It’s Friday and I find myself wondering what is your favorite horror novel and why.
This question has been flitting into and out of my consciousness until today where it finally took up residence — more like a squalid palsy indigent clad in soiled draping clothes, crawling through a glass-jagged window frame than a lower middle class family moving into their first home, their piece of the American Dream, purchased dearly, just a little beyond their means.
Here is what I want you to do. In the comments section below tell us what your favorite horror novel is and why. The why can be a simple sentence or it can be a few paragraphs.
If you’re like me and you can’t easily choose a favorite then please pick one and tell us why you like that particular book. Then feel free to come back and leave a second, and a third, and so on.
I’ll read every one.
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Okay, I’ll start,
One of my favorite horror novels is In Silent Graves by Gary A. Braunbeck.
Gary is an Ohio author and the first author I ever actively sought out. When I discovered that his near-impossible-to-get novel The Indifference of Heaven was being revised slightly and reprinted, I rejoiced. Gary writes of the horror of loss like no one else. Robert Londrigan’s pain when he loses his wife and unborn child called out my own fears of loss — and reverberates in me years later. That is just one aspect of what is one of the richest and unique horror novels I’ve ever read.
That’s a hard one. The Grace of God by Sam Cross is the most recent, though it’s more of a thriller. I also liked Servant of the Bones by Anne Rice and Nightmare House by Doug Clegg. Oh, and Ghosts by Noel Hynd. I have a thing for ghost stories and he does a great job!
@wedaman send me a message a few minutes ago on Twitter which read:
@Undeadrat our carpool votes for The Stepford Wives as best horror book.
Thank you David.
I think my favorite still has to be The Manitou. It was one of the first horror novels I ever read.
Hmm, I must be like you then, this question’s been bugging me since I first read the post earlier today. One of my favourites though, which I first read in my early teens, is technically not just one book. It’s Clive Barker’s Books of Blood. I still have the original copies I purchased around twenty-six years ago.
At the time I first read them, they epitomised what I had decided I wanted to be when I grew up – a writer of horror fiction. The stories were nastier, more depraved and bizarre than anything else I’d read at that point in my life and, along with the aid of one or two other favourite authors at the time, Barker helped me to understand that horror was not just about the ghosts and haunted houses of my childhood reading. A huge, defining moment in my love for horror fiction.
My favorite horror novel is Barbara Hambly’s THOSE WHO HUNT THE NIGHT. Since I do believe that vampires are real, I am not sure that this is a Horror novel but the library thinks that it is.
Two of my favorite horror books are “IT” and “Pet Semetary” both by Stephen King. Don’t bother with the movies. The novels gave me nightmares. I don’t think I could choose one over the other.
Another favorite story… correction: short story… correction: VERY Short Story is “What the Moon Brings” By Lovecraft. At only 2 pages in length you won’t find much ‘development’ of plot or character, but the story is amazing in how quickly it ramps up the horror level.
-Zero
Brian Keene, author of The Rising and A Gathering of Crows, wrote using his @BrianKeene twitter account: “@Undeadrat Of all time? The Stand, complete and uncut.”
Thank you Brian.
On Twitter @sheriw1965 wrote:
@Undeadrat Toss-up between The Stand and Swan Song. The 80s were a scary time for those of us scared of the end of the world!
My favourite horror novel is The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum. The fact that it’s based on a true story makes it even more unsettling.
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