GenreCAT: Horror/Supernatural/Paranormal

Horror
“Horror is a genre of speculative fiction which is intended to frighten, scare, or disgust. ... Horror intends to create an eerie and frightening atmosphere for the reader. Horror is often divided into the psychological horror and supernatural horror sub-genres. … Prevalent elements include ghosts, demons, vampires, werewolves, ghouls, the Devil, witches, monsters, dystopian and apocalyptic worlds, serial killers, cannibalism, psychopaths, cults, dark magic, Satanism, the macabre, gore, and torture.”
– from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_fiction

Supernatural
“In its broadest definition, supernatural fiction overlaps with examples of weird fiction, horror fiction, vampire literature, ghost story, and fantasy. ... The one genre supernatural fiction appears to embrace in its entirety is the traditional ghost story.

The fantasy and supernatural fiction genres would often overlap and may be confused each for each other, though there exist some crucial differences between the two genres. Fantasy usually takes place in another world, where fantastical creatures or magic are normal. In supernatural fiction, though, magic and monsters are not the norm and the mystery of such things is usually closely intertwined in the plot. The supernatural genre highlights supernatural creatures or happenings within the real world. Moreover, supernatural fiction also tends to focus on suspense and mystery and less on action and adventure.”
– from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernatural_fiction

Paranormal
“Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding.”
– from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal

Suggestions:
These are all ones I’ve read and really like. Many made my favourites the years I read them. I’m only listing one per author.

It / Stephen Kin
Intensity / Dean Koontz
The Birds / Daphne du Maurier
The Winter People / Jennifer McMahon
Deep Freeze / Lisa Jackson
I'll be Watching You / Charles de Lint
The Ruins / Scott Smith
The Turn of the Key / Ruth Ware
FantasticLand / Mike Bockoven
I Am Legend / Richard Matheson
The Night Strangers / Chris Bohjalian
Delia’s Shadow / Jaime Lee Moyer

If anyone prefers a humourous twist, how about:
How to Survive a Horror Movie / Seth Grahame-Smith
A Dirty Job / Christopher Moore

Don’t forget to post to the wiki: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/GenreCAT_2021#October:_Theme:_Horror.2FS...

Ooh, I have tons of my list for this!

I just finished the first book in the Lockwood and Co series, which is a middle grade ghost chasing series. Great if you do not like your scary books too scary! The first one is The Screaming Staircase so I will read the second one, The Whispering Skull for this month.

I feel like I always use the same (or similar) photos when I'm doing a CAT or KIT for something meant to be creepy or scary! LOL!

I think I'm going to read an anthology edited by Troy H. Gardner and Joshua Winning: 13 Tales to Give You Night Terrors

Cindy, your pictures give us a nice creepy vibe so they work and get the message across!

I am planning on reading Bird Box by Josh Malerman and Ghost Run by J. L. Bourne.

>5 DeltaQueen50: Hmm, I just picked Bird Box up at a library giveaway.

>6 JayneCM: I've heard that it is quite scary and October seems the perfect month for scary reads.

>5 DeltaQueen50: Thanks! I think other similar-type photo I've used before is an old, scary-looking house.

I've had Blood Coins: The Judas Chronicles--Books One, Two, and Three on my shelf for years. Tags say it's supernatural and paranormal. I'm going with this one.

hmm. This one is likely to cause me problems. I'm not a fan as a rule.

This is not something that I'm a fan of either. However - using the new genre function, I'm told that Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay falls into the horror genre so I'll probably read that.

>11 dudes22: I don't care for this genre, but I'll see if there's something a little less dark I can read in October.

I have a friend who has highly recommended Darkly Dreaming Dexter and said I would probably be okay with it, so there's a recommendation for you.

>10 Helenliz: >11 dudes22: That is why I am ready a middle grade ghost story for this! I'm not a fan of gore.

I think I'll reread The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.
His other fantasy books are also good, espcially Stardust and Neverwhere.

I do not read horror, but I will probably read something in the paranormal realm.

A bit early, but I just finished the horrific novel The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan that I'll count for this challenge.

