Here are 49 books that The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft fans have personally recommended if you like
The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft.
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I am both a writer and a teacher of writing at the university. I have always wanted to be a writer, even though one of my aunts lied to me when I was five that writers would be poor and would die of tuberculosis. I like listening to stories of ordinary people and can learn so much from them. I studied English literature and psychology in my undergraduate studies. I hold a PhD in applied linguistics. I enjoy reading about the subject of philosophy and am fascinated by the theories revolving around ethics. Naturally, I challenge my characters with moral dilemmas so I can write about their struggles.
We have all heard of this book. We all know something about the plot either by watching the film or hearing something about it at school. If you haven’t yet read the book, you must put it on your reading list. We can only give Mary Shelley’s work full justice by reading it from beginning to end; not until then will you be able to feel Victor’s internal struggles. In his attempt to achieve immortality, he created a monster.
I never get tired of reading chapter five where Shelley describes Victor’s utter disappointment upon watching his creation coming to life. I love the choice of language. The thoughts that went through his mind and his guilty feelings mixed with pride and excitement present an unsolvable moral dilemma. Should he destroy his own creation?
One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'
'That rare story to pass from literature into myth' The New York Times
Mary Shelley's chilling Gothic tale was conceived when she was only eighteen, living with her lover Percy Shelley on Lake Geneva. The story of Victor Frankenstein who, obsessed with creating life itself, plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, but whose botched creature sets out to destroy his maker, would become the world's most famous work of horror fiction, and remains a devastating exploration of the limits of human creativity. Based on the third…
Scary books and movies hooked me early in life and never let go. I’m fascinated by the themes that are explored in all of the various sub-genres of horror. I’m intrigued by the lore that’s created, and I’m impressed with the imagination of so many horror creators. Horror remains and always will be one of the most popular genres of storytelling.
I read this as a teenager, just as I was diving into the horror genre. I already knew at this point that I wanted to be a storyteller. What struck me while reading It was the jumping back and forth between time periods.
I had never read a book structured that way, and it seemed that every chapter ended on a cliffhanger, forcing me to keep reading. There aren’t many books that I would say I had a hard time putting down (I get bored easily), but It was certainly one of them!
This tie-in edition will be available from 16 July
TIE IN TO A NEW MAJOR MOTION PICTURE, IT: CHAPTER 2, ADAPTED FROM KING'S TERRIFYING CLASSIC
27 years later, the Losers Club have grown up and moved away, until a devastating phone call brings them back...
Derry, Maine was just an ordinary town: familiar, well-ordered for the most part, a good place to live.
It was a group of children who saw- and felt- what made Derry so horribly different. In the storm drains, in the sewers, IT lurked, taking on the shape of every nightmare, each one's deepest dread. Sometimes…
I am passionate about this topic because it dates back to my childhood. I have been interested in this subject for as long as I can remember and, as far as I can tell, gravitated towards it naturally, probably due to those unknown vectors within us all that gear us towards our loves, interests, and passions. I have written many novels in this field, and countless short stories, some published, others lying around my house. For me, this genre defines the best aspects of the imagination and is full of color, fantasy, and the entire broad spectrum of human emotions, including the most potent: fear.
This novel's structure inspired me to write my book, at least in part. I read it in one sitting while working as a security guard at a nature park on Christmas night years ago. It deals with an unholy presence by the name of Jakerbok, imprisoned in the pages of the book, who perpetually pleads with the reader to “Burn this book!” or else. It is wholly unique, original, and decidedly unsettling.
The long-awaited return of the great master of horror. Mister B. Gone is Barker's shockingly bone-chilling discovery of a never-before-published demonic 'memoir' penned in the year 1438, when it was printed - one copy only - and then buried until now by an assistant who worked for the inventor of the printing press, Johannes Gutenberg.
This bone-chilling novel, in which a medieval devil speaks directly to his reader-his tone murderous one moment, seductive the next-is a never-before-published memoir allegedly penned in the year 1438.
The demon has embedded himself in the very words of this tale of terror, turning the…
I am passionate about this topic because it dates back to my childhood. I have been interested in this subject for as long as I can remember and, as far as I can tell, gravitated towards it naturally, probably due to those unknown vectors within us all that gear us towards our loves, interests, and passions. I have written many novels in this field, and countless short stories, some published, others lying around my house. For me, this genre defines the best aspects of the imagination and is full of color, fantasy, and the entire broad spectrum of human emotions, including the most potent: fear.
