The Willows by Algernon Backwood, very short but it's good
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The Willows by Algernon Backwood, very short but it's good
I'd definitely recommend Laird Barron and Thomas Ligotti both as cosmic horror and for slow-burn dread. For Barron, it's the short fiction that really hits these vibes; more recently he's gotten more into writing novels that I guess you'd call pulp/action horror? That I haven't actually read. But his short stories are tops for me; *The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All* or *Occultation* are both wonderful collections. If you want just a taste, read just "Mysterium Tremendum" from the latter (it's novella-length, so enough to give you a good sense of what you get from him). For Ligotti, basically all of it is short fiction. The best bang for your buck collection there is the Penguin Classics collection *Songs of a Dark Dreamer & Grimscribe*. "The Last Feast of Harlequin" would be the one story I'd recommend to read to get a sense of what his stuff is like (personally, not all of it is as good as that one, but it's all interesting). As a bonus, there's some interesting stuff that comes out of reading both of them, they're both similar and different in a lot of was, and Barron in particular has had some critical things to say about Ligotti both in and out of his fiction (the titular story of *The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All* is literally directly about Ligotti). Cutting into sci-fi a bit more than horror but sticking with the cosmic and slow dread angle: The Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer. I've actually only read *Annihilation* but I thought it was brilliant. Need to get around to the other two.
The Fisherman by John Langan
"The Luminous Dead" by Caitlin Starling is my favorite. Very dreadful, a bit surreal in a way, psychological if I remember correctly. I also really liked "All the White Spaces" by Ally Wilkes. Creepy, unnerving. You never really know what's going on. I'm a relatively new horror reader but those were standouts for me!
Check out Needful Things. Read it years ago - still one of my favorites.
The Reformatory by Tanarive Due Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig The Family Plot by Cherie M. Priest The Toll by Cherie M. Priest
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