Greatest Horror Writer Of All Time If...

And I forgot Matheson, Machen (who I really was trying to think of), and Straub (Ghost Story really put him up with the best).

There's also Robert McCammon

Revised listing/ranking

1 - Lovecraft
2 - Poe
3 - Howard
4 - Matheson
5 - Machen/Straub
6 - Derleth
7 - Preston/Child
8 - McCammon & John Skip/Craig Spector

williemeikle said:

Too rapey for me, I'm afraid. He's got a way with a story, but I got tired of the mistreatment of good looking women in his stories. I actually threw Resurrection Dreams across the room in disgust.

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Fair comment - he does seem to get a tad too much enjoyment in torturing his female characters sometimes. On the other hand, he does portray some quite strong female leads... so in balance, it's never really bothered me.

Also, to throw in some other names (that have already been mentioned), I'd also back Matheson and Ketchum.

callalily61 said:

And here I was starting to like you, Chihuey...



Another instance of "not for everyone." Laymon makes me want to bleach my brain.

I deliberately left off Bentley Little and Brian Keene because while I like some of their writing, I think their body of work is repetitious.

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Dawg forgive me, but if Bentley Little could consistently write good endings (which he doesn't, IMO) I'd put him on the list too.

Mira Grant and Joe Hill should at least get consideration for room on the list. It's the "all time" part that makes it hard - comparing active current writers to writers who already have their entire works out, or large bodies of work.

Here are five more to consider:

Mira Grant
Joe Hill
R.L. Stein
Mary Downing Hahn
Graham Masterton

Yep, two of those are children's horror writers. The should count, too.

Mira Grant? For what? The Newsflesh trilogy? I like it a lot, but it's hardly a seminal work in the horror genre. Other than that, she mostly writes fantasy/PNR under her real name.

Nobody's mentioned Stephenie Meyer yet.








*cough*





That's okay. I'll let myself out.

All-time greats? I really don't know. It seems so subjective...

All-time favorites, though, I can do. In no particular order:

Mary Shelley
HP Lovecraft
Bram Stoker (even though I hate his writing)
MR James
Algernon Blackwood
EF Benson
Joseph Sheridan LeFanu
Peter Straub (just for Ghost Story)

Those are my tutelary horror-gurus. Not only do they exemplify certain key aspects of the genre, imo, but they also deliver consistent quality and/or high concept points. Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Lovecraft Mythos all established memes that advanced the genre and inform popular culture to this day. The others are practically teaching models for how to achieve various effects.

BriMaresh said:

Mira Grant and Joe Hill should at least get consideration for room on the list. It's the "all time" part that makes it hard - comparing active current writers to writers who already have their entire works out, or large bodies of work.

Here are five more to consider:

Mira Grant
Joe Hill
R.L. Stein
Mary Downing Hahn
Graham Masterton

Yep, two of those are children's horror writers. The should count, too.

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Awesome point.

Similarly concluded Joe needs more work for the 'all time' title, but would be surprised if he's not a strong favourite later down the line.

R. L. Stein not only introduced me to horror (if you don't count Rose Impey's The Ankle Grabber), but was also responsible for a scene that still gives me shivers to this day.

Amadan said:

Mira Grant? For what? The Newsflesh trilogy? I like it a lot, but it's hardly a seminal work in the horror genre. Other than that, she mostly writes fantasy/PNR under her real name.

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Agreed--I love Newsflesh, but it's more action than horror. Great stuff, but not quite what this list is for, at least not the way I'm interpreting it.

I'd like to add Sarah Langan as well, under the "not for all time, maybe, yet" category. Everything I've read by her has been fab, though.

And I'm seconding the brain-bleach consensus regarding Laymon.

Newsflesh, yes, but her San Diego 2014 novella, for example. The Countdown one, too. She's pretty good at putting her terror horror creep on, as well as her rip out all the tears. Her upcoming book Parasite looks promising, too. As far as her current body of work, there isn't much there under Mira Grant yet. But there isn't much there for Joe Hill, either. I have optimistic hopes for both of them, some day. Which is why I think "of all time" is a terrible way to try and make a list, I suppose.

BriMaresh said:

Newsflesh, yes, but her San Diego 2014 novella, for example. The Countdown one, too. She's pretty good at putting her terror horror creep on, as well as her rip out all the tears. Her upcoming book Parasite looks promising, too. As far as her current body of work, there isn't much there under Mira Grant yet. But there isn't much there for Joe Hill, either. I have optimistic hopes for both of them, some day. Which is why I think "of all time" is a terrible way to try and make a list, I suppose.

