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Recommend Me a Book

Behemoth

Dostoevsky is immortal!
(he/him/his)
I'm looking for a big summer read that features adventure with a healthy dose of horror. Think something like The Passage Trilogy, or NOS4A2, or The Fireman, or It, or The Stand. Or on the non-book front something like Stranger Things. The trick is I've read all The Passage books, I've read everything by Joe Hill, and I'm actually not a big fan of Stephen King. Does anyone have any recommendations?
 

Lokii

(He/Him)
Staff member
Moderator
*sprints into the room* Book of the New Sun!!!!! *trips in his own excitement and falls into a table of pies*
 

Lokii

(He/Him)
Staff member
Moderator
Or the Nifft the Lean stories by Michael Shae if you want something a little more overtly horrific.
 

Falselogic

Lapsed Threadcromancer
(they/them)
Dan Simmons' The Terror. Then read about the actual events in Michael Palin's Erebus
 

Behemoth

Dostoevsky is immortal!
(he/him/his)
Thanks for the recommendations! I've already read both Book of the New Sun and The Terror, which are both great, but also not quite what I'm looking for. It's hard for me to articulate what that is, exactly, but it's more of a contemporary adventure/horror: a big dumb (but not too dumb) epic book about summers or growing up or the apocalypse.
 

Falselogic

Lapsed Threadcromancer
(they/them)
Have you read McCammon's Swan Song? Or Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire? Maybe Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn.
 
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Dr. Nerd

(He/Him)
Laird Barron's short fiction/novella collections (Imago Sequence especially) made me lose quite a bit of sleep, and he has a long-form novel called The Croning, which is also quite good. His stories are like "weird detective/adventure pulp horror".

The Fisherman by John Langan was also a fun, novel horror read, and I'd slot it as a "summer vacation trip gone horrible awry."
 
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Dr. Nerd

(He/Him)
The Necroscope series by Brian Lumley might also be worth checking out. They're like modern(ish) day spy/adventure novels about a paranormal investigate branch of the government. It's a product of its time in many ways--it was written in the 80s, so there's a healthy bit of cold war paranoia--but I enjoyed it when I read it a few years back.
 

Adrenaline

Post Reader
(He/Him)
I recommend Imajica by Clive Barker if you want a big apocalyptic contemporary fantasy and don't mind some caveats with how it handles sex and gender
 

Paul le Fou

24/7 lofi hip hop man to study/relax to
(He)
They're definitely into the loser-comedy sector of "small-town normal folk stumble into adventure and horror," and may not be particularly big (I don't know if I'd classify it as a "trilogy," but it does have two sequels), but John Dies At The End strikes me as checking a couple of those boxes.
 

Adrenaline

Post Reader
(He/Him)
Man I could go for a big dumb (but not too dumb) contemporary epic adventure with a healthy dose of horror about summers or growing up or the apocalypse.

If comics are in bounds I would suggest reading Paper Girls if you haven't
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
Are you OK with comics? I'd say its more "thriller" than horror (even my mom loves it), but I do recommend Monster by Naoki Urasawa. Its about a Japanese ex-pat surgeon living in Germany in 1986 who saves the life of a child at great cost to his career. But then strange things happen that change his life 10 years later.

He also did the excellent 20th Century Boys, which feels partially inspired by It. Not in the killer clown way but in that it flashes back and forth for our leads childhood days and their present. Its about a guy nearing his 40s who discovers that his childhood games have been turned into the basis for a powerful cult. So that would definitely fit in with "growing up" albeit from a "looking backwards" capacity.

Oh, for TV, watch the first season of The Promised Neverland... but not the second. The second is a big disappointing mess trying to tie up hundreds of chapters of story in 13 episodes while the first is a perfect little story that actually ends at a perfect jumping off point.
 

Behemoth

Dostoevsky is immortal!
(he/him/his)
Thanks for the recommendations, everyone! I picked up Wanderers from the library. I'm about 40% through it, and thus far it seems to be meeting the criteria nicely. I'll update this thread once I've finished it (and my thoughts on more of the recommendations, to the extent I'm still bitten by the poorly-defined "epic, horror, adventure, summertime" bug).
 

karzac

(he/him)
You might want to try Meddling Kids - it's a Scooby-Doo style horror mystery. I didn't really like it, but I know people who did, so you might have a better experience with it.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
Gonna hijack this thread because for the summer reading challenge I noted I need a "book about summer". Nothing I currently have is jumping out at me. Anyone have any books about summer they'd recommend? Something I can read in a couple weeks would be ideal but I'm a pretty fast reader and would love more book recommendations too!
 

Paul le Fou

24/7 lofi hip hop man to study/relax to
(He)
The first one that jumps to mind is Summerland by Michael Chabon, although I don't remember how much it's actually about summer. But it's about playing baseball as a youth (and also Ragnarok) so I'd say that's pretty close. (Weirdly, I thought of the book but had forgotten the title so I didn't realize Summer was actually in it at first)
 

Behemoth

Dostoevsky is immortal!
(he/him/his)
One I thought of in response to my original prompt above, but which I haven't read yet, is the Dan Simmons' horror novel Summer of Night.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
I haven't read any of these and let the library decide

The first one that jumps to mind is Summerland by Michael Chabon, although I don't remember how much it's actually about summer. But it's about playing baseball as a youth (and also Ragnarok) so I'd say that's pretty close. (Weirdly, I thought of the book but had forgotten the title so I didn't realize Summer was actually in it at first)

We have a winner, two copies, one in use but one available! I liked The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay but haven't read anything else by him. Also the synopsis sounds delightfully bonkers.

One I thought of in response to my original prompt above, but which I haven't read yet, is the Dan Simmons' horror novel Summer of Night.
They only have the audiobook sadly and I can't concentrate on audiobooks. I'm glad you thought of something for your prompt though!

Tove Jansson's The Summer Book? :D

They have the eBook but there's a waiting list four people deep. I'm intrigued and put it on hold if it got a recommendation here and is that popular!
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
Not quite what the thread is about, but I would like to know if people would recommend me Taran Wanderer. I have read the first book of the series two times over the last ten years or so, and gave up in the middle of the second one. Only remember vaguely that it felt too much like generic fantasy.

I also remember that Taran Wanderer was on the favourite Fantasy list, years ago, and that it is a bit of a deconstruction, or something (don't remember the details, but sounded interesting). Does it make sense, to read the book, if I only remember the very basics of the series (who Taran is, that he freed a princess who was kinda cool, some thorned king, I think?). Or does the fourth book reference the rest of the series too much? Like, will Taran meet his old antagonists, who are now reformed, or something like that?
 

Lokii

(He/Him)
Staff member
Moderator
It is swerve. The previous 3 books are high fantasy adventures, in this one Taren goes on a journey to discover his lineage and ends up growing through a series of small encounters with regular people rather than through epic quests. It does challenge preconceived notions of what a high-fantasy novel is and the qualities that make a hero, but I don't know how well it works without the context of the earlier books.
 
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