My favorite book in the world is Shadowland by Peter Straub. What atmosphere. Same with Ghost Story, which also turned out to be, imo, a very creepy movie.
My other favorite book in the world is We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson. Her versatility as a writer is amazing…compare The Lottery with Life Among the Savages, just for fun.
Stephen King used to be IT (no pun intended) in my “Favorite Authors” book, but now I find too many intolerably long books that would have made perfectly fine short stories. Anyone read “Gerald’s Game”?
spoiler
Great short story premise: Wife, handcuffed to bed in remote, isolated cabin during a surprise (no one else knows they are there–key foreboding music) tryst with hubby. Hubby keels over and dies.
What a dilemma! Now who can’t relate to THAT?
Unfortunately, what would have made a great 30 page story stretches out over heaven-knows-how-many chapters. Chapter 2: Ooooh, she’s handcuffed to the bed! Heavens! Chapter 12: Hmmm, still handcuffed to the bed! Wow! Chapter 23: STILL handcuffed to the fucking bed. Imagine that. What a shock.
But imo, The Stand and his early books are great. Not Shirley Jackson great, but great.
I have read it and I can see the similarities. But Pet Semetary is written in the late 20th Century style which is so much over the top compared to “The Monkey’s Paw,” and works very well in that graphic style. “Paw” didn’t have anything actually happen, did it? It was more the suggestion, right? The graphic nature of PS just does something more for me. But I’m something of a dork who was raised on MTV, so I probably need things spoon-fed to me.
I agree 100%. There are very few surprises in it, but I couldn’t stop reading. I just had to know what happened in the end! Aaaagghhh!
First, let me apologize for the late reply. I’d pretty much forgotten about this thread.
Anyway, I’ve read quite a few of King’s books, and some short stories as well. I’m not in a mood to search my mental files too hard, so I’ll just name a few titles off the top of my head.
The Stand - Not all bad, but way overrated. It - Boring. As a 6 year old, I had a dream about a crazed killer clown. It was much scarier than this book, which could easily have been edited down to about seven pages. Pet Semetary - Also quite boring. I don’t see what King finds so scary about cats. I happen to love cats. Tommyknockers - yawn Salem’s Lot - Double yawn
And, “The Wedding Gig” was arguably the worst short story ever written.
I used the word “boring” for a simple reason: none of his books entertain me.
I used the word “unimaginative” because I’ve never seen an instance of King coming up with any refreshing new concepts. Sometimes, I feel like he even rips himself off. And if a six year old can have clown-dream that’s scarier than King’s soporific clown story, then it doesn’t say much for King’s imagination.
I wish I could remember more titles, and discuss this at greater lengths, but like everyone else, I’m a bit out of sorts, right now.
I agree. I don’t understand the hubbub about this one.
I read it in a couple sittings, so I must have liked it at the time. It’s “good,” and interesting, but the resolution was lacking, and I think it hurts my overall impression of the book today.
As mentioned above, I think it’s a great book. Flawed, but not detrimentally so. And I love cats too, but the cat was really just a minor player.
Agreed. I think King said he wrote this when he was hooked on pills, or was drinking heavily or something. The original premise is quite interesting, but it just doesn’t pan out into something worth reading for 700 pages or whatever.
Oh no no no. I thought it was an extremely fun read. Derivative of Dracula, to be sure. Perhaps a rip-off, if you wish to see it as such. But when the tv miniseries came on as when I was but a wee laddie I convinced my parents I could handle it. Wrong! Maybe that’s why reading the book years later was as effective as it was, it brought back the adolescent freak-out that I went through when the vampire kid was floating outside and scratching at the window of the hospital room.
I agree that he does suffer from a lack of originality from time to time (although I’d say each “time” tends to last quite a while). But I think even if he’s using “non-fresh” ideas, you still feel compelled to read. He really is remarkably skilled as a wordsmith. Lovecraft, who people probably don’t realize was not as original as they thought and would take ideas and styles from others liberally (although he was open about his inspirations), could write fantastically “fresh” or “original” things, but his oftentimes archaic prose is not the most easily digested of writings. He’s worth the read, but it’s usually not conducive to casual reading, as King’s is. But if you could combine the two, wow!
Has anyone read John Farris? I’ve had a couple of his books laying around for ten years, but have never read him. Which is a shame, because CATACOMBS really looks interesting.
I’m also surprised no one has mentioned Algernon Blackwood. His stories that I’ve read are full of hideous diseases, mental illness and ghostly possession. Very cerebral.
