I’ve been a long time fan of Steven King, his books have kept me up since I was a teenager. Just finishing Dreamcatcher right now, I am wondering something I’d like to pose to those dopers out there who like a good thrilling read…
Why is Steven King so enticing? What is it about his style that grabs you, and holds you. I mean I am off for the summer (usually I teach summer session, but this summer I’m off) and I have several good books I am re-reading. I am re-reading Imagica by Clive Barker, another one I can not put down.
But King seems to really catch my attention and throw me for a loop. I remember when I was younger reading a lot fo Jack Kerouac and Richard Bach because that is what I was into then. As an academic I find some of my collegues scoff at me when they see so much Steven King in my Office…Well sorry guys but Steven Hawking’sUniverse in a Nutshell was good but didn’t keep me up at night reading till 3 in the morning.
So who does it for you? Who keeps you up at night? And Why?
When I was 14, there was a movie called The Reincarnation Of Peter Proud. I wanted to see it, but my Mom wouldn’t let me, cuz it was rated R. So my father bought me the book (hehehe), and I stayed up til 3AM (on a school night) reading it. I was a hurtin’ pup at school the next day, but, damn that book did it for me! I’ve also known to stay up reading Harlan Ellison, Stuart Woods and Olivia Goldsmith (just finished her novel The Bestseller, and had to fight myself not to stay up super late finishing it). Of course, Stephen King does it for me, too. Read 'Salem’s Lot when I was 15. My Dad gave me the book and said, “don’t read this at night”. Of course I read it at night. First I stayed up late reading it, then I stayed up late because I was too scared to go to sleep!!
I’ve read just about every book Steven King has written! He does have a very distinctive writing style, one that just sort of pulls you into his world. I used to buy his books and read them in one long sitting – don’t have time to do that anymore, unfortunately. I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t even purchased his latest. As for other authors, Peter Straub is pretty impressive, but still pales in comparison to King (they did collaborate on a book).
I have all of Stephen King’s books and am anxiously awaiting the release of the rest of the Dark Tower series! I started reading his stuff when I was in elementary school and would hide to stay in for recess to get a few more pages read!
His writing is easy to get sucked into. I find it very conversational almost like reading a letter from your best friend.
Jeff Noon is another author who while not suspenseful writes stories that keep me reading well into the wee hours. I also enjoy most of Patricia Cornwell’s books (her last one was horrible though!)
I’ve read a few books by Peter Straub but I have to read them and re read them and even then sometimes I just can’t follow where he’s going with things.
Oh and I will gleefully stay up into the wee hours when the new Harry Potter novel comes out this June.
Argh – meant to say WHY – won’t give away story details, but what made these two stories scary fun is that the authors won’t tell you anything! I think Stephen King himself even said he enjoyed authors and moviemakers who won’t show you everything (in his book Danse Macabre, I believe)…
I enjoy Stephen King’s folksy style, too – some of his stuff really is old fashioned storytelling, and it’s fab – but for really scary stuff, I like the two stories I just mentioned, and also things like Shirley Jackson’s Haunting of Hill House – so much is left to the imagination.
For film, what freaked me out was John Carpenter’s ‘Prince of Darkness’ – now this film has a lot of over the top silly moments, and a sense of humour about itself, but what truly frightened me were the sequences where you can’t quite see/hear what’s going on…
I agree Mr.Boods, horror by inuendo is the best. I also really like John Cambell…Another Aspect of Stephen King I really enjoy is the fact that he is a New Englander, as am I. And some of the Slang he comes out with really hits home…
Folks I appologize for the title mis-spelling… :smack:
I admit, I haven’t read many horror books, but Lovecraft has kept me up on more than a few occassions.
The stuff that really gets me are those old children’s horror stories. I don’t know the author, but there’s one story about this kid who’s family moves into a house where the previous residents dissapreared without a trace. The kid starts to see shadowy figures that start to come at him and his family, so he starts sleeping wtih the lights on. One night, there’s a thunderstorm and the house loses it’s power, so the kid sleeps in his parents room with a candle, watching the shadows slink around the bed, waiting to see if the candle will last till daybreak. It doesn’t, and once it goes out, the shadows decend upon the bead, strangle his parents, and the story ends with the third, childlike shadow dropping from the ceiling onto the child.
