91 books like Clive Barker's Books of Blood 1-3

The immersive nature of this book's narrative gripped me from the very start. This is a truly foundational text in the genre, but it nevertheless holds up to this day.

I particularly enjoyed the two-part story’s focus on humanity’s initial resistance to the invading force as well as an exploration of life under Martian control.

It goes without saying that the book is considerably older than the others I read while becoming interested in this topic. I enjoyed reflecting on the similarities and differences in Wells’ contemporary ideas about aliens, which naturally reflect some key Earth-based societal concerns of the time.

If I had to use one word to describe The Rats it would be brutal.

I say this not simply because of the savage depictions of gore and other intense imagery conjured by Herbert throughout, but also the blunt and grim depictions of working-class 1970s London.

This book is so much more than a tale of man-eating monsters. I found it to be a scathing critique of social decay and the prerequisite neglect that gives rise to such conditions. To be honest, I didn’t know what I was walking into and that is why it has stayed with me. Consider yourself warned. I wish I had been.

Why didn’t anyone think of it sooner? I’m guessing it took the excesses of the 1980s for a novelist to draw a direct connection between the psychopathic behavior of Wall Street traders and serial killing.

Greed and senseless violence are two vices that America seems to have something of a monopoly on, and this macabre tale, alternatively hilarious and disgusting, proves it. 

Very few books have left such a searing image in my mind as Iain Banks did with one particular scene in his disturbing novel, The Wasp Factory.

The story is told first-person through an increasingly unreliable narrator who lets us in on his private rituals, unsettling relationship with his father, and anxieties about his escaped mental patient brother.

This is a novel that takes its time easing you into the narrator’s world, and by the time you reach the climax, the culminating effect of budding dread and pure shock is enough to haunt anyone for a lifetime.

Blending sci-fi, fantasy, and horror, Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man takes readers to places they’ve likely only seen in their dreams or, more likely, their nightmares.

From heartbreaking tales of space disasters (“Kaleidoscope”) to frightening tales of a VR nursery gone wild (“The Veldt”), the strength of Bradbury’s legendary fiction is found in the way he brought humanity to even the wildest, most out-of-this-world premise. In addition, his immaculate prose is as much a joy to appreciate on the word-by-word, sentence-by-sentence levels, as it is on the story level.

The Illustrated Man was one of the first short story collections I ever read. The fact that so many of the tales included within its pages still stick with me to this day is proof of its power and legacy.

While trending more toward the fantasy side, then the previous picks on the list here, Link still manages to pull out some of the most unsettling moments in a short story that I’ve ever read.

When I finished her story “Some Zombie Contingency Plans,” I found myself immediately flipping back to the beginning of the story and reading it fresh. Link is masterful when it comes to weaving together narrative threads, playing literary sleight of hand. While the collection and one of the stories within are called “Magic for Beginners,” she’s very much an expert.

The cross-genre blending is very much following in the footsteps of Bradbury, giving a more fantasy-style focus where his work trends toward science fiction.

No one writing horror fiction today is better at punching the reader in the guts (or ripping those guts out and showing them to you) like Stephen Graham Jones. While he’s been touted more recently for his novel-length works, I first came to know SGJ’s writing via short stories. This collection is one of several stand-outs from his catalog.

When it comes to horror and weird fiction writing, SGJ’s versatility knows no bounds. Whether it’s the literary strangeness of “Father, Son, Holy Rabbit,” or the freaky folk horror of “Raphael” (elements of which SGJ has revisited in his Indian Lake novel trilogy), there are all kinds of scares in this collection. He even pulls off a shocking jump-scare fright in “Crawlspace” that has to be experienced first-hand.

While his stories might be some of the shortest word-count-wise from the tales featured in these listed collections, Brian Evenson’s prose does not lack for the weird and terrifying.

With many pieces going no further than the flash fiction of 1000 or so words, Evenson’s writing has taught me that it’s not about how many words you use, but how you use them.

In this collection, he adds Westerns to the mix of genres where horror and the weird can take seed and bloom into something mind-bendingly unsettling. “Black Bark” is one such story. At first, it seems to be a tale of two Wild West bandits on the run but as the nightmarish end arrives, readers will find they’ve been reading a very different tale all along.

This one is a bit of a fudge because it takes place in mid-August during the Hungry Ghost Festival, but the full moon and cool evening breeze capture that atmosphere of summer sliding into fall. Bound Feet is a modern ghost story centered on a grieving mother whose friend helps her break into Portland’s Chinese Garden and Ghost Museum in order to try to connect with her late daughter. What she finds, though, is a sinister presence from centuries ago and secrets that may upend her world. I love a story haunted by literal ghosts of the past, and this one had me smiling ear to ear as it descends into a nightmare phantasmagoria and twist after delicious twist is revealed. A great, quick read for beginning the season. 

Another wounded hero book, but I’m choosing this one because not only is it one of my favorites from the series, but Lynn Kurland packs so much emotion into every page that I cry and laugh and live the book while I’m reading it and long after.

It’s time travel (but they always seem to bring chocolate with them ☺ ) and the love is so strong. Her stories are like catnip.