Recommendations for good horror books that arent by Stephen King and Dean Koontz?

speedy2007

I love scary books, but its so hard to find decent ones.
People always mention koontz and king but there must be more than them out there. Ive read a few James Herbert which were good. Does anyone have any other recommendations?

Cheers

Mr. Presentable

Ghost Story - Peter Straub.

Ozziej

Clive Barker

Books of blood or Coldheart Canyon.

Both great reads

Raskolnikov

Hell House - Richard Matheson.

sxt

You should pic up some of the classics which should be dirt cheap allthough you may hate the style of writing

Edgar Allen poe :Collected stories I think it is called
Bram Stoker : Dracula
H.p LOvecraft :
Mary Shelly :Frankenstein


Has anybody ever read "the haunting of house hill" by Shirley Jackson?

Honey-ec

Right, I know you said no Stephen King, but seriously, get his "Danse Macabre", you'll find loads of recommendations in it for good horror reads.

John Connolly is good for thriller writing with a decidedly supernatural bent - specifically "Bad Men", "The White Road" and "The Black Angel".

Hermy

John Saul - Hellfire

John

I'm more into older horror (more ghost stories and weird tales) than horror so here's some suggestions in that vein:
Sheridan Le Fanu In a Glass Darkly
William Hope Hodgeson The House on the Borderland
Henry James The Turn of the Screw
Any good MR James collection
Any HP Lovecraft
Any Edgar Allen Poe

speedy2007

Thanks everyone for the suggestions thus far. If anyone has anymore, please post:pac:

Honey-ec wrote: »

John Connolly is good for thriller writing with a decidedly supernatural bent - specifically "Bad Men", "The White Road" and "The Black Angel".

I know he has a main character throughout a few of his books - do you know if that means they need to be read in order??

Eoin

Someone recommended Richard Laymon and I gave "One Rainy Night" a go, but it seemed very run of the mill, but it may not have been a good example.

speedy2007 wrote: »

I know he has a main character throughout a few of his books - do you know if that means they need to be read in order??

Yes, they should. Every Dead Thing is the first one, and I think the best. I think I would describe it as not so much horror, but crime fiction with a hint of the supernatural.

_Roz_

I write reviews for publishing houses and I got these two sent to me, by an author called Bill Hussey.

He's pretty new, just two books out, first called Through A Glass, Darkly which I thought was superb (crime/dectective story set in a village with a dark, supernatual history). Very original and pretty graphic in parts. His second book, which I'm only starting is called The Absence and it's looking pretty good too.

I wouldn't be surprised if his name starts to pop up a lot.

Eoin

For some reason, that reminds me of The Shrine by James Herbert - I seem to remember that being pretty good.

Chris Lowe

I'd suggest anything by M.R. James or any of the shorter J.S. Le Fanu stories. In my opinion Le Fanu's best are Some Strange Disturbances in an old House in Aungier Street and Ghost Stories of Chapelizod both of which are online here:
http://www.geocities.com/lefanusghosts/MadamCrowlsGhost.html

_Roz_

eoin wrote: »

For some reason, that reminds me of The Shrine by James Herbert - I seem to remember that being pretty good.

I haven't read The Shrine, but I have read other James Herbert stuff and thoroughly enjoyed it. The one thing I WOULD say about Bill Hussey is, with Herbert, horror comes first and it's thoroughly central. Hussey's is substantiated by a seriously good plot and a highly likeable (anti-)hero. But yeah, definately along the same lines, also think Mo Hayder, only GOOD.

There's another recommendation for the original poster - Mo Hayder. She gets very mixed reviews (avoid Pig Island like the plague) but she's definately disturbing.

CatFromHue

i liked heart shaped box by joe hill. its a relatively new book.
it was also on the staff picks in a book shop near me

_Roz_

CatFromHue wrote: »

i liked heart shaped box by joe hill. its a relatively new book.
it was also on the staff picks in a book shop near me

Yeah, Joe Hill being Stephen King's son. It's a good enough book, about a rockstar who collects weird things, and buys a ghost haunting a suit. It's good classic horror, but I didn't really like the story. Worth a look though.

Miskatonic

Honey-ec wrote: »

John Connolly is good for thriller writing with a decidedly supernatural bent - specifically "Bad Men", "The White Road" and "The Black Angel".

I haven't read any of his novels but I enjoyed his short story collection Nocturnes.

Would also recommend Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist. It's been made into a film recently which is also quite good.

knightmare

Richard Laymon's Night in the lonesome october & Travelling Vampire Show
Richard Matheson's Hell House & I am Legend
James Herbert- Haunted & Ghosts of sleath, both creepy
Peter Strauss - Ghost story
The Exorcist - William Peter Blatty

turgon

Dracula

Only messin, it a horror in name only.

