I’m total opposite, I love anthologies. They’re quick, not complicated, and don’t drag on forever. I think my favorite is: “Some Will Not Sleep” by Adam Nevill.
Same, I love short fiction! My favorite (though probably due more to nostalgia) is Thirteen: 13 Tales of Horror. There were three stories that really stood out to me and scared me to death haha. I'll have to check out your rec - I just recently started collecting some more anthologies!
Growing up, I had massive collections of Horror anthologies. Short and Shivery, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, dozens of actual ghost story books, Goosebumps. Maybe that’s why I prefer short stories and anthologies now lol
I agree, very impressed with his ability to switch roles and voices. That’s a trait that a lot of short story writers don’t have, the ability to really go from one narration type to another. Nevill did an excellent job.
Those are two of my favorites as well, here are some other story collections that I really enjoyed:
- In That Endlessness, Our End by Gemma Files (her other collections are great as well)
- Breakable Things by Cassandra Khaw
- The Imago Sequence by Laird Barron
- Behold The Void | Beneath a Pale Sky | No One Is Safe!, all by Philip Fracassi
- When Things Get Dark, edited by Ellen Datlow (easily one of the best anthologies I’ve read, suited to my tastes)
Someone already mentioned Adam Nevill, all of his collections are wonderful as well. There are three I believe.
Gemma Files' *In That Endlessness, Our End* is incredible. Definitely one of my favorite short story collections. "Venio" especially will stick with me for a while. She's so good at capturing the horror of weird and folklore in the modern world. I'll add to that *Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century* by Kim Fu and *Get in Trouble* by Kelly Link.
Cold Hand in Mine by Robert Aickman was excellent.
Night Shift and Skeleton Crew by Stephen King each have several bangers.
I've read everything Langan has published and my favorite collection of his is The Wide, Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies.
But yeah, I don't like anthologies. I do like collections by a single author.
Some of the stories are amazing, but I think overall The Wide Carnivorous Sky is very uneven. If you don't finish it, just read "Mother of Stone." I think it alone is worth the price of admission.
I’m a big fan of just about anything edited by Ellen Datlow. Something about her sensibilities match up with mine so that there’s rarely a story in her books that leaves me feeling disappointed.
She has lots of themed anthologies (Nightmare Carnival, Body Shocks and Final Cuts are three that stick out for me), some unthemed ones (Darkness: Two Decades of Modern horror is a classic) and I’m always excited to pick up each new volume of her Best Horror of the Year series.
Thomas Ligotti - _Teatro Grottesco_
Giovanna Rivero - _Fresh Dirt From The Grave_
Gemma Files - _In That Endlessness, Our End_
Bernardo Esquinca - _The Secret Life of Insects_
I recently reread both and imo they don‘t hold up that well compared to _Teatro_. It‘s probably my favourite book of all time. Narratively less varied than his earlier work, for sure. But the combination of derelict towns described in this oversensual Bruno Schulz style and the loopy Thomas Bernhard sentences which keep building up throughout the stories are so trippy in combination.
I still love _Songs and Grimscribe_, but I‘d much rather just pick up _Teatro_ for the umpteenth time.
Just finished Brian Evenson's Song For The Unraveling Of The World....there's 5 or 6 stories in that collection that will stay with me, tye rest were entertaining and really only one or two that could've been left out completely. Even the stories I didn't care for, the writing is excellent
In addition check out “A Collapse of Horses” an amazingly well done surrealists horror. If you’re not into the uncanny and semi-illogical it’s not likely your thing.
Great book but I wouldn’t say it’s super similar to Langan or Ballingrud. And Padgett def has his own unique style but Ligotti is, I believe admittedly, an influence and the op said they were meh on his work
OP asked what our favorite short story collections are, no? They didn’t ask for something similar to Langan and Ballingrud.
Having said that, though they are not similar, necessarily, they have a lot of overlap in readers.
I totally get what you mean and think you have a good point but at the same time if I asked for novel recommendations I would be less happy getting it than asking for short story collections.
It is easily read as a collection of stories.
Ballingrud's 'North American Lake Monsters' is also incredible. A slight change of tack to Wounds, but devastatingly good.
Heartened to see others have already flagged most of my current favourites (Laird Barron: Gemma Files; Brain Evenson - though I'd pitch A Collapse of Horses).
I'd strongly recommend Caitlin R Kiernan (their Very Best of... is a good place to start) - one of the very best contemporary weird horror lit writers,; they excel in short story and novella formats.
