Café de Nuit

Ravenloft really has drawn me into the Horror genre more and more. I started by just reading Ravenloft novels, but now I am also looking into modern Horror novels. Stuff by Clive Barker and some Stephen King novels as well.

I should also get around to reading the classics that inspired Ravenloft in the first place, like Dracula. I have already read Frankenstein and I enjoyed it.

Anyone here ready any good Horror novels lately?

Ring and Dark Water, both by Koji Suzuki. if you've seen the movies, expect something very different.

The Autumn series by David Moody.

The Strange case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde.

Varney the Vampire (be warned, it's a lot of reading).

HP Lovecraft
Robert E. Howard
Robert Bloch
Brian Lumley

I finally got around to finishing Peter Straub's Ghost Story. I found it to drag a bit...as in I did not really get into it until about 350 pages into a 567 page novel, but in spite of that I greatly enjoyed the second half of the novel. It seems like the plot could easily be adapted to a Ravenloft adventure.

Very good authors are:
- Guy de Maupassant
- Algernon Blackwood (especially: "The man whom trees loved")
- Charles R. Maturin
- Gustav Meyrink
- Leo Perutz (especcially: "Der Meister des jüngsten Tages"; not sure if he is availible in english)
- Alexandre Dumas: Horror in Fontenay
- M.R. James
- Jonathan Caroll
- Clark Ashton Smith

The phantom Rikschaw by Rudyard Kipling is a collection of nice horror stories.
Also Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu wrote some nice horror stories.

Panurg wrote:Very good authors are:
- Guy de Maupassant
- M.R. James

These two. If you haven't read them yet then I would definitely read a collection of their stories.

James wrote the textbook ghost story and even though I know how and why they work, I still find some of his short stories absolutely terrifying. If you can, find some of the old TV adaptations of the stories as they do a reasonable job of translating his work visually if you're short on time (but not the recent John Hurt 'Whistle and I'll Come To You' - not because it's bad, but because all it has in common with the short story is the title).

Maupassant ended his days rotating in and out of mental institutions and his most famous supernatural horror story reflects this. L'Horla is well worth a read as an exercise in unreliable narration. That said, I recommend the rest of his work for its outlooks on despair and palpable misanthropy. On a similar theme, The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers is a worthwhile read. A collection of loosely connected short stories that follow references to this sinister and corrupting play; it's largely known today as one of H. P. Lovecraft's inspirations, but I think it's unjustly neglected by modern readers.

I think that Panurg and CTHUTUBE are right in recommending authors that published short stories as that can often be a good example of writers' better works. There's the issue of maintaining tension over a longer medium but also you can pick up and read them in a sitting if you have constraints on your time (like me ).

Raymond Chandlers short story "The king in yellow" is an homage to Chambers great text. Though its not a bit thrilling in a horror sense. Guess it refers just to the structure of Chambers short stories.

I guess in a way short stories work very well for horror because you have more freedom to leave things to the imagination of the reader. Many good horror movies are actually based on short stories if I remember correctly.

Rhiannon Frater's As the Word Died trilogy is worth a read, as is the Hater trilogy by David Moody. Max Brooks should be given a look, as should be Johnathon Maberry.