But how about Frankenstein. Although maybe a horror in name only too, its quite philosophical.

John

How's Dracula a horror in name only?

turgon

Well its not really that scary!

"Horror fiction is a genre of fiction in any medium intended to scare, unsettle, or horrify the audience." (Wiki, where else!)

Maybe Im wrong I suppose. Do you like Dracula?

sxt

turgon wrote: »

Well its not really that scary!

"Horror fiction is a genre of fiction in any medium intended to scare, unsettle, or horrify the audience." (Wiki, where else!)

QUOTE]

Here is the rest of that wiki quote

Historically, the cause of the "horror" experience has often been the intrusion of a supernatural element into everyday human experience. Since the 1960s, any work of fiction with a morbid, gruesome, surreal, or exceptionally suspenseful or frightening theme has come to be called "horror". Horror fiction often overlaps science fiction or fantasy, all three categories of which are sometimes placed under the umbrella classification speculative fiction.

Haunting is used as a plot device in horror fiction and paranormal-based fiction. Legends about haunted houses have long appeared in literature. For example, the Arabian Nights tale of "Ali the Cairene and the Haunted House in Baghdad" revolves around a house haunted by jinns.[1] The influence of the Arabian Nights on modern horror fiction is certainly discernible in some of the work of H. P. Lovecraft.[2]

Achievements in horror fiction are recognized by numerous awards. The Horror Writer's Association presents the Bram Stoker Awards for Superior Achievement, named in honor of Bram Stoker, author of the seminal horror work, Dracula "

turgon

Give me 5 minutes and ill have that changed

I realize it is horror (I was wrong), but I think its treatment as a classic is due more to the effect its had rather on any quality it bears. After chapter 5 I found it plain dull!

sxt

JONES AND NEWMAN'S 100 "BEST" HORROR BOOKS in chronological order (up to 1988)

http://home.comcast.net/~netaylor1/jonesnewman.html

Worth checking out .Does everyone agree ? ,

artvanderlay

Nothing more frightening that women looking for Mr. Right. Anything by Claudia Carroll, Cecilia Ahern, Marian Keyes etc. They are scarier than anything Clive Barker or Stephen King ever came up with because if you attempt to read them you will actually rip out your own eyes!

If that's too extreme, try an anthology of M.R. James ghost stories. The stories are quite old-fashioned and he's a not particulary flashy writer but if you are reading them late at night in a quiet house, you may very well defecate your person!

turgon

They seem to be pretty liberal in their description of horror.

I see Heart of Darkness and Lord of the Flies there


Hmmm, it sounds like Ive a vendetta against horror on this thread

keefg

There's a few gooden's by Shaun Hutson.

LoLth

anything by HP lovecraft. Has different effects on different readers (for example I found th erats in the walls to be fairly bland but when I lent it to a friend she had nightmares for a week after reading it!)

The Terror by Dan simmons (he of Endymion fame, no shrikes in this one but if you research the material its based on you may ruin the ending!)

The Rats trilogy (not so much the second one though) but the third is great - as a side note, I converted the plot and setting of the third one into a traveller (sci-fi rpg) scenario and the players were scared witless by james herbert

John

turgon wrote: »

Well its not really that scary!

"Horror fiction is a genre of fiction in any medium intended to scare, unsettle, or horrify the audience." (Wiki, where else!)

Maybe Im wrong I suppose. Do you like Dracula?

You don't find it unsettling at all? Even the scene where the Brides are given a child by Dracula to feast on?

"Are we to have nothing tonight?"said one of them, with a low laugh, as she pointed to the bag which he had thrown upon the floor, and which moved as though there were some living thing within it. For answer he nodded his head. One of the women jumped forward and opened it. If my ears did not deceive me there was a gasp and a low wail, as of a half smothered child. The women closed round, whilst I was aghast with horror. But as I looked, they disappeared, and with them the dreadful bag.

That isn't meant to give you a fright, it's meant to bring on feelings of revulsion and unease (i.e. horrify you) and I think looking at Dracula from a modern perspective where horror is erroneously seen as gore and attempts to shock the reader is doing Stoker a massive injustice.

super_furry

I've always loved Douglas Clegg. Goat Dance is a good place to start.

turgon

John wrote: »

I think looking at Dracula from a modern perspective where horror is erroneously seen as gore and attempts to shock the reader is doing Stoker a massive injustice.

Ok I appreciate where you are coming from However I could never say I was horrified at any part. The only part where I was anyway exited was the first 5 or so chapters set in Transylvania. I found that it got quite "dull" after that.