Favorite Horror Novels and Writers?

I would have to say King is my favorite. He is able to weave suspense and dread into his tales seemlessly. My all time favorite by him is The Stand unabridged with the Dark Tower series coming in second.

I am still a big fan of Lovecraft, his best stories still evoke a feeling of dread. At the Mountains of Madness is one of the best pieces of horror writing there is.

Brian Lumley and his vampire books are unsurpassed in that genre, anyone who has not read them is doing themsleves a literary disservice.

The best quartersome set: Stephen King's IT, Salem's Lot, Shining and Pet Sematary...the whole world of other horror books cannot surpass these jewels....

It's already been said, but I think King and Koontz are pretty good. I've been dying to try out Lovecraft, but I haven't yet seen any of his works in stores, so either I'm looking in the wrong spots or he's hard to find.

I read the Necroscope series a fair few years ago and they're excellent-
if ever any Hollywood movie director is in need of a new idea for a set of
films,then these books are it.
Another great (if not completely twisted and warped) vampire book is 'Bottomfeeder' by H.B. Fingerman-its about a vampire who is addicted to smackheads.

Nocturnes by John Connoly is also a mighty fine book.

[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]

Lovecraft is by far the best horror writer of all time. Well at least in my opinion. I read a couple of more modern books but they just don't stack up to his stories. Ah Cosmic Horror....where have you gone

King and Koontz are my two fav authors.

But one of the scariest books I have ever read was "Domain" by James Herbert about man eating rats after a nuclear war. I dont know what freaked me out most...the nuclear war or the rats!

reply to post by eternal_vigilance

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Domain scared the pants of me when I was younger

I did the Stephen King thing when I was younger, read all his books, I also love Bram Stokers Darcula but my favorite author has to be Brian Lumley and his Necroscope series, if any book deserves a movie it his!!

Misery - Stephen King.
That really creeped me out!

Mine to, I loved "Midnight" One of my favorites.

Stephen King!!! I love all of his work, but the top of my list would be The Stand, The Dark Tower series, and my all time favorite is The Talisman. Anne Rice is also a great read, in my humble opinion

So I'm reading Lovecraft's stuff. The call of cthulu and other weird stories. So far I'm starting to think the guy was a hack. Predictable endings, along with some real lame cop out lines. My favorite being. "indescribably grotesque"
I thought nyarlohotep was interesting. Then again his writing just might be over my head. Hard to tell.

Lovecraft is incredible, but it's a total head#. Can I say head#? If not then I apologise.

The stories he tells are generally very simple, but so well paced and well structured that you can't put them down, and feel genuine anxiety and fear.

I did watch Stand by Me again recently, which is adapted from a King short story. Very, very good film.

reply to post by Vinciguerra

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I managed to get ahold of a collection of Lovecraft's short stories, and I'm really enjoying them right now. They're rather hard to classify into a single genre, but they're really good.

The unedited version of The Stand, plus Dreamcatcher, and 'Salem's Lot are my favorite books by Stephen King.

I'm also a fan of Poe, and Robin Cook.

reply to post by ravenshadow13

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Heh, Poe, that's on my reading list, too. I picked up a massive tome called 'poe's complete works' or some such. Usually I don't read much horror, but I stick with the really big names and that's enough horror for my tastes. I'm mostly a fantasy/scifi guy myself. I think King, Poe, Lovecraft, and Koontz (if he counts as horror, I guess he does) are the only horror authors I own.

I've seen that the Dark Tower series has already been mentioned once or twice but I will say it again: best books ever written in my opinion. Also I was a huge fan of Children of the Shroud by Garfield Reeves Stevens.