Scariest Book?

[Gunslinger]

I'm new here but I'm curious as to what the scariest books out there are...

My scariest was "It" by Stephen King...horribly freightening
As was:
King's "Pet Sematary"
Max Brook's "World War Z" Eerily realistic zombie war

Any more?

[botkin]

The most recent scary/creepy book I read was Chuck Palahniuk's "Haunted".

It's more disgusting and disturbing than scary, but still a pretty good read.

[manolia]

"It" by Stephen King for me too..I read it at a tender age and it left a deep impression to me ("We float...")
Also the "Books of blood" and especially the story "The midnight Meat Train". Really scary but one of the best short stories i've read!

[damianswife]

I love Stephen King for a good scare but I remember reading William Peter Blatty's "The Exorcist" way before the movie came out and it scared the bejaysus out of me.

[McGrain]

Salem's Lot. That's the only book that's ever made me physically scared to move about my own house, listening for noises etc. We got one of those old fashioned spiral stair cases and trying to crane my neck whilst climbing them actually did me an injury. Which is funny now but wasn't then!

Second would be 1984 by George Orwell. That book is proper frightening. Hearts of Darkness is quite scarey too.

Anything by H.P Lovecraft is frightening, and in a very unique way. I'd steer anyone who's read and enjoyed King towards Lovecraft in a heartbeat.

[manolia]

Salem's Lot. That's the only book that's ever made me physically scared to move about my own house, listening for noises etc. We got one of those old fashioned spiral stair cases and trying to crane my neck whilst climbing them actually did me an injury. Which is funny now but wasn't then!.

Of course! Do you remember the berial scene with the undertaker and his crazy notion that the child was buried with open eyes (not so crazy notion after all). One of the best scenes!



Anything by H.P Lovecraft is frightening, and in a very unique way. I'd steer anyone who's read and enjoyed King towards Lovecraft in a heartbeat.

Yeah! Uncle Lovecraft and his monster-pets!! Cthulu, Azathoth, Yogsothoth and Nierlathotep. This stories are quite disturbingly scarry if you get my drift..Kept me awake many nights and have given me my most wonderfull nightmares!

[McGrain]

Of course! Do you remember the berial scene with the undertaker and his crazy notion that the child was buried with open eyes (not so crazy notion after all). One of the best scenes!




Yeah! Uncle Lovecraft and his monster-pets!! Cthulu, Azathoth, Yogsothoth and Nierlathotep. This stories are quite disturbingly scarry if you get my drift..Kept me awake many nights and have given me my most wonderfull nightmares!

...thanks for bringing up that scence up, it's midnight here! Have you read the little prequal, "Jerusalem's Lot" I think it was called, a horrible, horrible story, very Lovecraftian.

Speaking of Lovecraft, that guy is out of line, I got a rule about reading his stories, never more than one at a time. I don't feel traumatised until after i've put the book down, so never really understand how fried i'm going to be until I finish, it's no use to me!

Shame really, he's one of my very favourites.

[JBI]

Lolita, Nabokov. Creepy stuff that one. Scared the BaJesus out of me.

Or if you want real horror, than I would have to say none. Really, I don't really get the whole "fear" thing, and when it comes to movies, the "fear" they talk about is someone flabbergasting you by jumping out from around the corner.

No such thing is real fear unless you think fear is being grossed out.

[Stieg]

Let's not forget the works of Montague Rhodes James, the greatest ghost story teller ever. I also love weird tale/speculative fiction writer Arthur Machen.

And if you really, really, really want to give yourself a great scare, well, I highly recommend one invest in a horror anthology titled -- Great Tales of Terror and The Supernatural edited by Phyllis Cerf Wagner. Not only is the volume a motherlode of who's who in horror literature and the size of a phone book but GToTaTS is universally recognized as the greatest horror anthology ever compiled. FIVE STARS!!!

[papayahed]

Quite Honestly I can't remember if I was scared by any Stephen King books(I've read most of them). The book I do remember that scaed me was called Hauntings in Michigan (or something like that), it was a compilation of ghost stories and odd occurrances that happened in MI, where possible it even gave locations. I remember reading that one night and I ended up sleeping on the couch because I was afraid to go upstairs to my bedroom.

