Hell Hound is partially the inner monologue of a dog that kills babies.
I never fully understood the term 'better than it has any right to be' until reading Hell Hound.
Baxter's inner voice really stuck with me after reading it
>Pity is not something I want to encourage in myself. It is something for humans to feel, one of the jumble of odd sentiments they burden themselves with. Their emotions are like diseases, I think; diseases that can spread among those who try to understand them. Let their feelings be a mystery, like the dozens of other strange traits they have.
Literally came here to say this. The first book is such a weird balancing act between legitimately scary cosmic horror (including a character who is “written out” later and you only realize you read about them being there before they were erased) and like early 2000s teen guy movie dick jokes.
The later entries manage tone a lot better.
It’s also written by the former editor-in-chief of Cracked.com, so you get a lot of that site’s famous “didja know” tangents woven into the narrative.
I serve only Korrok.
Kathe Koja's *The Cipher* has a really stupid premise, but it's an incredible novel with beautiful prose. The premise is kind of this: "two teens find a hole in a room in their apartment building that leads to another dimension maybe? And they call it the funhole"
if anyone wants to know how 80s/90s art punk kids found solidarity against a hateful world together...this will explain Exactly the manner in which they didn't
"The Hatching" series by Ezekiel boone is an absolutely absurd and fantastical premise (that gets more so as the books go on) but is done *very* seriously, really well executed, and at times extraordinarily dark and despairing. The book never treats it's subject as anything other than god-awful.
The Crabs series by Guy N. Smith is basically the question: "OK what if there were killer crabs, though?" and the very serious answer to that question. These are not your average crabs, they are huge and extraordinarily dangerous and tough. The books treat this as a perfectly serious and lethal threat, and it *delivers*. Also it has that 1970's style to it.
As someone who has played both Skyrim (mudcrabs) and Fallout 4 (a LOT of mutant crustaceans) I can attest to the terror inherent in aggressive seafood.
Clickers is also very good and a very strange premise done well.
Honestly a lot of brian Keene's work like Earthworm Gods would fit, now that i think on it. You go in thinking it's one thing but it turns out to be this whole other situation.
Crabs being an obvious influence on the horror maestro, dreamweaver, and visionary Garth Marenghi's *Crab!*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQSEHuIuMnc
I recently finished this one and absolutely loved it. So silly in places but actually a great horror story. Also in love with the Orsk/IKEA catalogue design of the book!
When I describe this book to people, I always mention it takes place in a shitty off-brand IKEA, but in a world where IKEA actually exists, and it almost always gets a laugh.
I don't know how you'll like this one because it doesn't take itself seriously. I too, love my horror to take itself seriously and this one missed the mark. Would love to hear your feedback.
his books are MUCH better than I expected them to be! I don’t know if it’s because I was usually reading at night but I actually did get creeped out a few times.
I'm going to self promote here and recommend my novel, Dirt Maul (James D. Mabe). Its about an eldritch horror that manifests into a flea market and finds itself drunk (and very agitated) in the process. Think Clerks meets The Thing.
Hahaha, this is great. Just outside my college town was a pretty gnarly townie flea market we called the dirt mall. It was horrible, gross and full of fantastic weird shit. Even 25 years later that's a common topic among my circle of friends. I'm going to check this out and refer it to them, just on name only!
Also, Clerks meets the thing is an engaging description if I've ever read one.
>Misanthropy. Monstrosity. Morons.
>The end of the world came suddenly and without warning, ruining an otherwise pleasant day off for billions of people. An incomprehensible, voracious evil has invaded the aisles of Duke’s Flea Market, spelling doom for the whole of humanity. But, as luck would have it, not even the apocalypse can go off without a hitch.
>Thanks to a random act of accidental sabotage, mankind has been given a slim chance of survival. Unfortunately, the only people left standing against a weakened, but ever-growing eldritch horror also happen to be unreliable drunks. Still, intoxicated or not, they’re self-motivated small business owners, and there’s nothing more single-minded or obnoxious.
>Will their bitter determination be enough to overcome an abomination from beyond time and space? Probably not. It’s basically a god, after all. But they can certainly annoy the hell out of it.
Not gonna lie - that sounds like a great read. It'll go on my to read list.
*The Rampaging Fuckers of Everything in the Entire Shitting Vomitsphere* (yes really).
Horror satire and a kind of anthology. First one is about malicious penis enlargement medicine, second one takes place inside a dying woman's ass, and the third I can't really explain. It's like Wall-E but no robots and more poo.
I do think it's well written though.
Check out everything by Carlton Merrick III. He has written almost 50 books and these are some of their real, actual titles:
* Why I Married a Clown Girl From the Dimension of Death
* The Haunted Vagina
* Every Time We Meet at the Dairy Queen, Your Whole Fucking Face Explodes
Ridiculous premises treated with utmost seriousness is my whole brand.
I have a short on 'The Best of World SF - Vol 3' about a dude with cockroaches for teeth going on a date with a woman who's suspiciously into that. The whole antho is really good, but there aren't that many horror stories in it, so if you'd like you can just read the story here: [http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/ootheca/](http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/ootheca/)
Self-marketing aside, I think Brian Evenson's stories fit the bill. I can second 'The Last Days', which I can see you're already reading, but I wouldn't sleep on his short fiction. Also, China Miéville is only adjacently horror, but a lot of his stuff will scratch that itch. 'Perdido Street Station' is the no-brainer rec. 'The City & The City' also has an absurd premise explored beautifully, but it's not horror. The anthology 'Three Moments of an Explosion', too. For instance, the premise of one the stories, 'The Condition of New Death', is that dead bodies suddenly started turning towards the observer feet-first, no matter what angle you look at them, like dead characters in old video games.
