Horror Stories

[Smilla]

Also, I read a short story a couple of years ago that seems a bit Ramsey Campbellesque, but I can't remember if he actually wrote it. It's about a group of friends who get together for drinks at a quaint English pub. One friend inexplicably disappears,

I LOVE Ramsey Campbell! But I don't know who wrote that story.

[trifle]

OK, despite being a fan of horror, I attempted to read some Lovecraft when I was a teen (around the time Reanimator came out), and I didn't like it. Picked up The Colour out of Space on a whim yesterday, and loved it.

Does anyone have any recommendations? I just downloaded the The Nameless City and The Statement of Randolph Carter. If those are any good, I will move on to At the Mountains of Madness and Shadows over Innsmouth, unless anyone can suggest something better.

[ennui]

smilla said:

In both the book and the apparent standards for horror novels nowadays.

[slightly off topic]The standards for fiction in all genrés have plummeted horribly, I think. [/sot] Which bugs.

Sometimes I think books are written with a focus on the film rights. The characters in "The Ruins" even discuss who would play them in the movie.

[Ella]

Does anyone remember a book of horror stories for young kids called "The thing at the foot of the bed?" I loved that book when I was young. I'd love to find it again.

[Ripley]

brindle, is this the title? If so, you can get it at Amazon, or you can get it at ABE Books.

[Ella]

That's it!! thanks for the find.

[trifle]

la-R'lyeh!Cihuiha flgagnl id la!

[Smilla]

Much to my surprise, Joyce Carol Oates' Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque isn't too bad.

ETA: Well, it isn't too bad until you get to the story, "Extenuating Circumstances," which has an early line (explaining why the narrator committed a crime) that reads, "Because Venus was in the sign of Sagittarius," two lines before Oates suggests that the crime happened in late summer. The story ends with a time stamp clarifying that the crime happened the last week of August (ie; with the sun in early Virgo). Venus can't be in the sign of Sagittarius (60+ degrees away from early Virgo) because Venus can't be more than 47 degrees away from the sun at any point in time.

Sometimes I hate being an astrology geek. But I hate lazy writers even more.

[trifle]

I've never read that one, Smilla. But I did read her follow-up, The Collector of Hearts: New Tales of the Grotesque, a few years ago. I thought it was OK, but looking back, I can't really remember details of 99% of the stories. The title story was interesting, but anticlimactic.

Have you read any Thomas Ligotti? I had never heard of him until a few months ago, but he's supposed to be quite good.

[smockery]

I just bought and started a set of short stories by John Connelly called Nocturnes. Fairly creepy stories with the creepiest so far being "The New Daughter" IMO. The only other thing I had read by him was The Book of Lost Things and that was pretty good as well.