Goodreads All Sorts discussion

This thread is for discussing Horror novels and authors. What is your favourite Horror book? What Horror authors do you like?

This thread is for me. LOL. I love horror.

I read a lot of vampire, werewolf and zombie stuff. I know a lot of people are starting to get sick of vampires and zombies...I can understand that but I don't think I ever will cause I've loved monsters ever since I was a kid.

Favorite Horror novels would have to be...


I am a huge fan of Stephen King.

I also like..
David Wellington
Seth Grahame-Smith
Edgar Allan Poe
and many others

Yes Dan, I made it especially for you!

Really??? Thanks, Jack.

There are so many horror authors and books that I like that I'd probably be posting here forever!! Lol

I've read lots of horror novels but ''Son of the Endless Night'' by John Farris is the only one I can think of that made me a little scared after I turned the lights off for bedtime.

Really, Joseph. Son of the Endless Night huh? What's that about??

The book that bothered me the most is Ghost Story by Peter Straub. It is really scary, and the feeling lingers long after the reading is finished.

I LOVE horror! All of it, ghosts, demons, werewolves, vampires, zombies, gothic horror, splatterpunk...everything! I have been a die-hard Stephen King fan since I first read Carrie back in the late 70s, (or early 80s, can't really remember). Other authors I enjoy are Robert McCammon, Dean Koontz, John Skipp and Craig Spector (they usually collaborate on novels), John Farris, Poppy Z. Brite...just to name a few. I also loved Anne Rivers Siddons "The House Next Door." If you haven't read it, give it a shot!

I have been a horror fans since I was old enough to read. I guess my favorite monster is the vampire, followed by lycans and then ghosts. My favorite books: Dracula; Dracula the Undead (written by Darce Stokcer); The Wolfen by Strieber; The Dark by Franklin; Ghost Story by Straub.
I've read most of King's work, but I think Straub is a better storyteller, although King's books better translate to the big screen.

the book I am currently reading is considered a horror but it is more of a suspensful page-turner to me. Dark Inside is one of the most intensly suspensful book I have ever read. I ran into it while choosing books feom a list for a school project and it has grown on me... Ill read it 4 more times when Im done

All my favorite horror authors are dead ... except for one! The great Basil Copper is still very much alive. He writes wonderfully rich Gothic horror. My deceased favorites include H.P. Lovecraft, Robert Aickman, Robert Block, Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth, Robert E. Howard, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, and many others.

This may be an extreme throw back but did anyone read the Fear Street Series and Fear Family Saga by R.L. Stine as a kid/teen? I know he was mostly known for Goosebumps but I used to LOVE these other ones!

I remember reading his other stuff too besides Goosebumps. Don't remember what it was called though.

My nine year old reads everything by R L Stine. I love watching the moview with him.

The Stand by Stephen King?

Love love love Horror novels.
King is my favorite, and I have set myself to read at least 4 new King books this year.

I mistakenly believed the author when he said he was retiring and so stopped paying attention to him. Well, now I have quite a bit of catching up to do!!

Also love Koontz but his started to all sound the same after a while, so I broke away long ago.

It's actually been some time since I've read a good horror book.

Oh, and Lovecraft. I have a weird, perverse love of Lovecraft. When I see anything Lovecraftian, I have an urge to cradle it like a kitten...


Yes, I'm a tad strange.

My favorite horror novels:

When I was younger, I loved every book Stephen King (who was younger, as well) wrote. I remember how Salem's Lot had me on edge for days. These days, I am overwhelmed by the number of zombie/vampire/werewolf novels and find that I look for the best of the genre to read. For example, I read The Passage and liked it very much. I have The Twelve sitting on my shelf waiting to be read. I also enjoyed World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. It is intelligently written. When I first read Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz I was hooked by the character and I have read all of the books with this character except for Odd Apocalypse which is waiting impatiently on my bookshelf.

'Salems Lot was the first book I read by King. I was about 13 yrs old, home alone AT NIGHT. I had every light in the house on and slept w/ the dog, cat, and a bat.