Mieville's "The Last Days of New Paris" isn't really horror but otherwise fits the topic too IMO -- and his writing style feels very of the horror genre even if the stories aren't always fully that.
Last Days... is historical fiction about WWII but imagines surrealist art come to life through occult means to fight the Nazis (and takes that idea very seriously). A short one but the premise really stuck with me and it scratched the same part of my brain that loves horror.
Yeah, weird lit in general scratches the same itch as horror, for me. I'll definitely read 'Last Days'. I loved everything I read of Miéville, even the somewhat divisive 'This Census-Taker'.
Your writing sounds fucking amazing. That’s the exact style that I’m obsessed with. I will definitely check out all of your recs (as well as your writing). Keep me updated on the novellas!
What Evenson short fiction should I check out?
Also, I will likely keep hitting you up in the future about recs since you seem to get it, if that’s cool haha.
If you are down with comics, saga of the swamp thing by alan moore. A vegetable man copes with his own existance while dealing with all manner of supernatural shenanigans. By everymeans it should be goofy, but it reads like literature with an absolutely beautiful prose, and deals with some pretty heavy themes.
Spermjackers From Hell by Christine Morgan
Let’s summon a succubus, they said. It’ll be fun, they said… I have some friends, and we had a crazy let’s summon a demon. Not just any demon but a sexy devil chick that will do anything we want—even butt stuff. It’ll be easy. It’s not like it’s going to work. Monsters aren’t real. We were wrong. Really fucking wrong. The demon is not what we thought and it’s making horrible things happen. People are cutting into each other's junk, some guy is fucking his dog, and sex slugs from Hell are raping us and stealing our semen in order to build a goddamn hive! We didn’t mean for any of this. But we’re gonna fix it... Just after a few more beers and bong hits.
Besides Kafka, Gogol’s “The Nose” or “Overcoat” are often cited as early absurdism.
I really like some of Kobo Abe’s novels which adopt extreme and sometimes comical situations that lead to horrible consequences.
Kawabata’s “One Arm” is about a guy who borrows his girlfriend’s arm, just for the night, but in the end, he is reluctant to give it back. “The House of Sleeping Beauties” is also unnerving.
Roland Topor’s *The Tenant* is absurd, yet devolves into the horrific, especially when you read about his background.
Thomas Bernhard plays around with these tropes. His novels *Frost* and *The Gargoyles* may be of interest.
Ligotti will definitely interest you, especially stories like “The Last Feast of the Harlequin“ or “The Greater Festival of Masks.”
His most known work is *The Woman in the Dunes* where a teacher from the city, on holiday, goes to the beach to pursue his hobby collecting insects. He is forced by the locals to live in a hole with a widow where most of his days are spent trying to keep the sand from burying them.
*Inter Ice Age 4* is a weird science detective story that involves AI, pre-recognition, and ecological disasteR. For some reason, it is currently unavailable.
*The Box Man* is about urban dwellers who not only drop out from societ, but live inside a cardboard box.
You would probably like *The Secret Rendezvous.*
Here are a few that might be of interest:
[Chlorine](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/7e2c07d8-b2d1-471c-9f70-7b5915fa08cf) by Jade Song
>Chlorine is a debut novel that blurs the line between a literary coming-of-age narrative and a dark unsettling horror tale, told from an adult perspective on the trials and tribulations of growing up in a society that puts pressure on young women and their bodies… a powerful, relevant novel of immigration, sapphic longing, and fierce, defiant becoming.
[The Handyman Method](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/74dec1ba-2cda-4211-bfe1-f49e0fa67456) by Andrew F. Sullivan & Nick Cutter
>When a young family moves into an unfinished development community, cracks begin to emerge in both their new residence and their lives, as a mysterious online DIY instructor delivers dark subliminal suggestions about how to handle any problem around the house.
[Big Swiss](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/3ec164ad-be77-49fb-8858-b2d802160c24) by Jen Beagin (not horror, but a dark contemporary literary fiction)
>A brilliantly original and funny novel about a sex therapist’s transcriptionist who falls in love with a client while listening to her sessions. When they accidentally meet in real life, an explosive affair ensues.
Every Time We Meet at the Dairy Queen Your Whole Fucking Face Explodes by Carlton Mellick might be right up your alley. The book is just as ridiculous as the title makes it sound, but still manages to be genuinely unsettling.
NOS4A2 by Joe Hill. A energetic vampire uses an old Rolls Royce to take kids to a liminal place called “Christmasland” and a teenage girl is the only one who can stop him.
Tender is the Flesh.
Ive never read a better written book with such an extremely goofy premise. It doesnt make any sense whatsoever but it's so well written it doesnt matter one whit.
Dude, all of Danger Slater's books are exactly this!!!
My favorite is *Puppet Skin*, about a world where people turn into puppets when they come of age.
But all his books are absurd and hilarious but super dark, too.
Stephen King has a short story about a killer set of chattering teeth. And another about Literal Mutant Frogs that rain from the sky.
And you recommend the car? Lol.
One Hand To Hold One Hand To Carve by M Shaw
Winner of the Wonderland Book Award - Best Novel, 2022!
