I need a recommendation

[toddlenard]

I am looking to read something that is actually scary i have tried King and he wrights good stories but they do not scare me at all. So I need a recomendation something terrifying.

[BookJumper]

'Scary' can mean a variety of things to a variety of people. Personally I find King at his best (Carrie, The Dark Half, Misery, Christine etc.) terrifying because he writes about the darkness within human nature which, to my mind, is infinitely scarier than any monster - I know not everyone subscribes to the same view. It might help us to answer your question better if you could give an example of something, a film for instance, which actually succeeded in scaring you ?

[toddlenard]

Well the problem is nothing has scared me. I have read Misery, Carrie, and The Shining but while they were good they did not scare me. Monsters are fun not the least bit scary that includes ghosts. Movies do nothing for me that is why I am trying to find a good book but am finding that i may not be scared by them either.

[Sheeta]

That must mean that you can't be scared with books. That's how it is for me too. Not cool, but if you want to be scared play Silent Hill, maybe. I don't know scary books, like to feel a little thing in my stomach, but I never end the book in my bed and feel strange. What a shame...

[Univerze]

I don't know any books that scare me. There are few films that do, but books, never. They can creep me out, but I have never been scared of any book (since I wasn't a kid anymore that is).. so don't know if you'll succeed, good luck hee hee.

[frankie]

Do you think you would enjoy thrillers? If so, I'd like to suggest Linwood Barclay's Too Close to Home or Jeff Lindsay's Dexter novels.

[Ooshie]

Or, if you want to stick with horror/fantasy, how about Clive Barker? I found The Books of Blood very scary. (Just a thought, do you picture what's happening in books in your mind? For me, really imagining what's going on can enhance the feelings the writer is trying to create; it's not something I do automatically when reading.)

[Kidsmum]

I do think it's hard to find a book or film that's genuinely scary as opposed to just being gory, although i did find The Shining scary.

[chaliepud]

Not necessarily scary but a book that creeped me out was Audrey Niffeneggers 'Her Fearful Symmetry' .......

[Nienna]

John Conolly is pretty good, although the last time I read one of his was when I was about 17. The only thing that has genuinely freaked me out in the last 10 or so years has been Paranormal Activity. DO NOT WATCH IT ON YOUR OWN.

[Ruth]

Not many books really scare me, but there are some I do find disturbing. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis is one (the only book I was not able to read in bed at night because it freaked me out so much - however it is one of my all time favourite books, so I'm not sure what that says about me)!

 

Another book which I thought was very disturbing was Slights by Kaaron Warren.

[SueK]

I find the Victorian ghost stories can be quite scary, like Turn of the Screw. You could try the Ghost Stories of M R James or Rex Collins as they can make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up! One of the scariest I've read was Woman in Black by Susan Hill.

[Nienna]

Oohh SueK Turn of the Screw is high on my TBR pile! Looking forward to that one. I knew it involved ghosty-type things but didn't know if it was actually spooky. Frankenstein was the last book from the "horror" sort of genre that I read and it didn't spook me much, even though it is a fantastic book. Hope this one is able to give me the heebies!

[Raven]

So I need a recomendation something terrifying.

 

Can I make a Twilight joke?

 

No, okay, in that case I'd recommend Dracula. I'm not sure how terrifying you'll find it, but it is a well written and genuinely spooky book.

[SueK]

 

No, okay, in that case I'd recommend Dracula. I'm not sure how terrifying you'll find it, but it is a well written and genuinely spooky book.

 

Oh yes, forgot Dracula, definitely a scary book.

 

Oohh SueK Turn of the Screw is high on my TBR pile! Looking forward to that one. I knew it involved ghosty-type things but didn't know if it was actually spooky.

 

Well I found it creepy Nienna (not sure if everyone translates scary in the same way) - do read it on a cold winter's night for full effect.

 

Btw Nienna, I noticed you are reading 39 Steps - that is one of my favourite books.

Edited May 26, 2010 by SueK
update

[vinay87]

Edgar Allan Poe? Some of my friends claim he scares the **** out of them. I personally have never been scared by a writer except RL Stine back when I was 11. I feel left out of the horror genre, to be honest. But I really can't understand how people get scared reading a book. Dracula merely interested me. It was a fantastic book, but never scary from my perspective. And King.... Cujo made me laugh. Sure I enjoyed the suspense... but scared of a dog? Not unless I hear it barking.

I guess we are a kind of people who do not get scared reading books. Sad.

[Chrissy]

Can I make a Twilight joke?

Oh Raven, you do like to live dangerously don't you? The Twi fans will get you at some point!

