Want a few more scary book recs? Here are a few of my personal favourites. Any horror novels you love that youd like to recommend? Go crazy in the comments! (Okay, so not, like, full-on Jack Torrance style crazy. Just run-of-the-mill, I-heart-things-that-go-bump-in-the-night type crazy! Although maniacal laughter is both accepted and encouraged. ;) (winking smiley with tongue out)) --------------------------------------------------- - It by Stephen King. My personal favourite of his novels that Ive read (so far). Its not without issues (especially towards the end), but I fell more in love with the protagonists than I have with the characters in any other King novel. (Plus, Im always a sucker for rotating narrators. Which is a good segue into...) - Vampire Junction, Valentine and Vanitas by S. P. Somtow (aka Somtow Sucharitkul). Okay. These are some of the best horror novels I have ever read. Like, some of THE BEST. You want vampires? Got em. You want stomach-turning horror scenes? Hells to the yeah. You want historical fiction from the ancient world through the twentieth century, a story that spans the globe from North America to Thailand, a cast of characters who will live in your head long after the book is done, and a little bit of opera just for kicks? Check, check, check and check. Seriously, I cannot recommend these books enough. If deeply horrifying vampire fiction is remotely your thing, you owe it to yourself to read these books. - Idaho Winter by Tony Burgess. Finally, a Canadian! :P (smiley with tongue out) Tony Burgess edges into experimental territory in his novels, but never so much that he steps out of the horror genre. Incidentally, while I havent yet read the novel Pontypool Changes Everything, I also really loved the movie version (just called Pontypool). It is both truly scary and genuinely original -- not bad for a zombie-style movie these days! - Ringu and Spiral by Suzuki Koji. The original novels that the Japanese and US The Ring movie franchises are based on. Theyre the first two in a trilogy, though I sadly have yet to read the third one. As with most adaptations, they are so much better than the movies, its hard to describe. Especially once you hit Spiral and realize the story has so much more going on than the movies hint at... (Dark Water, a collection of short stories by Koji, is also very, very good.) - Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. A classic, and one thats on my to-revisit-soon list. I read Frankenstein for the first time when I was seventeen, and I was blown away by the writing, and by how much the original story differed from the versions Id seen in modern pop culture. Its intelligent and thought-provoking even today, and well worth a read (or a re-read). - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stephenson. Much like Frankenstein, there is a lot going on under the surface of the original novel that doesnt necessarily make it into adaptations. Its quick read, and both disturbing and enjoyable. (Us horror fans know those things are by no means mutually exclusive, amirite? ;P (winking smiley with tongue out) - Out and Grotesque by Kirino Natsuo. These are technically thrillers, but theyre still as horrific as any supernatural horror novel Ive ever read. Theyre both hard-hitting novels about disenfranchised women in modern (Japanese) society, and the extremes they will go to, to escape the traps that are their lives. Out gets into some truly gruesome territory -- but I think Grotesque is the better novel. Then again, Im a sucker for unreliable narrators, and Grotesque has three of the most compelling Ive ever read. Theyre great examples of how characters dont have to be likeable to be fascinating (even when theyre, yknow, female characters written by a woman). - A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin. Better known these days as the fantasy series A Game of Thrones is based on (but, yknow, exponentially more awesome). Martin is one of my favourite authors and this series is one of the best Ive ever read. (As you may already know, if Ive talked them up to you at the store! Ive taken it as my duty to let the world know how good those books are. ^_~ (anime wink)) Its set in a medieval-style fantasy world that is in many ways very historically accurate -- which leads to some pretty squicky sections. I dont think Ill ever forget the chapter in A Storm of Swords where we find out exactly what happened at the Fist of the First Men... - Coraline by Neil Gaiman. I am almost embarrassed to admit how much this book creeped me out the first time I read it. What can I say? The story is chilling enough, and the illustrations remind me of the ones from the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books that invariably gave me nightmares as a kid. (Seriously, it was kind of a thing. My mom actually had to ask me to stop borrowing them from the library because every time I did, I had trouble sleeping that night. *L*) Neil Gaiman + Dave McKean = scary-ass gold! (Which brings me to...) - I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. Technically a novella, not a novel, but still well worth mentioning. And like Ringu, infinitely better than the movies based on it. Forget Omega Man, I Am Omega and especially that Will Smith flick from a few years back (which made me furiously angry at how they COMPLETELY RUINED THE ENDING! Yargh). Read this instead. Even if you know more or less what the twist is, the themes behind Mathesons original story make it so much more interesting than the Hollywood versions. - Snow White, Blood Red and the books that follow in this series of modern fairytales edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. This series is a-maz-ing! The stories are primarily retellings of classic fairytales -- with a few originals thrown in for fun -- and are primarily fantasy and dark fantasy. As with most anthologies, not all the stories are hits; but the overall quality of the stories is really good compared to the average antho. - the Mammoth Book of Best New Horror anthology series, edited by Stephen Jones. As compared to Datlow and Windlings updated fairytale anthos, the Best New Horror series tends to be a little light on female authors. On the other hand, they DO tend to include somewhat obscure short stories by awesome modern horror authors. I discovered both Ramsay Campbell and Bentley Little through reading these, which as far as Im concerned puts me forever in Stephen Joness debt. - The Sandman graphic novel series by Neil Gaiman (and rotating artists). At twenty-one, I had NO idea what I was getting into when I sat down and started reading the first Sandman volume, Nightmares and Dreamscapes. I already considered myself a veteran horror fan by then -- and yet I found myself unexpectedly shaken by many of the scenes in N&D, even as I was drawn inexorably into Morpheuss world. If you like horror, trust me: pick up this series and you will not be able to put it down. Battle Royale the manga, by Takami Koushun and Taguchi Masayuki. Hold onto your hats, kids -- this aint yer mamas Hunger Games! No, seriously, though: I happen to think that Battle Royale is overall a better-told story than the Hunger Games books, and the manga is my favourite version. The story is essentially the same as the original novel and the movie, but with fifteen volumes, we get a lot more backstory about the kids from class 3-B; and unlike some manga artists, Taguchi has given each character a notably different face so theyre easy to tell apart at a glance. Normally, this is where I would lament about how the series is out of print ever since Tokyopop went under -- but the truth is, thats not necessarily such a bad thing. Unfortunately, Tokyopop decided to let Keith Giffin take waaaay to much license to Giffenize (a Tokyopop editors own words) the story -- which for the most part meant adding a reality-TV framing device that doesnt exist in the original story and eventually leads to some Buick-sized plot holes. (He also apparently changed certain characters dialogue more or less on a whim, or so Ive heard.) Heres hoping that someday another English-language publisher licenses the manga and gives it a proper translation. The series deeply deserves it. Ill stop there, since its nearly time to close up. ^^; (anime sweatdrop) Happy Halloween, everyone! Have a spooky night!
Posted on: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 21:05:44 +0000
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