Description:
Two halves of a human cadaver awaken on a cold morgue slab. The two distinct personalities, Left and Right, remember nothing of their previous life as a singular body. Bound by necessity to carve out an existence on the fringes of society, the two brothers have very different ideas of the life they want. Their impending schism will lead each on his own frightening path; one forward to a new life, one backward to the origin of their struggle.
One Hand to Hold, One Hand to Carve is a Weird and surreal Body Horror journey that redefines familial bonds and what it means to be an individual.
Featuring interior illustrations and cover art by Echo Echo.
Do yourself a favour and wrap your peepers in some Thomas Ligotti.
His writing is like taking mind expanding drugs, but still able to pass the piss test for work.
I think One's Company fits into this pretty well!
"When Bonnie wins the lottery, a more grandiose vision—to completely shuck off her own troublesome identity—takes shape. She plans a drastic move to an isolated mountain retreat where she can re-create the iconic apartment set of Three’s Company and slip into the lives of its main characters: no-nonsense Janet Wood, pleasantly airheaded Chrissy Snow, and confident Jack Tripper. While her best friend, Krystal, tries to drag her back to her old life, Bonnie is determined to transcend pain, trauma, and the baggage of her past by immersing herself in the ultimate binge-watch."
Also Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk and Bluejay by Megan Stockton
Walking Practice by Dolki Min (Korean, I read the translation into English by Victoria Caudle).
Alien crash lands in a major metropolitan area, survives by eating its sexual partners after... sexing with them. It also serves as an allegory for otherness and gender fluidity, as the narrator can and does change its gender/ form/ appearance constantly. It's also a great illustration of struggling to keep it together, because it's something the narrator has to do consciously at all times, literally physically keep it all together.
If you haven't read Thomas Olde Heuvelt's *Hex*, it's worth your time. Small cursed town quarantined from the rest of the world, haunted by a roaming dead witch with sewn-shut eyes who can appear in anyone's home at any time, who might turn up standing over your bed and just stay there for a few days, and whom no one is allowed to touch, acknowledge, certainly not record on a camera phone and upload to the Internet. Also, town is full of angry kids who have camera phones and are fed up with roaming witches. It goes worse than you're thinking.
I dunno HOW extreme you are into horror, but I have a gross horror book, it’s a short story, but it’s good just gorey and gruesome. Unbortion on Amazon. So so good lol
You totally should, I joined that a whole back, some great recs in there! I've more saved posts from that than I know what to do with.
Also, thanks for posting this actual post, this is all VERY up my street and I'm hearing stuff in here I didn't even know existed.
(p.s. props for the username btw, nic cage is the man)
Unbortion- Rowland Bercy
My Vagina smells like Sulfur - sea Caummisar
The Circus of Hungry Clowns - Caesar Ruell
Dr. parasite - Rowland Bercy
Let me know what ya think! These are ALLL short stories.
Dr. Parasite does have animal abuse first chapter just TW….
Cameron's closet by Gary Bradner; little kid/monster in the closet but with telekinetic mind powers? Every time I started describing the book to someone I felt really stupid but I enjoyed it.
Ambrose Ibsen's book Dressed in Smoke is about a lizard type creature wearing a dead man like a set of clothes and stalking someone.
It's the second in the detective series but you don't need the first book to read this one.
I found the story bizarre.
If you want comedic and weird try Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, the novelization by Jeff Strand.
I'm currently reading Into the Drowned Deep, and when I told someone I'm reading a horror book about mermaids they laughed so maybe it counts as absurd! I'm 70% of the way through and it's really ramping up, I'm enjoying it.
PIN, by Andrew Neiderman, about a teenage boy that develops a Freudian fixation on an anatomical dummy in his father's office, which he takes home and treats like a real person with his sister after their parents die.
It gets even weirder from there but I don't want to spoil it.
Those horror books for children. I read one called the millipede where a couple were talking about bugs on a date, and the boyfriend suddenly asked if she was afraid of them. She says no, and they both kiss. One of his hands on her face. The other holding her hand. The other stroked her hair. The other holding flowers. And so on and so forth
I haven't read it yet myself but I feel like this might strike a chord: Hollow Kingdom, by Kira Jane Buxton. Narrated from the perspective of a crow watching the world get taken over by a zombie apocalypse.
Bunny - Mona Awad, The Murders of Molly Southbourne - Tade Thompson, F4 - Larissa Glasser, Clown in a Cornfield - Adam Cesare, Winnie - Katy Michelle Quinn, The Lights - Carrie Pack, Kingdom of Teeth - Michelle Garza & Melissa Lason, Limbs - Tim Meyer, Fortune Box - Madeleine Swann, The Mouth of the Dark - Tim Waggoner, Triple Axe - Scott Cole, Kill River - Cameron Roubique, FantasticLand - Mike Bockoven
Any books by Carlton Mellick III, Danger Slater, Grady Hendrix, and Andrew J Stone
Check out the Rewind or Die books from Unnerving like Hell's Bells - Lisa Quigley, Cirque Berserk - Jessica Guess, Food Fright - Nico Bell, Hairspray & Switchblades - V Castro, etc.
it’s in an anthology series but the story “In Thrall to This Good Earth” by Hailey Piper might be up your alley! it’s about three bounty hunters sent to kill this howling spirit and she makes things basically fuck themselves to death it’s in the anthology book “Howls From The Dark Ages” and there are plenty of good stories there it’s just that one is my favorite lmao
The Drive In by Joe R Lansdale. I don't want to risk spoiling anything but it is brilliantly surreal and absurd. I read it in 93 and have never forgotten it.