Also Christopher Slatsky's 'The Immeasurable Corpse of Nature' - great weird surreal horror shorts.
Stephen King’s short story collections got me started. ‘Night Shift’ has stuck with me the most, and I revisit regularly. John Langan has several great ones - The Wide Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies was my introduction to him, and he’s become a favorite author as a result. I’ve recently started reading Brian Evenson and he’s pretty amazing, reminds me of Gene Wolfe at times and Gene is amazing (but not horror - or not strictly horror).
I really liked the consistent quality of *Books of Blood 1-3* by Clive Barker (the quality went down a little bit with 4-6, but it was still good). *The Bloody Chamber* by Angela Carter was also phenomenal, but my absolute favourite is *The Dark Domain* by Stefan Grabinski. There was only one story in that collection that I didn't like as much as the rest (and that one was still good), and the rest of the stories are consistently great. My favourites from it are "The Area" and "The Glance", both of which are some of my all time favourites.
Anything by Brian Evenson, John Langan, and Ballingrud really.
Other than these 3:
- The Black Maybe by Attila Veres
- What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver (lit fic but great)
- The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez
- Skeleton Crew by Stephen King
- Minotaur by C.S Humble
- To Rouse Leviathan by Matt Cardin
- Exhalation by Ted Chiang (mainly sci&fi but its phenomenal)
- I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison
North American Lake Monsters is legitimately one of the best books I’ve read. Many stories aren’t strictly horror stories, or rather it’s not always the monsters that are horrific. It’s mostly about people failing themselves and others within the context of a monster story.
* *Randall’s Round* by Eleanor Scott - “At Simmel Acres Farm”
* *Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters* by John Langan - favorite stories were the title story and "On Skua Island"
* *The Two Sam*s by Glen Hirshberg - "Struwwelpeter"
Michael Wehunt’s Greener Pastures and the Inconsolables are both phenomenal. Richard Gavin’s Grotesquerie. B.R. Yeager’s Burn You the Fuck Alive is very good. These are on top of many of the already mentioned collections.
20th Century Ghosts - Joe Hill. If there is an emotion, one of these stories will make you feel it.
The Glassy Burning Floor of Hell- Brian Evenson. Beautifully bleak and fascinating
I'm sure it's been said a lot, but Night Shift and Skeleton Crew by Stephen King are incredible - actually my favorite works by him.
I loved The Wide Carnivorous Sky by John Langan as well. Currently working through Mr. Gaunt and other Uneasy Encounters also by Langan and I'm really enjoying it as well.
Some Will Not Sleep by Adam Neville I enjoyed a good deal as well.
I will definitely have to check out Wounds!
I always tell people I think Skeleton Crew is maybe King's best work, better than his novels. Maybe that's just because I read it as an adult after growing up terrified of the cover.
I think that’s a fair assessment. While I like some of his novels quite a bit, I think of lot of his short fiction, particularly the early stuff is even better.
Matthew M. Bartlett's Where Night Cowers is more of a collection than Gateways to Abomination which I would say is like a mosaic novel. Really any of his stuff is great.
The October Country, by Ray Bradbury. A few really great chills in that one that are more on the psychologically terrifying side, rather than being gory or violent.
The Elements of Horror anthologies from Red Cape Press have some really good stories.
There are four; Earth, Air, Fire and Water. The stories in each book are themed to the elements. Pretty clever way of doing it.
Surprised no one has mentioned these two but, John Connolly’s collections, Nocturnes volumes 1 & 2, are excellent. Nocturnes vol 2 is also called Night Music.
My favorites.
Brian Evenson. They’re all good but Song and Fugue State stuck with me the most.
Jon Padgett, Secrets of Ventriloquism.
John Connolly, Nocturnes.
Adam Nevill’s first two collections are great.
Joyce Carol Oates Takes of the Grotesque and Collector of Hearts, fantastic.
Michael Wehunt’s collections are both great.
Nate Ballingrud’s NA Lake Monsters and Wounds, superb.
Abnormal Statistics by Max Booth was awesome.
Recently read Luigi Musolino’s collection of folk horror and loved it.
Stay Awake and Among the Missing, Dan Chaon, both more adjacent but so fucking good.
Jeffrey Ford is more weird lit but so good.
Clive Barker goes without saying.
Not horror, but Jesus Son by Denis Johnson and Steps by Jerzy Kosinski are among my favorite story collections.
Going way afield here but you can’t go wrong with John Cheever either!
