Horror: Defining the Genre, Sub-genres, Styles, and More- via LitReactor

LitReactor posted an infographic by Annie Neugebauer on the current state of the genre here.

It is a good resource so I am reposting it for all of you. Use this link to see it better and to enlarge.

ALA Reading List Horror Winners

I posted all of the genre winners on the general blog here. Below is the horror winner, readalikes for that winner, and the short list. I have reviews of all but 1 of the honorees in this post of my best reads of 2017.

The titles below are all books you should add to your collections and can suggest to anyone looking for a good horror read. Use my links to the longer reviews to learn more about each title. You can also find past lists here.

Here is he official announcement:

The Reading List Council has announced the 2018 selections of the Reading List, an annual best-of list comprising eight different fiction genres for adult readers. A shortlist of honor titles was also announced. The list was announced today during the American Library Association’s Midwinter Meeting held in Denver.

The 2018 selections are:

Horror

Winner“Kill Creek” by Scott Thomas. Inkshares.

An homage to horror and the authors who write it, “Kill Creek” features four prominent authors who are lured into spending the night in a famous haunted house as a publicity stunt. The aftermath is both unexpected and terrifying.

Read alikes
“Hex” by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
“The Haunting of Hill House” by Shirley Jackson
“The Family Plot” by Cherie Priest

Short List“Little Heaven” by Nick Cutter. Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
“In the Valley of the Sun: A Novel” by Andy Davidson. Skyhorse Publishing.
“A God in the Shed” by J-F Dubeau. Inkshares.
“Ararat: A Novel” by Christopher Golden. St. Martin’s Press.

Horror Review Index Update and Double Awards Final Ballot Announcements

Today I have some links and information to share.

First, I have done some updates to the Horror Review Index adding the following titles:

• Chizmar, Richard and Billy Chizmar. Widow’s Point (2018)
• Speegle Darren. Cries from the Static (2018)
• Malerman, Josh. Unbury Carol (2018)
• Thomas, Scott.  Kill Creek. (2017)

Second, on Monday the Bram Stoker Award Finalists were announced. I posted all the info on the main blog here. 

And finally, the Stoker’s are the best of mainstream horror, but Splatterpunk and Extreme Horror have been making a comeback recently, enough so that there are now awards.

Below I have pasted the official press release, including the links to the 2 novels I reviewed. Look I know that not all Splatterpunk and Extreme Horror will work for a public library collection, but a lot of it will. This finalists list is for libraries with a good sized horror collection to consider purchasing. At the very least, you should have the Janz and Kozeniewski titles which I reviewed in IndiePicks Magazine as suitable for all libraries.

But even those of you who don’t have a huge horror collection, but do have enough horror readers that you follow this blog so that you can know what is going on in the genre, you should be looking over this list to familiarize yourself with the authors and publishers listed. These subgenres are only getting more popular and this list is a great way to stay in the know.

Click here for the official announcement or see below.

-------------------------------------------

For Immediate Release — 2/5/2018

Splatterpunk Award founders Wrath James White and Brian Keene are pleased to announce the nominees for the 2018 Splatterpunk Awards, recognizing works of superior achievement in Splatterpunk and Extreme Horror that were published in 2017. The nominees are:

BEST NOVEL

CONTAINMENT by Charlee Jacob (Necro Publications)
EXORCIST FALLS by Jonathan Janz (Sinister Grin Press)
THE HEMATOPHAGES by Stephen Kozeniewski (Sinister Grin Press)
SPERMJACKERS FROM HELL by Christine Morgan (Deadite Press)
WHITE TRASH GOTHIC by Edward Lee (Deadite Press)

BEST NOVELLA

THE BIG BAD by K. Trap Jones (Necro Publications)
DAMN DIRTY APES by Adam Howe (Thunderstorm Books)
HEADER 3 by Edward Lee and Ryan Harding (Necro Publications)
KILLER CHRONICLES by Somer Canon (Thunderstorm Books)
THE LUCKY ONES DIED FIRST by Jack Bantry (Deadite Press)

