Every now and again I realize that there are whole genres of literature that I have fully skipped over. The horror genre is one of these for me. As a kid and even a young teen I was very easily frightened so I always avoided horror at the point when my other friends were devouring Dean Koontz and Stephen King. Since I have become an adult I have read and enjoyed most of Kings books (movies and non horror fiction from him got me over the edge) but still never branched out (other than Lovecraft who I have read also) beyond.
I found myself last night feeling like I needed a good horror novel or 3 in my life. It started because I stumbled across a review of some Clive Barker stuff, but honestly, approaching an whole genre from scratch is intimidating and I have a feeling that there is (like most genre fiction) a lot of not good horror novels out there. Also, I’m probably not going to head to the library and pick up 20 books, I need a way to narrow things down. So I turn to the SDMB, what do you suggest?
In general I like fantasy more than reality. True Crime thriller stuff doesn’t do it for me. Real horror is still a bit too scary for me. But ghosts, monsters, etc? Yeah, I’m down.
So where do I start? Short stories and novels are both equally welcome.
I am not a big horror reader, although I love horror films, so I’ve read some of the books behind my favorite films.
I have tried to read King. I think I should like him, but I never get past the first chapter. I read his non-fiction book about horror, and loved it, and I read Dolores Claiborne, and the short story “Survivor Type,” but that’s it.
I’m here to recommend The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. Scariest thing I ever read. I read it on a bright, summer day, and it had me feeling so dark and gloomy, I felt like I was down a hole; it surprised me every time I looked up from the book. I also read it, IIRC, cover to cover. Couldn’t put it down. It doesn’t have any gross-out monsters-- it’s just creepy as hell.
I know you said no true crime, but another very scary book that isn’t fiction is Vincent Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter, the account of the Manson crimes. It’s very literary, and not as sensational as most true crime.
I liked Scott Sigler’s Infected quite a bit, but the subsequent novels were less horror and more science fiction. It’s a quick read, being focused more on the story and the characters than on being a literary masterpiece (by which I mean we don’t have page-long descriptions of ordering pizza, for example). It’s a body horror theme, btw.
And I’ll throw one in that’s not really a horror novel. Richard K. Morgan’s Thirteen is more of a mystery novel and a detective story, but it is suspenseful, intense and full of interesting ideas, characters and settings. And there’s plenty that will squick you out, I promise.
Now I see that in the OP you mentioned Clive Barker. Wonderful, imaginative horror and more. Start with Books of Blood.
Also, Ghost Story by Peter Straub is very good.
The New Weird subgenre is my favorite horror; authors don’t rely on hoary old tropes like vampires or werewolves, instead create bizarre new things to freak you out. Jeff Van der Meer is a master of the form. His book Borne would be a great place to get started. Here are some spoilers that cover the first chapter or two:
In a postapocalyptic city ruin, a woman plucks a sentient purple blob off the fur of a sleeping five-story-tall golden bear who when awake flies over the city killing and devouring its inhabitants. And then things get strange.
A short story that still freaks me out when I think about it is “Singing My Sister Down,” which you can read online. It’s short enough to read in a half hour or so.
A longer story, a novella, that may be of interest is The Other Side of the Mountain. (This links to a review, not the story). Deeply unsettling.
In fact, if you think you might like this sort of stuff, you could do worse than pick up The Weird, an anthology of such stuff edited by Ann and Jeff Van der Meer.
Of course, maybe you want werewolves. Glen Duncan’s book The Last Werewolf is a delightfully raunchy take on the genre, with an unrepentantly canine attitude toward hunting and sex.
Or you could go more refined, with the book-length prose poem Sharp Teeth. I thought I’d hate a prose poem, but it’s very well done. Much less horrifying than anything else I’ve recommended, IIRC.
Seconding Shirley Jackson. The Haunting of Hill House is brilliant, followed closely by We Have Always Lived in the Castle and the short stories.
Seconding Arthur Machen, too. “The Great God Pan” is superb. Even better is “The White People,” told from the POV of a pre-teen girl who likes to wander alone through the woods, and spooky as hell.
Robert Aickman, underappreciated 20th century Brit. Short stories to try: “The Cicerones;” “Pages from a Young Girl’s Journal;” “The Wine-Dark Sea.” His most famous is “Ringing the Changes,” but I prefer these three.
Best obscurity: Harry Kressing’s The Cook, a short and extremely creepy 1965 novel. In the “New Servant is Hired and Eventually Takes Control of EVERYTHING” genre.
Best famous: Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby. I prefer the novel to the film, myself. Levin’s first novel, A Kiss Before Dying, is usually categorized as a crime thriller, but it’s no stretch to call it horror. One of the most acclaimed thrillers of the 1950s.
Yeah, this book is great. With a small and possibly inconsequential caveat: although it has all the trappings of a horror novel, it’s not a horror novel, unless you consider Native Son a horror novel.
The scariest stories ever written were penned by Harlan Ellison. Try “All the Birds Come Home to Roost” or “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” or “Shatterday” or “Flop Sweat.”