Our Other Favorite Horror Authors
Added 2020-10-14 02:17:02 +0000 UTCIn this Patreon-exclusive Sweet Treat episode, suggested by John Wm. Thompson, Losers Jenn Adams, Michael Roffman, Lara Unnerstall, and Randall Colburn discuss their favorite horror authors outside King's Dominion.
Comments
Love Bentley Little. I find his short stories a little more successful than his novels. I thought I'd recommend Martin Mundt – very funny and disturbing short stories. He has a few collections out (THE CRAWLING ABATTOIR, SYNCHRONIZED SLEEPWALKING, THE DARK UNDERBELLY OF HYMNS) and a wonderful novella that takes on Lovecraft in a fun, different light (THE CRANSTON GIBBERER).
John Weagly
2021-03-29 21:44:38 +0000 UTCi’m a little late to the party (still catching up on eps 😅), but i’d like to throw fantasticland by mike bockoven into the ring of suggestions for the losers & anyone else who might be interested! great original story, vibes like joyland meets lord of the flies. anyone else a fan?
Becca Antosz
2020-11-27 19:35:05 +0000 UTCDid anyone know that in France, Night Shift was called Danse Macabre? I ordered a used french version of DM, and it’s clearly Night Shift. Weird!
Brett Littman
2020-10-27 20:49:53 +0000 UTCBentley Little is awesome! He'll take an everyday mundane task and give it a sinister edge. I would recommend some of his earlier works like The Mailman or The Ignored. You could also check out the great late Richard Laymon.Great job, guys! Keep up the good work!
Shawn Reeves
2020-10-23 06:55:33 +0000 UTCGhost story by straub for salems lot fans.
Ivan Prushnok
2020-10-22 22:13:07 +0000 UTCRandall if you like Grin of the Dark, you'd probably dig "Night Film", by Marisha Pessl
Bill Bradley
2020-10-19 02:26:31 +0000 UTCWell Mr. Mercedes just had to keep in [spoiler] sleeping with [spoiler]. big mistake.
Brett Littman
2020-10-18 23:50:18 +0000 UTCThis was a fun episode. One of my favorite current horror writers is John Langan; he’s small-press published four short story collections (Mr Gaunt..., The Wide Carnivorous Sky, Sefira, and his latest Children of the Fang) and two novels so far (House of Windows/The Fisherman). Great episode!
SticksvillePapa
2020-10-18 01:39:01 +0000 UTCHey - Mr. Mercedes is very good! Better than the books so far. (3 episodes in)
Brett Littman
2020-10-16 13:26:20 +0000 UTCOh and also f Paul Wilson. Especially Repairman Jack and the Adversary Cycle.
Bill Bradley
2020-10-15 21:26:22 +0000 UTCKealan Patrick Burke is someone I've just started paying attention to. I've only read Kin but it was so brutal and disturbing that I have to read more of his work.
Timothy Beachey
2020-10-15 21:04:28 +0000 UTCOnly read Swan Song but I really loved it. Want to read more
Timothy Beachey
2020-10-15 21:02:38 +0000 UTCI know Straub is super King adjacent, but I 💗 his Blue Rose Trilogy.
Amanda N
2020-10-15 13:49:40 +0000 UTCSimmons is fantastic. Summer of Night was my first Simmons read.
Amanda N
2020-10-15 13:48:07 +0000 UTCAny Robert McCammon fans out there?
Bryant Burnette
2020-10-15 04:08:12 +0000 UTCThe Grip Of It by Jac Jemc is the best the horror novel of the last few years IMO. Mysterious slow building dread. Beautifully written. I’ve recommended that book to everyone I know.
Chad Fey
2020-10-15 03:28:14 +0000 UTCAny Grady Hendrix. I can't recommend him enough. Also British author Adam Nevill.
Bill Bradley
2020-10-15 02:40:24 +0000 UTCJust ordered Something Wicked. Also not featured on this episode, but I ordered Great and Secret Show by Clive Barker which has always been on my list.
Brett Littman
2020-10-15 00:12:29 +0000 UTCMichael McDowell's BLACKWATER CHRONICLES is considered to be his magnum opus. It is excellent. Insofar as the major King connections go, Tabitha King completed McDowell's unfinished novel CANDLES BURNING. It is the last written work from Ms. King that I believe we have seen.
