What good vampire and scary supernatural books can you recommend?

If you haven’t read them, read the Anne Rice novels. They’re amazing.

Brian Lumley’s early Necroscope trilogy was always a favorite.
Stephen Kings Salem’s Lot.
The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro and Ben Hogan has been entertaining (I haven’t started the third book as of yet).

Peter Straub’s Julia and Ghost Story were worth reading in my opinion.
Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (which I’m not quite done with) and I want to say James Herbert has some ghost related stories but I can’t recall it’s been a while since I picked up one of his. Hell House by Richard Matheson (and there’s another one House on Haunted Hill by someone whose name I forget The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson) both were entertaining.

I’ve forgotten exactly what it’s about as it was a gift I’ve yet to read but Darkness Falling (Forever Twilight, Book I) by Peter Crowther was well recommended. It has nothing to do the Twilight book/movie series.

Anne Rice’s vampire chronicles, starting with Interview With The Vampire did it for me. But this may not be your cup of blood tea.

The Woods Are Dark by Richard Laymon
The restored and uncut version.

Twilight. * ~ ~SoOoOo scray!!! ~*

If you haven’t already you should try the supernatural stories of M R James, Algernon Blackwood and Sheridan le Fanu

@uberbatman @Pied_Pfeffer Yes, I did read Interview and then the follow up book to that ( The Vampire Lestat? ) and enjoyed it immensely. It just was not that scary compared to Stoker’s Dracula. I guess it’s not easy beating a master?

@wonderingwhy Salem’s Lot was greatly entertaining to read. King knew how to build up scenes crackling with horrifying intensity. He was not Stoker yet he conjured up similarly unforgettable eerie scenarios and atmospheres.

Peter Straub’s Ghost Story was finely written and quite scary as well. What traumatized me a bit in high-school was The Amityville Story. I had to read it outside my grandfather’s house in the daytime! And thanks, I will check out all your other suggestions. : )

@flutherother Yes, thanks. Will do. : )

Anne Rice!

Enjoyed Salems’ Lot and, supernatural at a stretch, The Stand.

If you really want to stay up at night with bone-chilling books that cannot be put down, pick up one of Ann Rule’s true crime books. She does exellent research regarding the psyche of the killer and paints a vivid picture of the bigger story then what gets printed in the news. The truth is scarier than fiction.

I second Salem’s Lot. Good old fashioned vampire fun!

The Passage is a good vampire tale. The vampires are definitely more of the monster variety, caused by a virus in a government experiment gone wrong. Long book, but a real page turner. It’s the first of a trilogy, but the next two books aren’t out yet.

The Stand is one of my all-time-favorite books. No vampires, but an epic tale of good vs. evil. It’s like The Walking Dead without zombies.

The Radleys is a lot of fun. It’s the story of a family living a normal, boring life. Mom and Dad have kept their true nature a secret from the kids, however, and the story revolves around what happens when their cover starts to unravel.

And this article might be of interest to you.

I’m gonna second the Necroscope series. It’s engaging, disturbing, and extremely graphic. (I mean how it describes things) Just the first few pages made me wanna barf. XD It’s a really good set of stories though, dealing with Russian vampires. You gotta check it. It’s got that whole heavy epic feel to it.

One of my fave vampire trilogy is The Black Castle by Les Daniels. It takes place during the Spanish Inquisition, where a rather hardcore vampire is, himself, completely disgusted by the Inquisition. The story centers around him, the guy who wrote the Malleus Malifecarum, and a crazy girl he rescues and turns into a vampire…The story from the first book is really unique, but sadly, it pretty much repeats itself in the later books, only in different time periods. :/ Still, if you enjoy the first book, you’ll love the others, they’re as fun as the first, only not so original.

If you want some really…messed up but extremely wonderful books, check out The Book of Shadows by James Reece, and The Book of the Mad by Tanith Lee. These aren’t about vampires…so much. I guess they can be described as fantasy/goth/horror? But I think you might enjoy them. Shadows is about a girl who becomes a witch, has sex with ghosts…and…yeah. I can’t describe this. Lol, but it rocks. And when I mean a witch, I don’t mean no Harry Potter business, I mean it’s inspired by sixteenth century witchcraft.

Mad is a set of several stories that eventually tie in with each other. It’s completely crazy, and includes freaky bird people, a psychotic mental asylum and some guy who might be a vampire…

These are far from your requests, but they certainly do disturb, and include all sorts of paranormal stuff that still seems freaky in what is essentially a dark fantasy setting.

If you like nineteenth and early twentieth century vampire and ghost literature, look up some of these cool writers; Sheridan Le Fanu. He wrote the classic Carmilla, which served as influence to Bram Stoker. Lots of ghost stories, too.
John Polidori wrote the ever famous The Vampyre, which I thought was damn creepy. He wrote a lot of Goth romance shit, too.
Algernon Blackwood, who I know for his short stories, has many a great ghost story. They’re all real traditional too, so if you like classic ghosts, this guy’s for you.

