10 Great Horror Books to Read This Halloween
Guest blogger John Haas
Christmas is just around the corner, but before the snow and cold, the reindeer, presents, and Santa, we’ve got Halloween. In many ways, this season is my favorite. Dressing up as my favorite spooky character. The movies. Getting the home decorated like a haunted house. Giving out candy. Pumpkin spice everything (though pie is my favorite).
Now, what I like more than all of the rest are horror novels. I read these year-round but somehow they are all the better at this time of year. In honor of the holiday, I would like to present you with ten great works of fiction. I’ve avoided the obvious authors like Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Anne Rice. They are all amazing and already on so many lists.
Give these horror stories a try, if you dare!!!
10 Horror Stories You Shouldn’t Miss
1. Fear by L. Ron Hubbard
Let’s start out with a novel by L. Ron Hubbard since this article will be featured on the Galaxy Press website.
A classic story of escalating horror as James Lowry searches for what happened to him in a four-hour period he has completely forgotten. Does he really want to find out though? He is told: “If you find your hat, you’ll find your four hours, if you find your four hours then you will die.” The unease of having a black hole in his memory is too much to resist and soon Lowry finds himself deeper and deeper as small clues are revealed to him.
A novel of psychological terror that draws the reader into the main character’s shoes effortlessly. What this novel does best is combine equally the genres of horror and mystery. On the one hand, James Lowry is frantically investigating what has happened to himself (a mystery that is revealed to the reader as Lowry discovers answers for himself). On the other hand, is the horror of strange lands visited and the even stranger characters encountered.
Will he get his answers and find his hat, or will Lowry heed the warning before it is too late? It reads like one man’s feverish nightmare.
2. Books of Blood by Clive Barker
A collection of Clive Barker’s grittiest short stories, many of which make the reader ask: what did I just read? From the opening quote, the tone is set: “Everybody is a book of blood, whenever we’re opened, we’re red.” These are not cozy horror or nice stories by any means, full of gritty, realistic, and frequently terrible people in gruesome and gory situations.
Technically, this is a set of six books but if you’re lucky you can find them collected into two thick volumes that will keep you up at night.
So, which stories are best? Difficult choice there because there are so many, but here are mine:
- “The Midnight Meat Train”: A photographer tries to track down a serial killer dubbed The Subway Butcher. He descends into the underground world and gets in way over his head.
- “The Last Illusion”: Introduction of Barker’s recurring character Harry D’Amour who is hired to keep the forces of hell from claiming a dead body. This was adapted into the 1995 film Lord of Illusions.
- “The Forbidden”: Featuring his most famous character other than the Cenobite Pinhead. The Candyman is introduced, a terrifying, tormented spirit, equal parts sympathetic and vicious.
- “The Yattering and Jack”: My personal favorite of all his stories in which Jack Polo is cursed with a demon existing in his house. Will he find a way to trick the demon and win, or will the demon devour Jack in the end? The most unexpected thing about this story is how funny it is. This is dark humor at its darkest.
3. Sea Sick by Iain Rob Wright
I love everything this guy writes. His characters are wonderfully flawed and completely believable.
In this novel, we get a mix of zombie apocalypse meets Groundhog Day. Police officer Jack Wardsley has hit rock bottom in a mix of booze and violence, where he’s resided since his partner was murdered. His superiors give him the ultimatum to take a few weeks off and sort himself out or start looking for a new job.
The cruise ship, the Spirit of Kirkpatrick, seems exactly what he needs in his effort to set himself straight; unfortunately, he is about to learn there is also a virus onboard, and it’s changing people into violent zombies.
This would be enough for most novels, but Wright takes it a step further. Just as the ship is about to be overrun and Jack is killed, he wakes up in his bed, living the same day over again. Can Jack do anything to stop the virus or will he die day after day?
What is distinct about this book is the blend of horror with just a bit of science fiction. The author takes what would be a fun opportunity if Bill Murray were involved, and turns it into a scary, unending situation. Everyone has days they’d be happy to relive, but this isn’t one of those days—certainly not for Jack Wardsley.
4. How to Survive a Horror Story by Mallory Arnold
This is the most recent book on my list, and I came across it by accident on Amazon. Once I read the synopsis, I knew it was for me and immediately put it into my cart.
When legendary horror writer Mortimer Queen dies, a bunch of his contemporary horror writers get invited to his mansion for the reading of his will. Each of the guests has a secret they are hiding from the others and had even hidden from Mortimer Queen … or so they thought.
It all starts out feeling very much like a Scooby-Doo or Agatha Christie mystery with the gothic mansion, a will reading, and a group of vastly different characters, but the situation quickly becomes much more serious as the first of them dies.
Now the seven writers have been locked in and will need to survive the night by solving the puzzles Mortimer Queen left behind. Each time they fail, something horrible happens to one of them, and the puzzles just keep getting harder. Somehow, this group of loners needs to overcome their solitary nature, and work together, and find out why Mortimer chose each of them for this night of terror.
5. Ghost Story by Peter Straub
A classic slow-burn, gothic ghost story.
In the sleepy town of Milburn, New York, four old friends gather to tell stories as the Chowder Society. The stories are sometimes true, sometimes made up, but always entertaining. These old men have known each other for decades, and this is their one diversion from an otherwise quiet existence in the winter of their lives.
