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The State of Horror


runner

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I read last week The Right of Passage by Christopher Pike and I thought it was a fantastic thoughtful vibrant and rich book with great elements of horror and fantasy all wrapped up in some great storytelling which has stayed with me long after finishing this wonderful book. I have also in the past read many of the greats James Herbert, Stephen King and Dean Koontz ( his early work....I am afraid his writing today is too formulaic, following a predictable pattern) and some great books come immediately to mind....The Magic Cottage, The Rats, Haunted, The Secrets of Crickley Hall, The Shinning, The Green Mile, Misery, Pet Sematary, Salem's Lot, Watchers, Lightning, Strangers, Fear Nothing...and I have on my TBR list two additional Christopher Pike books The Cold One and The Blind Mirror...so I decided it would be great to see what new modern horror has to offer can it compete with the past masters? I choose a book called The Killing Kind by Bryan Smith described by Brian Keene on the front as "Bryan Smith serves up a feast of good old fashioned horror" I have never read such utter trash full of gratuitous violence and sexual depravity, unbelievably on the amazon com web site the book is raved about "killer Read" "Awesome Book" are just some of the comments. The book offers little in the way of imagination and story telling, the level of writing is that of an adolescent teenager and I can only imagine that those who read this drivel must have a below average IQ and be obsessed with murder and brutal sexual imagery. I read this book purely to compare horror both modern and past and I have been greatly disappointed and disillusioned by the images depicted and the level of writing shown. I am sure there must be some good horror writers waiting to be discovered (Through a Glass Darkly by Bill Hussey comes to mind) but equally there is much in the way of depraved writing attempting to describe itself as good Modern Horror!!!

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Is it just me that also considers Stephen King and Dean Koontz modern horror writers? I mean when I think past horror I think of Poe and Lovecraft, and I agree they're better than a lot of modern horror writers.. but I am sure there's decent modern horror out there too, I mean I love some of Stephen King's work, but for me, he definitely classifies as modern. ;)

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I've just finished The Passage by Justin Cronin and would suggest that this could be classed as Horror. It's very well written and has a good, literary feel to it. If you like it, try it. If you don't like it, try it, you might like it. biggrin.gif

Edited by Mac
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