My favorite scary books

I'll be honest, this book sticks in my mind mostly for the sex scenes, because I read it at a much younger age than was probably appropriate :-). Still, there's not much creepier than the scene where that first partial nude body was found on the beach.

Skipp and Spector are quite a pair. Always writing together, they essentially created the "splatterpunk" subgenre of horror fiction, featuring fast pacing, extreme violence, and a rock-and-roll aesthetic. The Cleanup is a vigilante story gone way, way too far. If you think you might be interested in these guys, but don't want to commit to a novel, Dead Lines is a collection of short stories loosely tied together by a surrounding narrative. Great fun. Trivia: Skipp and Spector were two of the co-writers of the classic comedy horror film Fright Night, and they also collaborated on Nightmare on Elm Street 5.

Schow is another splatterpunk maven, and The Kill Riff is a great revenge story. A Vietnam vet whose daughter was trampled by the crowd at a rock concert exacts revenge on the individual band members.

Despite his spotty performance in the '80s and '90s, Steve is still my go-to horror guy. If I were asked what his best work is, I'd have to choose The Stand, but It is definitely his scariest in my opinion. I know it's a great big doorstop of a thing, but trust me, it's worth it.

Well, I've finally hit something written in the past 10 years. In fact, The Terror just came out a few months ago. I was privileged to read it pre-press, because I reviewed it for Library Journal.

Simmons is best known for haunting and cerebral science fiction, but The Terror is more like historical fantasy. A group of sailors in search of the Northwest Passage is trapped in the ice. While they fight off the threats of frostbite, scurvy, and each other, there's something else out there that wants them dead, too. This is a highly suspenseful page-turner. Highly recommended.

Talk about a classic! Robert Neville owns the world during the day, when the vampires are asleep, but at night his world shrinks to his suburban home, where he lives under siege. But for how long?

I'll be the first to admit that Ms. Rice does tend to go on, but the first three books in both of her signature series' (The Vampire Chronicles and The Mayfair Witches) are incredible work. I think her best book is Cry to Heaven, but there's not a shred of horror in that one, so I'm picking Lestat for my obligatory Anne Rice nod.

Ask any librarian and they'll tell you that kids can't get enough of Schwartz's collections of ghostly tales. He's a folklorist by trade, but he has an incredible ear for tension in a story. I'll never forget the first time I read "Wait 'Til Martin Comes". Shivers run up my spine even now!

This is a bit of a departure. Most people wouldn't consider this a horror novel, and in fact, neither would I. It's a first-contact science fiction novel, and it's closest parallel is probably a book like The Mote in God's Eye by Niven and Pournelle. Having said that, though, the climax and denouement of Russel's novel is one of the most terrifying things I've ever read. I won't tell you any more. Just read it. Now.

Ah, yes. The best for last. "The Pit and the Pendulum". "The Cask of Amontillado". "The Tell-Tale Heart". "Hop-Frog". Poe created the horror genre out of thin air, as he did with the detective story, and no-one will ever surpass him.