Korean Job Discussion Forums

[pangaea]

I'm a big fan of horror anthologies and I have stumbled across a few classics that for some reason have stayed with me for years. There is just a lingering creepiness about them, maybe due to the more subtle style of classic stories compared to modern. Anyway, this isn't an essay. Just wondering if anyone else has heard of these or knows of any other great stories worth reading.

Dracula's Guest - Bram Stoker
Published after Bram Stoker's death. Possibly a chapter of Dracula that was left out. The character in the story is assumed to be Jonathon Harker.

The Mound - H. P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop
An explorer enters an ancient burial mound and finds a subterranean world. There is something so weird and disturbing about this story. I read it once when I was a teenager and tracked it down 15 years later because it stuck with me.

Carmilla - J. Sheridan Lefanu
A story about a female vampire, written before Dracula.

[hwa jang shil]

I've read Camilla, Sheridan LeFanu was an interesting fellow, I did own a collection of his short shories and remember it being enjoyable, though not really horror.

I don't read much horror, though it's probably my favorite genre for movies, but Gogol's 'Diary of a Madman' was pretty excellent.

[Skipperoo]

Absolutely anything by H.P.Lovecraft is worth your time if you enjoyed that one utterly fantastic horror writer.

[carpetdope]

[Ruthdes]

These might be a little obvious, but for those who haven't tried them:

Night Shift by Stephen King - A collection of short stories. Most of these are great and some have been made into movies. I'm not much into King's novels, but some of the stories in Night Shift have stayed with me for a long time.

Any of Roald Dahl's short story collections for adults. Here's a link to his adult fiction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Dahl#Adult_fiction many of them are short story anthologies. They're usually dark and quirky with a twist at the end.

[Fox]

H.P. Lovecraft's The Colour Out of Space is particularly good. Most of Lovecraft's material is imaginative without being genuinely frightening, but this particular story can be quite scary, especially if you live on a farm or in the country.

[rumdiary]

Roald Dahl's Switch Bitch

The Best American Nonrequired Reading edited by Eggers

[SW]

I second all the OP's suggestions. Good taste. Just a word of warning: Dracula's Guest and Carmilla made me crave Europe immensely (I read the former in the US, the latter here in SK), and they might do the same to you.

Carmilla was made into a film called the Vampire Lovers by Hammer, circa 1970. See if it's still up on youtube, it has some very, ahem, interesting scenes in it. It also has a lot of manic screaming from female characters, so it could give you a good idea of what to expect if you're thinking of working in a middle school with a lot of girls.

While we're on the topic, I also must recommend Thomas Ligotti. He might be too depressing and nihilistic even for Lovecraft fans, but he's totally unique and his writing evokes a certain atmosphere, one that will be familiar to any who have lived in decaying American cities like Detroit or Chicago. He has written four collections: Songs of a Dead Dreamer, Grimscribe, Noctuary, and Teatro Grottesco. Teatro is probably the easiest to find at this point and I feel it's an excellent introduction.

[Destroyer]

James Tiptree Jr.

Read her in uni for a class. Changed my life. Before that point I was a fan of the ridiculously long winded stuff: Shannara, Wheel o time, Dune... After her I saw the skill in a 20 page full story. she was some analyst for the CIA. ~50. Started writing Sci-Fi under a pseudonym she got off a jar of apple sauce. Was debated for a while whether the author was a man or a woman, one notable critic said ~"there's no way JTJ is a woman, he has too firm a grasp on how men view women."

the story I read was about Joe-schmo astronauts going to some planet of the apes kinda place, but it was planet of the WOMEN! gender issues ensued. I'll look up the name if anyone asks. All her stuff is great. She went crazy later in life, started writing VALIS kind of stuff and then euthanized her ailing husband and committed suicide.

[Koveras]

Admirers of Lovecraft should try Clark Ashton Smith.

[jd126]

I'm no expert of scary or creepy stuff to read but was forced to read "Guts" by Chuck Palahniuk, and it was harsh enough for me. He even reads it online himself on youtube. Creepy stuff.

I believe it comes from number #1 on this list:

http://listverse.com/2008/09/29/top-10-most-disturbing-novels/

[Spud10]

One of my favorite short stories:

"The Appointment in Samarra" as retold by W. Somerset Maugham

The speaker of the story is Death.

There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, "Master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture, now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me."

The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, "Why did you make a threating getsture to my servant when you saw him this morning?"

"That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra."