FREE/BARGAIN - Horror/Supernatural

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

One thing is for certain: You can't have a horror story without a nearby mental institution!

A mental institution, an abandoned summer camp and a disreputable house in a remote location are the keys to happiness. And has the circus been by recently?

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

A mental institution, an abandoned summer camp and a disreputable house in a remote location are the keys to happiness. And has the circus been by recently?

You're right. We now need a novel with all of those elements.

But don't forget one additional important ingredient, in the form of Richard Laymon: Horny teenagers!

[ZodWallop]

The Descent by Jeff Long is $1.99 at Amazon US.

We are not alone. Some call them devils or demons. But they are real. They are down there. And they are waiting for us to find them.

In a cave in the Himalayas, a guide discovers a self-mutilated body with a warning: Satan exists. In the Kalahari Desert, a nun unearths evidence of a proto-human species and a deity called Older-than-Old. In Bosnia, something has been feeding upon the dead in a mass grave. So begins mankind’s most shocking realization: the underworld is a vast geological labyrinth populated by another race of beings.

With all of Hell's precious resources and territories to be won, a global race ensues. Nations, armies, religions, and industries rush to colonize and exploit the subterranean frontier. A scientific expedition is launched westward to explore beneath the Pacific Ocean floor, both to catalog the riches there and to learn how life could develop in the sunless abyss. But in the dark underground, as humanity falls away from them, the scientists and mercenaries find themselves prey not only to the savage creatures, but also to their own treachery, mutiny, and greed. One thing is certain: Miles inside the earth, evil is very much alive.

[ReadingManiac]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

A mental institution, an abandoned summer camp and a disreputable house in a remote location are the keys to happiness. And has the circus been by recently?

Ooooh, scary circus or carnival books!

[ZodWallop]

Cross post from the Comics thread:

A bunch of Clive Barker's comic work is on sale right now. Average of $4 a pop, but these are collections of several comic issues.

The one series I would recommend most is Clive Barker's Next Testament. This is essentially a brand new Barker book, but printed as a comic series instead. Three books collect the entire twelve issue series. Recommended.

Hellraiser Masterpieces: This collects short stories originally published in the 1990's Marvel/Epic Hellraiser comic series. Barker didn't write these stories, but Epic was able to get a stable of top notch writers and artists to put their spin on the cenobites.

Hellraiser: This is a newer series published by Boom! (I think?). It actually had Barker's involvement.

Clive Barker's Nightbreed Archive: This one is expensive at $11.50, but it's a 400+ page collection of the 1990's Epic Comics series. Honestly, I wasn't a fan of the series. But the first four issues are an adaptation of the movie with art by Cam Kennedy. It's one of my favorite comic adaptations.

Nightbreed: This is a newer series published by Boom! Again, I believe Barker was involved in the series.

[ZodWallop]

Sightings by Mark Lukens is $0.99 at Amazon US.

I've read this one years ago and enjoyed it. I have a review for it on Goodreads.

Are aliens real? Four film school students are about to find out.

In 1988, Lydia Conner was abducted by aliens from her cabin near Specter Lake, Minnesota while her husband lay in bed, temporarily paralyzed. She screamed at him for help as she floated up to the ceiling in a blinding flash of light... and then she was gone.

In 2009, three film school students journey to the Specter Lake cabin where the abduction of Lydia Conner took place, bringing along Fran, Lydia Conner's daughter. They hope to capture proof of an alien visitation on film. They hope to re-create events from the abduction. They plan to use Fran as the bait...

...but they encounter much more than they ever could have imagined.

[ZodWallop]

The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex is $1.99 at Amazon US.

I've been waiting for this one to go on sale. It sounds great.

Inspired by a haunting true story, a gorgeous and atmospheric novel about the mysterious disappearance of three lighthouse keepers from a remote tower miles from the Cornish coast--and about the wives who were left behind.

What strange fate befell these doomed men? The heavy sea whispers their names. Black rocks roll beneath the surface, drowning ghosts. And out of the swell like a finger of light, the salt-scratched tower stands lonely and magnificent.

It's New Year's Eve, 1972, when a boat pulls up to the Maiden Rock lighthouse with relief for the keepers. But no one greets them. When the entrance door, locked from the inside, is battered down, rescuers find an empty tower. A table is laid for a meal not eaten. The Principal Keeper's weather log describes a storm raging round the tower, but the skies have been clear. And the clocks have all stopped at 8:45.

