Can anyone recommend me some scary books?

English Madman

English Madman

Active member
I like to read about aliens, ghosts, anything dark and creepy, H.P Lovecraft type of stuff too. Preferably in the form of a story, fictional or non fictional, like The Entity and IT etc. THanks.

I'm on the hunt for some new books and I feel like I'm missing out on some good authors.
 
Early Steven King - Salem's Lot, Christine, The Shining in particular are disturbing/creepy (I don't scare easy, particularly not off books). Ditto It and to a lesser degree The Stand, both of which are from the beginning of King's excessively-long-winded period.

*edit* I just noticed your avatar and mention of 'It,' which probably are tipoffs that you're hip to King's stuff already.
 
Hi Max. I'm more of a fan of the film by KUbrick, the book was ok, but the tv series of The Shining was an abomination. BUt King is ok, I liked It the movie. I have book of both movies, havnnt read IT yet actually.....is it different from the movie?
 
The book ("It") is in every conceivable way better than the movie. This is not a guarantee that you will like the book, but the movie really should never even have been made (even it it did involve Tim Curry, who I guess has to pay the bills just like the rest of us).
 
I can tell you what I haven't found scary: Lovecraft. I just read Call of Cthulhu and The Dunwich Horror last week, and though I really like the underlining concepts, it's not very descriptive or frightening.
 
I dont find his work frightening either, but I find it stimulates my imagination well. I found it really hard to read his style the first time but I got used to it and enjoyed it alot. Seriously tho, it does feel like he was stoned out his face while he wrote some of his stuff...he does have a tendancy to lose you somewhat. Still, I really like him.
 
Well, Lovecraft is really all about the half-seen shadowy not-quite-perceived out of the corner of your eye conceptually disturbing etc, plus his style is a bit prolix and tends to lots and lots of setup on the way to a brief payoff. This is a big part of the problem with filmed adaptations of his work: Nothing will ever induce me to describe the eldritch slobbering horror that hunched in my doorway...well, thanks for nothing. If you won't even tell us what the damned thing looked like, a visual medium like film isn't going to be the best showcase for the story...
 
I believe that I have read everything of Lovecraft's with the exception of most of his poetry and letters. Poe's work is classic, and in a kind of different vein.
 
I thought The Whisperer in Darkness was excellent, and The Lurker at the Threshold really engrossing. I have about 3-4 of his books, some of them containing omnibuses of his other stoires etc.

What does Poe write about?

Edit-I really want a copy of House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson, I have a few of his books and really like him too.
 
English Madman said:
I thought The Whisperer in Darkness was excellent, and The Lurker at the Threshold really engrossing. I have about 3-4 of his books, some of them containing omnibuses of his other stoires etc.

What does Poe write about?

Edit-I really want a copy of House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson, I have a few of his books and really like him too.
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I'm most partial to At the Mountains of Madness, The Call of Cthulhu, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Whisperer In Darkness, Beyond the Wall of Sleep, The Shadow Out of Time and The Dreams in the Witch House.

Poe writes about guilty-conscienced murderers driven mad by their own guilt, fiendish tortures, decadent nobility getting their horrible comeuppance, drunkards too drunk to see their own vengeance-driven demise coming, bizarre inexplicable murders, that sort of thing. Plus - at least so far as I'm concerned - he's a far better poet, than Lovecraft. The Raven is the only long poem I've ever learned by heart.
 
Speaking of existential guilt and the psyche, Kafka's works have been somewhat scary to me in a very solemn way.
 
Sad Max said:
I'm most partial to At the Mountains of Madness, The Call of Cthulhu, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Whisperer In Darkness, Beyond the Wall of Sleep, The Shadow Out of Time and The Dreams in the Witch House.

Poe writes about guilty-conscienced murderers driven mad by their own guilt, fiendish tortures, decadent nobility getting their horrible comeuppance, drunkards too drunk to see their own vengeance-driven demise coming, bizarre inexplicable murders, that sort of thing. Plus - at least so far as I'm concerned - he's a far better poet, than Lovecraft. The Raven is the only long poem I've ever learned by heart.
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Ahhhhh! Thats the book I have lost! I knew there was a book missing from my collection and I just could not work out what it was. Damn, I wonder what happened to my copy of At The Mountains of Madness...I think that was one of if not the first books I ever read by Lovecraft. And I forgot about Shadow Over Innsmouth, that was great, the frog people right?

That sounds kind of dark, Poe's work, right up my alley tho. Worth a read do you think?


vcassel said:
Speaking of existential guilt and the psyche, Kafka's works have been somewhat scary to me in a very solemn way.
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Not heard of Kafka....what does he/she write about?
 
If you haven't read any Poe, I'd suggest checking out his stuff. The Pit and the Pendulum, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Masque of the Red Death, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Black Cat, The Casque of Amontillado - these are some of his better-known stories. They're all short and entertaining reads. Forget about the movie adaptations of these stories though - it's not that they're necessarily bad films (there have been so many, *some* are bound to be worthwhile) but that I don't think his work translates to screen, much better than Lovecraft's.

Kafka is tough to categorize. His work is political, existential, surreal, and frequently touches on things like being victimized by a big shadowy bureaucracy which has decided to investigate you for a crime - while refusing to tell you what the crime even is (The Trial)- or a man who awakens one morning to discover that he has become a giant insect - and basically no one seems to be particularly bothered (The Metamorphosis). There was an interesting film (Kafka) that didn't really have anything to do with his stories specifically, or his actual biography, but was sort of the author as a character stuck in something like one of his own stories. Shot in Prague with Jeremy Irons in the lead. Good stuff.
 
I have heard of The Pit and the Pendulum from somewhere, maybe I did indeed read it at some point, not that I can recall, so I doubt I did. And Kafka sounds somewhat interesting.

Any particular favourite authors you like?
 
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