I love this book because it is a collection of short stories, and I am a huge fan of anthologies. It also contains some of the zaniest horror stories I’ve ever read. My personal favorite is The Washingtonians, which was adapted into a fantastic episode of Masters of Horror. This book takes elements like American History or even things as mundane as family reunions, garbage, and macaroni and cheese and completely flips them on their heads.
How far would you go with a hitchhiker who'd left behind an unimaginable trail of horror and destruction? How would you feel if your father's new bride was something dredged up from the bowels of hell? What would you do if you discovered an old letter suggesting one of America's Founding Fathers had been a serial killer? This is The Collection, thirty-two stories of hot blood and frigid terror that could have come only from the mind of Bentley Little!
I’m a horror and speculative fiction author who reads everything but who is tired of strict genre definitions and loves introducing people to work they might not have considered—especially the spooky stuff, and especially when I’m asked about horror recommendations for non-horror lovers. I think dark fiction gives us a way to process painful emotions in a safe space; it offers catharsis for being alive in a difficult world; it can definitely be a lot of fun while also giving you a way to empathize with people outside your own direct experience. I’ve tried to hit on all of that in this list!
I am one of those people who were really into Lovecraft until they discovered he was a huge racist and homophobe, among other things; the contemporary reclamation of Lovecraft’s iconic mythology is delicious, and this book is a wonderfully eerie, weird entry into the new canon.
This book checks a lot of my personal boxes, like secretive government experiments, shady, half-revealed lore, and lyrical writing. I’m a huge fan of stories where you know just enough about what’s going on to keep up, and the characters are so sympathetic that you’ll follow the mystery for their sake alone.
Two decades ago the U.S. government rounded up the people of Innsmouth and took them to a desert prison, far from their ocean, their Deep One ancestors, and their sleeping god, Cthulhu. Only Aphra and Caleb Marsh survived the camps, emerging without a past or a future.
Now it's 1949, and the government that stole Aphra's life needs her help. FBI Agent Ron Spector believes that Communist spies have stolen dangerous magical secrets from Miskatonic University, secrets that could turn the Cold War hot in an instant and hasten the end of the human race.
I’m a kid that grew up during the Blockbuster era. I spent a lot of time in the horror and sci-fi section, going aisle by aisle renting everything they had. Monsters were like vital nutrients to me, but it wasn’t just the monsters themselves that I found appealing. It was what they taught us about ourselves. So many good stories use monsters as a tool to tell interesting and poignant stories about humanity. Doesn’t matter if it’s a walking undead creature or an otherwordly cosmic destroyer, monsters reflect people, and I try to embody that sentiment in my own work.
HP Lovecraft created a great cast of cosmic characters, but it’s debatable that other writers have done a better job utilizing them. Cthulhu Armageddon takes Lovecraftian horror and puts an adventure spin on it. The real highlight is the book’s main character, who has to navigate this post-apocalyptic world and the various creatures within it while coming to terms with his own insecurities.
“Under an alien sky where gods of eldritch matter rule, the only truth is revenge.”
CTHULHU ARMAGEDDON is the story of a world 100 years past the rise of the Old Ones which has been reduced to a giant monster-filled desert and pockets of human survivors (along with Deep Ones, ghouls, and other “talking” monsters).
John Henry Booth is a ranger of one of the largest remaining city-states when he’s exiled for his group’s massacre and suspicion he’s “tainted.” Escaping with a doctor who killed her husband, John travels across the Earth’s blasted alien ruins to seek the life of…
I’ve been reading Lovecraft, and those inspired by him, since I was in high school. I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that there could be a whole world just outside of sight that we never see, and once we do see we can never un-see. After I’d been writing for a few years a friend of mine suggested/demanded I write a story for him inspired by Lovecraft’s world. Mostly I started it to satisfy him but once the jar was open it all spilled out. I wove in real elements from history, including historical figures. This story ended up winning a major award, but there was still so much more to tell.
Published by the makers of the Arkham Horror board and card games, the four novellas in this book follow characters from the game, giving them depth and background, bringing them to life.
This book is a perfect example of taking an existing license and transporting it to a new medium. The writing itself is modern and accessible while the stories take place in the prohibition era. What I enjoyed most is that these stories show Lovecraft created more monsters than just Cthulhu.
There is more danger in Lovecraftian fiction than one horrible, sleeping god.
The Ancient Ones are coming to consume our world, and only the bold investigators of Arkham Horror stand in their way, in this chilling collection of eldritch novellas.
Hour of the Huntress by Dave Gross - the mysterious disappearance of dilettante Jenny Barnes' beloved sister triggers a frantic search through Arkham's darkest shadows.
The Dirge of Reason by Graeme Davis - for federal agent Roland Banks, investigating a bizarre incident exposes him to the supernatural horrors of Arkham.
