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Almills (Almills)
Username: Almills

Registered: 05-2010
Posted From: 98.113.86.160
Posted on Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - 12:59 am:   

hello!
this is my first post, but i've actually been lurking around these boards for months. last year i discovered Ramsey Campbell, and I've since devoured all his novels except one (ironically the last voice they hear).

I've looked up some of the books posted in the "what are you reading" type threads-- but I'd be interested to hear what you'd suggest to someone of more novice status. I'm 21 years old, love the horror genre-- but besides King, Barker, Gaiman, Tryon & MR James (which I have read), I'm not sure where to look. So many US horror shelves are full of junk or 'on-the-nose' gore romance--

Mainly, I'm panicked to run out of Campbell. What do you suggest? Is there, terrifyingly, nothing better? Being an American, I'm in awe as to Campbell's amazingly suggestive, provocative & darkly comic prose, dialogue-- the UK really puts the US' rhetoric and intelligence to shame ( I'll grossly generalize). So let me know of any favorites!
-alex
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Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels)
Username: Mark_samuels

Registered: 04-2010
Posted From: 86.145.226.3
Posted on Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - 03:13 am:   

You'd probably like Robert Aickman and Joel (Lane).

Mark S.
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Kate (Kathleen)
Username: Kathleen

Registered: 09-2009
Posted From: 213.122.209.76
Posted on Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - 07:27 am:   

Thomas Ligotti and John Ajvide Lindqvist!

Oh, and welcome!
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.78.35.185
Posted on Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - 09:18 am:   

Welcome Almills,

Ligotti is indeed a discovery - though best sampled in small doses. Very black, yet elegant, and perhaps not to everyone's taste.
I recommend to start with his "best of" paperback "The Shadow at the Bottom of the World"

Next to the above recommendations, also check Laird Barron's "Imago Sequence"; and if you also like intelligent SF that's often scary because it could happen, then you have to try anything by Paolo Bacigalupi, for example his "Pump Six" collection; or his "The Wind-up Girl" collection which won the Nebula award days ago.

And, if you can afford it, Centipede Press brought the ultimate collection of all Reggie Oliver's wonderful tales. World-class stuff.

Mark here in the thread also has a new collection coming up soon (I hope) from Ex Occidente press and I am sure it is worth preordering it. At the same time you can order Quentin S. Crisp's superb collection from the same publisher.
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.78.35.185
Posted on Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - 09:20 am:   

typo: I meant "Wind-up Girl" novel, it's not a collection.
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.78.35.185
Posted on Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - 09:22 am:   

And one more thing (like Steve Jobs used to say):

For a good overview of interesting modern practicioners of the weird, do check out Tartarus Press' "Strange Tales" anthology series - you can sample many writers for further exploration.
And at the same time, order the affordable and very very good "The complete Connoisseur" collection by Mark Valentine.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.143.129.15
Posted on Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - 10:30 am:   

I wish there were a Quentin Wotsit, or Quentin Quaver. There'll already be a Quentin Pringle I bet.
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Lincoln Brown (Lincoln_brown)
Username: Lincoln_brown

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 124.181.158.116
Posted on Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - 11:01 am:   

Hello Alex, a few suggestions - Conrad Williams, Terry Lamsley, Tim Lebbon, Mark Morris.
Also, check out the authors on this board - most have affordable editions available.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.55
Posted on Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - 11:03 am:   

Graham Joyce is one of the best horror writers about today. Check out Tooth Fairy or The Facts of Life first. You won't be disappointed.
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.78.35.185
Posted on Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - 11:47 am:   

Oooh yes Terry Lamsley - check out the collection "conference with the dead" - still available as a reprint from Nightshade press I believe (the original ash tree edition is now very expensive).

coming back to ligotti - even the Shadow... paperback is now expensive as is most of his out of print material. So it's good to know that his first and already very good collection "songs for a dead dreamer" is now reprinted by Subterranean Press. If you hurry, you can still order it from them - Ligotti books tend to sell out quickly.
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Kate (Kathleen)
Username: Kathleen

Registered: 09-2009
Posted From: 213.122.209.76
Posted on Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - 12:19 pm:   

That ought to keep you busy for the next 20 years, Alex!
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - 01:13 pm:   

Looking back a bit, Alex, you should sample the work of Fritz Leiber (Night's Black Agents, The Ghost Light, Heroes and Horrors, Night Monsters, Our Lady of Darkness), Ray Bradbury (The October Country, Death Is a Lonely Business), Harlan Ellison (Shatterday, Angry Candy, Deathbird Stories), Dennis Etchison (The Dark Country, Red Dreams), Charles L. Grant (Nightmare Seasons, The Pet, Tales From the Nightside), Theodore Sturgeon (More Than Human, Some of Your Blood, Not Without Sorcery, E Pluribus Unicorn)... and many others.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.0.125
Posted on Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - 04:39 pm:   

I'll add to Joel's great list of oldies-but-goodies: Karl Edward Wagner (In A Lonely Place, Why Not You And I?) and T.E.D. Klein (The Ceremonies, Dark Gods).
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 85.222.86.72
Posted on Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - 06:40 pm:   

Alex - Joel has probably nailed it with those recommendations. Red Dreams, bloody love that. Masterful stories.
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Almills (Almills)
Username: Almills

Registered: 05-2010
Posted From: 98.113.86.160
Posted on Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - 11:29 pm:   

wow! very excited, thank you so much, everyone!
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 - 02:14 am:   

Hiya, I envy you discovering all this stuff for the first time and take heart from the fact that even after 30 odd years of hoovering up all the horror fiction I can find I'm still discovering new writers all the time - and becoming ever more selective in those I invest in. The more you dig the more riches you find going right back through the history of literature. Take Joel's excellent suggestions above - I have yet to read any Dennis Etchison and have only limited knowledge of the horror writing of Harlan Ellison or Theodore Sturgeon while I only discovered the peerless brilliance of Fritz Leiber this past six months. Now I'm excited as well!

