that their sons are the cause of their troubles. And in “24, Alhaji Williams Street,” a teenage boy lives in the shadow of a mysterious disease that’s killing the boys on his street. These and other stories in Ghostroots map emotional and physical worlds that lay bare the forces of family, myth, tradition, gender, and modernity in Nigerian society. Powered by a deep empathy and glinting with humor, they announce a major new literary talent. The Atrocity Engine (Custodians of the Cosmos Book 1) by Tim Waggoner quote:Men in Black meets Hellraiser in this rollicking mash-up of urban fantasy and cosmic horror from four-time Bram Stoker Award-Winning author Tim Waggoner. I liked his Lord of the Feast and hopefully this one is fun, too. He sort of gives me Brian Hodge vibes regarding cosmic horror. Just slightly less morose, so to speak. Myrrh by Polly Hall quote:A woman searching for her birth-parents unlocks the secrets of her horrific past, as she tries to stop the goblin within in this kaleidoscopic dark psychological horror about identity and belonging, with a dread-inducing climax you will never forget. Dishonorable mention. Hey, remember those two twelve year old girls a few years back that stabbed another 12(?) year old girl in the name of Slenderman because they believed they were Slenderman's proxies? Well someone wrote fanfic I mean a horror thriller psychological novel about them. And yes, it does suck. gently caress you, Kat Davis, and your tasteless book. I hope you flop. It wasn't even good, unlike other similarly tasteless, law and order svu esque rip offs of that tragic case.
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May 11, 2024 22:40
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zoux posted:I love McDowell's prose and especially his dialogue. Everything he wrote had a peculiar atmosphere all of his own.
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May 14, 2024 20:43
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value-brand cereal posted:
I am no longer "struggling with depression", I am now "trying to stop the goblin within."
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May 16, 2024 07:26
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tuyop posted:My god you all weren’t exaggerating about Blackwater. This is some really excellent genre fiction. I’m two hours into the audiobook and I’m not really frightened but I am unsettled. And the machinations of this little community are surprisingly compelling. Every year since I’ve read it I’m more and more certain it should be added to the canon. It is “Great Novel” that people should experience.
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May 16, 2024 18:16
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Conrad_Birdie posted:Every year since I’ve read it I’m more and more certain it should be added to the canon. It is “Great Novel” that people should experience. Based on its descriptions in here, I imagine part of the hesitation over "canonizing" it is whether it's actually a horror novel, or a historical epic that occasionally has some supernatural elements. If it's the former, it'll never be literary enough for literary folks; if the latter, it's not horror-y enough for genre readers and also possibly not literary enough because the river monster isn't also a professor having an affair with its student.
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May 16, 2024 18:43
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I think the horror is effective because the rest of the novel is quite banal (though compelling and delightful in that banality). Like, the whole point of horror as a genre (imo) is that in real life, scary things happen and we can’t control whether we’re afraid. Whether the cause of the fear is the closet at night or a cracking branch in a dark forest or a disaster, to be horrified is a force majeure. Map that concept onto some idyllic town in interwar Alabama and it’s not only quite scary and tense, but it’s also commentary. So many things that happened (and continue to happen) in that area and time are horrific in just the way that McDowell describes the horror. Hell, I live in Canada and I identify with the vibe just from being in the path of weak-rear end hurricanes or knowing I’m about to be beaten by someone much stronger than me. Spoiler for chapter 1 content: The precipitating event being the flood is perfect. The compelling banality amplifies the horror because it demonstrates just how adrift you are from being able to deal with something truly horrific like a flood or the people and institutions around you being unable or unwilling to help you with someone violent. Exploring and playing with this feeling is what I love so much about horror and this book captures it perfectly. And I just can’t wait to see what happens next in this weird little town!
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May 16, 2024 19:00
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You would think this genre would be drowning in books about being alone in a haunted house, but finding a good one of those is proving to be a chore. I recently watched someone play through Scratches and thought it would work just as well if not better as a book. I think the best I've read is probably The Woman in Black. I love how he is basically cut off from civilization by rising water and wakes up in the pitch dark of night to hear things moving around and the dog is growling. Just a perfect, helpless scenario. But, yeah, there's not much. Tried The Elementals. Was ok. Haunting of Hill House wasn't really about the haunted house. Hell House started good. 1408 was fantastic and I wanted more.
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May 20, 2024 10:33
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Relevant Tangent posted:Read Swedish Cults by Anders Fager, it was translated into English. I really enjoyed it, his take on Carcosa in particular. I keep bouncing off this, unfortunately, after spending years moaning that you couldn't get it in translation and being super-excited to finally read it. idk if it's the translation, the editing, the Swedish language, or the original prose, but the lack of proper sentence construction really grates on me, sorry to say. quote:And fear. They stay by their car. Good. The Serb comes towards them. The boys get out. Zand goes up to the Serb. They shake hands. The Serb is nervous. Shaky and twitchy. He smokes. Stinks of booze. Asks in English. That's just from a random page but the whole thing is like that. I don't think the constant present tense is particularly effective, personally, but I can live with that. It's the non-stop barrage of three-word sentences and ungrammatical fragments, when it could easily be made more coherent. I don't think I'm particularly precious about such things, but apparently I do have a limit.
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May 20, 2024 17:25
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 I had about 2 hours left in this last night and wound up just staying up late and powering through because the climax goes nuts. Definitely in a way where some people are going to absolutely hate it but I thought it was neat. It's another annoying teenage girl protagonist that can wear a little thin, but she's self aware enough that it never gets too be "Head Full of Ghosts" level. Left some pretty big questions unanswered and ends a little abruptly, but given how quickly parts 2 and 3 came out after I'm assuming the big stuff will get picked up on, and it still tells a complete story and everything. But that is one controversial killer reveal.
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May 21, 2024 15:18
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Flubby posted:You would think this genre would be drowning in books about being alone in a haunted house, but finding a good one of those is proving to be a chore. I recently watched someone play through Scratches and thought it would work just as well if not better as a book. I think the best I've read is probably The Woman in Black. I love how he is basically cut off from civilization by rising water and wakes up in the pitch dark of night to hear things moving around and the dog is growling. Just a perfect, helpless scenario. But, yeah, there's not much. Tried The Elementals. Was ok. Haunting of Hill House wasn't really about the haunted house. Hell House started good. 1408 was fantastic and I wanted more. I was pleasantly surprised by The September House by Carissa Orlando. A book starting with someone who KNOWS their house is haunted and isolating themselves in it was a fun play on the genre.
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May 21, 2024 15:38
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Opopanax posted:
I love love love this trilogy and yeah, that’s correct. Jade will wear less on you in Reaper too because she’s trying to distance herself from her cringe mid-teen years. the wrap-up and ultimate thematic stuff is great
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May 21, 2024 16:06
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I tried reading Necroscope, but got bored when they did a multi-chapter deep dive into the chosen one child protagonist doing his middle school math homework. So I swapped to Tender is the Flesh and I'm really enjoying it. It's an Oryx and Crake style dystopian ultra-black comedy horror story about agribusiness.
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May 21, 2024 19:11
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