I've decided Clive Barker probably isn't my cup of tea. I had read Vol 1-3 of Books of Blood many years ago and very few of the stories grabbed me. Now I've read The Midnight Meat Train again, and realize what I don't like. He seems to rely mostly on plot, and uses too much blood and guts, without really making it seem convincing. Sure, it's very imaginative and understandable that they work as movies, when they can take a good plot and create a movie from the idea. But as literature, for me, they don't work. He writes well enough, but the style doesn't stand out, he doesn't create convincing characters, or atmosphere, he doesn't make use of suggestion or tension. Everything is told fairly straight, without ambiguity and little is left to the imagination.
You might enjoy the anthology "The Weird: A Compendium". It's edited by Jeff Vandermeer. It has some of the stories recommended by people here and classics by a lot of the masters. I haven't made my way through it all but really enjoyed a lot of what I have. I tend to like weird fiction as opposed to straight horror and so such stories are my thing. I like the genre crossing. I find I can reread Lovecraft and still enjoy him very much. But some horror stories, by him or others have those twist endings and once you know the twist the second time and on reading them is never quite as exciting. It's the ideas and the writing style that carry the story too.
I'll second this, and also add The Year's Best Weird Fiction. Pretty much any volume, but I'm currently reading Volume 4 during my commute and it's got some pretty solid work in it. The variety of author's involved means there's probably going to be a few things in their that aren't to your taste, but as a whole it's a pretty great collection of horror/Weird that doesn't focus on blood and guts.
The ones that come to mind right now are quite old. One is Wake Not the Dead and the other is Bubnoff and the Devil. Both come from an anthology called Masterpieces of Terror and the Supernatural. Some other good stories from that anthology are Lenore (a ballad), Dracula's Guest, and Carmilla.
I still like The Signal-Man by Dickens. And The Red Room by H.G.Wells. I like the ones where psychology plays a big part and you're always second guessing whether there is real danger or it's just in your head. The things I find most unsettling are when horrible realisations just dawn on you, like if there's someone sitting in a chair and the character realises they've been dead for ages (although that one has been a bit overdone), or like that real life story where a man noticed some of his stuff was getting moved around or missing so he recorded his house when he was out. He then saw footage of someone moving around his house and realised they had been there with him all along, living in his house for a year without him knowing. Here's the link to the story https://japantoday.com/category/crime/woman-arrested-for-living-in-closet-in-fukuoka . I also much prefer stories with decent characters, I find some horror writers are so focussed on making the monsters and knowing they are killing off their characters anyway they don't always make them that interesting (although films can be worse for this).
I'm also looking for horror fiction, could be either novella or novel which combines horror and murder mystery. Horror could be supernatural or real, overall very intense. Is there something like that?
Please don't laugh when I say this (well OK, you can), but you might want to look into stories that follow what I call the Scooby Doo formula. You know—it seems to be a ghost or monster of supernatural origin doing the killing, but it turns out to usually be a gang of ordinary crooks who discovered some weird technology or were using disguises, and their ultimate goal was something like to scare people away from a property where there's oil or hidden gold or something equally valuable. Many stories and movies have used this kind of approach. When I was young I used to read a series of old pulp novels cranked out in the 30's and 40's that used it. They were called Doc Savage, the Man of Bronze. He was an adventurer and a genius who solved crimes and busted gangs, and the stories always began with what seemed to be genuinely real supernatural horror. Of course they were written to an actual formula, almost to the letter, and turned out to always be gangbusting adventure rather than anything actually supernatural. But it was when I realized they used the same formula as Scooby Doo that I figured out a lot of other things probably use it too. In fact there was a kid's story I read in grade school that also used it, called The Mystery of the Green Ghost. Even sounds like a Scooby Doo episode! And it wasn't far from it, but there was no talking dog and it wasn't comedy, but it was pretty tame children's fare. It was also part of a series, called The Three Investigators, and was 'Presented by Alfred Hitchcock". I think he let them use his name to boost popularity, his TV show was very big at the time (in the 60's). And most likely anything else using the same approach would also be formulaic and part of a series. It just seems like the kind of material that lends itself to that. Sorry, this isn't much help I know. Just thought I'd throw that out there.
As for the original intent of the thread—short horror fiction—there's a book called 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories that had several I liked. And the short story called Jerusalem's Lot by Stephen King that was a followup to his massive novel Salem's Lot. I'm not sure if having read the novel first is necessary, though it doubtless would help. I thought the novel was particularly good too, one of his best by far. But this isn't about novels. By Lovecraft my favorite is The Shadow Over Innsmouth and its followup The Thing on the Doorstep. It's hard to say why exactly, but they appealed to me in ways his work usually doesn't. Probably because it wasn't his usual cosmic horror or ancient horror (in a way it was that, but in a different way than he usually used). He managed to create a genuinely creepy atmosphere around the ancient fishing village of Innsmouth and its people that I found very powerful. They can both be read free online, as well as all of his work, here. The movie Dagon is a very powerful and well-done version of Innsmouth, mixed with a couple of Lovecraft's other stories (including one called Dagon). Pretty intense stuff, and you need a fairly strong stomach to be able to handle it. For some reason they changed the name of Innsmouth to Imboca.