Their lives are about to get much less quiet as something from their long-forgotten past returns to haunt and punish them. Old secrets thought long buried resurface as payment comes due on old mistakes.
Peter Straub was a great storyteller who knew how to weave a complicated story together and draw the reader in. His characters are flawed, but somehow we still care about what happens to them right up until the final harrowing moments when the secret is revealed to the reader.
6. Fantasticland by Mike Bockoven
When a hurricane ravages the Florida coast, the family-favorite theme park, Fantasticland, gets cut off from the rest of the world. Five weeks later, rescuers arrive to scenes of carnage and murder.
Heads on spikes. Human bones in the gift shop. College-age staff who have broken into tribes and reverted to more primal days in a competition for the available food.
This is one of those books where it is best to suspend your disbelief and just enjoy it for being a B-movie fun romp. What is different about this novel is the way that it has been put together—in a documentary style of first-person interviews. It all takes place after everything has happened, and bit by bit the mystery is revealed of what occurred at Fantasticland.
There is a wide variety of colorful characters, and the whole idea reminds the reader of Lord of the Flies—but more modern, more visceral, and told through the eyes of the survivors.
There is no supernatural element to this story, no big bad monster. It’s just a bunch of humans in an incredible situation, and it is so believable in how the characters act and react. A great examination of man being the worst type of monster. So many times, I found myself wondering what I would have done in these situations.
7. Nether Station by Kevin J. Anderson
One of the best recent space horror novels, and a well-written love letter to the work of H. P. Lovecraft.
When a wormhole is discovered at the farthest edge of our solar system, a team of explorers heads out to explore it. This could be a means to travel incredible distances within a human lifetime.
It all starts with tragedy as the main character’s mentor dies while coming out of cryogenic sleep, and now Cammie Skoura finds herself thrust into the role of lead astrophysicist—a role she is not ready for.
From there, things get worse as the crew quickly learns they are not the first to claim this wormhole. Another race of alien beings was there an impossibly long time ago, before mankind ever crawled from the oceans. They’ve left behind a bizarre temple that seems out of bodily proportions and some strange alien tech that makes little sense, at least not immediately.
This story is set in the near future, which is the timing I like best in science fiction. I want to put myself into the role of the characters and believe I could possibly live to see these events. Just my personal preference—but if you like that too, then Nether Station will not disappoint.
8. A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny
This is the least scary novel on the list, but it is also one of the most fun.
A Night in the Lonesome October is a Halloween advent calendar with one chapter for each day in the month. Personally, I read one chapter a day and experience things at the time the characters do, and I return to it every couple of years, like a favorite movie.
Told from the perspective of a large dog, Snuff, as he encounters many recognizable characters (no, I won’t say who—that’s part of the fun).
Snuff and his master, Jack, have descended on a sleepy town in preparation for the approaching full moon to happen on Halloween night—a cosmic event that only happens a few times each century.
Snuff has seen a couple of these because he is not just a regular dog. When he isn’t keeping the slithering things trapped in a mirror or the monster confined to a wardrobe, Snuff is trying to figure out just where the final event will take place. To do that, he needs to know everyone who is involved in the game this time around though.
9. Flesh Gothic by Edward Lee
If you are a lover of Richard Matheson’s Hell House then hold on because you’re in for a wild ride here. This is a gorier, sex-filled adventure in a way that Hell House never was, while also a loving homage.
In Hildreth House, not so long ago, twenty-seven people entered for an orgy of absolute debauchery. Instead, they were butchered one by one, the body parts of twenty-six of them discovered in a pile in the Scarlet Room. The twenty-seventh, Hildreth himself, was never found.
Now Hildreth’s widow is sending five people with some very special abilities back in because she is sure her husband is still alive, hiding somewhere in the mansion.
Blood. Sex. Murder. Demons. This novel is very raw, for sure, and will make the reader squirm, but don’t all the best horror novels do that?
10. Run by Blake Crouch
This is Blake Crouch’s best novel, and I will shout that from the rooftops.
Five days ago, an epidemic of rage began, followed by a wave of senseless murders. Now the power has gone out, and killers are reading a list of who needs to be murdered next over the radio.
Jack Colclough just heard his name. They are coming to kill him and his family, and there’s no time to think about it; there’s just time to get out of the house and run.
This is a crazily paced book that is really hard to put down. It doesn’t let up and is one of those that has the reader saying “just one more chapter” and the next thing you know, it’s three in the morning—full of stuff to keep the reader on the edge of their seat.
John Haas is a Canadian author, born and raised in Montreal before moving to Calgary where he lived for twelve wonderful years. Currently, he lives in the nation’s capital of Ottawa, but misses those Rocky Mountains in the distance.
John has been writing for most of his life but only became serious about being published after his boys were born. In that time he has had more than twenty-five short stories published in various excellent publications, including L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 35. His first trilogy, a humorous fantasy series beginning with The Reluctant Barbarian, is published by Renaissance Press. Cults of Death and Madness kicks off the next trilogy, a Lovecraftian-inspired series, published by WordFire Press. He also has a standalone horror novel available, Stay Out, and three anthologies of his published short work.
His goal is to become a full-time writer (rich and famous would be nice, but one step at a time).
He lives with his wonderful family who give him lots of motivation, support, and time to write.
Other articles and resources you may be interested in:
10 Revealing Reasons Readers Like to Read Scary Books
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