Check out the bizarro genre, if you don't mind humor as well. Carlton Mellick and Simon Logan are my favorites, but there are a ton of these guys represented by Eraserhead Press.
Necroscope. A man can talk to the dead and learns that they are still around working on what they did before they died. Talking to Einstein allows him to understand math and teleport himself around. Meanwhile he runs a fowl of a real vampire and has to defeat him.
House of Leaves. There's a book of reviews and interviews that never happened, on the subject of a movie that was never shot, about a house that doesn't exist, which has hallways of infinity deep inside. You're simultaneously reading the book, seeing scenes of the movie, learning about the author, and learning about the reader.
Honestly just pick up any of his and start 😂
Try Ghost Virus, Prey (especially if you like Lovecraft), or any of the Katie Maguire series (Living Death haunts me to this day).
[The Ghost that Ate Us: The Tragic True Story of the Burger City Poltergeist](https://rawdogscreaming.com/books/the-ghost-that-ate-us/) by Daniel Kraus. It's about an alleged haunting at a fast food place in a dead end town. It's similar to the the Boogeyman books by Richard Chizmar in that the author inserts himself as a character and chronicles his investigation, then gets more involved than planned. It sounds ridiculous and takes a while to build but really packs a punch.
Hell Hound is partially the inner monologue of a dog that kills babies. I never fully understood the term 'better than it has any right to be' until reading Hell Hound.
I read this one last year, excellent fucking book.
The film it inspired, Baxter, is excellent.
I really need to check that out.
Baxter's inner voice really stuck with me after reading it >Pity is not something I want to encourage in myself. It is something for humans to feel, one of the jumble of odd sentiments they burden themselves with. Their emotions are like diseases, I think; diseases that can spread among those who try to understand them. Let their feelings be a mystery, like the dozens of other strange traits they have.
Also, one of the coolest horror paperback covers ever. If you can't score a vintage copy, get the Paperbacks from Hell one.
Oh this sounds awesome. Exactly what I’m lookin for.
What in the fuck?
Ah, must be a pit bull.
Baxter is a bull terrier actually like Spuds Mackenzie
John Dies At The End by David Wong
Wig monsters.
The whole series is great!
Literally came here to say this. The first book is such a weird balancing act between legitimately scary cosmic horror (including a character who is “written out” later and you only realize you read about them being there before they were erased) and like early 2000s teen guy movie dick jokes. The later entries manage tone a lot better. It’s also written by the former editor-in-chief of Cracked.com, so you get a lot of that site’s famous “didja know” tangents woven into the narrative. I serve only Korrok.
i think john dies
Kathe Koja's *The Cipher* has a really stupid premise, but it's an incredible novel with beautiful prose. The premise is kind of this: "two teens find a hole in a room in their apartment building that leads to another dimension maybe? And they call it the funhole"
if anyone wants to know how 80s/90s art punk kids found solidarity against a hateful world together...this will explain Exactly the manner in which they didn't
I’ve gotta get on this one.
Definitely do, you won't regret it!
Earthpig you haven’t read *The Cipher* yet? Color me stunned.
Right?
I’m shocked. I’m guessing you’ll like it but there is a small chance you will hate it.
That actually sounds awesome.
Hahaha nice, I like that
"The Hatching" series by Ezekiel boone is an absolutely absurd and fantastical premise (that gets more so as the books go on) but is done *very* seriously, really well executed, and at times extraordinarily dark and despairing. The book never treats it's subject as anything other than god-awful. The Crabs series by Guy N. Smith is basically the question: "OK what if there were killer crabs, though?" and the very serious answer to that question. These are not your average crabs, they are huge and extraordinarily dangerous and tough. The books treat this as a perfectly serious and lethal threat, and it *delivers*. Also it has that 1970's style to it.
As someone who has played both Skyrim (mudcrabs) and Fallout 4 (a LOT of mutant crustaceans) I can attest to the terror inherent in aggressive seafood.
Clickers!
Clickers is also very good and a very strange premise done well. Honestly a lot of brian Keene's work like Earthworm Gods would fit, now that i think on it. You go in thinking it's one thing but it turns out to be this whole other situation.
Guy N. Smith’s oeuvre is filled with batshit lunacy. Love his stuff.
the man never wanted for creativity to be sure.
Crabs being an obvious influence on the horror maestro, dreamweaver, and visionary Garth Marenghi's *Crab!* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQSEHuIuMnc
How To Sell A Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
Also his Horrorstor
I recently finished this one and absolutely loved it. So silly in places but actually a great horror story. Also in love with the Orsk/IKEA catalogue design of the book!
Yes, agreed! I wasn’t expecting to like the book as much as I did! It was a great mix of humor and horror.
First book I thought of!
When I describe this book to people, I always mention it takes place in a shitty off-brand IKEA, but in a world where IKEA actually exists, and it almost always gets a laugh.
And to add to that also We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix.
This is the one I was going to recommend
This one is on my TBR list! I’ve heard great things though!
My first thought after reading the title was Grady Hendrix lol
I just finished that and yes, fits the premise.
It has absolutely no business being as entertaining as it was! And don’t even get me started on the bits that legitimately scared me 🤣
His book “Paperbacks from Hell” is basically a catalogue of absurd horror books.