The Three Investigators would thrash the Hardy Boys in a fight. Even it were a handicapped match, and the Hardy Boys had Nancy Drew in the ring corner as a manager, they could not win. It always amazes me the Three Investigators don't get more historical cred. And The Green Ghost is awesome. That's my favorite book of theirs. Shadow Over Innsmouth is my favorite HPL story too. I think we've already had that conversation though, haha. ------------------- I see I already posted in this thread long ago. It's surreal seeing my old self posting those mega-threads. No one reads those. Silence is a virtue, my friend. Brevity is wit, and other aphorisms. I'll add a few more stories. I feel like I've described them all elsewhere on this site as I read them. It's good to list them here, I think. Sour Candy Kealan Patrick Burke This is just a novella. Little less than a hundred pages. That's all it needs. A guy sees a poor mother in a store suffering with an unruly child. You've seen it before, the kid is screaming and keening for candy. Why does the mother give in? The guy then unwittingly becomes the father of this kid. You would think he could simply walk away or tell those around him that it's all a mistake. It's not so easy. There's something Kafkaesque about this one. Absolute despair. The Nightmare Box Chuck Palahniuk This one is a short story from Palahniuk's "Haunted" collection. That's a novel, but the book is really just a vehicle for these short stories, IMO. There is a mysterious wooden box kept in an art gallery. It's closed except for a peephole. Some mechanism inside the box keeps time. If you look inside, there is a chance that the clock will count down and you will see the nightmare inside the box. It's beyond human imagining. It is a knowledge that will change you forever. A mother must track down this fabled box because it has destroyed her daughter. If she can find it, she'll look inside. Then she'll know. I found this idea to carry an incredible weight. A parent's instinct is to fight for their child, and if they're hurting, it's up to the parent to heal them. But what if you're destroyed in the process? In the River Jeremy Robert Johnson Another novella. I see it's finally an ebook on Amazon. The paperback used to go for an absurd amount. I've got a copy on my shelf. I got mine while the first print was still available, so it was cheap for me. A strange voice . . . The dialog is written in a modern vernacular, but the book is about a father and son from a tribe in some tropical land. It seems to take place hundreds of years ago. They are fishing in the river. A beast in the river swallows the boy, and the father must act. He can't flee from this certain ruin. He must prove his true worth as a father, both as an apology and as revenge. Some of the reviews compare it to "Heart of Darkness." Yeah, I can see that. Its locale is like "Heart of Darkness" in reverse. You come to an understanding in the light and see a father's purpose, which is brutality when it's called for. --------------------------- I just realized these are all about family from the mother/father's perspective.
So far, quite strange. But in a good way: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NCBSK7H/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_d_asin_title_o02?ie=UTF8&psc=1
There are two that spring to mind for me, both by Stephen King. One For the Road A sequel to Salem's Lot, it manages to build up tension very nicely and captures the idea of living in the shadow of (but not in) a vampire infested small town. And as with the novel, these are my kind of vampires. The Jaunt At first, reads like a sci-fi story, and most of it is. But the final paragraphs contain an idea that is, to me, truly horrific - moreso than vampires, eldritch gods, killer clowns or any of that, and it doesn't contain any supernatural elements at all.
Damn, Both Jerusalem's Lot and One for the Road were included in a 2005 illustrated edition of 'Salem's lot, but I can't find that on Amazon. His short story book Night Shift has both of the shorts, I guess I just need to get that and 'Salem's lot. I remember it being amazing when I first read it long ago.
You can read the beginning of Jerusalem's Lot here in the Look Inside for Night Shift. I had forgotten it was done at least partially as an epistolary story, told through a series of letters.
Well I didn't write a damn word today for nanowrimo. JT Woody and I were just about neck and neck yesterday, both with around 500 words written. Today she added about another 500, and mine sits unchanged. And now I've downloaded Night Shift and 'Salem's Lot. I'm trying to figure out how King is so damn good. He was my favorite writer in the 80's. And One for the Road just reminded me why. He said himself in the intro to Night Shift that character is primary for him, and then story. But it's hard to understand how he makes them both so good with such minimal words. There's very little description or anything we all work so hard to develop. Somehow he sketches them in loosely and rapidly and they're full of life and spirit and character. It's done in deep third, and keeps veering between present tense and past, but that's because it's all told in the character's own words, in character voice. It's like he's talking to you, telling you about what happened. Very conversational. Something like : Lumley stared at us in shock and indignation. "But my wife—" he says. "My daughter! They're out there in the blizzard! We've got to get them!" 'Stared' is in past tense, and 'says' in present. In the same line. It seems to be an uncanny understanding of what to leave OUT. How to abbreviate. Of course what I just read was a short story, as is Jerusalem's Lot, that I'm starting in on now. I'll see how things change when I get to 'Salem's Lot.
What is short horror novella or horror novel which has great character development and intense survivalist character drama ?
