Favorite Horror Novels

[molly1216]

Like all good adolescent girls i went through a phase where i read lots of horror novels, vampires, monsters, groovy ghoulies whathaveyou... very few of them do i remember, and even fewer did I reread.
Some of them still stand up to rereading...if i ever find the time.

I do love my October reading of Zelazny's Night in the Lonesome October and now Gaiman's Graveyard Book. (think Jungle Book written by Charles Addams)
But McCammon's Wolfs Hour is the best epic Werewolf novel ever.
Kim Newman's Anno Dracula is the best Vampire Pastiche novel ever written..any and every vampire makes an appearance in victorian london...even Varney.
I read a whole lot of Anne Rice including her much overrated porn...but none of them are worth the match to burn them up save Interview with the Vampire..i read it in 76 and was blown away..then i reread it when the country went Anne Rice crazy in the early eighties. I still have my old paperback with the original cover art.
If you are going to reread anything it may as well be Stoker's Dracula..i recommend the 1976 avon paperback...no reason..'cept the edition ages well and feels good in the hand..for a hardcover look for the Modern Library with the Green Faced dust jacket.

The only Stephen King I read twice was Salem's Lot - it is still scary.
of Dean Koontz's I only reread Seize the Night and Fear Nothing...they are more speculative fiction than Horror but they can get pretty scary...i really really wish he would revisit these for another in the series...the books came out in 98 and 99 and he says he's been working on the third in the series ever since.
The only Peter Benchley worth rereading is Jaws...though the Island has a clever premise of undiscovered Pirates..though now that real piracy is in the news and in your face, it kind of pales...a better book of that ilk would be McCammon's Night Boat....Nazi Zombies in a uboat...i'm sorry but it's silly scary you know?

[Gabriel Girard]

Frankenstein
Dr. Jekyll And Mr Hyde
The House On Haunted Hill

There's a buttload of Stephen King I could list but I'll only mention It because that's the classic.

I'm a big Clive Barker fan but I think that The Damnation Game and Cabal are his only straight-up horror novels, all the others are a mishmash of genres.

Dan Simmons' Carrion Comfort.

[Steve T Power]

I pretty much begin and end with Edgar Allen Poe and Howard Phillips Lovecraft where horror is concerned. Both were better when they stuck to short stories or novellas. But when they were "on", there still no one else who can touch them.

I still remember my internal visualization while reading "The Tell-Tale Heart" for the first time in the sixth grade and how it terrified the ever-loving piss out of me.

No one else has sent chills up my spine like these two. Except maybe Robert E. Howard.

[Gabriel Girard]

I have to add Richard Matheson's short stories. Is Naked Lunch horror, sci-fi or indescribable? Anyway you put it, it's pretty disturbing.

[tucco]

I've got to admit I'm not much for horror novels.....in fact I read mostly subject matter..
Id id always love Stephen King's "Carrie".....I love his character description and how he gets it all into a pretty short novel.
Example: When the cheerleader who has been picking on Carrie's father has to talk to the principal, King makes it clear that the father (who is a lawyer) looks down on the principal and underscores this by describing how the father shunted aside the principal's point with "a dismissive wave of the hand"......it really made me know this guy even though he was in one short sequence in the book.

[Bryan Pope]

Dan Simmons' Carrion Comfort.

I'll second that. I picked this up for a buck at Half Price Books. I knew nothing about it, so I was pleasantly surprised. Very entertaining -- if not especially scary -- read.

Dean Koontz was fine when I was in high school and there wasn't a new King novel out, but for the most part his stories left me cold. EXCEPT for Watchers, which was a fun and involving read. I can't believe he actually made me care a little about the monster at the very end. (By the way -- and as if this doesn't go without saying -- skip the film version starring the late Corey Haim.)

For my money, though, King just does it best, especially in books like Salem's Lot, Cujo and The Stand.

[HGervais]

But McCammon's Wolfs Hour is the best epic Werewolf novel ever.

I loved Wolf's Hour but the problem with McCammon is so much of his stuff is out of print.
I really want to read They Thirst and Stinger but don't want to pay upwards of a hundred bucks. I wonder if they are on kindle?

[Future Man]

The Shining...I remember as a teen having to look away from the page just could not easily finish a few passages out of sheer dread. Never had a book do that to me since.

[Future Man]

But McCammon's Wolfs Hour is the best epic Werewolf novel ever.

I loved Wolf's Hour but the problem with McCammon is so much of his stuff is out of print.
I really want to read They Thirst and Stinger but don't want to pay upwards of a hundred bucks. I wonder if they are on kindle?

I bought Stinger used online but the copy turned out to be so old and yellowed not to mention nasty smelling that I can't bring myself to read it. Sounds like a great premise though.

[HGervais]

I went with the obvious yesterday....meaning I walked into a used books store in the same block as my job...and picked up Usher's Passing yesterday. Looking forward to digging into that.
And yeah, The Shining scared the crap out of me.