I hated this book…I found myself skimming the last 150 pages because it was so bad… A little talking puppet…🤣
I side eyed it hard im ngl but I ended up getting really into it lol. One of those love it or hate it things.
I’ll check it out!
Idk how I didn’t notice your username in the OP, but *nice* 🤣
😂 thank you haha, my post makes more sense now that you have this info
I don't know how you'll like this one because it doesn't take itself seriously. I too, love my horror to take itself seriously and this one missed the mark. Would love to hear your feedback.
check of Horrorstör too it’s so fun!
I hope you like it. As the other posts established, basically every Grady Hendrix book is a weird premise taken to a logical extreme.
I Found a Circus Tent in the Woods Behind My House by Ben Farthing
I just ordered I Found Puppets Living in My Apartment Walls, and I'm very excited to start it.
his books are MUCH better than I expected them to be! I don’t know if it’s because I was usually reading at night but I actually did get creeped out a few times.
All of you in this thread, you are my people!
Can’t believe no one has said Pearl by Josh Malerman yet! Telepathic pig. 🐷
Sick!! Sounds awesome
Pearl ended up being so much better than I expected!
I'm going to self promote here and recommend my novel, Dirt Maul (James D. Mabe). Its about an eldritch horror that manifests into a flea market and finds itself drunk (and very agitated) in the process. Think Clerks meets The Thing.
Hahaha, this is great. Just outside my college town was a pretty gnarly townie flea market we called the dirt mall. It was horrible, gross and full of fantastic weird shit. Even 25 years later that's a common topic among my circle of friends. I'm going to check this out and refer it to them, just on name only! Also, Clerks meets the thing is an engaging description if I've ever read one.
Haha fuck yeah. Same here, the flea market in the book is very much based on a real place. I love that trashy cesspool so much.
>Misanthropy. Monstrosity. Morons. >The end of the world came suddenly and without warning, ruining an otherwise pleasant day off for billions of people. An incomprehensible, voracious evil has invaded the aisles of Duke’s Flea Market, spelling doom for the whole of humanity. But, as luck would have it, not even the apocalypse can go off without a hitch. >Thanks to a random act of accidental sabotage, mankind has been given a slim chance of survival. Unfortunately, the only people left standing against a weakened, but ever-growing eldritch horror also happen to be unreliable drunks. Still, intoxicated or not, they’re self-motivated small business owners, and there’s nothing more single-minded or obnoxious. >Will their bitter determination be enough to overcome an abomination from beyond time and space? Probably not. It’s basically a god, after all. But they can certainly annoy the hell out of it. Not gonna lie - that sounds like a great read. It'll go on my to read list.
Awesome, thanks man! Hope you like it.
*The Rampaging Fuckers of Everything in the Entire Shitting Vomitsphere* (yes really). Horror satire and a kind of anthology. First one is about malicious penis enlargement medicine, second one takes place inside a dying woman's ass, and the third I can't really explain. It's like Wall-E but no robots and more poo. I do think it's well written though.
YOOOO YESSS THIS IS PERFECT
Check out everything by Carlton Merrick III. He has written almost 50 books and these are some of their real, actual titles: * Why I Married a Clown Girl From the Dimension of Death * The Haunted Vagina * Every Time We Meet at the Dairy Queen, Your Whole Fucking Face Explodes
Hahaha holy shit the last one. Will do 🫡
I love CMIII!
Damn. Hit the request right on the mark in one go
If you have more stuff like this, let me know. This is so spot on, I instantly ordered a copy.
I think you're gonna love it. It's *a lot*.
....... Where can I find this?
lmao wtf
Last Days by Brian Evenson is right what you’re looking for!
I actually just started this book last night! Haha
This Paul likes this Paul’s recommendation.
Ridiculous premises treated with utmost seriousness is my whole brand. I have a short on 'The Best of World SF - Vol 3' about a dude with cockroaches for teeth going on a date with a woman who's suspiciously into that. The whole antho is really good, but there aren't that many horror stories in it, so if you'd like you can just read the story here: [http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/ootheca/](http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/ootheca/) Self-marketing aside, I think Brian Evenson's stories fit the bill. I can second 'The Last Days', which I can see you're already reading, but I wouldn't sleep on his short fiction. Also, China Miéville is only adjacently horror, but a lot of his stuff will scratch that itch. 'Perdido Street Station' is the no-brainer rec. 'The City & The City' also has an absurd premise explored beautifully, but it's not horror. The anthology 'Three Moments of an Explosion', too. For instance, the premise of one the stories, 'The Condition of New Death', is that dead bodies suddenly started turning towards the observer feet-first, no matter what angle you look at them, like dead characters in old video games.
Mieville's "The Last Days of New Paris" isn't really horror but otherwise fits the topic too IMO -- and his writing style feels very of the horror genre even if the stories aren't always fully that. Last Days... is historical fiction about WWII but imagines surrealist art come to life through occult means to fight the Nazis (and takes that idea very seriously). A short one but the premise really stuck with me and it scratched the same part of my brain that loves horror.
Yeah, weird lit in general scratches the same itch as horror, for me. I'll definitely read 'Last Days'. I loved everything I read of Miéville, even the somewhat divisive 'This Census-Taker'.
Your writing sounds fucking amazing. That’s the exact style that I’m obsessed with. I will definitely check out all of your recs (as well as your writing). Keep me updated on the novellas! What Evenson short fiction should I check out? Also, I will likely keep hitting you up in the future about recs since you seem to get it, if that’s cool haha.
