Five of my favorite horror stories

[ellen_datlow]

For Halloween!

I Have No Mouth and I must Scream Harlan Ellison --available in The Essential Ellison

More Tomorrow by Michael Marshal Smith --available in More Tomorrow and Other Stories and in YBFH#9

Men without Bones by Gerald Kersh--available in Men Without Bones from Blackmask.com

They Bite by Anthony Boucher--available in The Compleat Boucher from NESFA

A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts by Charles Birkin--available in The Harlem Horror from Midnight House


Please comment and add your own.

Comments

[rosefox]

"Feesters in the Lake" and "Window" by Bob Leman. Terrifying!

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I've got the collection that has both of them somewhere --gotta track it down.

[rosefox]

That collection has been on my "wanna get" list for years. Maybe this year it'll be my Hannukah present to myself.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Go on, you deserve it! :-) It looks like it's still available.

[jack-ryder.livejournal.com]

There's a "Complete Boucher" ?!?!?!?

and to stay on topic:

"The October Game" by Ray Bradbury
"The Man in the Underpass" by Ramsey Campbell
"The Specialist's Hat" by Kelly Link

(all I can think of at the moment.)

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

It's actually called The Compleat (sic) Boucher and it should still be available...

[jack-ryder.livejournal.com]

Yep, sorry for the typo. I realised it was named after "The Compleat Werewolf" (one of my favourite short story collections.)

I was finally able to track down the Black Box edition of his mystery novels to complete my collection (of the Black Box books, not of Boucher.)

[will-ludwigsen.livejournal.com]

Anything--absolutely anything--in Playboy's Book of Horror and the Supernatural.

Particularly Ray Russell and Ken Purdy.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Oh yes yes!!! That's the book that when I read it as a child, helped mold my reading habits forever.

I reread the entire book recently in order to discuss it for The Hundred Best Horror Books volume 2 and was blown away by Bradbury's "Heavy Set." I also love Gahan Wilson's "The Sea was Wet as Wet can Be."

[mroctober.livejournal.com]

I keep on imagining Hef wearing Boris Karloff's satin-trimmed robe from The Black Cat...

[ehuscribbles.livejournal.com]

"Graveyard Rats" by mr kuttner. 1936. my vote for best ever all time horror hall of fame story ~evan m

[nballingrud.livejournal.com]

"Children of the Corn" by Stephen King
"October in the Chair" by Neil Gaiman
"The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs
"Old Virginia" by Laird Barron
"A Little Place of Edgware Road" by Graham Greene

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Neil is the one who recommended the Greene and it is indeed very creepy. I also love "Old Virginia."

[nballingrud.livejournal.com]

That's the first story I ever read by Laird, and may still be my favorite. The Greene was awesome -- I love him anyway, but I remember being so excited when I found a bona fide supernatural horror story in his collection. And while I'm at it, I think Gaiman's story is one of the loveliest, spookiest ghost stories I've read. Easily my favorite of his short stories.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

"Old Virginia" is the first I noticed by Laird.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

"The Autopsy" Michael Shea (Dark Descent)
"The Companion" Ramsey Campbell, in an old Campbell paperback I can't find right now.

[jplangan.livejournal.com]

Lists? I love lists!

"The Companion" Ramsey Campbell
"The Ghost Village" Peter Straub
"Neither Brute Nor Human" Karl Edward Wagner
"Gramma" Stephen King
"The Hanged Man of Oz" Steve Nagy
"The Chambered Fruit" M. Rickert
"You Go Where It Takes You" Nathan Ballingrud
"Mr. Dark's Carnival" Glen Hirshberg
"Hallucigenia" Laird Barron

[golaski.livejournal.com]

A fine Halloween discussion. Ellen, are you aware of the old CBC radio series Nightfall and their version of "They Bite?"

Is the Campbell you're talking about from Dark Companions?

"Hands" by Ramsey Campbell
"A Certain Slant of Light" by Raylyn Moore
"Wood" by Robert Aickman
"The Events at Poroth Farm" by T.E.D. Klein
"Night-Side" by Joyce Carol Oates

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Hi Adam,
Nope, I didn't know about that...I bet it's effective ;-)

[cinriter.livejournal.com]

"The Outsider" by H. P. Lovecraft
"The Dog Park" by Dennis Etchison
"Goodbye Dark Love" by Roberta Lannes
The afore-mentioned "Mr. Dark's Carnival" by Glen Hirshberg

...and a purely sentimental favorite, which scared me to death as a kid:

"Shottle Bop" by Theodore Sturgeon

[lonesome-crow.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, just 5, eh?

Miss Gentilbelle by Charles Beaumont

Bright Segment by Theodore Sturgeon

The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe

Poor Bibi by Joyce Carol Oates

Your Tiny Hand is Frozen by Robert Aickman

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

If you can't help yourself, you can certainly add a few more :-)

[mroctober.livejournal.com]

Hmm, certainly one of my most favorites would have to be "The Small Assassin" by Bradbury. That last line has continued to haunt me as one of the most frightening.

[timcasewalker.livejournal.com]

"King Bee" by T. Coraghessan Boyle (available in his Collected Stories or the collection "If The River Was Whiskey")

"Survivor Type" by Stephen King

"All The Birds Come Home to Roost" by Harlan Ellison

[timcasewalker.livejournal.com]

Wait! Three more!

"Calling All Monsters" by Dennis Etchison

"Hooks" by Steve Rasnic Tem

"Rawhead Rex" by Clive Barker

[chrish68.livejournal.com]

My favorites, or at least the tip of the iceberg --

• "Extenuating Circumstances" by Joyce Carol Oates. An entire story built out of sentences that start out "Because..." listing the reasons, large and small, that drove a woman to kill her baby. Very horrifying and humanizing.


• "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor. The slaughter of the family hit me so hard when I first read this in college that I couldn't read the story again for years, and even now it's a little hard to deal with.


• "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe. I went through a very definite Poe phase in elementary and junior high, and I think this was the primary reason why. The ultimate fate of Fortunato is bad enough, but even worse is the ruthless inevitability with which it's revealed. It's like being strapped to a handcart on tracks that lead over a cliff.


• "The Children's Story" by James Clavell. Political horror, about the first day of school after an authoritarian regime has taken control.


• "It's a Good Life" by Jerome Bixby. It's so well-known that it can be parodied even by people who don't know the original story, but it's amazing how powerful it actually is. I think that as an adult it grabs me even more, because the horror of enforced happiness is even more familiar to me now.

[eclexys.livejournal.com]

I'll have to track down that Graham Greene story! I rather liked "The Professor's Teddy Bear" by Theodore Sturgeon, and Leonid Andreyev's "Lazarus" also made a strong impression on me way back when.

I also quite liked Peter Straub's "Fee" (but that was a LONG time ago, and my opinion may differ now) and Michael Blumlein's "Tissue Ablation and Variant Regeneration: A Case Report."

[barb-krasnoff.livejournal.com]

Noting to add. Just wanted to say that "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream" has haunted me every since I read it, gawd-knows-how-many years ago. It scared the living crap out of me.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I reread it in order to decide to use it for SCIFICTION and it still gives me the willies.