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She doesn't really write horror. Just because there are zombies doesn't make it horror.

"Of all time" is precisely what people are listing. Authors who have had a major impact on the genre and are the ones everyone else gets compared to. Mira Grant will never be on that list. Joe Hill is too new to say.

Shirley Jackson is on my list, too.

Mary Shelley, obviously, and others have already mentioned Lovecraft and Poe.

You could maybe make a case for Henry James (not primarily a horror writer but his darker works definitely informed the genre) and Sheridan Le Fanu, (what with Carmilla and all). Maybe.

I don't understand the love affair with Lovecraft. I read a couple of collections and had to force myself through them after the first couple of stories. For the most part they seemed to be the same story over and over and over. The mythos is interesting, but I find what others have done with it far more interesting. Please don't ban me from the Horror forum

Robert McCammon. F. Paul Wilson. Richard Matheson Sr.

I've never read R L Stine (too old when his books came out), but I think he has to be considered. And I'm surprised no one has mentioned Dean Koontz, although I'm not a fan.

It started off as greatest of all time, sort of morphed into top 5, then top 8(?). But at the risk of categorizing authors who actually write a great variety of work, allow me to stumble into the room and throw the chessboard into the air:

Edgar Allan Poe
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Arthur Machen
Oliver Onions ('The Beckoning Fair One' is superior to 'The Turn of the Screw')
Algernon Blackwood
H.P. Lovecraft (more great conceptualist than writer, really)
Shirley Jackson
Joyce Carol Oates (surprise!)
Manly Wade Wellman
Graham Masterton

honorable mention: Peter Straub (GHOST STORY is great but let's not forget SHADOWLAND)
overrated: Henry James (there, it's out).

Anninyn said:

Shirley Jackson is on my list, too.

Mary Shelley, obviously, and others have already mentioned Lovecraft and Poe.

You could maybe make a case for Henry James (not primarily a horror writer but his darker works definitely informed the genre) and Sheridan Le Fanu, (what with Carmilla and all). Maybe.

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LeFanu is really good at capturing the dream-like sense of reality slipping away from the victim of the horror. Carmilla is one of the best examples of the vampire's clinging, alluring obsession with her victim that gradually comes to take over the victim's life. But I think he really shined in his shorter stories. My personal favorite is Squire Toby's Will in which the horror extends even to the protective ghosts because they are so freaky. The sense of the horror-target's reality just slipping away like sand was actually pretty terrifying as well as beautiful.

PEBKAC said:

I don't understand the love affair with Lovecraft. I read a couple of collections and had to force myself through them after the first couple of stories. For the most part they seemed to be the same story over and over and over. The mythos is interesting, but I find what others have done with it far more interesting. Please don't ban me from the Horror forum

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I would argue that, technically, Lovecraft was not a good writer. He was formulaic, yes, though I don't hold that against him. However, additionally, his characters were non-entities, he had little concept of human relationships, and his style was just absolute madness.

But he was truly original. He broke new ground with the mythos, and it was a concept that spoke to the modern period in a unique and completely on-spot way, which is ironic, considering what a Luddite he was. Yeah, okay, he did tend to trot out the same stage dressing every time, and yes, yes, okay, twittering idiot flutes in the mists, and batwinged crab-things, and boo-hiss swarthy people -- all right, we get it already, HP.

But despite his failings, he could spin a hell of a yarn, and he was frequently able to achieve both real creeps and real fun.

The Colour Out Of Space is one of the best horror shorts ever, imo. It is full of dread, horror, terror, tragic pathos, and lingering nerves. Maybe the next best for sheer fright-impact is The Horror of the Middle Span. The Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Dunwich Horror, The Shunned House, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward are classic horror memes delivered in a unique style. In the Walls of Eryx is an excellent example of scifi horror, presenting us with a thoroughly modern take on a classic prisoner tale. Its effect is in the setting rather than the plot.

And then there's the meat of the mythos -- all the gods and space critters. There's just something so giant-monster-hilarious about it all that a lot of the time, I'm just going along for the Lovecraft ride because it's a hoot. And I think that's an important part of the genre.

Lovecraft isn't going to be everyone's taste - gods, talk about criminal misuse of a thesaurus, right? - but he did tell some good stories, he did invent a sub-genre that has transformed a lot of modern pop culture, and he did give us a whole new set of giant space monsters. Gotta give him props for that.

