Say, What Is The Scariest Book?

I have my own pick, but, I’ll get to it

What is the scariest book? 10 horror authors pick the most terrifying stories ever

Joe Hill doesn’t have to go very far to find the scariest book ever. Just up a rung on his family tree.

The bestselling horror author of “King Sorrow” knows he’s biased, but the “correct answer” is still “It” by Hill’s father, Stephen King.

“That’s the gold standard when it comes to scaring the pants off people. No one’s ever going to touch that,” Hill says. “The classics – ‘Dracula,’ ‘Frankenstein,’ ‘Dr. Jekyll and ‘Mr. Hyde’ – I love those books but they were written in a more conservative time. People didn’t go for the throat the way my dad went for the throat in ‘It.’ “

Dracula and Frankenstein are way more scary than the movies, but, yes, written for a different time, much different type of prose. But, hey, there was a vast difference between early Robert Heinlein and 70s and 80s Heinlein. These are from the 10 authors (each one has a description, worth reading

• ‘Bird Box’ by Josh Malerman (saw the movie, didn’t read the book. Movie was somewhat scary)
• ‘The Call’ by Peadar Ó Guilín (no clue)
• ‘Geek Love’ by Katherine Dunn (no clue)
• ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ by Shirley Jackson (never read, not much into ghost stories)
• ‘Hex’ by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (never read, looks interesting, downloaded from Kindle Unlimited (lord knows I have enough books to read, though, and many coming out)
• ‘Let’s Get Invisible!’ by R.L. Stine (heard of Stine, never read, though they were for kids)
• ‘Penpal’ by Dathan Auerbach (no clue)
• ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ by Ira Levin (never read, but, the movie is terrifying)
• ‘The Ruins’ by Scott Smith (this is the same as the movie The Ruins, and, I suspect the book is terrifying, as the movie sure is. Love it)
• ‘Salem’s Lot’ by Stephen King (I’ve read it, and seen the original mini-series, yeah, pretty scary, especially since I was in my teens when I read it)

Really, one of the scariest I’ve read was King’s Pet Cemetary. I had a broken ankle at the time, remember lying in bed late at night, nothing had really happened yet in the book, but, looking around getting the chills.

TW Brown, who disappeared during COVID, has a 12 book series “The Dead”. It is horrifying, and Brown makes sure you know this is straight fire horror. Very bad things happen during his zombie apocalypse, often coming out of the blue, and he writes in a way that doesn’t strain believability. For instance, in one of the main two groups, one guy gets bit. But, some are immune. He gets sick, gets better, then he and his longtime girlfriend have sex. Whelp, the zombie virus can be passed that way, and she quickly turns into one. In book 3, I believe, Brown kills off the main character in the other main group without fanfare, and just moves on. Because this is the apocalypse. Pig-tailed little girls get it. He did not play.

Bob Howard also has a zombie series, up to 13 books now. Each one tends to have a theme. Shelter For Now includes what happens to the rat population when mankind is not around to keep them down and they have lots of zombie food around. Scream For Now includes spiders (as I wrote in my review at Amazon “Thanks for the nightmares, Bob!”).

L. Marshall James has In Hell. Infected people. With a horrific ending. Stephen King’s short story The Mist, which is where the movie comes from, ends on a horror note. His short story The Jaunt, which I think is being made into a movie (bad idea, better as a short episode), is also horrific. Really, though, I don’t read that much horror, except zombie books. I watch a lot of horror movies, mostly read science fiction, with a smattering of zombie, adventure, and mystery. Though, Greig Beck’s books can go pure horror, like his Mysterious Island series (not sure if he was going to write a 4th book in the series, but, people complained a lot about the horror ending of book 3), and his current series The Devil’s Peak.

What do you think is the scariest book?