Recommended Reading?

[jack_ryder]

Both Carnies and Prismatic are on the AHWA Recommended list, which is as it should be.

The Lamplighter is also there, but what is interesting is the omissions from the International List:

There's no Ramsey Campbell, no Robert Bloch, only one Richard Matheson and it's not his Shock books. Poppy Brite, Ellen Datlow and Mary Shelley are the only women listed (slight edit - L.A. Banks - who I've never heard of - is probably a woman); no Lucy Taylor, Caitlin Keirnan, Kathe Koja or Anne Rice?

And an overabundance of Stephen King compare to the other authors. (Only Blue World listed for Robert McCammon? C'mon!)

I assume this list was compiled from the Southern Horror mailing list, but it only confirms my suspicion that many writers in the scene today aren't that interested in the genre's history (or, to be fair, are only interested in a certain type of horror - hence the inclusion of Jack Ketchum and Robert Laymon.)

Comments

[jack-ryder.livejournal.com]

I'd put it down to a lot of folk not knowing the list existed to make recommendations. It appears to me to be a list hastily thrown together by a handful of folk, the start of something a lot bigger.

Yeah, that appears to be the case. And rather than whine about it I really should contribute to it. I guess I thought it was symptomatic of something I'd notice in the horror scene - a sense of a lack of history.

And would you seriously recommend Anne Rice to anyone, and if so, how much?

I'd seriously recommend "Interview with A Vampire" and, maybe, "The Vampire Lestat". "Interview" is important from a historical and influential point of view in popularising the sympathetic vampire protagonist. Without Rice, you probably wouldn't have had Tanya Huff and Laurell Hamilton and the popularity of the supernatural romance.

But, yeah, Rice probably represents a regressive step in horror, the sidelong shuffle into "dark fantasy" and necroporn.