Yuku free message boards

I may have read fewer horror novels that I imagined -- not the same with short stories, though. Well, of what I have read:

THE NIGHT STALKER -- the original by Jeff Rice. The idea of a vampire in the Big City was quite new then. It reads like the most hard-hitting, realistic true crime or police thriller book, but eventually cynical reporter Kolchak realizes the quarry is a real vampire.

WHO FEARS THE DEVIL? by Manly Wade Wellman -- may not count as a novel, but they tried packaging it that way, so . . . Love the Appalachian voice of the character Silver John, very colloquial and countrified without being a Ma and Pa Kettle cliche. And what bizarre monsters crawl or creep or fly through the mountain forests! The Flat, the Skim, The Ugly Bird, One Other -- I could read a story (er, chapter) every day from WFTD? and never tire of it.

HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND by Hodgson -- Cosmic horror before Lovecraft, surrounding a strange old mansion in Ireland.

THE NIGHT-LAND, also by Hodgson -- Cosmic horror on a near-cosmic scale. Equal parts SF, fantasy, and horror, set billions of years in the future after the sun has burnt out. Some are put off by the quasi-17th century prose of the narrator, but I rather liked it.

AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS by HPL -- I had to put Lovecraft in here somewhere. The novel is rather static, but there are surprising bursts of enthusiasm and fear. During the scientist's extremely detailed examination of an Old One, for instance, you can feel his excitement even as he clinically describes the various limbs and organs of a truly, truly, alien being.

THE BURROWERS BENEATH -- Lumley's version of the Mythos makes may readers cringe, but this early Lovecraftian novel is more like classic horror. The Cthonians are quite nasty buggers, and I loved that DAW SF cover with the tentacles bursting from the earth in the middle of a quaint English or New England village.

IT by Stephen King -- gotta have something by King. Sort of a sloppy novel, but Pennywise and his avatars (everything from the Creature from the Black Lagoon to The Crawling Eye to Rodan) will haunt your dreams. I wonder if it was mere coincidence that, during the period King was writing this opus, several cities across the USA reported "phantom clowns" trying to abduct children?

Hmmm . . . I'll have to think of more later.