/lit/ - Literature

They work if they’re on the short side of novels like the Horror’s Call series and old Clive Barker stuff. But yea it’s generally better for horror to be short.

>>18236748
Ligotti's fiction is fantastic, I wish more people read it instead of just Conspiracy. I read Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Noctuary recently and they're all so good, just like weird little nightmare world vignettes.
And yes the short story is the best horror format, there's a reason why people like Poe and Lovecraft only wrote short fiction. King and Barker are in my opinion at their best with their early short story anthologies as well

>>18236748
Yeah most full length horror novels are dreadful, the only good one I've read in recent years is The Terror by Dan Simmons

>>18236748
It’s because effective horror should resemble a feverish nightmare - short, intense, deeply unsettling and lingering for a while after it’s over. Novel-length horror inevitably slows down into dull passages, then builds up the scene for another spook. As already mentioned ITT, Ligotti understands this concept perfectly and that’s why he’s the best living horror writer.

>>18237125
>Ligotti understands this concept perfectly and that’s why he’s the best living horror writer.
umm no sweetie that's Clive Barker x

>>18237125
>>18237130
Wrong, that'd be Evenson
Although Ligotti and Barker are great too

>>18237164
Yeah Evenson is also pretty great from what I've read of him

There's no such thing as horror book/movie/game

>>18237164
>>18237174
What are some of the best Evenson horror stories you’d recommend? Preferably short stories

>>18237125
Ramsey Campbell comes close to Ligotti's oppressive nightmare atmosphere sometimes but his hit to miss ratio is worse and he lacks the existential pessimism undercurrent, still definitely worth reading if you like Ligotti though

>>18237263
I haven't read too many but I liked his A Collapse of Horses collection

Ligotti sabotages everything he writes with repititious purple prose.

>>18237312
>>18237295
Ligotti can be a slog to read and I’m someone that enjoys his stories. I get that the heavy prose and elaborate wording is somewhat part of the experience but it can make reading his stories feel like work instead of enjoying them.

Ramsey Campbell does much simpler and IMO more effective prose

>>18237312
Enhances, you mean.

The problem with horror novels is that the length is inherently incompatible with the feeling of terror it should inspire.

A normal brain only lets you get “scared” for a short time before normalising. So most of a horror novel is either not scary and just explores other stuff in between scares, or is a slow build that can just lose its effectiveness.

A short horror story can effectively build up the tension rapidly and deliver a feeling of terror without taking so long it dissipates while you are still reading

>>18237337
draining his work of suspense and atmosphere isn't enhancement

>>18237337
his writing is too emotionless, it's written by a heavily medicated zombie

>>18237130
>The dead have highways.
>They run, unerring lines of ghost-trains, of dream-carriages, across the wasteland behind our lives, bearing an endless traffic of departed souls. Their thrum and throb can be heard in the broken places of the world, through cracks made by acts of cruelty, violence and depravity. Their freight, the wandering dead, can be glimpsed when the heart is closed to bursting, and sights that should be hidden come plainly into view.
>They have sign-posts, these highways, and bridges and lay-bys. They have turnpikes and intersections.
>It is at these intersections, where the crowds of dead mingle and cross, that this forbidden highway is most likely to spill through into our world. The traffic is heavy at the cross-roads, and the voices of the dead are at their most shrill. Here the barriers that separate one reality from the next are worn thin with the passage of innumerable feet.

>>18237164
Evenson isn't strictly horror. But yes, he is the only horror writer with comparable prose to Ligotti's.

>>18237331
He writes in many different styles of prose. Something like Mrs. Rinaldi's angel is more Lovecraft affected than, say, Master Rignolo's strange design.

>>18237392
>muh emotionless
t.zoomer
Learn more words
And read Conversations in a dead language

>>18237392
That's his Bernhard influence. Some paragraphs read like they could've come from Extinction.

>>18237263
Any of his collections, my favorite being The Wavering Knife.

>>18237312
his best story is "My Work Is Not Yet Done" because you can feel his seething hatred for corporate life in every word, it's very funny

>>18237514
Is this by E.T.A. Hoffmann?

>>18237263
absolutely love Black Bark

anyone got some horror short story collections they'd recommend? Pic related with Reggie Oliver is pretty good and consistent with his collections

>>18237932
I'm not from an anglophone country, but check if you find something by (((Meyrink)))

>>18236840
Horror's Call is really good. Fuck the people who hate it just cause the author is from this board. Call of the Arcade is the best one btw.

>>18238003
Thank you, I'm checking him out right now

>>18238069
I think you can find his stuff for free online, is that what you're doing?

>>18238101
Yup lol. Thanks for the rec. I take it you're from Germany?

>>18237331
That was my experience first reading Songs of a Dead Dreamer. It just feels like a lot to ask of me to invest for a story that's going to end in a matter of pages. I prefer the suspense and immersion of longer stories for a good thrill but shorts have their own appeal like variety and more interesting premises that can't substantiate a full length.

>>18238146
Nah, not really. I only have distant ancestry, in a sense.

>>18236748
Horror is fundamentally about creating and maintaining suspense, which is easier to do in the short story format. I imagine more novels get published because it's what publishers want to push out at airport bookstores and in imitation of Stephen King. Even then masters of horror fiction are still very hit or miss, it's easier to forgive a bad short story than a novel.

>>18237932
I'm enjoying There is a Graveyard that Dwells in Man collected by David Tibet, he has great taste in weird fiction. I'm not usually a Ligotti fan because of his affected imitation of the great HP Lovecraft, but it did manage to include the second story of his I've actually enjoyed: The Little People.

>>18236748
>Anyone else think Horror fiction is best done in the short story format?
yes; I believe it has to be with fear and dread being intensities that the more contracted the more intense. That happens in the first two episodes of HBO' Chernobyl and in most short stories like those of Machen.