BEST SHORT STORY

“Dirty Desk” by Jeffrey Thomas, from Chopping Block Party (Necro Publications)
“Extinction Therapy” by Bracken MacLeod, from Splatterpunk Fighting Back (Splatterpunk Zine)
“Melvin” by Matt Shaw, from Splatterpunk Fighting Back (Splatterpunk Zine)
“Molly” by Glenn Rolfe, from Splatterpunk Fighting Back (Splatterpunk Zine)
“The Tipping Point” by Jeff Strand, from Everything Has Teeth (Thunderstorm Books) 

BEST COLLECTION

2017: A YEAR OF HORROR AND PAIN, PART ONE by Matt Shaw (Amazon Digital Services)
EVERYTHING HAS TEETH by Jeff Strand (Thunderstorm Books)
THE GARDEN OF DELIGHT by Alessandro Manzetti (Comet Press)
GORILLA IN MY ROOM by Jack Ketchum (Cemetery Dance Publications)

BEST ANTHOLOGY

CHOPPING BLOCK PARTY, edited by Brendan Deneen and David G. Barnett (Necro Publications)
DOA III, edited by Marc Ciccarone and Andrea Dawn (Blood Bound Books)
SPLATTERPUNK FIGHTING BACK, edited by Jack Bantry and Kit Power (Splatterpunk Zine)
VS:X: U.S. VS U.K. EXTREME HORROR, edited by Dawn Cano (Shadow Work Publishing)
YEAR’S BEST HARDCORE HORROR VOLUME 2, edited by Randy Chandler and Cheryl Mullenax (Comet Press)

J.F. GONZALEZ LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

David J. Schow [The man who coined the term Splatterpunk; seriously, he’s cited for inventing it on the OED. --added by Becky]

Congratulations to all! Works on the ballot were selected by fans and readers. Winners in each category will be voted on by the 2018 Splatterpunk Awards jury. 

The winners will be announced the the inaugural Splatterpunk Awards ceremony, taking place August 24th through the 26th at KillerCon in Austin, Texas. For more information on the convention and the awards, click here.

Diverse Readalikes for Stephen King [updated 2.18]

In response to this Call to Action which I posted on RA for All, I am going to start a long term project to create author readalikes lists for popular horror authors for you to use at your library. As I also mentioned in that post, too many of our lists are not diverse. We put all the diverse authors in lists with other diverse authors and don’t mix them in with the authors they are most similar to. That is a very short paraphrasing of my longer post; click here for a lot more.

In that post I acknowledge that I am as guilty as everyone in this problem. And, as the main resource for library workers on horror, I should start solving the problem where I can.

Also, please note, “diverse” readalike lists does not mean only non-normative options will be here. True diversity includes all voices, white included.

I will also organize these readalike lists into their own page here and note the last time they were updated both for your information and also so I know when things are getting stale and need a new look. Also, my readalike authors will only include people who are alive and currently writing.

So where to begin? Well with Stephen King, of course.

Here is the thing about Stephen King, he is a bestselling author, read by everyone, even people who say they don’t like horror.  There are many reasons why people like him that the old school horror suggested readalikes lists don’t usually capture. So this new readalike list is not only more diverse in the traditional sense, but also, it is more broad in that it considers all of the reasons why people read King beyond his “horror” designation. 

Here is an excerpt from a longer piece I have written about King, available on NoveList:

These readalike options reflect this generalized appeal of King. Also the authors listed below were included precisely because like King, while the menacing tone is always underlying their stories [even those that are not outright horrific], they do not stick to one genre. They all write genre blends. What genre is blended with the “horror” and how much of each bleeds through differs, but the underlying anxiety, darkness, and unease is always there.

Readalikes for Stephen King

• Margaret Atwood
• Jeffrey Ford
• Gillian Flynn
• Neil Gaiman
• Joe Hill
• N.K. Jemisin
• Stephen Graham Jones
• Victor LaValle
• Ken Liu
• George R.R. Martin 
• Robert McCammon
• Bracken MacLeod
• China Mieville
• Haruki Murakami
• Joyce Caroll Oates
• Dan Simmons
• Tananarive Due
• Jeff VanderMeer
• Sarah Waters
• Connie Willis