Lately I’ve been reading…gulp…horror novels. (I know I am pretty late to this horror game.) I have no idea why I’ve suddenly become so interested in these types of books. Frankly, it would be easier to explain why I’ve avoided them for so long.
See…looking left and right…I don’t like being scared.
I am not an adrenaline junkie who enjoys shocking their system on a regular basis. Sometimes I wish I was. I also don’t go to horror movies or slasher movies because they’ll give me nightmares. I’ve avoided horror novels for much the same reason. (Never to be confused with bad monster movies, which I love.) I’m a freak, I know.
Anyway, I’ve been picking up a lot of horror books lately, H.R. Knight’s ‘What Rough Beast’ and Richard Laymon’s ‘In The Dark’, and have been kind of shocked because they aren’t scary. (They have creepy moments, but not scary.) In fact, ‘What Rough Beast’ reads like a Sherlock Holmes novel because one of the lead characters is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. (The other is Houdini. Yes, that Houdini.) Imaginative to be sure.
My dh listened to me lament about this last night for several minutes before he turned to me and asked what I expected from the books. Without missing a beat, I said I expected them to be, well, scary. He laughed and told me most horror novels aren’t scary. (I’ve avoided reading an entire genre for nothing..?) He went onto say they deal with unusual situations and tend to lean toward the suspense end of the spectrum.
Okay, I’m confused. It says horror on the spine. Doesn’t that imply scary? When did most horror novels stop being scary? Have they always been a suspense in disguise? Has anyone else avoided an entire genre because of the preconceived notions they’ve held?
May 13th, 2005
LOL! Jordan, I had the same reaction to horror books. I *expected* to be scared–in the same way that I’d get freaked out by a horror movie–but most of what I’ve read hasn’t been ’scary’. Creepy & suspensful, yeah. Some of them, even, uhm, boring.
On the other hand, one of the definitions of horror,in the dictionary, is: *intense repugnance*. I’ve read two stories that fall under this description, they were both shorts found in the anthology HOTTEST BLOOD. The story by Bentley Little, made my blood run cold. It’s told in first person, and is so well done I came away convinced that whoever wrote that story should be locked away because that was one SICK individual. The other story is SEX OBJECT by Graham Masterson, about a woman who goes to extreme lenghts (plastic surgery) to hold her husband’s attention sexually and keep the rich lifestyle he affords her. I could have wept for the creature she became. It was heartbreaking.
There I go again sucking up all the air around here. *g*
by Jaq May 13th, 2005 at 6:29 pmI alwasy thought of John Saul as horror and I quit reading him about ten years ago…then picked up the Manhattan Club a couple years back and just loved it!
by Cece May 13th, 2005 at 7:38 pmJaq, You’re funny. I bought an anthology of vampire tales years ago. I read one and it gave me nightmares for a week. LOL! I’m not even sure if it was truly scary, but it had the vamp lurking in the dark and it freaked me out. Probably wouldn’t have if it would’ve been a romance.
by Jordan May 13th, 2005 at 8:09 pmCece, I’m glad you were able to come back to a writer you enjoyed.
by Jordan May 13th, 2005 at 8:10 pmIs Stephen King horror? I remember being scared out of my skin the first time I read Pet Semetary. For weeks, when I went to bed at night I’d get a running start at the door and leap onto the bed from as far away as possible, just in case there was something under there waiting to grab my ankles.
I don’t seek out horror novels, but my neighbor lends them to me once in a while. Come to think of it, she hasn’t given me one in quite some time…
I’m with you, though. I’d expect horror novels to be scary.