MaEwan's first novel published in 1978 was recommended to me by LTer Caroline_McElwee. The story is of four children left to fend for themselves when both parents die. Grisly and horrific, this is a story that will stick in the memory. McEwan's writing style is so perfectly suited to the short novel that its very brevity enhances the story. Recommended, even though I know this is not everyone's cup of tea.

>16 VivienneR: I wasn't a huge fan of The Cement Garden when I read it in 2019, but considering it is a book that I still think about often, I need to give a tip of the hat to the author - it is a memorable book and if I was rating it today, I would probably give it 4 stars.

I am planning to read Bird Box. I have had it on my shelf for awhile. Time to get it read.

The Husband / Dean Koontz
3.5 stars

Mitch is a gardener… makes less than $40,000/year. What a shock when he gets a phone call from his wife (and her kidnapper) that she is being kidnapped and they expect Mitch to come up with $2 million! And to prove they aren’t kidding around, they shoot the pedestrian walking his dog across the street from where Mitch is on the phone…

This started off really tense. It slowed down in the middle, though there were definitely some surprises thrown in there. Although the end ramped up again somewhat with a race against time, it didn’t pull me back in like I was pulled in at the start, but I’m not sure why that was. I did listen to the audio, and for the most part it kept my attention.

There are a couple things that creep me out IRL: Pirouette clowns/dolls, empty running subways cars, the basement corner in my parents house... and even though I wasn't weirded out terribly much after listening to Grady Hendrix's Horrorstör, I might pause a bit before I enter one of those floor displays at IKEA that look like apartment mock-ups! Part horror, part satire, the novel has a great ghost story embedded in it and, an admirable protag-- flawed-and-all who actually exhibits some character development. The other interesting part is that it's a cast of characters that not only doesn't feel like a Scooby Gang derivative, but actually feels like they are real people. I listened to the audio (narrated by Tai Sammons & Bronson Pinchot) which was okay; but the print edition has a really cool layout design. I'm up for reading/listening to another Hendrix novel and I see a few of them are available for "free" in the Audible+ catalog.

>20 Tanya-dogearedcopy: Oooh, this sounds interesting!

ETA: it's a book bullet - I've added it to my tbr...

I recently finished The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid, which I think would count for this CAT. There are many supernatural entities -- gods, monsters, mythological creatures -- as well as a fair bit of horror in the form of gore.

I finished Crime and Poetry by Amanda Flower, which is about a magical bookshop.

Completed The Plague of Coins a supernatural thriller by Aiden James where the main character is Judas Iscariot back for another life in search of his coins.

I've read Bird Box by Josh Malerman which is called horror.

The Terror / Dan Simmons
3.25 stars

In 1845, two ships sail from England looking for the Northwest Passage. The Terror and the Erebus later become stuck in ice for three years, as the men manning the ships died not only from starvation, cold, and scurvy, but there is something stalking them. Something… they don’t know what it is but it’s white, and much bigger than the white bears they have seen. It seems to appear out of nowhere to kill, maim, or maul.

This is a mix of survival, historical fiction, and (some) horror. The horror (the “thing” out there), I found was minimal. The focus was on the survival aspect. The book is very long, and I had a hard time getting interested until the last 1/3 of the book – that last 1/3 is what brought my rating up ¼ star. And it would have been nice for the book to be much shorter. The book is told from multiple points of view at different points in time, occasionally jumping back and forth in time. By that last bit of the book where I was more interested, it was chronological.

There were a lot of men on the two ships and, although, I was able to keep what each of them did straight (at least those whose viewpoint we followed), I wasn’t able to keep straight who “belonged’ on which ship. The end was a bit vague in a couple of cases, I thought. Descriptions of the ships and workings of the ships were less interesting to me. A bit horrifying, but more interesting was the description of what happens as someone develops scurvy. Anyone looking for horror, though, this didn’t fit the bill for me at all, unfortunately. It was not scary, in my opinion.

