Horror books

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digression is allowed ( at least in my rule book.)
There is a lot of similarities in Clive Barker and Neil Gaiman. Sure its not horror, but if you like The Damnation Game & Imajica and that sort of thing. You may like Gaiman.
Personally i dont have the patience to sit down and read nowadays, but i may have a phase where i do and Gaiman is on the list.

I read some of the sandman comics while I was in school (seems like a long time nowadays)

I started with "At the Mountains of Madness," but you should probably start with "Call of the Cthulhu" or "Shadow Over Innsmouth." Those are his most famous, and it's easier to tell if Lovecraft is your thing from them. Some of his shorter stories aren't quite as good IMO because there's not as much emotional investment, but some would disagree.

I hope you like Sandman--it's a lovely series that only gets better as it goes along. Especially once Death and Delerium have a more pivotal role, because they're so fun. XD Death is like this hot teenage goth girl with a happy-go-lucky, but oddly wise personality.

I think you're right. I read the damnation game, and am reading "the great and secret show" right now, but nothing he has written in the last so many years has really interested me. He is writing mostly fantasy books it seems now. Thanks for your suggestions people, I will look up some of these titles and authors.

has to be stephen kings insomnia, it kept me entranced till the end. only good books do that

I generally don't like horror, but of what I've read, Poe is denfinitely the best. Clive Barker's Imajica is the best of the more recent ones (though the ending is conventional and predictable). His The Great & Secret Show starts out well but then goes downhill badly, likewise several other of his books. I didn't like Lovecraft, it didn't engage me at any level.

The necroscope books are very much in the vein of lovecraft's mythos, sans the complicated if not torturous prose. Sort of Star vampires with disgusting skills in fleshcraft. The author has even written several tales directly set in the Mythos, in the style of H.P himself.

Its probably not worth banning yourself from reading books. Due to the limited nature of writing.. (the whole "there are only seven plotlines.." thing) the odds are you will probably be replicating something written somewhere at some time anyway. Its better to be widely read, and fully up to date with the works in your chosen field. Inadvertantly writing something very similar to a new book is a bad thing. Also, the more you have read, the better you are to pay witty tribute to eariler classics. It's not immediatley evident, but several of the prominent modern horror writers will write things in direct tribute to older authors (Witness Steven Kings Crouch End for a great example of that.) Also, many of them are friends and acquaintances, and will make subtle pokes at one another. (Whilst its not actually a book, witness In the Mouth Of Madness, written as a deliberate tribute/in-joke at King by a certain famous dclose friend and director.)

Not to mention inspiration. Reading a book about gribbly tentacled monsters might well inspire you to write on a similar theme, in a completely different style, and create an even scarier gribbly monster. Lovecraft didnt hold the patent on "nameless entities from beyond the stars", he just wrote a lot about them. Frankly, the more you read/watch etc, the better.

The necroscope books are very much in the vein of lovecraft's mythos, sans the complicated if not torturous prose. Sort of Star vampires with disgusting skills in fleshcraft. The author has even written several tales directly set in the Mythos, in the style of H.P himself.

Its probably not worth banning yourself from reading books. Due to the limited nature of writing.. (the whole "there are only seven plotlines.." thing) the odds are you will probably be replicating something written somewhere at some time anyway. Its better to be widely read, and fully up to date with the works in your chosen field. Inadvertantly writing something very similar to a new book is a bad thing. Also, the more you have read, the better you are to pay witty tribute to eariler classics. It's not immediatley evident, but several of the prominent modern horror writers will write things in direct tribute to older authors (Witness Steven Kings Crouch End for a great example of that.) Also, many of them are friends and acquaintances, and will make subtle pokes at one another. (Whilst its not actually a book, witness In the Mouth Of Madness, written as a deliberate tribute/in-joke at King by a certain famous dclose friend and director.)

Not to mention inspiration. Reading a book about gribbly tentacled monsters might well inspire you to write on a similar theme, in a completely different style, and create an even scarier gribbly monster. Lovecraft didnt hold the patent on "nameless entities from beyond the stars", he just wrote a lot about them. Frankly, the more you read/watch etc, the better.

Has anyone here ever read House of Leaves?