Erm but wait a minute. I remmeber speaking with someone on Fluther about all these artists before, and that person was a fan. And I think it was you lol. So I don’t need to tell you any of this. Was it you? I can’t remember. If it wasn’t, I have more to list.

The scariest thing about the televised version of The Stand, is Randall Flagg’s horrifying resemblance to <shudder> Michael Bolton. ;-o

@Brian1946 Was it Michael Bolton or Meatloaf? Lol.

@Symbeline Dude, awesome. Thanks. And no I was not that fan so I’ll be very busy tonight reading on these writers.

@MissAusten Can’t wait enough for the film adaptation of The Passage. I heard Ridley Scott is on the project. My wish is whoever designs the monsters will come up with something never seen before.

The Stand is one of King’s best books I guess but for some reason I did not find scary at all. Maybe that awful movie ruined it for me. Lol. Will read on the Radleys and wow, thanks for that link! : )

@Brian1946 I’m convinced that Randall Flagg is a descendant of that evil sorcerer in The Eye of the Dragon. And not just because that sorcerer’s name was Flagg.

@mazingerz88 @Symbeline

I Stand corrected! ;-p

lols I see wut j00 did thar

@Symbeline

Thank you for not “Flagging” my quip. ;-)

LMAO oh man I can’t top that lol.

I’m rather fond of Bite Me!. It’s a vampire farce set during the French revolution. Lot’s of puns and more decapitation jokes than you can shake a stick at. It is available as a print graphic novel or online in it’s totality. The author has since spun off one of the characters in this book (Luther) in his own series which is not so silly but is ultimately a story about scholars, philosophy, godlessness and werewolves so that’s pretty awesome. So far there has been a lot more Spinoza than werewolves, but that’s just fine with me. Spinoza was a badass.

Thanks everyone! Downloaded The Book of Shadows, Tales From An Antiquary?, Carmilla, The Black Castle, Turn of the Screw and whew…will do the others soon! Lol.

Awesome. You have to tell me what you think of them after. :)

@Symbeline Reading Carmilla and enjoying it. Bram Stoker not only capitalized and awesomely expanded on its chilling elements, I think he also playfully named one of his Dracula characters from one in Carmilla’s. In it, there was a girl victim by the name of Bertha Rheinfeldt. Remember Renfield from Dracula?

Yeah, sure do. How does one forget Renfield lol. Good observation though…I never thought of that for a second. Seems entirely possible to me, the two last names seem quite similar indeed.

I think you got it right on the whole expansion thing that Bram went for from Carmilla. I certainly love that story, but you’ll see as it goes on, it kinda seems stuck in its rut.

@Symbeline I have the habit of doing some research to see if I’ll feel excited about a story first. But one disadvantage of reading wikipedia and other book reviews is of course, the element of surprise gets sacrificed. I already know who or what Carmilla is and the nature of her relationship with the girl protagonist.

It seems some reviewers think there’s a lesbian angle to it. I don’t know yet. But from what I’ve learned there’s a few film adaptations of Carmilla exploring this angle. My point? I don’t have one. Lol.

@mazingerz88 Heh, yeah. I think Carmilla is partly responsible for bringing the whole gay/lesbian appeal to vampires, at least until Anne Rice took over. But being that a lot of the story is suspense and plays with fear factor, the whole lesbian thing, no matter how evident it might seem, actually kinda feels really subtle. The way everything happens, if I was Laura, I woulda been all like, dude, stop bugging me when I’m trying to get some damn sleep. XD

@Symbeline No idea whether at that time when Carmilla was published, it made social and religious conservatives raise their eyebrows or maybe even more. It would also be interesting to know what motivated the writer to do it too. Just to scare and entertain?

I love reading scary stuff but I’m the most wimpy mouse ever in the dark. I can’t even watch a scary movie without covering my ears or my eyes sometimes. Ha ha. If I happen to have lived in old England, whether in a poor cottage or affluent Victorian mansion, I would be terrified of every moving shadow on the walls and will make sure I have ten full wooden crates filled with candles on my bedside. Yes, those old English villages and castles and woodlands…nasty!

@mazingerz88 I do believe that Carmilla raised its fair share of controversy back when it was published, but that’s just a little sidenote that came with the story in one vampire stories book I have that features it. Looking online, I’m not really finding anything about said controversy. Although pissing off people back then didn’t seem that complicated, especially with sexual issues. (my, how so much has changed XD)

You and I are polar opposites when it comes to horror then. :) Wouldn’t you rather have a shotgun with silver bullets by your bed, instead of a box fulla candles? XD Yeah, just being an idiot at this point. :D

@Symbeline Well now that you mentioned it, I wouldn’t mind having @incendiarydan along with his cache outside on the terrace sipping hot cocoa. And I’ll have some of Blade’s paraphernalias too. : )

@Symbeline Uhrmm…yeahhh, I’m reading and reading and…yeahh, Carmilla’s got the hots for this girl…and she’s her descendant?! Double whammy! Lol.

Wait till the end…:D