There was a brief author’s note at the end that really just provided citations for his research. It hinted at the fact that this – the “Franklin Expedition” really happened, but I still wasn’t sure, although “Franklin Expedition” did sound familiar to me. Other reviews tell me it did, and I’ve just read a bit on wikipedia about it. That is, the two ships set out to look for the Northwest Passage and disappeared. I guess this partly explains the vagueness of the ending.

I've finished Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay which is supposed to be horror, but I think it's just a bit odd.

November thread is up: https://www.librarything.com/topic/335971

I read The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton for this which was listed as a paranormal mystery

I read Empire of Wild -- well, mostly read it. I decided to abandon today at 2/3 complete after the last week noticing myself being more and more hesitant to pick it up. I would still absolutely recommend this book to folks who like dark -- it has interesting stuff to say in modern reflective horror. (I don't tend to like dark, but even so it's a failure for my GenreCAT goal of coming to appreciate a book in each genre.... I expect some sort of Gail Carriger-style paranormal romance might have been the level of lightness that would have worked for me, though I didn't feel in the mood for that and it also felt like cheating. Oh well, can't have it all!)

I finished Neverwhere. Not my usual thing. I can see the inventiveness and the flashes of brilliance, but I can't say I liked it.

I have finished The face in the glass, a collection of ghost stories. Not scary and far too predictable.

COMPLETED 13 Tales to Give You Night Terrors, edited by Troy H. Gardner

I chose a paranormal cozy mystery for this one. I read A Witch Too Late by M.E. Harmon and Paula Lester.

I read Later by Stephen King, one of his Hard Case Crime books. An interesting mix of crime, thriller and horror. I liked it a lot. I'm planning to read Joyland, another book in this "series", later in the year.

I was thoroughly scared by Bird Box a novel of both supernatural and psychological terror. I feel like one of last people to pick this book up, but for me, it certainly deserved all the rave reviews it garnered.

COMPLETED A Warning in Blood by Joseph R. G. DeMarco

My review:

Somebody is making children into vampires (a change their minds and bodies cannot handle). Is it random cruelty or is it part of an attempt to destabilise vampire society and create a war between humans and vampires? Dru, the Prime Inquisitor of the Protectorate investigates.

A great story that kept me turning the pages and set in a world I want to know more about. Half a star deducted for some annoying typos.

Also completed the second in the series, "A Battle in Blood" (no touchstone)

I just finished The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik, which I think counts as "supernatural" -- the protagonist attends a school for wizards that's full of evil creatures that are trying to kill her and the other students.

I am counting The black dwarf here, as the story takes place in early 18th century Scotland were dwarves are held to be in league with the devil.

COMPLETED What Abigail Did That Summer by Ben Aaronovitch. As part of the Rivers of London series, it naturally involves a river goddess, genii locorum, and other supernatural goings-on.

No One Goes Alone / Erik Larson
2 stars

In 1905, a group of people come together to head out to an isolated house on an island where a family disappeared (I think). The people seem to be investigating paranormal activity. Part-way through, I was confused when it sounded like the group of people was shipwrecked, but I think the boat was taken or it disappeared or something, but the original intent for heading out to the island was still the paranormal activity (I think).

This was “published” as an audio book only, as Larson felt that ghost stories are meant to be told aloud. Great idea! Also great title, and (usually) great author. I was more interested in the author’s note at the end (at least it held my attention more) than the story itself.

This one, though, for me, did not hold my interest. It felt like a “classic” – slow, not much happened (I don’t think; what did happen, I missed much of). Probably the male British narrator did not help for me (for whatever reason, just that type of narration/voice will tune me out.) Like some others, it reminded me of The Haunting of Hill House, with a bit of And Then There Were None thrown in (but both of those are better – or maybe it’s because I didn’t listen to the audios of those?).

Here is the link to the 2022 CAT poll. Please choose your favourite CATs, maximum 4.

https://www.easypolls.net/poll.html?p=617f6ec1e4b04db784c19635

Voting closes 4pm, Saturday, November 6th, Melbourne, Australia. That's 10 pm Friday in San Francisco.

I'm a bit late with Isak Dinesen's Seven Gothic tales which were not very scary, to be honest.