Well I've only read over half of IT and a few Goosebumps books when I was a kid and it depends on how well it's written. You also have to invoke some kind of response in the brain that sends it into fight or flight mode even though it's just a book. Eventually I just put IT down and stopped reading it because no matter how much I love horror, it was pretty boring for my tastes. I do plan to finish it but not yet. The only thing that even partially gave me the creeps (which was only for like five minutes) was when Beverly was cleaning the bathroom and the kids were calling to her.
Poll: Horror Books?!?!?! Can a horror book compair to a horror movie or game?...
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HP Lovecraft, Stephen King's earlier works, some of Neil Gaiman's stuff, and, ah yes, CLIVE BARKER. Also, if you love noir classics and zombies, and want to get disturbed to your core, read PATIENT ZERO. Best book I've read all year in the horror catagory. 
I think that currently a good horror book trumps a good horror game, as what makes a good horror anything good is letting the consumer of the media's imagination run the show. Because books aren't a visual media, two things ring true for me:
1)Nearly everything will be imagined by the reader, making a good horror book a truly terrifying experience,
2)You really need to know what you're doing when writing one, as the world the consumer builds stems from every word he reads. The right adjectives, the right pacing, etc.
On the bright side, until publishing rears its ugly head, you only need to devote time and effort to make your horror book come to life.
1)Nearly everything will be imagined by the reader, making a good horror book a truly terrifying experience,
2)You really need to know what you're doing when writing one, as the world the consumer builds stems from every word he reads. The right adjectives, the right pacing, etc.
On the bright side, until publishing rears its ugly head, you only need to devote time and effort to make your horror book come to life.
Conversely, I think it's far scarier in books if done right.
When I watch a movie, for example, I know there's an actor undearneath the horror, I know all the actors are alive. Yeah, it can make me scared, but I can alleviate some of that with thinking about it that way.
Though I can't say the same thing with games. Games are so much more effective at making me scared than movies.
And books are too, if I immerse myself in them, even if I don't really read horror books that much.
When I watch a movie, for example, I know there's an actor undearneath the horror, I know all the actors are alive. Yeah, it can make me scared, but I can alleviate some of that with thinking about it that way.
Though I can't say the same thing with games. Games are so much more effective at making me scared than movies.
And books are too, if I immerse myself in them, even if I don't really read horror books that much.
I have to agree with you xDarc, Laymon is an incredible writer. I've only read three of his novels so far but I enjoyed all three of them(The Cellar, The Woods Are Dark, and The Traveling Vampire Show). I do love Harry Potter though. It's just a fun series, I think Rowling did very well bringing everything to a close.
Of course you can. Although the element of horror is ridiculously easy to botch, regardless if we're talking about a movie, game or a book so it's a difficult genre to succeed in.
On a personal note though: I've gotten pretty desensitized to horror. I can recognize a good horror story and distinguish it from a bad one, but nothing really scares me anymore.
On a personal note though: I've gotten pretty desensitized to horror. I can recognize a good horror story and distinguish it from a bad one, but nothing really scares me anymore.
Jigsaw Man is.....yeah, incredibly creepy and downright disgusting. Seems like he shocks you and then tries to deliberately top that shock with the next one in the book, and so on. Trying to one-up himself every chapter or two.dlsevern said:
I think that's the case with most media though. You love the first form, hate the second.Assassin Xaero said:
Take another look at the story, and also go for Everything's Eventual and JT's Theory of Pets.
Yes but I find that it effects you in a different way, in a horror movie or a horror game you'll sometimes pause it or cover your face because it scares you so much but when reading a book you can read the entire thing easily and then only after you have read it will it begin to get to you.
Yes, horror can exist in books. It is just a different kind of horror than what you get in movies or games. Look at House of Leaves (a book I recommend everyone should read btw), or the stories of H.P. Lovecraft. The horror present in House of Leaves or H.P. Lovecraft would not work in any other medium. Just get creative. Play to the strengths of the medium that you are working with.
Letting your mind fill in the blanks for a given situation is doable in movies but excels for books, which can really help the horror aspect. However, each has its own advantages, but give it a shot nonetheless.
Yes. Koontz is great at it, and Lovecraft did exceptionally well due to his relative vague writing, which usually doesn't work well when put into film/game application.
Funny that 10 years ago I couldn't find a person that hadn't read a hearty selection of books. It seems like the generational gap is shorter then ever. When I read the OP I was actually shocked he hadn't already come across horror novels, seeing how Stephen King, one of the best selling and pretty much the most prolific author of our times, happens to predominately write horror novels.Dwarfman said:
Which got me thinking about how few of my younger friends read books, compared to people closer to my age.
I must confess I need to read more. At the moment I'm reading Anthony Bourdain's Medium Raw and intermitantly reading some of H.P. Lovecraft but I've got nearly a dozen - Roald Dahl, Bram Stoker, R.A. Salvatore, Kathleen Flinn just to name a few - that I need to sit my ass down and get into! I've gotta stop playing computer games! That's the problem - Mine and the kids of today!manaman said:
I think you are right that there is a gap, but I think it has to do with mainstream popularity. Although I've never read King - Something I'm planning on dealing with soon - I remember kids in primary school reading his work religously along with Raymond E. Fiest, Peter Jennings and of course Tolkien. Nowadays younger people read Stephanie Meyers and J.K. Rowling. Those are the mainstream names that they know and trust, "Stephen who? He's some old guy that wrote about scary clowns right?"
When I was a kid I tended to read this way as well. I'd find authors who I could get into and concentrate on reading their books and series. Fortunately for me one of those authors was H.G. Wells. As I got older I started wanting to know what I'd been missing out on especially in regards to that dark utopian style of literature like Wells, Lovecraft, Stoker and even Wyndham. My guess is the same thing will happen to the kids who enjoy reading. Eventually they'll want to explore new genres and new authors.