by Lynn May 13th, 2005 at 11:01 pmTell you what, Dean Koontz and Stephen King have written some pretty heavy sh** Back, years and years and years ago I got into them and man. I don’t think it’s that they’re scary necessarily, but that it’s the horror aspect, which is different, IMO. I do remember reading SK’s Pet Cemetary, couldn’t put it down and went to bed really late, and ended up having such a nightmare that I bolted out of bed still asleep and ran to the door and tried to get out of the bedroom. Freaked my dh out. Um, didn’t read so much horror after that. LOL
by Cheyenne McCray May 14th, 2005 at 9:26 amI’ll admit I’ve never read a Stephen King book other than his ‘On Writing’ novel. I will be avoiding Pet Cemetary after hearing both your tales on the book. :-O I don’t even think I’ve ever seen that movie. I figured if it had anything to do with pets coming back to life and attacking or haunting people, that was enough for me. (shudder)
by Jordan May 14th, 2005 at 11:28 amI think what’s so scary about King and especially Koontz is the reality potential. In a lot of Koontz’s earlier stuff (I have quite a few sitting in my TBR pile) I guess the right word is believability–I’m not saying this right oh well. So much of his stuff is believeable–stuff you could actually SEE happening. My first Koontz book was Stranger and it made me an instant fan for just that reason =)
by Cece May 14th, 2005 at 5:35 pmCece, I think that is what makes something scary. I tend to fear more what I can’t ’see’ than what I can.
by Jordan May 14th, 2005 at 7:56 pmThere are many types of horror fiction, ranging from a simple ‘twist in a tail’ [Shirley Jackson's THE LOTTERY] to sickoland, and from Gothic to the supernatural. IMO, horror novels are mostly about facing and conquering a fear – or a bunch of fears. There are many excellent horror novels. Hm, your entry is going to inspire my next blog entry: top 20 horror novels. Thank you for the idea!
That said, read Richard Matheson’s I AM LEGEND. In fact, I must insist that you should read it. 
Yes, I’ve avoided an entire genre: Fantasy, because I had this idea that it’s all about LORDS OF THE RING [Tolkien] and CONAN THE BARBARIAN [the film is not bad, actually, but the novel? Sweet Jesus!]. I’m slowly getting used to the idea that it’s not all Conan. 
Sorry for waffling this long.
by Maili May 14th, 2005 at 8:02 pmMaili, I’m glad I am not the only one who’s avoided a genre due to preconceived notions. I must ask about the book you recommended. Is it scare the skin off you scary? (Try saying that ten times fast.) Like I said, the reason I avoided horror is because I always thought it was really scary. And thanks to Chey and Lynn, I won’t be reading Pet Cemetary anytime soon.:-O I like my sleep to be undisturbed.
by Jordan May 14th, 2005 at 8:16 pmSheeesh! All this time I’ve been avoiding horror books and they’re not even scary?! Well like you, Jordan, I’m glad to hear that others have done the same. I had to abandon Steven K. because he scared me too much, and I don’t really like to be scared when I’m trying to relax and escape the real world…(grin).
by Ruth Perkins May 15th, 2005 at 2:02 pmRuth, I hear you. I like my sleep WAY too much for that.
by Jordan May 15th, 2005 at 5:41 pmI AM LEGEND … it’s not ‘boo!’ kind. He’s the last man alive in a place where everyone is infected with a vampiric virus. Matheson
That said when my stepfather tried it, he oculdn’t finish it because he was too unnerved to read on. I find that interesting because Will couldn’t finish it either, yet my aunt and sister loved it. Maybe it’s a male thing. 
by Mili May 16th, 2005 at 9:10 amused a very human approach to this nightmare
scenario. If anything, it’s a great character study – if you were the last person alive, how do you deal with loneliness, boredom and such? This is what I AM LEGEND is mostly about. If you want to know what suspense is, I AM LEGEND is the king. Even my mum liked it when I got her to read it.
She didn’t want to because of the book cover, but once she started reading it, she neglected my stepfather to the point where he had to fend for himself in the kitchen.
I’ve read some pretty scary horror novels. Scary in my opinion. A book called ‘Head Huntr’ by Michael Slade scared me. Also, one called ‘Nothing Human’ by Ronald Munson scared me. ‘The Bone Collector’ by Jeffrey Deaver scared the hell out of me. But I don’t think Jeffrey Deaver is considered horror. For many years, you couldn’t find a horror section in book stores. It’s just recently that horror has made a come back.
by Trace May 17th, 2005 at 9:30 amPet Cemetary scared the bejesus out of me!!
by Trace May 17th, 2005 at 9:31 am