[Stieg]

Quite Honestly I can't remember if I was scared by any Stephen King books(I've read most of them). The book I do remember that scaed me was called Hauntings in Michigan (or something like that), it was a compilation of ghost stories and odd occurrances that happened in MI, where possible it even gave locations. I remember reading that one night and I ended up sleeping on the couch because I was afraid to go upstairs to my bedroom.

King is good at striking a chord sentimentally with readers with his strong reader relateable themes and heavy use of popular culture but he is a terrible finisher. I don't understand all the hype surrounding novels like Salem's Lot and The Shining. Both fizzled and had too much pyrotechnical nonsense.

But I did enjoy Carrie, Christine, Cujo, and Pet Semetery.

Once again, I rarely read King these days, his earlier stuff was largely good because of my previously mentioned descriptions above.

[manolia]

...thanks for bringing up that scence up, it's midnight here! .

:lol: I hope you had a nice night's sleep



...Have you read the little prequal, "Jerusalem's Lot" I think it was called, a horrible, horrible story, very Lovecraftian.

Indeed! In fact i am going to revise that. I do not remember it properly. Thanx!

[Stieg]

And if you really, really, really want to give yourself a great scare, well, I highly recommend one invest in a horror anthology titled -- Great Tales of Terror and The Supernatural edited by Phyllis Cerf Wagner. Not only is the volume a motherlode of who's who in horror literature and the size of a phone book but GToTaTS is universally recognized as the greatest horror anthology ever compiled. FIVE STARS!!!

And The Dark Descent anthology edited by David G Hartwell. A rich blend of both classic and contemporary horror stories. The ultimate companion to the volume above the former which was compiled circa 1940s.

[Bysshe]

I've only read a few of Stephen King's novels...but am I the only one who was quite frightened by The Stand? I know it's not scary in an obvious way, but I'm sure it's given me nightmares in the past.

[McGrain]

I've only read a few of Stephen King's novels...but am I the only one who was quite frightened by The Stand? I know it's not scary in an obvious way, but I'm sure it's given me nightmares in the past.

I totally agree with this, it's very insidious isn't it, creeps right up on you. We're so used to laws and infrastructure I think it it is a frightening idea to have all of that suddenly whiped away from you - maybe that's it, it's a really good stab at describing what it would really feel to be without the biggest complaint in your life - people telling you what to do.

[Daizee]

I would LOVE to be able to say that I am one of those people who can read extremely harrowing texts without flinching and without thinking of it months, years later. I am not so lucky. Steven King's novels terrify the living hell out of me!! :alien:

[quikmart]

The scariest book in my memory is Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. The heroine of the story, having a documented history of telekinetic ability and a mind disturbed by a dysfunctional childhood (like Carrie, but far less bombastic and more believable), may be the cause of the terrors undergone by a group of ghost hunters, or she may be the victim of a hostile entity, which keys in on her vulnerability - or the entire incident may take place in her mind alone, which is the scariest possibility. Jackson wrote several more stories about haunted young women, but the others are less remarkable for their ability to frighten than they are for excellent insights into girlhood.

WARNING: this story does not include zombies, dismemberments, or Satan.

[Bysshe]

I totally agree with this, it's very insidious isn't it, creeps right up on you. We're so used to laws and infrastructure I think it it is a frightening idea to have all of that suddenly whiped away from you - maybe that's it, it's a really good stab at describing what it would really feel to be without the biggest complaint in your life - people telling you what to do.

Yes, I know what you mean. I think it's also partly due to the fact that it seems so realistic in some ways - you could almost imagine it happening. The part of the book that describes the early days of the plague, focusing on individual people always unnerved me slightly.

[Stieg]

Far too many modern horror novels today rely on shock values rather than genuine atmosphere and psychologically stir the imagination. Gross out moments and gore can be fun too with moderation but also a writer cheat.

A perfect example of the former is Shirley Jackson and her work.