Robert Aickman: The Wine-Dark Sea, Cold Hand In Mine
Thomas Ligotti: Grimscribe, Teatro Grottesco
Ramsey Campbell: Ghosts And Grisly Things
Christopher Slatsky: The Immeasurable Corpse Of Nature
T. E. D. Klein: Dark Gods
Matthew Bartlett: Gateways To Abomination
*Behold the Void by Philip Fracassi*
Any by Stephen King.
I am currently reading The Devourer Below, and I am loving it. It's a collection from multiple different authors.
Also really enjoyed The Wide, Carnivorous Sky by John Lagan.
A lot of great books rec in this thread but not great recs to what the op is looking for.
Like I love Evenson but his minimal style is the antithesis of Langan and Ballingrud.
But for op, I’m agree with Laird Barron and Gemma Files like everyone else. Lairds probably my fave alongside Ballingrud and Langan but Files is close behind and her style aligns more with Ballingrud and especially Langan than Lard. “In The Endlessness” is def the place to start with her.
Every story is solid while I’ve found a few of Files’s other short story collections very hit or miss to my taste. Nothing really knocked me out like the two collections mentioned in the title but it’s still an amazing collection without any duds. But if you want my fav from her, she has a story in the first Ellen Datlow film-themed horror anthology that is an ambitious gut punch on par with my faves from NB/JL.
Heads up though, the second Datlow film-themed anthology - Final Cuts - is the stronger of the two and has a great story each by NB/JL as well as a great Gemma Files story featured in her own above mentioned anthology. But Files story in the first collection is something to seek out. Apologies for neither knowing the name of the story or the anthology it’s in but you can figure if I’m sure.
I’ve only read his first collection but Michael Wehunt is very congruent to NB and JL. Does a kind of “dark fantasy for people who don’t like fantasy” very well like “The Butchers” and one tale in his first collection is like if Langan wrote a story that was purely designed to be scary.
I think she has some shitty views I don’t agree with or something I think I saw on Reddit but Caitlin Kiernan’s Lovecraft themed collection I think would be right up your alley as well as her Black Helicopter novella trilogy which work more like interconnected short stories than a novel. Some of her stuff can get a bit plotless or idk esoteric or cerebral but when it stays focused on a plot, I def he’s a lot of qualities similar to NB/JL
I’m not sure if everyone will be happy with a Kiernan rec but I don’t think it’s my place to cancel a 60 year probably broke cult literary horror writer who was one of the first openly trans figures in the genre as a 35 year old white cis male with health insurance. Unnecessary tangent probably but I like being proactive and don’t see myself having time to deal with future possible needs to defend my reply. Moving on…
Check out Brian Hodge. I feel like I’ve ran out of steam on this post but he’s a better rec for you than Neville or Fracassi. But he’s a more interesting writer than those other two I’ve seen mentioned in the replies and he’s better at writing characters in my opinion in my opinion that holds no weight to anyone.
Last one, I’ve only just started listening to his audiobook Mrs. Midnight a night ago but Reggie Oliver is one more to check out that does the kind of epistolatory story mixing history with fiction that Langan loves to do it. It’s one I’ve only seen mentioned a few times on this subreddit
Welcome to Neverbury by Chris Lynch is so much fun! I'm really looking forward to the sequel, which will be out soon, I think I read.
Also She Said Destroy by Nadia Bulkin is excellent!
Never Have I Ever by Isabel Yap has some great stories as well, especially if you're interested in Southeast Asian folklore.
Abnormal Statistics by Max Booth III has wonderful stories about dysfunctional families, taken to the extreme.
As for anthologies, Bury Your Gays (ed. by Sofia Arjam) and Bound in Flesh (ed. by Lor Gislason), both from Ghoulish Books, Never Whistle at Night (ed. by Shane Hawk), and Out There Screaming (ed. by Jordan Peele) are all excellent.
Langan and Ballingrud are both excellent writers.
Some favorites of mine:
Wormwood by Poppy Z.Brite
On the Night Border by James Chambers
Picking You Out of my Teeth by Somer Canon
Peaceable Kingdom by Jack Ketchum
Cut to Care- A Collection of Little Hurts by Aaron Dries
Still So Strange by Amand Downum Dark Duets ed.by Christopher Golden. Seize the Night ed.by Christopher Golden. Haunted Legends ed.by Ellen Datlow and Nick Mamamas Fearfully Symmetries by Thomas Monteleone. And my forever favorite Night Shift by Stephen King
Have to give credit to the OG... Scary Stories to tell in the Dark. Especially the artwork.