My friends forced me to watch the movie but I did have control over the cushion over my face. I can still see the boy vampire in the window looking in!

OMGosh!! How freaky was that? And he was scraping at the window?? I get the heebie jeebies thinking about it.

That's my favorite scene from the movie. Freaked me right out!

So many people liked my Great H.P. Lovecraft Quiz, I created a new quiz to test your knowledge of HPL and his various cosmic creatures.

So if H.P. Lovecraft is one of your favorite authors, you can take the Eldritch H.P. Lovecraft Gods & Monsters Quiz by following this link:

http://www.goodreads.com/quizzes/2886...

Thanks!

Took the quiz. Got 5/10. That's atrocious.

Kyle -- I did make the quiz a little harder this time. I s'pose you could've done a little better, but rest assured, I talked to the shoggoths and they've agreed not to devour you. ;-)

But seriously, considering that it was a tough quiz, 5 out of 10 wasn't too bad! :-)

Let them devour me. I'm leaving goodreads.

Per this thread, my favorite horror authors are...

Basil Copper

H P Lovecraft

Robert Aickman

... among many, many others! But those are my top three. They all wrote with a grand sense of style and dark wonder.

Kyle, if you left GoodReads, the whole place would collapse like a house of cards! =:-O

You give me too much credit, Mark. I'm nothing on this site, and on top of that I have a cyber stalker. I'm out of here.

Aw, this thread had a depressing end. :(

Am I the only one who still wants to talk about horror--specifically how awful it's becoming?

Sure. I will.

Hey! You're still here!

What I'm beginning to hate about the horror genre is that the authors seem to think having a serial killer or alien species kill a bunch of people is the way to go. Plus, the novels have happy endings. What kind of decent horror story has a happy ending nowadays?

Am I the only one who's into psychological horror, wherein the villain doesn't physically harm the main character in any way, but pushes the limits of their sanity to make their life a living nightmare? Now THAT is terrifying.

I won't even go into full detail about the horror-novel formula that's emerging in today's world of self-publishing and e-readers. Blech.

I'm into psychological horror, Taysha. It's not as cliche ridden as the horror genre.

However, I love the horror novels of the 70's and 80's. That's when horror hit it's peak.

In psychological horror, their is no complete good or evil. There are always reasons presented as to why people are the way they are.
I hope horror goes back to it's roots.

Agreed, those novels were written before the many cliches of today's horror genre were overused into existence.

I'm actually writing a psychological horror where, like you said, there's no complete good or evil. The antagonist is a sociopathic misogynist and vampire who worms his way into womens' minds and destroys their sanity before making them commit suicide or killing them himself.

But he believes that every woman he kills deserves it--because they were gluttonous, lazy, greedy, a liar, a thief, promiscuous--because they were all evil. So in his mind, he's serving justice, ridding the world of these evil people.

Hello again! I have another vintage horror fiction quiz for you, and the works in question are a little more recent than last time. Will that make it easier...? We shall see! ;-)

Here's the link to the quiz:

https://www.goodreads.com/quizzes/334...

Thanks!

Mark wrote: "Hello again! I have another vintage horror fiction quiz for you..."
I missed the last one you did, and I tried this one.

Boy do I stink! ;) 20%

Kat♥ wrote: "Mark wrote: "Hello again! I have another vintage horror fiction quiz for you..."
I missed the last one you did, and I tried this one.

Boy do I stink! ;) 20%"

Me too! 20%

I got 80%!!

Aaron{{REBLAST}} wrote: "I got 80%!!"
I guess between the three of us, we know it all!

There are horror books I've loved and horror books I've hated. Some of my favorites are The Shining (Stephen King), Ghost Story (Peter Straub), and good old Dracula by Bram Stoker. And does Edgar Allan Poe count as a horror author? Cuz I love him, too. :)

Cheryl wrote: "Yes, Poe counts. Bricking people up in walls to die slowly and dislocated hearts thumping under the floorboards definitely qualify as Horror."

Haha!

"The Shining" by Stephen King is hands-down my favourite horror novel. It's SO much better than the movie. The film version left out one of the scariest scenes, and the ending was totally different.