Ire of the Void by Richard Lee Byers - the astronomer and professor Norman Withers finds himself the subject of a strange…
Since I was young, I’ve suffered from Major Depressive Disorder, coupled with chronic pain that surfaced when I was in middle school. Being in constant pain—mental and physical—obviously drains the spirit. I found no hope whatsoever in phrases such as, “It gets better.” When you have chronic pain, that statement means nothing, because you know it won’t. These books, however, offered me something that I hadn’t encountered before: someone acknowledging that, although it may never get better, there is still something for me here, whatever form it takes. These books do not shame depressives, they console (and even commiserate) with them, and I hope you find them as fulfilling as I have.
Similar to Cioran, Ligotti has a profoundly dark worldview, but not one that is unearned.
Ligotti’s own experiences with anhedonia and despair seep through his writing. I cannot get enough of it. Through his prose, he creates his own world wherein doom is assured and life seems like a poorly written, performed, and directed play that is in profoundly bad taste.
It may seem like work like this would depress you, but for me, it gives me a sense of understanding. Someone out there, even if it’s just Ligotti’s characters, has felt that gloom.
Thomas Ligotti is often cited as the most curious and remarkable figure in horror literature since H. P. Lovecraft. His work is noted by critics for its display of an exceptionally grotesque imagination and accomplished prose style. In his stories, Ligotti has followed a literary tradition that began with Edgar Allan Poe, portraying characters that are outside of anything that might be called normal life, depicting strange locales far off the beaten track, and rendering a grim vision of human existence as a perpetual nightmare. The horror stories collected in Teatro Grottesco feature tormented individuals who play out their doom…
I believe that H.P. Lovecraft, only now appreciated at his full stature, has spawned a whole generation of equally brilliant writers who make modern weird horror the most vibrant, confrontational, and relevant of all current genres. He looms over today’s literature and pop culture like Cthulhu looms over the sea, and his heirs include some of the best writers of their generation. As a much-travelled Scottish writer, I’ve needed tools to tackle the chaotic, disorienting contemporary experience, as well as the darkest, most imaginative strains of my own Celtic legacy. Lovecraftian horror—through HPL’s explicit mythos or simply his implicit sensibility—served up the palette I needed to do that.
Laird Barron may be the Robert E. Howard of modern horror and weird fiction—or its Dashiell Hammett. So hard-boiled you could break rocks with it, his prose is ferociously energetic, brutally unsettling, and consummately capable of crafting its own phantasmagoric world. If Melville was resurrected and took to writing plots for Quentin Tarantino, the result might be Laird Barron. The Imago Sequence is among his best collections, but almost any of them is equally strong.
To the long tradition of eldritch horror pioneered and refined by writers such as H.P. Lovecraft, Peter Straub, and Thomas Ligotti comes Laird Barron, an author whose literary voice invokes the grotesque, the devilish, and the perverse with rare intensity and astonishing craftsmanship.
Collected here for the first time are nine terrifying tales of cosmic horror, including the World Fantasy Award-nominated novella "The Imago Sequence," the International Horror Guild Award-nominated "Proboscis," and the never-before-published "Procession of the Black Sloth." Together, these stories, each a masterstroke of craft and imaginative irony, form a shocking cycle of distorted evolution, encroaching chaos, and…
I wouldn't call myself a cosmic horror expert, but I've read quite a few of the expected authors--Dunsany, Machen, Lovecraft, Blackwood, Howard, etc--and I've written novels and short fiction in the genre and have been asked to panel and talk about it for years at professional events. How can a fictional narrative contain villains so powerful that human beings have no way to understand, let alone resist them? I like exploring that impossibility in my own writing, and I feel compelled to subvert its historical legacy of colonialism and racism where I can. It is not a genre that needs reclaiming but rewriting, and it is rife with possibilities.
This book of poems is a truly unexpected combination of current pop culture, social commentary, and cosmic horror--and a hugely enjoyable read. It deals with the themes of sacrifice, thoughtless loyalty, collusion, survival, colonialism, and the very idea of the monstrous. How do we know when the forces around us are asking too much of us? How can we trust what we will get in return? How do our personal histories inform how we will respond to the void when it comes knocking? A lively, thoughtful read.
#1 New Release in Caribbean & Latin American Poetry Cthulhu meets hip-hop in this book of horror poems that flips the eldritch genre upside down. Lovecraftian-inspired nightmares are reversed as O'Brien asks readers to see Blackness as radically significant. Can You Sign My Tentacle? explores the monsters we know and the ones that hide behind racism, sexism, and violence, resulting in poems that are both comic and cosmic.