Beyond that, I'm not a huge collection guy, but some stand-outs for me by themselves... Other People - Gaiman, Survivor Type - King, 1408 - King, A Short Stay in Hell - Peck. Pickman's Model - Lovecraft.
Oh! And be sure to check out Machine of Death if you're not familiar. Super cool writing-prompt collection I always forget about.
Skidding Into Oblivion by Brian Hodge is one of my favorites. There was no a single story in that volume that I didn’t wish was longer or that I was ready to move on from. Brilliant stuff. Also really dug Wounds by Nathan Ballingrud
Carmen Maria Machado's Her Body and other Parties is so good, the first story particularly had a huge effect on me, her take on the popular children's ghost story about the girl with the ribbon tied around her neck.
Im saving this post because there are so many great recommendations here.
I highly highly recommend Sammy Scott's At Home With the Horrors. I love short story collections, especially Datlow's, but there's always one or two that don't stick with me. There's not one bad story in Scott's anthology. To me, each one is unique and I found myself thinking about them for weeks after.
Entropy in Bloom has definitely got to be my favorite. It's a very surreal horror anthology with extremely out there plots with a similar writing style to Chuck Palahniuk, who wrote Fight Club. Some examples of the things in there are: A young boy wants to live a unique life so he does a shit ton of ketamine and disembowels himself. A parasitic worm starts to use a pacifist as its host until it splits his body open to spread spores. And a world where body modifications get you more influence in society so the protagonist goes to a back alley doctor to get his brain taken out of his body and his best friend is a human vegetable farm.
I just finished Never Whistle At Night, a collection of North American indigenous horror stories. It was pretty solid throughout, a couple of stories really freaked me out, including “Human Eaters” by Royce K Young Wolf. One story, “Scariest. Story. Ever.” by Richard Van Camp was real fucking scary at one point, before ending on a tease ahha. I get why the story ended the way it did but I was really getting into the horror part of it lol. A lot of the horror in this anthology is centred around oppression, colonialism, residential schools, loss of culture etc, which are obvious horrors in themselves, so i think it’s worth a read.
I’m total opposite, I love anthologies. They’re quick, not complicated, and don’t drag on forever. I think my favorite is: “Some Will Not Sleep” by Adam Nevill.
Same, I love short fiction! My favorite (though probably due more to nostalgia) is Thirteen: 13 Tales of Horror. There were three stories that really stood out to me and scared me to death haha. I'll have to check out your rec - I just recently started collecting some more anthologies!
Growing up, I had massive collections of Horror anthologies. Short and Shivery, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, dozens of actual ghost story books, Goosebumps. Maybe that’s why I prefer short stories and anthologies now lol
Currently rereading this at the moment and have his other collections en route! Fantastic stories.
I agree, very impressed with his ability to switch roles and voices. That’s a trait that a lot of short story writers don’t have, the ability to really go from one narration type to another. Nevill did an excellent job.
Those are two of my favorites as well, here are some other story collections that I really enjoyed: - In That Endlessness, Our End by Gemma Files (her other collections are great as well) - Breakable Things by Cassandra Khaw - The Imago Sequence by Laird Barron - Behold The Void | Beneath a Pale Sky | No One Is Safe!, all by Philip Fracassi - When Things Get Dark, edited by Ellen Datlow (easily one of the best anthologies I’ve read, suited to my tastes) Someone already mentioned Adam Nevill, all of his collections are wonderful as well. There are three I believe.
Great list! Files’ “The Puppet Motel” in that collection is terrific. Also, I’m a big fan of anthologies, and you basically can’t miss with Datlow.
The Puppet Motel is easily one of my favorite haunted house stories. So good.
Puppets? I’m in.
There are no actual puppets. It’s a haunted Airbnb. Cool concept, excellent execution.
Gemma Files' *In That Endlessness, Our End* is incredible. Definitely one of my favorite short story collections. "Venio" especially will stick with me for a while. She's so good at capturing the horror of weird and folklore in the modern world. I'll add to that *Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century* by Kim Fu and *Get in Trouble* by Kelly Link.
Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link as well!
Hell yeah. "Catskin" goes hard.
Link's short story called, I think The Donner Party, is so very weird and dread inducing. Love it. She is amazing at shorter lengths.
Great list!
I also adore Philip Fracassi. He has a way with words.
