'The Hunger' by Whitley Strieber

[joysilence]

I know we don't talk about the big-name authors of modern horror much in this community, and, for my part, that's largely because I think they're rubbish. Seeing the author's name written in a blocky font twice the size of the title on a book's jacket is quite enough to make me think twice before buying it, I'm afraid to say. But every so often the occasional pleasant surprise comes my way. I had never thought of Whitley Strieber as an author who would hold any great interest for me, but I recently enjoyed The Hunger very much. Admittedly, Strieber's career trajectory does little to inspire confidence in the reader: after The Hunger, his big vampire novel, and The Wolfen, his big werewolf novel, he quite literally veered off into alien territory, becoming convinced that he himself had witnessed alien antics, and wrote several doorstop tomes challenging anyone to say otherwise. It's quite likely that I'd never have picked up The Hunger if I hadn't enjoyed Tony Scott's 80s film version so much! Fortunately, nothing in The Hunger hints at the author's future direction.

( There was an awful rainbow once in Heaven... )

I'm quite keen to read The Wolfen now to see if it's as good. I'm not usually as keen on werewolf stories, but you never know. Have any of you read The Hunger or any of Strieber's other books? I'd be interested to hear any recommendations and/or warnings!

The Thrill of Fear: 250 Years of Scary Entertainments

[joysilence]

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY dfordoom)

Walter Kendrick, the author of The Thrill of Fear: 250 Years of Scary Entertainments, is a professor of English and unfortunately he’s one of those academics who can’t seem to help adopting a patronising tone when discussing genre fiction. He clearly finds the gothic and horror genres rather distasteful and is embarrassed to find himself writing about them.

( more behind cut )

x-posted to gothic_lit