On the principle that the purpose of horror writing is to cause horror, I’m nominating Richard Laymon. I’ve read a lot of horror novels and he’s the only author who can regularly force me to take a break while reading his books because of how disturbing they become. In his books, bad things happen.
Zaphod, with the exception of The Stand, the ones you named aren’t my favorite ones he did, either. King gets my mention primarily because of The Stand (I can’t help but think about Captain Trips whenever a flu outbreak happens)and “Survivor Type”. (In that one, it was not just what the guy did to himself but how his sanity was eaten away along with his own flesh that…arrrgh! I’m stopping now!) But you get the idea.
As I said in my first post, though, I think what constitutes horror for me may be a bit different than what it is for some people. A story with circumstances that stick with me and creep me out at odd times is ‘horror’ to me. Thus, Poe. Thus, the two Bradbury works I mentioned. For that matter, Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” scared the liver out of me – not because of gore, but because of the beast lying beneath the placid farm-fresh faces of that community.
An odd definition of horror, but I freely admit to being an odd duck. <quack>
I’ve got to stand up for Clive Barker here. He’s novels aren’t scary, so much as creepy, but his short stories are terrifying. Candyman kept me from sleeping for a week. The Hellbound Heart makes the movie look like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. In fact, all the stories in The Books of Blood are pretty chilling.
I also want to mention Tim Powers. He’s not technically a horror writer, and he’s certainly not the best horror writer, but he manages to freak me out more than a little bit. Some scenes in The Stress of Her Regards are really, really disturbing.
gobear – you mentioned Kim Newman’s alternate history/Dracula series – I haven’t read those yet but plan to. Stephen Jones’ Mammoth Book of Best New Horror Vol. 9 has a Newman story – “Coppola’s Dracula” – I know I didn’t catch all the references to Apocalypse Now, but the story was original and fun and Newman’s writing is flawless. (Martin Sheen collapsed playing Jonathan Harker.)
Little Nemo - Richard Laymon? I’ve read just one of his novels, “One Rainy Night”. I liked it – would have made a great drive-in movie. Laymon was a genuinely nice man too, and a mentor and friend to many of the new crop of writers.
Speaking of drive-in movies, you guys need to read The Drive-In (both 1 and 2) by Joe Lansdale. Plenty of tension and dread and lots of bad stuff.
BingoBurringo – I’m glad you mentioned John Farris. I remember reading his stuff as a teen, and I’m in my mid-50’s. I picked up “Sacrifice” a few days ago. Have you read that one? I’ve sort of forgotten him in favor of the newer writers. It’ll be interesting to see if he’s still got it.
I can’t think of anyone you guys probably don’t already know about. John Shirley’s “Black Butterflies” collection will stay in your mind longer than you’d like. Daniel Rhodes wrote one really evil book, “Next, After Lucifer”, and then nothing. “Perfume” by Patrick Susskind deserves your attention.
Guess it depends on what you like. “Horror” is too broad a term nowadays. There’s Ramsey Campbell and Dean Koontz – both horror writers but as far apart as Sartre and Charles Schulz. Or maybe not.
Bentley Little? Hes not awesome, but his books are good for a quick read. Lots of gore and shock horror though. Leaves you thinking,“I cant beleive he typed that!”. Check out UNIVERSITY for a good example of this. Also THE STORE.
I can bash King with the best of them, but didn’t anyone here enjoy The Green Mile? In spite of the fact that I was pissed off about it being published as a serialized novel (more money for Mr. King that way), a friend loaned it to me and I read it. I was moved and horrified by that thing. And damn, it made a good movie.
I can also bash Koontz with the best, but I read his stuff anyway. What can I say? I either love or hate his books–it’s about 50-50 with him. But the ones I love make it worth reading the crappy ones because I never know until I’ve read it all the way through which it will be.
Oh, yeah, and who was that other guy who wrote a serialized novel–John Saul? I HATE his books. I read them in high school until I figured out they all ended the same way. Pbbllllttthhhht.
Two of the books (the third being Floating Dragon) that make it so hard for me to decide if I like King or Straub better- so I liked that they write together. I think Straub is a slightly better writer, but far less prolific, so… About Shadowland, though, I was profoundly disappointed to read the description of his newest book of short stories, because since it had “Magic” in the title, I was sure it was going to be a sequel to Shadowland. Oh well, his short stories are pretty good anyway.