Two decades later, the keepers' wives are visited by a writer determined to find the truth about the men's disappearance. Moving between the women's stories and the men's last weeks together in the lighthouse, long-held secrets surface and truths twist into lies as we piece together what happened, why, and who to believe.

In her riveting and suspenseful novel, Emma Stonex writes a story of isolation and obsession, of reality and illusion, and of what it takes to keep the light burning when all else is swallowed by dark.

[Dr. Drib]

^

It's one page beyond the maximum limit that I will read on an ebook. Just joking.

Yes, it does sound good. (I've been reading a lot of literary novels lately, so this may be a nice break from my routine.)

So...I may give this one a try, after I finish reading 'Remembrance of Things Passed' - a wonderful story about overcoming gastrointestinal distress, after the main character eats too many chili peppers.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Yes, it does sound good. (I've been reading a lot of literary novels lately, so this may be a nice break from my routine.)

The Lamplighters might be a little literary. More literary than Clown in a Cornfield anyway.

So...I may give this one a try, after I finish reading 'Remembrance of Things Passed' - a wonderful story about overcoming gastrointestinal distress, after the main character eats too many chili peppers.

The classics! I enjoyed Hemingway's memoir on losing a limb in combat, A Farewell to Arms.

[ZodWallop]

Speaking of clowns in cornfields, Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare is $1.99 at Amazon US. I really appreciate the no-nonsense name and throwback cover.

In Adam Cesare’s terrifying young adult debut, Quinn Maybrook finds herself caught in a battle between old and new, tradition and progress—that just may cost her life.

Quinn Maybrook and her father have moved to tiny, boring Kettle Springs, to find a fresh start. But what they don’t know is that ever since the Baypen Corn Syrup Factory shut down, Kettle Springs has cracked in half.

On one side are the adults, who are desperate to make Kettle Springs great again, and on the other are the kids, who want to have fun, make prank videos, and get out of Kettle Springs as quick as they can.

Kettle Springs is caught in a battle between old and new, tradition and progress. It’s a fight that looks like it will destroy the town. Until Frendo, the Baypen mascot, a creepy clown in a pork-pie hat, goes homicidal and decides that the only way for Kettle Springs to grow back is to cull the rotten crop of kids who live there now.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

The Lamplighters might be a little literary. More literary than Clown in a Cornfield anyway.



The classics! I enjoyed Hemingway's memoir on losing a limb in combat, A Farewell to Arms.

I hadn't heard that one, and yet it's so obvious.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Speaking of clowns in cornfields, Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare is $1.99 at Amazon US. I really appreciate the no-nonsense name and throwback cover.

I have this, but I haven't read it.

[ZodWallop]

The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig is $1.99 at Amazon US.

I thought I had another book by Chuck as he has a few. But Amazon says NO!

Long ago, Nathan lived in a house in the country with his abusive father—and has never told his family what happened there.

Long ago, Maddie was a little girl making dolls in her bedroom when she saw something she shouldn’t have—and is trying to remember that lost trauma by making haunting sculptures.

Long ago, something sinister, something hungry, walked in the tunnels and the mountains and the coal mines of their hometown in rural Pennsylvania.

Now, Nate and Maddie Graves are married, and they have moved back to their hometown with their son, Oliver.

And now what happened long ago is happening again . . . and it is happening to Oliver. He meets a strange boy who becomes his best friend, a boy with secrets of his own and a taste for dark magic.

This dark magic puts them at the heart of a battle of good versus evil and a fight for the soul of the family—and perhaps for all of the world. But the Graves family has a secret weapon in this battle: their love for one another.

[ReadingManiac]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

I have this, but I haven't read it.

I'd forgotten that one. At one time everybody was talking about it and I never got to it.

[radbaddude]

Palimpsest: A Collection of Contemporary Horror by Caitlin Marceau
Amazon US $0.99

From one of Canada’s hottest young talents comes this stellar collection of contemporary horror stories and poetry. Caitlin Marceau’s work ranges from the quietly unnerving to the deeply disturbing, taking in post-apocalyptic futures, supernatural forces, psychological terrors and deals with the devil. One thing’s for certain: these stories will linger in your mind for long after you’ve read them.

Contents:

RUN
STUCK
THE WATER
LITTLE BLACK BOOK
INFECTED
CENTRE ICE
HELENA
C0NQUER0R
FULL MOON RUN
HIGHWAY 16
MR. PERFECT
WHITEOUT
THE MIDAS
HUNGER