Just ordered F Marion Crawford's The Complete Wandering Ghosts from my local B Dalton. Has all eight horror stories he wrote in this single volume including notorious tales like The Screaming Skull and The Upper-Berth.

And King is not without his influences either standing on the shoulders of Charles Beaumont and others, the Twilight Zone writer is extraordinarily talented unfortunately has undeservedly fallen into obscurity with this younger generation. I still need to locate a out of print copy of Beaumont's posthumous anthology The Howling Man. IIRC Beaumont was one of Hitchcock's favorites.

I also want to read William Sloane's two novels Edge of Running Water and To Walk The Night.

[Sancho]

Truman Capote’s: In Cold Blood.

I first read it as a teenager in the seventies and it scared the crap outta me. I didn’t sleep well for about a year and a half. Truman Capote gives us access to - or perhaps just a peek through the window of - a truly psychotic mind.

Yikes

[papayahed]

Truman Capote’s: In Cold Blood.

I first read it as a teenager in the seventies and it scared the crap outta me. I didn’t sleep well for about a year and a half. Truman Capote gives us access to - or perhaps just a peek through the window of - a truly psychotic mind.

Yikes


I've been trying to read this book for 2 years. I think I'll have to buckle down.

[Woland]

The Call of Cthulhu, Mountains of Madness. Lovecraft uses narrators (usually scientists or reporters) that show a little too much skepticism for their own good.

[Sancho]

Sorry to skip over you Woland but I’m unfamiliar with your reference.

Hey Papaya – long time no see. How’d’ya like my new ave? Curly Howard: a brilliant actor!

In Cold Blood is a worthwhile read on a number of levels, not the least of which is the genre itself. It’s a sort of fusion between journalism and novelistic writing and Capote is arguably the first to have used this technique. Critics have been sniping at him for 40 years now for his “immaculate facts”, but the genre is here to stay – a few recent books that come to mind are: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, A Civil Action, and The Perfect Storm.

Whatever the case, he did have amazing access to Perry Smith (one of the murderers) and he gave a description of Smith’s

***SPOILER***

execution that still sends chills down my spine. (Smith was hung for his crimes by the State of Kansas in the late sixties). Capote attended the execution and wrote about the moment of death of Perry Smith. I’ll try to get this right, but evidently as the trap door on the gallows opened, the prison chaplain closed his eyes and waited for the, “thud – snap that announces a rope broken neck.”

[Stieg]

The Call of Cthulhu, Mountains of Madness. Lovecraft uses narrators (usually scientists or reporters) that show a little too much skepticism for their own good.

Corrected texts by Lovecraft scholar Joshi:

Arkham House hardcover volumes

Penguin Classics three trades (The Call of Cthulhu, The Dreams in the Witch House, and The Thing on the Doorstep)

Library of America's Lovecraft Tales

Modern Library's At The Mountains of Madness


Any other publisher besides these above will have the edited texts of Lovecraft's stories i.e. Del Rey trades and mmpbs.


Since we're on the topic of weird fiction, I give highest recommendation for reading The Willows and other writings by Algernon Blackwood. IMO, the greatest writer in this genre, outwrote the rest, he'll hold one spellbound, however not necessarily the best storyteller Blackwood will share that top spot with others and his stories aren't necessarily mean't solely to scare as much to astound and awe. This opinion coming from someone that has never touched a Lord Dunsany or Clark Ashton Smith story in their life (they're mainly fantasy and science fiction btw). *shrugs*

[andave_ya]

Anybody read Agatha Christie's "And Then There Where None" also titled "Ten Little Indians"? I'm serious, that book made me afraid to go to sleep. I read it at night, alone, in my room. Of course, every creak the house made was ten times as loud. That night I wrapped up really tight in my blanket and kept my eyes most emphatically shut!

[Matt the Man]

All Charles Dickens. Made me scared to read any classical literature. Luckily, the rest isn't so bad. He writes bad.

[Stieg]

Too many great modern horror novels have fallen to obscurity especially those of genuine literary merit. Anyone that has read King's Danse Macabre would have discovered some of these gems. Scariest definitely unfortunately OOP.