PEBKAC said:

I don't understand the love affair with Lovecraft. I read a couple of collections and had to force myself through them after the first couple of stories. For the most part they seemed to be the same story over and over and over. The mythos is interesting, but I find what others have done with it far more interesting. Please don't ban me from the Horror forum

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His writing is not my favourite, but I have to admire the ingenuity. I guess he makes my list mainly because of his contribution to the genre - so enduring he got an entire subgenre named after him.

muravyets said:

LeFanu is really good at capturing the dream-like sense of reality slipping away from the victim of the horror. Carmilla is one of the best examples of the vampire's clinging, alluring obsession with her victim that gradually comes to take over the victim's life.

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Absolutely. Like a lot of these things the language is of its time but I find Carmilla stands up well to more modern works in terms of sheer atmosphere. I'm ashamed to admit I've not read much of his other work, but I'll keep an eye out.


I

would argue that, technically, Lovecraft was not a good writer. He was formulaic, yes, though I don't hold that against him. However, additionally, his characters were non-entities, he had little concept of human relationships, and his style was just absolute madness.

But he was truly original. He broke new ground with the mythos, and it was a concept that spoke to the modern period in a unique and completely on-spot way, which is ironic, considering what a Luddite he was. Yeah, okay, he did tend to trot out the same stage dressing every time, and yes, yes, okay, twittering idiot flutes in the mists, and batwinged crab-things, and boo-hiss swarthy people -- all right, we get it already, HP.

But despite his failings, he could spin a hell of a yarn, and he was frequently able to achieve both real creeps and real fun.

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It's the subtle, often self-mocking humour I enjoy most in Lovecraft. He's a very poor writer, in my opinion, but had an excellent imagination. Both of these things were probably informed by and exacerbated by his utter terror of the different and strange, and his inability to comfortably talk to people.

Anninyn said:

Absolutely. Like a lot of these things the language is of its time but I find Carmilla stands up well to more modern works in terms of sheer atmosphere. I'm ashamed to admit I've not read much of his other work, but I'll keep an eye out.


I

It's the subtle, often self-mocking humour I enjoy most in Lovecraft. He's a very poor writer, in my opinion, but had an excellent imagination. Both of these things were probably informed by and exacerbated by his utter terror of the different and strange, and his inability to comfortably talk to people.

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I agree, and also I think he was a lot more deliberate in his style than we often think. In one of my old anthologies, the afterword quotes a couple of letters he wrote to a friend about writing Imprisoned With the Pharaohs. He talks about his magazine contracting him to ghost write the story to be published under Harry Houdini's name, refers to the assignment as spinning a tale off a real event in which "that boob, Houdini" had some trouble on a trip to Egypt, and then tells how he finished the story by "..coughing up some of the most eldritch horror ever to stalk cloven-hooved out of the nether regions..." (I'm doing this from memory) and how his editor assures him the check is in the mail. He was clearly doing his trademark verbosity on purpose and, I think, largely for laughs.

PEBKAC said:

I don't understand the love affair with Lovecraft. I read a couple of collections and had to force myself through them after the first couple of stories. For the most part they seemed to be the same story over and over and over. The mythos is interesting, but I find what others have done with it far more interesting. Please don't ban me from the Horror forum

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Lovecraft is like the Shakespeare of horror. The characters are screwed, badly screwed, with no regrets from the writer about it.

I like that.

Tinman said:

Robert McCammon. F. Paul Wilson. Richard Matheson Sr.

I've never read R L Stine (too old when his books came out), but I think he has to be included. And I'm surprised no one has mentioned Dean Koontz, although I'm not a fan.

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The problem with including Koontz is this phrase from his website, "Writing Phantoms was one of the ten biggest mistakes of my life, ranking directly above that incident with the angry porcupine and the clown, about which I intend to say nothing more. Phantoms has been published in thirty-one languages and has been in print continuously for fifteen years, as I write this. Worldwide, it has sold almost six million copies in all editions. It has been well reviewed, and more than a few critics have called it a modern classic of its genre. Readers write to me by the hundreds every year, even this long after first publication, to tell me how much they like Phantoms. I enjoyed writing the book, and when I had to reread it to create a screenplay for the film version, I found it to be just the thrill ride that I had originally hoped to produce. Yet it is this novel, more than any other that earned for me the label of “horror writer,” which I never wanted, never embraced, and have ever since sought to shed."

Which can be found here: http://horrornovelreviews.com/2012/08/31/why-is-dean-koontz-loathed-in-such-heinous-fashion/

I wouldn't be surprised if 15 years after his death, nobody remembers he thought like that, though.