Post: #1

Please, share any recommendations you have for horror books or authors.

No need to share Stephen King or Lovecraft, as most of us already know their reputations and contributions.

Outside of Thomas Harris's Silence Of The Lambs, I don't have much to share literary-wise and I am more looking for suggestions.

Post: #2

Well, if you haven't read everything King wrote before 2000 - especially his short stories - you still have a lot of reading to do. His later books have become diluted, but his older stuff is pretty hard to match. And the stuff he wrote as Bachman almost feels like another author.

To answer the question, though, be sure to catch Clive Barker's "Books of Blood."

Dean Koontz can be contrived sometimes but he has some very good books out there. One that stands in my mind from over the years, though I probably read it as a teenager, is "Watchers." You may have seen the movie.

Edgar Allen Poe is timeless.

While not categorized as horror, "The Game of Thrones" series does have enough of the elements to invoke you with some of the same emotions and could probably fit into the genre as much so as fantasy. It's one of the best series I've ever read.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #3

Maugham's The Magician.

Post: #4

What sort of horror?

If you're into Lovecraft, you can work backwards through the Gothic classics: Dracula, Frankenstein, Woman in White.

Or you could look at the time period: Robert E. Howard, etc.

Or you can go forwards. King was influenced by people that Lovecraft influenced: a good place to start would be Richard Matheson's book 'I Am Legend' (its better than the film.)

It changes a bit when you get to Stephen King and contemporaries because King dominated the whole genre for so long. I like James Herbert's work. It's very similar to King but very British. You could also give American Psycho a try.

21st Century horror has become a bit 'SJW' infested, lots of sexuality and socio-political stuff at the expense of monsters, hence you should go to older stuff first.

Post: #5

This guy, Luke Smitherd:

http://www.amazon.com/Luke-Smitherd/e/B007K1CY8S

He's self-published, but one of those self-published authors who can actually write and tell an interesting story.

His stuff is great. Maybe not pure horror as in haunted houses, evil clowns and whatnot. He writes more science fiction / paranormal / horror, but always interesting.

The Stone Man is very, very good.

The Physics of the Dead is excellent.

The Black Room is good too, though I was slightly annoyed by the main character's oneitis.

Post: #6

World War Z by Max Brooks is one of my favorite books of any genre. It's absolutely fantastic, and I regularly give it as a gift.

The construct is an oral history of the zombie war, so it's basically just a series of short horror stories taking place in the same universe, which keeps things fresh and lets Brooks hit a bunch of terrifying scenarios.

I never saw the movie, because I heard it completely deviated from the book. Anything but a hard-R horror flick would've been a disservice.

Also, anybody read House of Leaves by Danielewski? It was a bestseller a few years back. I heard it was really good, but not from someone I particularly trust

Post: #7

I used to like Shaun Hutson. He's a British author of horro and had some good ones. Slugs, Breeding Ground was good (for me) and so was Erebus.

Post: #8

If you haven't already, read Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Although I read it quite a long time ago, it has stayed in my memory as a superb and strange book which more than deserves its reputation.