~post by Joe T.
‘Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world.
~William Shakespeare
It is October, the month of Halloween. Long my favorite holiday, it provides me with an excuse to watch 31 horror flicks and an excuse to provide you with 31 horror books. From H. P. Lovecraft to Stephen King, from Dracula to Cthulhu, something in this list is bound to tempt your sanity. So, here we are with week one and seven books to keep from closing your eyes
Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman
Fresh off of his nomination for the World Fantasy Award with his 2011 novel Those Across The River, Christopher Buehlman returns with another book of supernatural terror. Set during the outbreak of the plague in the 14th century, Between Two Fires is the story of a war between Heaven and Hell and how an excommunicated knight, a Norman peasant girl, and a disgraced priest must travel across France to prevent Lucifer and his unholy brood from winning the day. This book is a lot of fun to read and the imagery is really quite demonic and the description of a disease-ravaged land makes the book almost post-apocalyptic in tone. I quite enjoyed it and agree with Kirkus Reviews description of it as “Cormac McCarthy’s The Road meets Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales…”
Between Two Fires will be The Nightmare Factory’s November book selection when they meet on November 20th.
Christopher Buehlman will be visiting BookPeople on November 9th for a reading and to sign books.
Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber
“…Conjure Wife tells the story of a young professor’s descent into madness upon the discovery of his wife’s secret practice of sorcery. Imagine, if you will, an episode of Bewitched, wherein all of the pratfalls are replaced with demonic incantations, and our hapless hero is forced to battle ghastly assailants the likes of which he is barely able to comprehend.”
That was how Steven Warren, my co-host of the horror book club The Nightmare Factory, described Fritz Leiber’s fantastic 1943 novel when we read it for the club back in January. Though written 70 years ago it still holds a distinctly modern state of mind. With just a few cosmetic changes, the book could easily be set in the present age. Leiber, probably the most skillful writer of the classic pulp era, was able to fashion a novel that was simultaneously a fantastic horror book as well as a penetrating insight into the cutthroat world of university politics.
The Keep by F. Paul Wilson
It’s 1941 and in an ancient castle amongst the Transylvanian Alps the Nazi SS are fighting an ancient eldritch evil and an old Jewish man and his daughter are caught in the middle. Released in 1981 (and later made into a movie and then disowned by director Michael Mann in 1983), The Keep was Wilson’s first book in his Adversary Cycle and just one terrific take on the vampire story. Shades of grey abound in a book where there is an evil that is manifestly worse than Hitler’s horrific foot soldiers.
Poe’s Children edited by Peter Straub
Collected by contemporary horror icon Peter Straub (Ghost Story), Poe’s Children features some of the best horror talent of the last 20 years.
“The Great God Pan” by M. John Harrison, an homage to the story of the same title by the great Arthur Machen, tells the tale of the after effects upon a group of adults of a magical ritual conducted when they were in college. Unsettling and creepy, it is a story of subtle terror that was expanding into the novel The Course of the Heartwhich author China Mieville described as one of the greatest horror novels of all time.
Stories by such luminaries as Ramsey Campbell (a Nightmare Club favorite), Thomas Tessier, Neil Gaiman, John Crowley, and Thomas Ligotti (whose story collection The Nightmare Factory gave name to our book club) help fill out this fantastic collection.
The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard by Robert E. Howard
Robert E. Howard, like his contemporary Fritz Leiber, was one of the better writers published in the old pulps. Famous for creating the now iconic character Conan The Barbarian, he is less remembered as being a master of many genres. Howard wrote boxing stories, poetry, westerns, and many forms of adventure stories. Had he not committed suicide at age 30, he would probably be remembered for the historical fiction that he was devoting his attention to, stories which showed a more mature authorial voice and vision.
One of the other genres he consistently dipped his pen into was the horror field. A friend to H. P. Lovecraft, he wrote many mythos tales which also showed the influence of Welsh fantasist Arthur Machen. His story “Pigeons From Hell” is frequently reprinted and, in his book Danse Macabre (see below), Stephen King considered the story “one of the finest horror stories of our century.”
This book collects the entirety of Robert E. Howard’s horror stories, stories which cross all the genre boundaries he could find. I love Robert E. Howard and I love these stories.
The King In Yellow and Other Horror Stories by Robert W. Chambers
The Sidney Sheldon of the late 19th century, Robert W. Chambers was one the best-selling authors of the time but whose success was completely ephemeral; no one knows or remembers those blockbuster books.
Except for his one collection of unsettling horror stories, The King In Yellow. Centering around a play by the same name, these tales exemplify the Decadent movement. Madness and sexuality are intertwined. One cannot read the play without its taint leaving its mark on you.
Influenced by Ambrose Bierce and influencing H. P. Lovecraft, even subtly referenced by Dashiell Hammett in his story “The King In Yellow,” these stories have lived a long storied life. The self-titled story and the “The Repairer of Reputations” still send shivers down my spine when I read them and I’ve read them dozens of times.
Danse Macabre by Stephen King
Written in 1981 at the height of his power and hitting his stride in popularity, Danse Macabre was Stephen King’s scattershot study of the horror genre. Part memoir and part history, it is all awesome. For someone who is just getting into weird fiction or someone who has loved the genre for years, it has a little something for everyone. I first read this book in middle school and the list of horror movies and books in the appendix were my first steps into the void that has culminated in the current book club The Nightmare Factory. Can’t recommend this book enough.
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