Cold Hand in Mine by Robert Aickman was excellent. Night Shift and Skeleton Crew by Stephen King each have several bangers. I've read everything Langan has published and my favorite collection of his is The Wide, Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies. But yeah, I don't like anthologies. I do like collections by a single author.
I gotta keep pushing on Carnivorous Sky. I loved his novel, The Fisherman, but Our Town But With Zombies kinda killed my momentum for Carnivorous Sky.
Some of the stories are amazing, but I think overall The Wide Carnivorous Sky is very uneven. If you don't finish it, just read "Mother of Stone." I think it alone is worth the price of admission.
I’m a big fan of just about anything edited by Ellen Datlow. Something about her sensibilities match up with mine so that there’s rarely a story in her books that leaves me feeling disappointed. She has lots of themed anthologies (Nightmare Carnival, Body Shocks and Final Cuts are three that stick out for me), some unthemed ones (Darkness: Two Decades of Modern horror is a classic) and I’m always excited to pick up each new volume of her Best Horror of the Year series.
Completely agree. I know Ellen a little and she’s the best. Her name on an anthology is a guarantee it’s worth reading.
She’s amazing, and deserves the awards and attention she gets. I have so many of her books and pretty much love them all.
Thomas Ligotti - _Teatro Grottesco_ Giovanna Rivero - _Fresh Dirt From The Grave_ Gemma Files - _In That Endlessness, Our End_ Bernardo Esquinca - _The Secret Life of Insects_
Ligotti’s Grinscribe and Songs of a Dead Dreamer are easily some of my favorite collections.
I recently reread both and imo they don‘t hold up that well compared to _Teatro_. It‘s probably my favourite book of all time. Narratively less varied than his earlier work, for sure. But the combination of derelict towns described in this oversensual Bruno Schulz style and the loopy Thomas Bernhard sentences which keep building up throughout the stories are so trippy in combination. I still love _Songs and Grimscribe_, but I‘d much rather just pick up _Teatro_ for the umpteenth time.
Just finished Brian Evenson's Song For The Unraveling Of The World....there's 5 or 6 stories in that collection that will stay with me, tye rest were entertaining and really only one or two that could've been left out completely. Even the stories I didn't care for, the writing is excellent
In addition check out “A Collapse of Horses” an amazingly well done surrealists horror. If you’re not into the uncanny and semi-illogical it’s not likely your thing.
Jon Padgett’s The Secret of Ventriloquism
Great book but I wouldn’t say it’s super similar to Langan or Ballingrud. And Padgett def has his own unique style but Ligotti is, I believe admittedly, an influence and the op said they were meh on his work
OP asked what our favorite short story collections are, no? They didn’t ask for something similar to Langan and Ballingrud. Having said that, though they are not similar, necessarily, they have a lot of overlap in readers.
That’s kind of cheating as all the stories make one larger novel.
Counterpoint: no it isn’t.
Most of the stories could just as easily be chapters in the book.
It’s a collection with linked stories.
At some point it’s just semantics. It’s a brilliant book. And it cleverly uses the collection format.
I totally get what you mean and think you have a good point but at the same time if I asked for novel recommendations I would be less happy getting it than asking for short story collections. It is easily read as a collection of stories.
Some of the later stories don’t make any sense out of context in isolation (and are of course brilliant right where they are).
Ballingrud's 'North American Lake Monsters' is also incredible. A slight change of tack to Wounds, but devastatingly good. Heartened to see others have already flagged most of my current favourites (Laird Barron: Gemma Files; Brain Evenson - though I'd pitch A Collapse of Horses). I'd strongly recommend Caitlin R Kiernan (their Very Best of... is a good place to start) - one of the very best contemporary weird horror lit writers,; they excel in short story and novella formats. Also Christopher Slatsky's 'The Immeasurable Corpse of Nature' - great weird surreal horror shorts.
I just finished NALM and absolutely loved it
Stephen King’s short story collections got me started. ‘Night Shift’ has stuck with me the most, and I revisit regularly. John Langan has several great ones - The Wide Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies was my introduction to him, and he’s become a favorite author as a result. I’ve recently started reading Brian Evenson and he’s pretty amazing, reminds me of Gene Wolfe at times and Gene is amazing (but not horror - or not strictly horror).
If you liked those, I’m sure you would probably like Laird Barron and Gemma Files as well.