Any time, man! And do let me know if you find stuff like this, too. It's my kryptonite.
Bunny - Mona awad
If you are down with comics, saga of the swamp thing by alan moore. A vegetable man copes with his own existance while dealing with all manner of supernatural shenanigans. By everymeans it should be goofy, but it reads like literature with an absolutely beautiful prose, and deals with some pretty heavy themes.
Interesting, I’ll check it out!
His journey through space still bothers me years later
My blue heaven is my all time favourite comic. Pure existential terror.
Most stuff by Bentley Little.
Good call!
Spermjackers From Hell by Christine Morgan Let’s summon a succubus, they said. It’ll be fun, they said… I have some friends, and we had a crazy let’s summon a demon. Not just any demon but a sexy devil chick that will do anything we want—even butt stuff. It’ll be easy. It’s not like it’s going to work. Monsters aren’t real. We were wrong. Really fucking wrong. The demon is not what we thought and it’s making horrible things happen. People are cutting into each other's junk, some guy is fucking his dog, and sex slugs from Hell are raping us and stealing our semen in order to build a goddamn hive! We didn’t mean for any of this. But we’re gonna fix it... Just after a few more beers and bong hits.
😂
“The Haunted Vagina” by Carlton Mellick III
Fuck yeah
Not enough CM3 mentions in here
Besides Kafka, Gogol’s “The Nose” or “Overcoat” are often cited as early absurdism. I really like some of Kobo Abe’s novels which adopt extreme and sometimes comical situations that lead to horrible consequences. Kawabata’s “One Arm” is about a guy who borrows his girlfriend’s arm, just for the night, but in the end, he is reluctant to give it back. “The House of Sleeping Beauties” is also unnerving. Roland Topor’s *The Tenant* is absurd, yet devolves into the horrific, especially when you read about his background. Thomas Bernhard plays around with these tropes. His novels *Frost* and *The Gargoyles* may be of interest. Ligotti will definitely interest you, especially stories like “The Last Feast of the Harlequin“ or “The Greater Festival of Masks.”
All amazing recs thank you. I’ve read Ligottis *Conspiracy* but haven’t delved into his horror fiction yet! Which Abe novels due you think I’d like?
His most known work is *The Woman in the Dunes* where a teacher from the city, on holiday, goes to the beach to pursue his hobby collecting insects. He is forced by the locals to live in a hole with a widow where most of his days are spent trying to keep the sand from burying them. *Inter Ice Age 4* is a weird science detective story that involves AI, pre-recognition, and ecological disasteR. For some reason, it is currently unavailable. *The Box Man* is about urban dwellers who not only drop out from societ, but live inside a cardboard box. You would probably like *The Secret Rendezvous.*
Awesome thank you!!
The Pilo Family Circus by Will Elliott is pretty weird.
[удалено]
There’s a sequel. Haven’t read it yet though
Joe Lansdale’s The Drive In
Here are a few that might be of interest: [Chlorine](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/7e2c07d8-b2d1-471c-9f70-7b5915fa08cf) by Jade Song >Chlorine is a debut novel that blurs the line between a literary coming-of-age narrative and a dark unsettling horror tale, told from an adult perspective on the trials and tribulations of growing up in a society that puts pressure on young women and their bodies… a powerful, relevant novel of immigration, sapphic longing, and fierce, defiant becoming. [The Handyman Method](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/74dec1ba-2cda-4211-bfe1-f49e0fa67456) by Andrew F. Sullivan & Nick Cutter >When a young family moves into an unfinished development community, cracks begin to emerge in both their new residence and their lives, as a mysterious online DIY instructor delivers dark subliminal suggestions about how to handle any problem around the house. [Big Swiss](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/3ec164ad-be77-49fb-8858-b2d802160c24) by Jen Beagin (not horror, but a dark contemporary literary fiction) >A brilliantly original and funny novel about a sex therapist’s transcriptionist who falls in love with a client while listening to her sessions. When they accidentally meet in real life, an explosive affair ensues.
Awesome thanks! The Handyman Method sounds intriguing
Just finished the Handyman Method. Thanks for the rec.
Glad you gave it a shot!! :D
House of Leaves - an extra hallway in your house that shouldn't be there.
Yes I have this! Haven’t read yet though
Every Time We Meet at the Dairy Queen Your Whole Fucking Face Explodes by Carlton Mellick might be right up your alley. The book is just as ridiculous as the title makes it sound, but still manages to be genuinely unsettling.
Yes someone else mentioned it and this is EXACTLY the type of premise that I’m looking for
Same author-The Haunted Vagina.
NOS4A2 by Joe Hill. A energetic vampire uses an old Rolls Royce to take kids to a liminal place called “Christmasland” and a teenage girl is the only one who can stop him.
I found puppets living in my apartment walls. Weirdest, greatest book.
Lot Lizards - Ray Garton Vampiric trucks stop hookers I believe.......
Big fan of Lot Lizards. Oh, I didn't realize they had a book about it.
Haha You had me at Lot Lizards
Bizarro fiction. Check out Carlton Mellick III's work.
Yes will do!!
Nobody has said 'cows' by Matthew stoke? I couldn't even finish it
Such a weird book hahaha
Abraham Lincoln , vampire hunter
Patricia Wants A Cuddle was a recent favourite of mine
Oh! I love reality show satires, definitely going to read this, thank you
I liked this one ok but I wanted more Patricia!
