Favorite horror novel?

[Tommy420]

Keeping with the season what are some of your favorite horror books?

Me, I think I’d have to go with House of Leaves. It’s a strange read but pretty fantastic.

[joeycup]

"the Rising" by Brian Keene, first in a series of books where all people and animals (except insects) become intelligent demon zombies intent on killing everything,in later books plants and insects become zombies too. Really inventive and extremely violent...good horror stuff.

[Stavros]

Keeping with the season what are some of your favorite horror books?

Me, I think I’d have to go with House of Leaves. It’s a strange read but pretty fantastic.

Just seeing almost completely empty pages makes me wonder what I am paying for and is it a 'horror' book or a love story?

I would say first that as a genre I don't see the point of so-called Horror stories. Frankenstein, for example, is not a horror story at all but a form of romantic anti-capitalism in which the author writes a story that is intended to ask the question: what happens when science goes wrong? With the answer: a monster you can't control that can destroy you. Some would then cite the creation of niuclear weapons as the ultimate horror story derived from Mary Shelley's thesis.

Is Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde a horror story or a moral tale that says people should be cautious when experimenting with drugs?

My vote goes to Edgar Allen Poe, again because I don't read his stories in a genre called 'Horror' but because this troubled American with troubling views, offers a perspective of American life which is at its core unstable, unpredictable, capable of love, compassion, violence and despair. But written with tremendous skill in the use of language. Poe is a master of prose where Stephen King is a shoolboy. Three dimensions in the former, one in the latter.

[Laphroaig]

It - Stephen King
The Rats Trilogy (The Rats, Lair and Domain) - James Herbert
Jaws - Peter Benchley
Jurassic Park - Michael Crichton (you can argue whether it's horror or not)

Big fan of James Herbert in general, but It is really the only Stephen King novel I've enjoyed reading and at times it is genuinely scary...

[Lovecox]

I love H.P Lovecraft and M.R. James, but they mostly wrote short stories.
For favorite horror novels I would say Pet Sematary by Stephen King.

[slave2u]

just read 'city of the dead' - not too bad.
of the three keene's i've read i prefer 'the ghoul' - though i wasn't keen (geddit) on the epilogue.

[joeycup]

just read 'city of the dead' - not too bad.
of the three keene's i've read i prefer 'the ghoul' - though i wasn't keen (geddit) on the epilogue.

I enjoyed "the ghoul" as well, and dig what you mean on the epilogue. I'm very keen on keene,and have read about a dozen of his books. I'm a patron of his on Patreon
and have been reading "the 13" as it has been written. Very good horror !

[Jericho]

Deathday by Shaun Hutson.
granted, I was a lot younger when I first read it, and a recent reread left me cold.
But to this day, it's the only 'horror' novel that's left me feeling 'sleep with the lights on' uneasy!