Elementals by Michael McDowell
Cold Moon Over Babylon by Michael McDowell
Amulet by Michael McDowell

In A Dark Dream by Charles L Grant

Much of the general public is rather simplistic and come to the conclusion that Stephen King is the single answer to all their horror needs. Not even batting an eye at other writers.

[Stieg]

I love walking the aisles at secondhand bookstores catching alot of the novels published in the 1970s, some trash some treasures.

Here are three of the latter:

The Other by Thomas Tryon (many of you may remember the Mulligan horror film from the 70s adapted from this novel)

The Dogs by Robert Calder (at first glance resembles a Jaws knockoff but it is truly terrifying and delves deeper into human/animal companion psyches, some material may be too graphic for some readers)

The Auctioneer by Joan Samson (once a monumental piece of horror literature cited by many popular horror authors of today such as King, McCammon, etc that now has fallen into obscurity in the passing generations, very scary and realistic, fertile ground for today's hacks to cull from)

[THX-1138]

the shining by Stephen King

[PeterL]

I enjoy reading horror, but I find most horror more funny than scary, but there are some stories by Lovecraft that scared me.

[Stieg]

The novelization of John Carpenter's The Thing written by Alan Dean Foster is highly recommended.

Foster is wonderfully descriptive of the setting, mood, and eerie isolation. The characters are incredibly fleshed out and learn more about their pasts and in the novelization one actually experiences the last terrifying moments of those who are merely alluded to in the film. Which actually lends the movie a claustrophobic whodunit appeal yet Foster taking the reader there works equally well mainly due to Foster's writing.

A top form novel of suspense.

Here is an excerpt from page 1 of the novelization:

The worst desert on Earth never gets hot. It boasts no towering sand dunes like the Sahara, no miles and miles of barren gravel as does the Gobi. The winds that torment this empty land make those that sweep over the Rub al Khali seem like spring breezes.

There are no venomous snakes or lizards here because there is nothing for them to poison. A bachelor wolf couldn't make a living on the slopes of it Vinson Massif. Even insects shun the place. The birds who eke out a precarious life along its shores prefer to swim rather than fly, seeking sustenance from the sea rather than a hostile land. Here live seals that feed on other seals, microscopic krill that support the world's largest mammals. Yet it takes acres to support a single bug.

A mountain name Erebus stands cloaked in permanent ice, but burns with the fires of hell. Elsewhere the land itself lies crushed beneath the solid ice up to three miles thick. In this frozen waste, this gutted skeleton of a continent unlike any other, only one creature stands a chance of surviving through the winters. His name is Man, and like the diving spider he's forced to carry his sustenance on his back.

Sometimes Man imports other things to Antarctica along with his heat and food and shelter that would not have an immediate impact on an impartial observer. Some are benign, such as the desire to study and learn, which drives him down to this empty wasteland in the first place. Others can be more personal and dangerous. Paranoia, fear of open places, extreme loneliness; all can hitch free and unwelcome rides in the minds of the most stable of scientists and technicians.

[kathycf]

Elementals by Michael McDowell
Cold Moon Over Babylon by Michael McDowell
Amulet by Michael McDowell

In A Dark Dream by Charles L Grant



The Other by Thomas Tryon
I read The Elementals and The Other years ago, and both were truly scary and creepy. I am not familiar with any other books of McDowell's and I think I am going to have to do something about that. Those other titles look good. :)

Anybody read Agatha Christie's "And Then There Where None" also titled "Ten Little Indians"?
Oh, yes that is a very suspenseful read, andave_ya. Gave me the creeps too, although I was able to sleep just fine. :p

[aabbcc]

I am scared of - and scarred by - but yet, very attracted to, a lot of works, as a lot of them have had that effect on me.

I have never been scared by "horror literature" nor did I find ghost stories I used to read in my childhood to be particularly frightening; more, it was my own interpretation that made a lot of - poems mostly - things scary to me. Off the top of my head, here are some I could think of now:

Lorca's "Canción del jinete" (http://www.poesia-inter.net/index217.htm) is one of the poems that provoke a living hell in my soul. The first time I have encountered it was in some half-forgotten, vague, enchanted night of my childhood, uttered in whisper, in translation, and it disturbed me quite a bit.