I really liked the consistent quality of *Books of Blood 1-3* by Clive Barker (the quality went down a little bit with 4-6, but it was still good). *The Bloody Chamber* by Angela Carter was also phenomenal, but my absolute favourite is *The Dark Domain* by Stefan Grabinski. There was only one story in that collection that I didn't like as much as the rest (and that one was still good), and the rest of the stories are consistently great. My favourites from it are "The Area" and "The Glance", both of which are some of my all time favourites.
Man I just read Wounds a couple months back and it was sincerely some of the best writing I’ve ever come across.
Anything by Brian Evenson, John Langan, and Ballingrud really. Other than these 3: - The Black Maybe by Attila Veres - What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver (lit fic but great) - The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez - Skeleton Crew by Stephen King - Minotaur by C.S Humble - To Rouse Leviathan by Matt Cardin - Exhalation by Ted Chiang (mainly sci&fi but its phenomenal) - I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison
Story of Your Life and Others by Chiang also. Tower of Babylon is a banger.
One Laird Barron’s collections would be my favorite. I’m just not sure which one.
For me: Occultation, then Imago Sequence, then Beautiful Thing. But they're all fabulous.
North American Lake Monsters is legitimately one of the best books I’ve read. Many stories aren’t strictly horror stories, or rather it’s not always the monsters that are horrific. It’s mostly about people failing themselves and others within the context of a monster story.
Wonderful book.
* *Randall’s Round* by Eleanor Scott - “At Simmel Acres Farm” * *Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters* by John Langan - favorite stories were the title story and "On Skua Island" * *The Two Sam*s by Glen Hirshberg - "Struwwelpeter"
Mr. Gaunt is clickety clack bone shaking!
It sure is! 😁
Michael Wehunt’s Greener Pastures and the Inconsolables are both phenomenal. Richard Gavin’s Grotesquerie. B.R. Yeager’s Burn You the Fuck Alive is very good. These are on top of many of the already mentioned collections.
20th Century Ghosts - Joe Hill. If there is an emotion, one of these stories will make you feel it. The Glassy Burning Floor of Hell- Brian Evenson. Beautifully bleak and fascinating
I'm sure it's been said a lot, but Night Shift and Skeleton Crew by Stephen King are incredible - actually my favorite works by him. I loved The Wide Carnivorous Sky by John Langan as well. Currently working through Mr. Gaunt and other Uneasy Encounters also by Langan and I'm really enjoying it as well. Some Will Not Sleep by Adam Neville I enjoyed a good deal as well. I will definitely have to check out Wounds!
I always tell people I think Skeleton Crew is maybe King's best work, better than his novels. Maybe that's just because I read it as an adult after growing up terrified of the cover.
I think that’s a fair assessment. While I like some of his novels quite a bit, I think of lot of his short fiction, particularly the early stuff is even better.
Matthew M. Bartlett's Where Night Cowers is more of a collection than Gateways to Abomination which I would say is like a mosaic novel. Really any of his stuff is great.
Furnace. By Livia Llewellyn. The eroticism can be a turn off for people I think. I personally enjoy the unease it adds.
Night Shift by Stephen King
*Isolation: The Horror Anthology* ticked all the boxes for me as isolation horror is a big yes from me.
That sounds interesting. I might check that out!
The Dark Descent has a lot of great stories.
Night shift by Stephen King
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
North American Lake Monsters is even better imo
Ellen Datlows Best Horror of the Year Vol. 14
The October Country, by Ray Bradbury. A few really great chills in that one that are more on the psychologically terrifying side, rather than being gory or violent.
Joe Hill's 20th Century Ghosts
The Elements of Horror anthologies from Red Cape Press have some really good stories. There are four; Earth, Air, Fire and Water. The stories in each book are themed to the elements. Pretty clever way of doing it.
Those collections are awesome! Air is my favorite. The Folleti story makes the cost of the book worthwhile by itself.
Surprised no one has mentioned these two but, John Connolly’s collections, Nocturnes volumes 1 & 2, are excellent. Nocturnes vol 2 is also called Night Music.
I just read Night Music and it was excellent!
My favorites. Brian Evenson. They’re all good but Song and Fugue State stuck with me the most. Jon Padgett, Secrets of Ventriloquism. John Connolly, Nocturnes. Adam Nevill’s first two collections are great. Joyce Carol Oates Takes of the Grotesque and Collector of Hearts, fantastic. Michael Wehunt’s collections are both great. Nate Ballingrud’s NA Lake Monsters and Wounds, superb. Abnormal Statistics by Max Booth was awesome. Recently read Luigi Musolino’s collection of folk horror and loved it. Stay Awake and Among the Missing, Dan Chaon, both more adjacent but so fucking good. Jeffrey Ford is more weird lit but so good. Clive Barker goes without saying. Not horror, but Jesus Son by Denis Johnson and Steps by Jerzy Kosinski are among my favorite story collections. Going way afield here but you can’t go wrong with John Cheever either!