To this day, that STILL keeps me up on those late, quiet nights.
OH MY GOD ELVIS I REMEMBER THAT!! Whats the damn name…I haven’t thought about that for a long long time, but it was your description of the child-like shadow dropping from the ceiling that caught my attention. No sh*t…What was that one.
I will second “The Colour Out of Space” by H.P. Lovecraft. Started reading it just before heading to bed. Didn’t sleep until I finished it. Didn’t sleep for a while after that. That is just a creepy, creepy story.
The other book that scared me, and I don’t scare easy, was Stephen King’s It. That was a book that I couldn’t put down but had to at some points. Only work of fiction, filmed or otherwise that has given me nightmares.
Clive Barker certainly, and usually Ramsey Campbell until his books self-destruct towards their ends (he’s great at building tension, absolutely sucks at resolution).
And H.P. Lovecraft for all-around creepiness. I just re-read “At the Mountains of Madness” and it would keep me awake for a while and steal into my dreams when I finally slept. Good stuff.
I remember that story about the shadows, too. Ugh. I think I was 8 or 9 when I read it. I didn’t sleep all night and I left the lamp on, lest the shadows get me. It was included in a collection of other scary stories, but that is the only one I still remember.
While we’re on the subject, perhaps you folks could help me remember the name/author of a short story I read many years ago; I believe it was in an Alfred Hitchcock short story magazine (remember those?)
The setting was a outdoor carnival, and the story is about a levitator (that is, someone who hypnotizes you, then levitates your body). I seem to recall that the levitator had a heart attack or seizure, and the person he was levitating just kept rising slowly into the air. By the time the crowd noticed, he was too high to reach – so he drifted higher, higher – until he was just a tiny dot in the sky.
I have no idea why, but that story gives me the heebeejeebees!!
Ms Boods, actually, Phlosphr!
I would add, about ‘Colour’ – I still live in that house…and this all used to be a large plantation about 200 years ago, so there are 50-75 graves in the woods…and there is a lake about 500 yards from the house that was built by the army corp of engineers, so there are drowned properties under it…:eek:
Oh well, it explains why my sheep are so bloody weird…
Is this just for scary stuff? I like John Bellairs. Another writer that really pulls me in, although not a horror writer, is William Sleator. He’s a young adult sci-fi writer. His House of Stairs disturbed me quite a bit when I first read it as a kid. (Yeah, I still read children’s books!)
House of Stairs! That was a great book. So was Syncronicity (I think that’s the name of it).
Right now the writer keeping me up nights is Greg Iles. I just discovered him–don’t know how I missed his work until now, but boy, can he write suspense!! I stayed up until 2 AM last night finishing up “Black Cross”. I’ve read everything by him all within the last 2 months and the only one left is “Spandeau Phoenix”, which I am told is just as engrossing as “Black Cross”. Can’t wait to start on that one.
Stephen King has always had the ability to keep me up reading late at night even when I’m RE-reading some of his work (most notably “The Stand”) which is remarkable.
But the one writer who has managed to keep me up until the wee hours reading night after night after night is Diana Gabaldon. Not horror, but enough suspense to keep me wide-eyed until the sun came up. I was practically a zombie after reading the entire Outlander series one right after the other during the course of 3 weeks.
My reading credentials include King and Barker, but not Lovecraft. I’m currently reading ‘Black House’ (King/Straub) and finding it pretty good, although the writing style took me a while to get used to – it’s like a movie’s director’s notes:
“He starts to walk down the street, so we leave him there and turn our attention to another resident…”
However, the story that has kept me awake the longest is a particularly creepy story by Gerald Durrell – someone more noted for his humorous, semi-autobiographical “My Family and Other Animals”. In a collection of short stories is one concerning a manuscript about someone narrating his cataloguing of a library belonging to someone called Gideon in an old house filled with mirrors. Anyone who’s read it will probably recall it from that description. Perhaps it was precisely because it was the last story in the collection and such a contrast to the comical tales preceeding it, but it managed to creep me out fairly well.