Might Stephen
2020-10-14 19:27:36 +0000 UTCI made a list for reference of the authors/books recommended in this episode. If I missed any please comment below. I know a lot of books were thrown out here, but I tried to only capture the ones that the Losers talked about having personally read. Horror fiction is a real blind spot for me. I love horror movies but haven’t read many horror books outside of King or the Shirley Jackson’s two seminal horror novels, a handful of Lovecraft’s shorts, and Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Volumes 1 through 3 by Alvin Schwartz Rosemary’s Baby & Stepford Wives by Ira Levin The Elementals by Michael McDowell The Resort & The Store by Bentley Little Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury Off Season by Jack Ketchum The Troop by Nick Cutter Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell by Nathan Ballingrud Penpal & Bad Man by Dathan Auerbach The Color Out of Space by H.P. Lovecraft The 1990s Teen Horror Cycle: Final Girls and a New Hollywood Formula by Alexandra West Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film by Carol J. Clover Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present by Robin R Means Coleman Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes The Grin of the Dark by Ramsey Campbell
Nick Weird
2020-10-14 17:31:50 +0000 UTCI loved The Hyperion Cantos (even though the last two books were a little less successful than the first two) but I never decided to check out anything else he wrote. I'll have to add those two recommendations to my list.
Nick Weird
2020-10-14 17:01:14 +0000 UTCComfort was a slow starter for me as well. I had the benefit there of a 10-12 hour trip ahead of me both ways so i went with the audible version and i just dug in for the ride. The narrator does a great job of bringing it to life. If audiobooks are something you're in to, i'd recommend giving it a shot some time. With audible, you can always return it for something else if you still don't like it.
Adam Hicks
2020-10-14 16:44:56 +0000 UTCI just couldn’t get through Carrion Comfort. I did love Summer of Night and its sequel. Drood, and the Terror. My pick would be John Fowles’s The Collector. King wrote a forward to an edition of it, which is pretty rare - I happened to snag a copy.
Brett Littman
2020-10-14 16:34:31 +0000 UTCI live by simmons!
Ivan Prushnok
2020-10-14 13:21:55 +0000 UTCReally enjoyed this podcast. One author I would suggest to King fans is Dan Simmons. My favorite two books of his are Summer of Night and Carrion Comfort. Overall, he's hit or miss with me but when he hits its really good.
Adam Hicks
2020-10-14 13:02:36 +0000 UTCAlso I can’t remember who was talking about how much they love haunted media, but there are a few recent horror anthologies tapping into that vein - Lost Films, and Last Cuts. The latter has a new and pretty good Balingrud story in it, the former has a great Brian Evenson story. Speaking of Evenson, I think he’d be my other general recommendation. He’s the only writer (other than Harrison) that can write a story that instills the same kind of slow panic / dread as a Lynch film: https://granta.com/the-blood-drip/
John Wm. Thompson
2020-10-14 06:44:46 +0000 UTCThanks for the episode! Really cool stuff, I love Balingrud and North American Lake Monsters is, imo, way better than Wounds (which is pretty damned good) In terms of author recs, M John Harrison writes a whole lot of chaotic, super-dense sci fi, but he has a novel called The Course of the Heart which is less sci fi and more like a David Lynch spin on the Secret History. Three college friends on a lark attend a “ritual” performed by a local crackpot in a field. None of them can remember what happened, or what they expected would happen… but it did *something*. The weird happenings gets intertwined with the story of a kingdom that was erased from history,… except that the characters are making up that kingdom out of whole cloth as a kind of storytelling game. It just seems to (maybe) insist upon its own reality. It just gets weirder and darker from there. Beautifully written, weirdly structured, like a dream - there’s a plot but what really ties it together is a kind of rhyming, where images or concepts will recur in patterns that stick to your brain. And there are some really horribly unnerving scenes, too. Beyond that, the last book to really actually make my blood run cold was Caitlyn R. Kiernan’s “The Red Tree”. Don’t be fooled by the goth romance cover art - it’s a great haunted house story in the Shirley Jackson vein.
John Wm. Thompson
2020-10-14 06:26:50 +0000 UTCHi guys! I wanted to reccomend an author by the name of Ania Ahlborn I've read "Brother" by her and its fantastic has a strong serial killer vibe to it plus an ending I'll never forget!
Courtney Hahn
2020-10-14 03:23:58 +0000 UTC
