It's October. Let's talk horror.

[Dr. Strange]

What are your favorite horror stories/novels?

Come, post them, and let's scare each others' pants off.

[CrispyQ]

1. "It" by Stephen King.

I still won't walk near or park near a sewer grate. Fuck you, Pennywise.

[sharp_stick]

2. Ghoul by Michael Slade

http://www.amazon.com/Ghoul-Onyx-Michael-Slade/dp/0451159594

It's been a long time but I remember reading this and getting hooked on horror/police procedurals for a long time afterward.

Slade (I think they are three lawyers) really jazz it up with realistic gore and nightmarishly creepy plots.

I may have to see if I've still got it in the basement and give it a reread for Halloween.

[closeupready]

8. I have that - I read it ages ago; kind of "Silence of the Lambs" story.

He wrote another similar book later, but it was WAY over-the-top gory that I just couldn't get into it at all, and had to put it aside.

[Agnosticsherbet]

3. Somethng Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury.

"It" has already been mentioned.

[Paladin]

4. "Ghost Story" by Peter Straub (1979)

Don't settle for the sub-standard movie, OK? The novel is a terrific story; genuinely unsettling.

[Rowdyboy]

5. The book was sheer horror. As you say, the movie-not so much....

[Curmudgeoness]

6. "Salem's Lot" by Stephen King

The first book I read all the way through without putting it down. Creepy.

[LWolf]

7. I don't really care for horror,

but "Christian Nation," as described in a thread above, sounds apt.

[closeupready]

9. The one book that was fun and filed me with fear was "The Shining".

No other Stephen King story comes close.

The UK's Ramsay Campbell has written numerous short stories that are highly effective at being creepy and shocking, the best collection IMO being "Dark Companions".

For whatever reason, I find older stories to be more effective at scaring me, maybe because when you read Poe or Lovecraft, you need to adjust your mind to accommodate the old-fashioned manner of narrating a story in English, and so since you're already making that accommodation, it's easier to make other accommodations and suspend disbelief further than with modern ghost stories.

For example, some older mystery books can be very creepy without a single gruesome episode, whereas modern stories go into great graphic detail about dismembering corpses and flaying body parts, etc., which is disgusting, but scary? No, not really, just disgusting.

[Moe Shinola]

10. "Children of the Kingdom", by T.E.D. Klein

It's a short story that appeared in the Dark Forces collection from 1980, and is probably my favorite-ever short story. It's quite long, and just such a pleasure to read, like a favorite armchair, which is a weird thing to say about horror, but just try reading it and you'll see what I mean.

[raccoon]

11. "In Cold Blood"--not horror, but pretty horrific. nt

[Mz Pip]

12. Shirley Jackson

The Haunting of Hill House.

And just about anything H.P. Lovecraft wrote.

[AngryOldDem]

13. Anything in King's "Night Shift." n/t

[Moe Shinola]

14. Have you read any Arthur Machen?

He was writing in the generation before H.P. Lovecraft, and he has a lot of that vibe. I read The Great God Pan, and it was quite creepy and entertaining.

[zappaman]

15. Read THE WHITE PEOPLE.

Could be the scariest story ever written...

[Moe Shinola]

17. Cool!

I'll need to look for it.

[Dr. Strange]

16. I've had that on my Kindle for about a year.

Just waiting for some free time to finally read it.

[scarletlib]

18. Dracula by Bram Stoker

The original classic. Always sends a chill down my back.