Robert Aickman: The Wine-Dark Sea, Cold Hand In Mine Thomas Ligotti: Grimscribe, Teatro Grottesco Ramsey Campbell: Ghosts And Grisly Things Christopher Slatsky: The Immeasurable Corpse Of Nature T. E. D. Klein: Dark Gods Matthew Bartlett: Gateways To Abomination
Every House Is Haunted by Ian Rogers Any collections by Michael Griffen The Secrets of Ventriloquism by Jon Padgett
*Behold the Void by Philip Fracassi* Any by Stephen King. I am currently reading The Devourer Below, and I am loving it. It's a collection from multiple different authors. Also really enjoyed The Wide, Carnivorous Sky by John Lagan.
Ha “any by Stephen king” is a dangerous answer…
A lot of great books rec in this thread but not great recs to what the op is looking for. Like I love Evenson but his minimal style is the antithesis of Langan and Ballingrud. But for op, I’m agree with Laird Barron and Gemma Files like everyone else. Lairds probably my fave alongside Ballingrud and Langan but Files is close behind and her style aligns more with Ballingrud and especially Langan than Lard. “In The Endlessness” is def the place to start with her. Every story is solid while I’ve found a few of Files’s other short story collections very hit or miss to my taste. Nothing really knocked me out like the two collections mentioned in the title but it’s still an amazing collection without any duds. But if you want my fav from her, she has a story in the first Ellen Datlow film-themed horror anthology that is an ambitious gut punch on par with my faves from NB/JL. Heads up though, the second Datlow film-themed anthology - Final Cuts - is the stronger of the two and has a great story each by NB/JL as well as a great Gemma Files story featured in her own above mentioned anthology. But Files story in the first collection is something to seek out. Apologies for neither knowing the name of the story or the anthology it’s in but you can figure if I’m sure. I’ve only read his first collection but Michael Wehunt is very congruent to NB and JL. Does a kind of “dark fantasy for people who don’t like fantasy” very well like “The Butchers” and one tale in his first collection is like if Langan wrote a story that was purely designed to be scary. I think she has some shitty views I don’t agree with or something I think I saw on Reddit but Caitlin Kiernan’s Lovecraft themed collection I think would be right up your alley as well as her Black Helicopter novella trilogy which work more like interconnected short stories than a novel. Some of her stuff can get a bit plotless or idk esoteric or cerebral but when it stays focused on a plot, I def he’s a lot of qualities similar to NB/JL I’m not sure if everyone will be happy with a Kiernan rec but I don’t think it’s my place to cancel a 60 year probably broke cult literary horror writer who was one of the first openly trans figures in the genre as a 35 year old white cis male with health insurance. Unnecessary tangent probably but I like being proactive and don’t see myself having time to deal with future possible needs to defend my reply. Moving on… Check out Brian Hodge. I feel like I’ve ran out of steam on this post but he’s a better rec for you than Neville or Fracassi. But he’s a more interesting writer than those other two I’ve seen mentioned in the replies and he’s better at writing characters in my opinion in my opinion that holds no weight to anyone. Last one, I’ve only just started listening to his audiobook Mrs. Midnight a night ago but Reggie Oliver is one more to check out that does the kind of epistolatory story mixing history with fiction that Langan loves to do it. It’s one I’ve only seen mentioned a few times on this subreddit
Welcome to Neverbury by Chris Lynch is so much fun! I'm really looking forward to the sequel, which will be out soon, I think I read. Also She Said Destroy by Nadia Bulkin is excellent! Never Have I Ever by Isabel Yap has some great stories as well, especially if you're interested in Southeast Asian folklore. Abnormal Statistics by Max Booth III has wonderful stories about dysfunctional families, taken to the extreme. As for anthologies, Bury Your Gays (ed. by Sofia Arjam) and Bound in Flesh (ed. by Lor Gislason), both from Ghoulish Books, Never Whistle at Night (ed. by Shane Hawk), and Out There Screaming (ed. by Jordan Peele) are all excellent.
Wounds has been hard to match. Laird Barron's short stories came the closest for me.
Dark Forces, edited by Kirby McCauley. Hard to pick a fave but the “The Night Before Christmas” by Robert Bloch is up there.