A couple of years later, as I first encountered Keats, "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" (http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/1126.html) froze my blood. I do not recall precisely what, at that age, I saw in that poem, how did I interpret it, but I remember having spent a lot of time returning to that poem, thinking about it, connecting it to all kinds of weird ideas.

One of the scariest things I have read was definetely Goethe's "Der Erlkönig" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Erlk%C3%B6nig), I have been returning to that poem repeatedly through the years, each time remaining frightened.

As far as the actual books are concerned, I truly cannot think of a book my dominant impression of, as a whole, was that it was scary.

[kandaurov]

Do dystopias count? I think they should - what can be scarier than that? Orwell's '1984'.

[Stieg]

I have been scared countless times or at least been spooked which (not an easy task) Especially when reading late into the night, alone. If the writer is good enough you can be drawn into the story.

But if the author gets too carried away like the one I ranted about earlier in the thread than the spell can be broken (and may not be amended upon completion of the novel).

I posted a horror story by Barbara DeGraw in another thread that was definitely a quality read. Click on my sig, scroll down and read the second e-text story by Arthur Machen titled "Out of the Earth" raised the hairs on my neck (but even that first story is alarming in a different way).

I think one important component is the setting in which you read a horror story, quiet and still solitary moments is best especially evening time as mentioned before.

Orwell's 1984 is one of the most frightening novels I've read. Definitely deserves mention.

[Stieg]

I read The Elementals and The Other years ago, and both were truly scary and creepy. I am not familiar with any other books of McDowell's and I think I am going to have to do something about that. Those other titles look good. :)



That is probably McDowell's most popular work but yes he is one horror's best kept secrets. Fantastic writer who usually set his stories in the South and a true master at creating gothic atmosphere and mood.

He also wrote three other standalone books under this pen-name:

Gilded Needles
Katie
Toplin

And the Blackwater horror saga:

1. The Flood
2. The Levee
3. The House
4. The War
5. The Fortune
6. The Rain

Also wrote the Clue novelization. And satirical mystery capers involving a duo of characters under another pen-name with his lover. I am not familiar with these works. McDowell died of AIDS complications in 1999.

And again many would recognize him as the co-writer of Tim Burton's Beetlejuice and also The Nightmare Before Christmas and another two lesser recognized horror films.

[Tashtego]

I love Stephen King for a good scare but I remember reading William Peter Blatty's "The Exorcist" way before the movie came out and it scared the bejaysus out of me.


I second this. "The Exorcist" is a really well written and disturbing work.

[kilted exile]

Anybody read Agatha Christie's "And Then There Where None" also titled "Ten Little Indians"? I'm serious, that book made me afraid to go to sleep. I read it at night, alone, in my room. Of course, every creak the house made was ten times as loud. That night I wrapped up really tight in my blanket and kept my eyes most emphatically shut!

There is also a pretty good computer game been made based on that book. Together with a "murder on the orient express" game by the same company (only played "And then there were none" however.

http://www.adventurecompanygames.com/tac/pc.html

[manolia]

There is also a pretty good computer game been made based on that book. Together with a "murder on the orient express" game by the same company (only played "And then there were none" however.

http://www.adventurecompanygames.com/tac/pc.html

:thumbs_up
Great game!!

[kilted exile]

Yes, I still have to get Orient Express and the game based on Lovecrafts work as well

[Hyacinth42]

Well, I have a book of Poe's short stories, I realize it may not officially count as a book, but his short stories are pretty creepy :P

[manolia]

...the game based on Lovecrafts work as well

I've grown rusty it seems ('gamewise'). Which one do you mean?? Please fill me in? Is it an adventure game or..?

[kilted exile]

I've grown rusty it seems ('gamewise'). Which one do you mean?? Please fill me in? Is it an adventure game or..?

http://www.adventurecompanygames.com/tac/necronomicon/index.html

[manolia]

Thanx!