[Pablo]

Eventually, if you expose yourself to elements of horror (books or movies) for long enough, you become desensitised. It takes more to get those nape hairs twitching, and for those who are in that boat with me, there is but one recommendation:

 

The Terror by Dan Simmons.

 

It is very long, and can be pretty slow-moving at times, but trust me, the scene-setting is essential for those moments of frozen horror.

 

It's the only book I've ever read that has cultivated genuine fear in me, something Clive Barker and Stephen King have not managed yet.

 

At the end of the day though, the effectiveness of a horror story, for me, is governed by two things:

 

1. What you find frightening, and

2. How well you visualise what you're reading, in your head.

 

Without the right stimula the effect is lost, just as a lack of imagination reduces the potency of even the most gifted horror writer.

 

Think about what scares you, find a reputable author in the sub-genre, then read it, taking time to imagine every detail.

 

If that doesn't work, you are already one of the undead. Aaaaaarrrhhhh!

Edited May 26, 2010 by Pablo

[Univerze]

Well, guess I am part of the undead. Come here so I can eat your brains.

 

But that book by Dan Simmons sounds definitely worth trying, though I can't imagine it scaring me. I do picture everything vividly when reading, so that's not the problem. Sometimes when I read a scene, I just sit there staring into nothing picturing it. But I don't know, it has never scared me since being a kid. Also I can have dreams that would be nightmares normally and just wake up to find them fascinating. Blood, gore, ghosts etc.. I am just usually loving the detail I dreamt those dreams in. I am no psychopath, I swear.

But like I said before, not even horror films scare me most of the time, so can't imagine a book doing that. Will look into "the Terror" though.

 

Edit: Yes, my local library has "The Terror" in english. And I must add too, I loved the Hyperion series, at least what I can remember of them, think I read them somewhere around age 13??

Edited May 27, 2010 by Univerze

[Pablo]

I think you'll get a real kick out of 'The Terror' Univerze. It's a departure from his sci-fi stuff (Which I really like also - Hyperion is in my TBR pile) and is historically acurate up until the point where the tale enters unknown waters.

 

I agree on the dreams front. Mine are also very vivid, incomparably weird and sometimes gut-churningly intense.

 

And as for my brains - you're welcome to them, for all the good they'll do you.

[CornflowerBlue]

Have you read Mark Z Danielewski's House of Leaves? It's a book so scary I bought it when I was seventeen, and can only read a couple of chapters a year. I left it on the desk in our music room at sixth form, and my friend Helen picked it up. Helen is SO down-to-earth and grounded, but by the time I got back from class she'd had to switch off the CD player and close the window, because every sound made her jump. She shrieked when we opened the door

 

It's a very different kind of horror, it's a young man, a bit of a dropout, discovering the notebook of an elderly blind man. He leaves his life and goes on the run to escape what the notebook tells him is out there, but the whole thing is peppered with extracts, footnotes, and appendixes, and it makes for a jolting, disorienting read. I don't react much to books (laugh, cry, get scared etc) but this one genuinely terrifies me. I know big strong men who have left the book on trains/in caf

[Nicola Booth]

What about The Stand, Stephen King or I am Legend, Richard Matheson.

 

These books freak me out cos I hate the thought of a nuclear war or only a handful of people being left in the world after a huge disaster!

[BookJumper]

2. How well you visualise what you're reading, in your head.

Surely this can't be true of everyone. If it was, I wouldn't be scared by any book, ever - I have hardly any visualisation powers at all, you see. I think in typesetting rather than images so seeing things in my head is hard no matter how good the author is, it gives me a headache and I can barely do it even when I write. Yet a lot of books (by Pike, King, Rice, etc.) have successfully scared me.

 

... am I odd?

[pickle]

Surely this can't be true of everyone. If it was, I wouldn't be scared by any book, ever - I have hardly any visualisation powers at all, you see. I think in typesetting rather than images so seeing things in my head is hard no matter how good the author is, it gives me a headache and I can barely do it even when I write. Yet a lot of books (by Pike, King, Rice, etc.) have successfully scared me.

 

... am I odd?

 

No I don't thoink so some people think visully and others don't when I was writing the text for my chapter on the Bronze Age for a publication I had to visualise all my work from what we had excavated down to imagining what the landscape would have looked like then, I drew and wrote vignettes of work imagining myself there, however my friend who was writing another chapter went down a completely different route and wrote it out in text format, using the words in a far different manner to me, it all worked in the end but it was two different approaches.

[Michelle]

I think it's a shame that so many people have responded to this, but the OP hasn't bothered to come back. Hopefully others will find it useful.