SDSwami Wrote:Sorta like the other thread on here, but I was thinking more of a Non-FPW line.
I always liked Needful Things. One moment that will always stand out to me was when I read this the first time during my senior year. Towards the end of the book when all hell breaks loose, there's a scene where Ace sets off some dynamite under the bridge in town. I was reading this part while in study hall one day and at the exact same moment where the bridge goes up, someone had pulled the fire alarm in the school. I think I came a few feet off my chair when that happened.
My favorite short story is definately The Body Politic by Clive Barker. I've never read a story that made me laugh this hard but at the same time think to myself "What if this is really true? Would I ever know?". If you've never read this, it's located in the book The Inhuman Condition.
Overall, the scariest books I've read would have to be Salem's Lot, The Keep, and The Damnation Game.
For myself, I think the most scared I've been reading a book was with
The Shining when I was about eleven or twelve years old ('78 or '79). It was my first King book. It took me two weeks to read the first fifty pages or so. Then I was home sick from school one day and laid down on the couch to read. I laid there for the rest of the day and finished the book (400 pages). I remember that the sun was going down as I finished and I was too scared to get up and turn on the lights.
I also like:
Mine (especially the first ten pages...scared me silly) and
Swan Song by Robert McCammon;
'Salem's Lot,
IT and
Pet Sematary by Stephen King;
The Select by F. Paul (haven't finished the Adversary cycle, so those may pop up also), the early
Books of Blood (although for me when I read them, a few of the stories seemed more gross than scary)--favorite story: "In the Hills, the Cities" (something like that)--and "Ghost Story" by Peter Straub (once I finally got to the part where I couldn't put it down, which was on my third attempt).
There are probably many others that I've left off, but there are the best representatives that I can come up with off the top of my head.