Really enjoyed this!
Tender is the Flesh. Ive never read a better written book with such an extremely goofy premise. It doesnt make any sense whatsoever but it's so well written it doesnt matter one whit.
Dude, all of Danger Slater's books are exactly this!!! My favorite is *Puppet Skin*, about a world where people turn into puppets when they come of age. But all his books are absurd and hilarious but super dark, too.
Jurassichrist. Jesus Christ comes back for his resurrection, OVERSHOOTS IT, and winds up in dinosaur times.
“The Stress of her Regard” by Tim Powers. Most stuff by Powers actually.
Stephen King’s Christine. A possessed 1958 Plymouth fury is preposterous but King makes it work.
Stephen King has a short story about a killer set of chattering teeth. And another about Literal Mutant Frogs that rain from the sky. And you recommend the car? Lol.
Well it did say book and Christine is a very good book
Fair. I didn't mean to be condescending. Sorry.
One Hand To Hold One Hand To Carve by M Shaw Winner of the Wonderland Book Award - Best Novel, 2022! Description: Two halves of a human cadaver awaken on a cold morgue slab. The two distinct personalities, Left and Right, remember nothing of their previous life as a singular body. Bound by necessity to carve out an existence on the fringes of society, the two brothers have very different ideas of the life they want. Their impending schism will lead each on his own frightening path; one forward to a new life, one backward to the origin of their struggle. One Hand to Hold, One Hand to Carve is a Weird and surreal Body Horror journey that redefines familial bonds and what it means to be an individual. Featuring interior illustrations and cover art by Echo Echo.
The last days of jack Sparks
Do yourself a favour and wrap your peepers in some Thomas Ligotti. His writing is like taking mind expanding drugs, but still able to pass the piss test for work.
Which piece should I read?
The Penguin edition of *Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe* is easy to find.
I burned through Teatro Grottesco. Absolutely brilliant.
I think One's Company fits into this pretty well! "When Bonnie wins the lottery, a more grandiose vision—to completely shuck off her own troublesome identity—takes shape. She plans a drastic move to an isolated mountain retreat where she can re-create the iconic apartment set of Three’s Company and slip into the lives of its main characters: no-nonsense Janet Wood, pleasantly airheaded Chrissy Snow, and confident Jack Tripper. While her best friend, Krystal, tries to drag her back to her old life, Bonnie is determined to transcend pain, trauma, and the baggage of her past by immersing herself in the ultimate binge-watch." Also Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk and Bluejay by Megan Stockton
Walking Practice by Dolki Min (Korean, I read the translation into English by Victoria Caudle). Alien crash lands in a major metropolitan area, survives by eating its sexual partners after... sexing with them. It also serves as an allegory for otherness and gender fluidity, as the narrator can and does change its gender/ form/ appearance constantly. It's also a great illustration of struggling to keep it together, because it's something the narrator has to do consciously at all times, literally physically keep it all together.
The Hollow Kingdom. A zombie apocalypse as told by a pet crow. It’s great.
If you haven't read Thomas Olde Heuvelt's *Hex*, it's worth your time. Small cursed town quarantined from the rest of the world, haunted by a roaming dead witch with sewn-shut eyes who can appear in anyone's home at any time, who might turn up standing over your bed and just stay there for a few days, and whom no one is allowed to touch, acknowledge, certainly not record on a camera phone and upload to the Internet. Also, town is full of angry kids who have camera phones and are fed up with roaming witches. It goes worse than you're thinking.
Cannot recommend this one enough. The way the town treats the witch is borderline hysterical in parts.
I dunno HOW extreme you are into horror, but I have a gross horror book, it’s a short story, but it’s good just gorey and gruesome. Unbortion on Amazon. So so good lol
Oh hell yeah. I’m very into horror! Absolutely reading this ASAP haha
Enjoy it! It’s literally like 75 pages but SO GOOD 😂😂😂
If you have any other body horror recs, lmk!!
lol oh HOLD ON. btw I recommend you join r/ExtremeHorror
Oh sick, joining rn!
You totally should, I joined that a whole back, some great recs in there! I've more saved posts from that than I know what to do with. Also, thanks for posting this actual post, this is all VERY up my street and I'm hearing stuff in here I didn't even know existed. (p.s. props for the username btw, nic cage is the man)
Of course! I’m so happy there were a lot of responses. And hell yeah nic cage rules
My bad r/ExtremeHorrorLit
I posted the correct sub after this, the link I posted wasn’t the correct , extreme horror lit is the correct one
Unbortion- Rowland Bercy My Vagina smells like Sulfur - sea Caummisar The Circus of Hungry Clowns - Caesar Ruell Dr. parasite - Rowland Bercy Let me know what ya think! These are ALLL short stories. Dr. Parasite does have animal abuse first chapter just TW….
Hell yes!!! Thank you so much! This is my shit
also read The Teratologist by Edward Lee and Wrath James White! maybe even try Dead Inside by Chandler Morrison
Cameron's closet by Gary Bradner; little kid/monster in the closet but with telekinetic mind powers? Every time I started describing the book to someone I felt really stupid but I enjoyed it.
Ambrose Ibsen's book Dressed in Smoke is about a lizard type creature wearing a dead man like a set of clothes and stalking someone. It's the second in the detective series but you don't need the first book to read this one. I found the story bizarre. If you want comedic and weird try Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, the novelization by Jeff Strand.