Of those I have read these are the horror writers (or occasional writers of horror) who are worth seeking out, in roughly chrono order: Matthew Lewis, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Mary Shelley, Charles Robert Maturin, James Hogg, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, Frederick Marryat, Théophile Gautier, Honoré de Balzac, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, Mrs J.H. Riddell, Vernon Lee, Lafcadio Hearn, J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Émile Zola, Robert Louis Stevenson, Guy de Maupassant, Ambrose Bierce, F. Marion Crawford, Robert W. Chambers, Ralph Adams Cram, Bram Stoker, H.G. Wells, Henry James, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edith Nesbit, Saki, W.W. Jacobs, Robert Hichens, Richard Middleton, William Hope Hodgson, Arthur Machen, Oliver Onions, Lord Dunsany, Edith Wharton, May Sinclair, Amyas Northcote, E.F. Benson, M.R. James, Algernon Blackwood, Franz Kafka, William F. Harvey, Eleanor Smith, Marjorie Bowen, John Metcalfe, Thomas Burke, A.M. Burrage, Hugh Walpole, H.R. Wakefield, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Henry Kuttner, C.L. Moore, Frank Belknap Long, August Derleth, Manly Wade Wellman, Robert Bloch, Fritz Leiber, L.P. Hartley, Walter de la Mare, Margaret Irwin, John Collier, Elizabeth Bowen, John Keir Cross, Stanley Ellin, A.E. Coppard, Gerald Kersh, Nigel Kneale, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont, Elizabeth Jane Howard, Robert Aickman, Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, Belcampo, Joseph Payne Brennan, Josef Nesvadba, Julio Cortázar, Roald Dahl, Dino Buzzati, John Christopher, Ira Levin, Elizabeth Walter, Basil Copper, David Case, William Peter Blatty, Karl Edward Wagner, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, Peter Straub, Jonathan Carroll, T.E.D. Klein, Clive Barker, Christopher Fowler... and quite a few people on this message board.

I'm not as up to speed with the last 20 years so you'd probably be able to give me a few recommendations of your own. Great innit!

Now let's play "spot the glaring omissions and controversial inclusions".
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.16.76.168
Posted on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 - 03:33 am:   

Okay, Stevie - do I win, by pointing out you forgot the amazingly irreplaceable Joyce Carol Oates?...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 - 10:28 am:   

Not familiar with her work, Craig... tell me more.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 - 10:34 am:   

She's a genius.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 - 10:44 am:   

Not another one!!
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 - 10:53 am:   

There's a genius on every street corner in your world, mate...

(WTF does that big-eyed smiley even mean?)
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 - 11:11 am:   

I always took it to mean "what the fuck!" or "my brain is melting"...

There must be more omissions or can someone continue the list over the past 20-30 years?
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Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels)
Username: Mark_samuels

Registered: 04-2010
Posted From: 86.145.226.3
Posted on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 - 02:06 pm:   

Stefan Grabinski.

Mark S.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.229.3
Posted on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 - 03:50 pm:   

Joyce Carol Oates is singularly amazing, Stevie. Her output is never-ending, and it's long made me suspicious... but then I read anything she writes, and it always contains either sheer brilliance, or something very worthy. She has crossed genres the most successfully of late: enjoying a reputation as a present-day mainstream master (mistress?), but also enjoying a reputation as a horror/thriller grand master (mistress?). She's even edited a collection of Lovecraft stories... which is still bizarre to really imagine, but there it is, she has....

Try NIGHTSIDE, which King "asterisked" in DANSE MACABRE as a collection of horror short-stories of particular noteworthiness.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.229.3
Posted on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 - 03:55 pm:   

I'll also nominate, for the scant few I've read - but oh are they every one a gem! - the stories that fall under horror penned by Michael Bishop.

And then of course, the few but irreplaceable horror stories that've been written by Gene Wolfe as well.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 - 05:23 pm:   

Stefan Grabinski (the Polish Poe!) & Joyce Carol Oates sound essential and I'd never heard of either before.
I wasn't aware that Michael Bishop or Gene Wolfe wrote horror. More, more...
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.245.126
Posted on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 - 05:32 pm:   

You've never heard of Joyce Carol Oates?!?

Shocking!...
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Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 61.216.203.198
Posted on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 - 05:35 pm:   

Lisa Tuttle, Ron Weighell, Lucius Shepard, Jack Cady and Terry Dowling are a few more recent authors I would recommend.

Also, Jean Ray and L.T.C. Rolt are missing from your (admittedly formidable) list, Stevie - shame on you!!!
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 - 05:48 pm:   

Thanks, Huw.

Jean Ray means nothing but I've heard of L.T.C. Rolt - wasn't he a contemporary of M.R. James?

Likewise heard of the rest without being familiar with their writing except for Ron Weighell (who he?). See what I mean about the more you dig...

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