Welcome, dear friends. Tonight we shall dine on a savory selection of lovely literature sure to whet your appetite and leave you feeling full and empty at the same time. We have an influential and highly well-regarded gothic fantasy cycle, a bizarre, misanthropic narrative about a hole, a famous stage play of a notorious murderer,…
Ben Reads the Horror Classics: Out of Whispers and Snowmen
I’m not one to cotton to self-help gurus and feel-good platitudes. My day job (what? you think I get paid for blogging? LOL) is in a corporate environment where I’ve been exposed to lots of this nonsense, usually marketed as “LIFE-CHANGING! YOU GOTTA READ IT/WATCH IT”. They inevitably wind up being basic common sense stuff…
Ben Reads the Horror Classics: Murgunstrumm Enters the House of Flesh
After a cavalcade of summer travel, I’m back in the saddle, reelin’ in the years like Steely Dan’s mighty steel sex toy. This time we have another fractured tale of death and weirdness from Caitlin R. Kiernan, a fat load of pulpy goodness from Mr. Hugh B. Cave, a delightful children’s classic with some groovy…
Ben Reads the Horror Classics: Of Shadowland and Gilead
It’s been a hot minute since the last one of these, but like Jason returning from the grave to machete another troop of camp counselors, I humbly return to slaughter a few books… Yes, I know the analogy doesn’t work. Whatever, chump! Don’t hassle me! Anyway, in this round up of reading material, we have…
Ben Reads the Horror Classics: From the ‘Burbs to Baghdad
From a mind-melting story from a master of suburban horror to a brush with all too real Iraqi war atrocities, from a collection of pulpy goodness that includes the inspiration for The Blob to a trip into the world of a famous serial killing cannibal to a classic of the ‘evil child’ sub-genre, this installment…
Ben Reads the Horror Classics: Harrowing Night Stalking and Gothic Deep Ones
Welcome back, boils and ghouls to another installment in this delightful journey through the horror fantastique where in this segment we will look at what would happen if you put together Lovecraft’s Deep Ones with the notorious Lizzie Borden, a series of spooky monster adventures with intrepid reporter Carl Kolchak, a deeply sad and disturbing…
Ben Reads the Horror Classics: The Ceremonies Must Die
In this entry, we return to the twisted world of Ramsey Campbell, check out supernatural detective adventures described by some as Sherlock Holmes Meets Scooby Doo, take a look at an alternate history of what REALLY killed the Donner party, read a wonderful collection of horror in the Civil War era and finally experience an…
Ben Reads the Horror Classics: Feed the Grotesque Fire
In this seemingly never-ending installment of my journey through a big ass list of horror novels, I tackled a zombie novel that harnesses the power of bloggers to chronicle a conspiracy, an austere Victorian-style gothic thriller with a dark comedic streak, a weird and funky were-something pulp novel, a fiery collection of Argentine horror short…
Ben Reads the Horror Classics: The Other Great God of Communion is Talented but Drowning
As the chill of winter gives way to warm and inviting showers of early spring, we arrive at another installment of this seemingly endless quest to consume as much horror fiction as possible. This time, we have the dark fantasies of one of the kings of weird fiction, a “true” story of horrifying alien abduction,…
Ben Reads the Horror Classics: Keep Broken Mirrors and Falling Medusas
Welcome, welcome. And a merry, merry unbirthday to you, folks! I read some more horror books, so naturally it’s time to dig in. In this one we have a dark and satanic thriller masquerading as a classic detective noir, we’ve got a weird serial killer story with a beyond strange twist, we have Nazis being…