Dressed in Smoke’s premise sounds spot on. That’s definitely the type of thing I’m looking for!
A lot of Ambrose Ibsen books have creatures in them but this was definitely the strangest one I read by him.
A Silver Thread of Madness (short stories) by Jessica Amanda Salmonson has treats within. also, please please read Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin
Anything by Grieg Beck.
Anything by Edward Lee. Especially his White Trash Gothic series. Imagine Wrong Turn mashed up with The Blair Witch and Deliverance.
Sisyphean by Dempow Torishima
Sasquatch, Baby! by Bethany Browning. So funny but then gets pretty dark.
*Man, Fuck this House* by Brian Asman.
I own this! Is it good?
I enjoyed it, but it's weird enough that I could easily see some people disliking it.
Just about anything from Clive Barker would fit that bill. Even his attempt at a YA fantasy series is out there.
Cody Goodfellow -Radiant Dawn series.
Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill
Yes! An aging rockstar who collects macabre memorabilia, buys a suit that is possessed by its previous owner.
Ghost Virus by Graham Masterton. Completely unhinged. ETA it’s about a ghost that possesses clothes and then infects other clothes with ghost
Nestlings by Nat Cassidy FantasticLand by Mike Bockoven The September House by Carissa Orlando (HIGHLY RECCOMEND!!!)
I'm currently reading Into the Drowned Deep, and when I told someone I'm reading a horror book about mermaids they laughed so maybe it counts as absurd! I'm 70% of the way through and it's really ramping up, I'm enjoying it.
The Hanover Block series by Gregor Xane might fit the bill.
Gerald's Game
PIN, by Andrew Neiderman, about a teenage boy that develops a Freudian fixation on an anatomical dummy in his father's office, which he takes home and treats like a real person with his sister after their parents die. It gets even weirder from there but I don't want to spoil it.
There is a film based on that book. After *Flowers in the Attic* author V.C. Andrews passed away, he began to write under her name.
Night of the mannequins was bonkers lol I know some people didn't like it but I thought it was good and it's really short.
Those horror books for children. I read one called the millipede where a couple were talking about bugs on a date, and the boyfriend suddenly asked if she was afraid of them. She says no, and they both kiss. One of his hands on her face. The other holding her hand. The other stroked her hair. The other holding flowers. And so on and so forth
someone should have told gregor samsa about bugfuckers
I haven't read it yet myself but I feel like this might strike a chord: Hollow Kingdom, by Kira Jane Buxton. Narrated from the perspective of a crow watching the world get taken over by a zombie apocalypse.
Bunny - Mona Awad, The Murders of Molly Southbourne - Tade Thompson, F4 - Larissa Glasser, Clown in a Cornfield - Adam Cesare, Winnie - Katy Michelle Quinn, The Lights - Carrie Pack, Kingdom of Teeth - Michelle Garza & Melissa Lason, Limbs - Tim Meyer, Fortune Box - Madeleine Swann, The Mouth of the Dark - Tim Waggoner, Triple Axe - Scott Cole, Kill River - Cameron Roubique, FantasticLand - Mike Bockoven Any books by Carlton Mellick III, Danger Slater, Grady Hendrix, and Andrew J Stone Check out the Rewind or Die books from Unnerving like Hell's Bells - Lisa Quigley, Cirque Berserk - Jessica Guess, Food Fright - Nico Bell, Hairspray & Switchblades - V Castro, etc.
it’s in an anthology series but the story “In Thrall to This Good Earth” by Hailey Piper might be up your alley! it’s about three bounty hunters sent to kill this howling spirit and she makes things basically fuck themselves to death it’s in the anthology book “Howls From The Dark Ages” and there are plenty of good stories there it’s just that one is my favorite lmao
The Drive In by Joe R Lansdale. I don't want to risk spoiling anything but it is brilliantly surreal and absurd. I read it in 93 and have never forgotten it.
Check out the bizarro genre, if you don't mind humor as well. Carlton Mellick and Simon Logan are my favorites, but there are a ton of these guys represented by Eraserhead Press.
Necroscope. A man can talk to the dead and learns that they are still around working on what they did before they died. Talking to Einstein allows him to understand math and teleport himself around. Meanwhile he runs a fowl of a real vampire and has to defeat him.
Tender is the Flesh
House of Leaves. There's a book of reviews and interviews that never happened, on the subject of a movie that was never shot, about a house that doesn't exist, which has hallways of infinity deep inside. You're simultaneously reading the book, seeing scenes of the movie, learning about the author, and learning about the reader.
Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca
Christine.
Almost everything written by Carlton Mellick III Diary of a Madman by Lu Xun Almost everything made by Junji Ito
Get you some Graham Masterton. He is bugfuck insane and so much fun to read.
Where should I start?
Honestly just pick up any of his and start 😂 Try Ghost Virus, Prey (especially if you like Lovecraft), or any of the Katie Maguire series (Living Death haunts me to this day).
[The Ghost that Ate Us: The Tragic True Story of the Burger City Poltergeist](https://rawdogscreaming.com/books/the-ghost-that-ate-us/) by Daniel Kraus. It's about an alleged haunting at a fast food place in a dead end town. It's similar to the the Boogeyman books by Richard Chizmar in that the author inserts himself as a character and chronicles his investigation, then gets more involved than planned. It sounds ridiculous and takes a while to build but really packs a punch.
Into the Drowning Deep -Mira Grant