I wouldn't put a lot of stock in my picks. There are a ton of horror writers I have never read anything by. I've never read a Stephen King novel for instance. I tried to read Bag of Bones but dropped it after the first 100 pages failed to grab me. My problem is I read very slowly. This means a novel takes me several weeks to a month to finish (I read a lot of short stories as well) so I only end up reading about 5 to 10 novels in a year. Because of this I have to get excited to read something by the blurb on it's back cover and Amazon reviews to give it a shot and then it needs to hook me pretty fast.

That being said I did really enjoy Fortress Draconis by Stackpole and the second book of that series, When Dragons Rage, even more.

Well I will take a look at Fortress Draconis earlier then. You should have stuck with Bag of Bones, it got really, really good.

I love reading people's reactions to King's stuff, because it's all over the place.

Now, I thought all of Bag of Bones was good except the ending-thought it was a little too far out there.

Maybe this isn't exactly what the thread calls for, but any anthology that Ellen Datlow edits I buy. I'm slowly going through The Best Horror of the Year 1 and Lovecraft Unbound(both Christmas presents), and when I get my taxes back I'm going to pick up her Poe anthology.

And while I'm on anthologies,
I never read an antho or collection straight through. Here are the authors I read first(the ones who currently make regular appearances)
Conrad Williams
Tim Lebbon
Joe R. Lansdale
Caitlin R. Kiernan
Laird Barron
Michael Marshall
Glen Hirshberg
Christopher Golden
John Langan
Kealan Patrick Burke

And since I can't stop at 5:
6. Caitlin R. Kiernan
7. Joe Hill
8. Patrick McGrath
9. Gene Wolfe
10.Jeff J. Marriotte

Damn, I've got my eye on both the Poe and the Lovecraft. Almost grabbed Lovecraft Unbound the other night.

If we're including dead authors my list shapes out differently. I read a lot of the old classic horror writers. M.R. James, William Hope Hodgson, J. Sheridan LeFanu and E.F Benson would take up spots 3-5 with Ramsey Campbell still in at #1.

I'm with you on the ending. About 4/5 of the way through I was thinking "this is the greatest, best written, most atmospheric thing King has ever written...then there was the ending...oh well, as a whole I still thought the book was very good.

It just started too slow for me. In those first 100 pages I remember the protagonist thought he saw the corpse of his wife under the bed reaching out to snatch something he dropped. That kept me going for a bit but there wasn't anymore supernatural occurances afterwards that I recall before I stopped reading it. I guess I get a little impaitient for the spooky stuff.

Thanks, I'm honorerd beyond belief to be included in your top five--that's some stellar list and I admire all of them more than I can say.

~Lisa

Monica J. O'Rourke
Stephen King
Dean Koontz
Michael Palmer
Bentley Little

Welcome to the coolest board on the net.

You didn't happen to read Death Instinct, did you?

Michael Palmer? I've never read any of this books. Is he good? (He must be if you put him on your list). Which of his books would you recommend?

Tt

Joe Lansdale,

Willie Meikle

Shaun Jeffrey

Brian Lumley

Robert Rankin

Robert McCammon - Anything, but Boy's Life is my favorite
Stephen Hunter - Pale Horse Coming may well be his best, but Point of Impact is the book to read first
Gregg Hurwitz - The Kill Clause
Michael Slade - Headhunter
Mark Billingham - Sleepyhead

Hunter

I read that as "anything but Boy's Life" and almost had a hissy fit as it is my favorite by McCammon. Then I saw the comma...

Robert McCammon
Clive Barker
Stephen King
A.R. Morlan (while I've only read 3 of her books, I keep goin' back to them.)
Mark E. Rogers (only read the Samurai Cat books, but I love 'em.)