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shadowkatHave to get up early tomorrow morning - because overwhelmed at work. Won't bore with details. Early as in 5 am. It may kill me.
Did I say I'm not a morning person?
My Top Ten Horror Novels/Short Stories
This is a continuation of the meme I started yesterday, except we're doing books tonight, because I'm not sure I can do TV shows - it's all episodes of anthologies that I can't remember. Maybe TV movies? Also a bit of a snob in this area, you won't see Bram Stocker (because I found him more dreary and boring than scary) or Frankenstein (have yet to make it through it), Straub, Koontz, or King (also don't find him scary, gory yes, scary not so much). I'm more into psychological horror.
Also this is off the top of my head and at this moment in time. More than likely to change at a moment's notice.
1. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson - which is possibly the best haunted house book that I've read, and yes that includes Stephen King. If you like Jackson, also try her short stories, she was mainly a short story writer - with some really disturbing tales.
2. The Marriage of Sticks by Jonathan Carroll - the best vampire book that I've read, or at the very least the scariest - and most disturbing. Does something completely different with vampires. The lead character discovers by book's end that she's a vampire who takes other's lives to add to her own. Very twisty mind-bender of a book.
3. Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber - the scariest story I've read about Witches, a woman loses her soul...and her husband helps her body find it.
4. Harvest Home by Tom Tyrone - out of print, I think, I had to hunt it done. Tyrone was an actor turned horror novelist and this cult gem is possibly the best I've read regarding pagan rituals turned deadly. After reading Harvest Home, was hard for me to take any of the others seriously.
5. The Island of Doctor Moreau by HG Wells - yes, a sci-fi (most of these are), but this story takes the whole mad-scientist tale to new heights. An island where the doctor turns people into animals. Made into two movies.
6. The Three Stigmata of Palmer K. Eldritch by Philip K. Dick (a story about a world that has gone insane with plastic surgery and marketing), Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury the death of books, tv in its place (although The Veldt - a short story is far scarier - Bradbury was a true master), Brave New World by Adolus Huxely , and 1984 by George Orwell - four semi-allegorical horror tales of fascist realms, all the more frightening for their ability to predict elements of our own future.
7. Grass by Sherri Tepper - this is science fiction but it scared me. A family journey's as ambassadors to a new planet - fleeing the plague on their own, to determine it's root cause, and discover something interesting about the alien inhabitants.
Very disturbing novel. Like most of Tepper's work it plays with gender roles and sexuality in interesting ways. Not a book you forget. I read it over 15 years ago and it's still vivid.
8. Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami - a haunting and at times chillingly beautiful time-lasp ghost story about the after-effects of a bomb going off during WWII. Lyrical in places. Frightening in others. Hard to describe.
9. Masque of the Red Death, and the Pit and the Pendalum by Edgar Allen Poe, amongst other tales. The best of the Victorian or post-Victorian horror writers. Poe created the modern detective novel. I've always found Poe more frightening than Hawthorne, Stocker, or Shelly. As well as more poetic.
10. The Secret History by Donna Tartt - a horrifying account of student ritual gone wrong, and the murder that happens after. It is also a wicked satire of spoiled kids at a small liberal arts college - which resonated for me.
11. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman - about a woman slowly losing herself and her mind and well so much more.
12. The Sculptress by Minette Walters - a tale about a manipulative serial killer - who happens to be a woman.
13. Creature features: Dauphne Du Maure's The Birds & Lennigan versus the Ants by Carl Stevenson.
Did I say I'm not a morning person?
My Top Ten Horror Novels/Short Stories
This is a continuation of the meme I started yesterday, except we're doing books tonight, because I'm not sure I can do TV shows - it's all episodes of anthologies that I can't remember. Maybe TV movies? Also a bit of a snob in this area, you won't see Bram Stocker (because I found him more dreary and boring than scary) or Frankenstein (have yet to make it through it), Straub, Koontz, or King (also don't find him scary, gory yes, scary not so much). I'm more into psychological horror.
Also this is off the top of my head and at this moment in time. More than likely to change at a moment's notice.
1. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson - which is possibly the best haunted house book that I've read, and yes that includes Stephen King. If you like Jackson, also try her short stories, she was mainly a short story writer - with some really disturbing tales.
2. The Marriage of Sticks by Jonathan Carroll - the best vampire book that I've read, or at the very least the scariest - and most disturbing. Does something completely different with vampires. The lead character discovers by book's end that she's a vampire who takes other's lives to add to her own. Very twisty mind-bender of a book.
3. Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber - the scariest story I've read about Witches, a woman loses her soul...and her husband helps her body find it.
4. Harvest Home by Tom Tyrone - out of print, I think, I had to hunt it done. Tyrone was an actor turned horror novelist and this cult gem is possibly the best I've read regarding pagan rituals turned deadly. After reading Harvest Home, was hard for me to take any of the others seriously.
5. The Island of Doctor Moreau by HG Wells - yes, a sci-fi (most of these are), but this story takes the whole mad-scientist tale to new heights. An island where the doctor turns people into animals. Made into two movies.
6. The Three Stigmata of Palmer K. Eldritch by Philip K. Dick (a story about a world that has gone insane with plastic surgery and marketing), Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury the death of books, tv in its place (although The Veldt - a short story is far scarier - Bradbury was a true master), Brave New World by Adolus Huxely , and 1984 by George Orwell - four semi-allegorical horror tales of fascist realms, all the more frightening for their ability to predict elements of our own future.
7. Grass by Sherri Tepper - this is science fiction but it scared me. A family journey's as ambassadors to a new planet - fleeing the plague on their own, to determine it's root cause, and discover something interesting about the alien inhabitants.
Very disturbing novel. Like most of Tepper's work it plays with gender roles and sexuality in interesting ways. Not a book you forget. I read it over 15 years ago and it's still vivid.
8. Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami - a haunting and at times chillingly beautiful time-lasp ghost story about the after-effects of a bomb going off during WWII. Lyrical in places. Frightening in others. Hard to describe.
9. Masque of the Red Death, and the Pit and the Pendalum by Edgar Allen Poe, amongst other tales. The best of the Victorian or post-Victorian horror writers. Poe created the modern detective novel. I've always found Poe more frightening than Hawthorne, Stocker, or Shelly. As well as more poetic.
10. The Secret History by Donna Tartt - a horrifying account of student ritual gone wrong, and the murder that happens after. It is also a wicked satire of spoiled kids at a small liberal arts college - which resonated for me.
11. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman - about a woman slowly losing herself and her mind and well so much more.
12. The Sculptress by Minette Walters - a tale about a manipulative serial killer - who happens to be a woman.
13. Creature features: Dauphne Du Maure's The Birds & Lennigan versus the Ants by Carl Stevenson.
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Date: 2011-10-18 04:09 am (UTC)Even the vampire books I've read are just bad romances (not real horror at all).
Although Dicken's Christmas Carol scared me a lot when I was little (my brother would read it aloud doing voices for everyone).
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Date: 2011-10-18 05:50 pm (UTC)Nods. Of which The Lottery is the most famous - and certainly very disturbing.