WELCOME TO THE SCARY ZONE

This is where I'd like to talk about the more chilling things in life. I'm a huge horror fan. I love to read some of the modern masters of this genre. Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Anne Rice, just to name a few. I've put some links at the bottom of this page to take you to pages about some of my favourite authors. Although I read a lot of books, and all different kinds at that, my first love is the horror book. I first got hooked on them way back in the seventies when Stephen King published "Carrie". I devoured that book. After that whenever Stephen King would publish a new book I would run out and get it. I started collecting his hard cover books and have quite a few shelves full of his works. My favourite one of his has got to be "The Stand". It's not really what I'd call horror, but it was one of those books that I couldn't put down. The constant struggle between good and evil. The thing that frightened me the most in that book wasn't the whole end of the world thing and the monsters that were surviving, but the fact that a virus like the one he writes about could actually exist now and could be accidentally released into the atmosphere. Just thinking about it sends shivers down my spine. One of his books that scared the hell out of me was The Shining. I could read that book in broad daylight in a room full of people and still the little hairs on the back of my neck would stand on end. A truly great book. (Too bad the movie was so bad) Actually I find that most movies made from Stephen King novels bomb. The only one that I found even remotely close to the book was Pet Semetary. They did a good job on that one. And I guess Salems' Lot was pretty good too.

I started reading John Saul when I was pretty young too. I remember his book "Suffer the Children". His books were a little more shocking than Stephen King's, where King was more into the psychological horror, Saul was more into the right in your face horror. Saul's books, I found, were mostly about children, usually possessed children. They were deeply disturbing but I loved them anyway.

I'm also a fan of books by Clive Barker and Peter Straub. They have both collaborated with Stephen King at one point or another but they definitely have styles of their own. Someone that I've only recently discovered (as in the last 5 years or so) is Dean Koontz. He reminds me a lot of Stephen King in the early years. (I find that I don't enjoy many of King's newer releases) Koontz is really coming into his own. He's had a few of his books made into movies and judging by the amount of books he's already written, the "big time movie producers" have quite a lot of material to choose from.

I started reading Anne Rice when the "Interview with a Vampire" movie was released. It seemed that that was all everyone was talking about so I thought I'd read it before I saw the movie (I always think that the books are better anyway). Well, I did it, and I enjoyed it, and then I saw the movie and you know what? I enjoyed that too. I've read quite a few of her books now, not all of them, but quite a lot. I find her to be more of a romantic horror writer and not a slasher horror writer. Make sense?

Well, here are a few links that I've found to take you to some pages on the authors I've mentioned here. If you haven't read any of their material yet, you should.

Even though he wouldn't be considered a horror author, I love reading books by Michael Crichton too. Jurassic Park, Sphere, Congo to name but a few. He also created the television show ER (which I never miss). So here's a link to a site about him.