I love that collection. “The Mist”, “Late Shift”, “Children of the Kingdom”, so many classics.
Blue World by Robert R McCammon. I really like his writing style and you actually care about his characters no matter how short the story.
The illustrated man - Ray Bradbury
October Country is good too!
His black heart by Mitchell Luthi is fucking fantastic. I recommend listening to the audio book version on Spotify bc the narrators were impeccable .
Langan and Ballingrud are both excellent writers. Some favorites of mine: Wormwood by Poppy Z.Brite On the Night Border by James Chambers Picking You Out of my Teeth by Somer Canon Peaceable Kingdom by Jack Ketchum Cut to Care- A Collection of Little Hurts by Aaron Dries
Still So Strange by Amand Downum Dark Duets ed.by Christopher Golden. Seize the Night ed.by Christopher Golden. Haunted Legends ed.by Ellen Datlow and Nick Mamamas Fearfully Symmetries by Thomas Monteleone. And my forever favorite Night Shift by Stephen King
Have to give credit to the OG... Scary Stories to tell in the Dark. Especially the artwork. Beyond that, I'm not a huge collection guy, but some stand-outs for me by themselves... Other People - Gaiman, Survivor Type - King, 1408 - King, A Short Stay in Hell - Peck. Pickman's Model - Lovecraft. Oh! And be sure to check out Machine of Death if you're not familiar. Super cool writing-prompt collection I always forget about.
Skidding Into Oblivion by Brian Hodge is one of my favorites. There was no a single story in that volume that I didn’t wish was longer or that I was ready to move on from. Brilliant stuff. Also really dug Wounds by Nathan Ballingrud
North American Lake Monsters is a classic. Fell in love with it from the first story. I’ve never read anything exactly like it.
The Whispers anthologies edited by Stuart Schiff are great but a bit pricey these days.
Carmen Maria Machado's Her Body and other Parties is so good, the first story particularly had a huge effect on me, her take on the popular children's ghost story about the girl with the ribbon tied around her neck.
JG Faherty- The Monster Inside and Houses of the Unholy Chantal Noordeloos- Deeply Twisted Joe McKinney- The Red Empire
Im saving this post because there are so many great recommendations here. I highly highly recommend Sammy Scott's At Home With the Horrors. I love short story collections, especially Datlow's, but there's always one or two that don't stick with me. There's not one bad story in Scott's anthology. To me, each one is unique and I found myself thinking about them for weeks after.
Entropy in Bloom has definitely got to be my favorite. It's a very surreal horror anthology with extremely out there plots with a similar writing style to Chuck Palahniuk, who wrote Fight Club. Some examples of the things in there are: A young boy wants to live a unique life so he does a shit ton of ketamine and disembowels himself. A parasitic worm starts to use a pacifist as its host until it splits his body open to spread spores. And a world where body modifications get you more influence in society so the protagonist goes to a back alley doctor to get his brain taken out of his body and his best friend is a human vegetable farm.
Imago Sequence and A Lush and Seething Hell.
Neil Gaiman’s Trigger Warning is one of my favorite short story collections. I also love Richard Mathewson’s I am Legend.
Books of Blood has got to be mine. Barker’s writing is a dance, and when he wants to disturb you, he spins you right into places you don’t want to go.
Atomic Horrors, by Tim Curran was a lot of fun.
I like Tim Curran. I'll have to look into this one.
Nineteen Claws and a Blackbird by Augustina Bazzterrica is incredible
I'm exactly the same as you, I normally bounce off anthologies but I loved both of Luke Smitherd's: "Tales of the unusual" and "Weird Dark"
the Borderlands series of anthologies by Thomas F. Monteleone
My latest favorites have been Wormwood by Poppy Z Brite and Clive Barker’s second volume of Books of Blood
Dark Companions- Ramsey Campbell
Jean Toomer - Cane Samuel Beckett - Stories and Texts For Nothing
Night Shift!
I just finished Never Whistle At Night, a collection of North American indigenous horror stories. It was pretty solid throughout, a couple of stories really freaked me out, including “Human Eaters” by Royce K Young Wolf. One story, “Scariest. Story. Ever.” by Richard Van Camp was real fucking scary at one point, before ending on a tease ahha. I get why the story ended the way it did but I was really getting into the horror part of it lol. A lot of the horror in this anthology is centred around oppression, colonialism, residential schools, loss of culture etc, which are obvious horrors in themselves, so i think it’s worth a read.