Huh. Somehow the original request got past me. Haven't read the Suzuki, but the Rice is a good suggestion, though I've heard the series begins to trail off after the third book. I do have a few other suggestions.Originally Posted by Oubliette
This is a bit tricky depending on how you define 'series'. As Oubliette points out, horror is an emotion more easily evoked when the reader doesn't know the characters, any of them could be at risk, and the ending isn't pre-ordained by having a series character who always survives to go on another adventure -- this is why relatively few TV series are truly scary or even creepy except for an occasional episode.
That said, there have been 'supernatural detectives' for over a century. and it appears to me that Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have picked up the format and used it in The Relic, Reliquary, The Cabinet of Curiosities and their other novels. I haven't read these, but many horror fans love 'em. They also love F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack series which appears to me to be along the same lines (I only read The Keep years ago and I think Jack was only a fairly minor character in that one.)
More often horror series revolve around the bad place: Stephen King, outside the Dark Tower series, uses the setting of Castle Rock and surroundings for most of his novels. I believe there are some characters who pop up in different books, but this isn't a series that features the same character(s) over and over. Gary Braunbeck does something along this line, too, basing several stories and novels in Cedar Hill, these seemingly circling around a killer from early in the 20th century known as Hoopsticks (think that's right). I read Coffin County and wasn't strongly inclined to read more; although Braunbeck writes well enough, the trick of the plot felt a bit old to me and I didn't think he did enough with the concept or the people or the story-telling for the novel to work (I enjoyed the two short stories packaged with CC more; they were also Cedar Hill stories). I had similar reactions to Douglas Clegg's Mischief, one of several novels set at Harrow House and around which Clegg seems to be building a mythology; on the other hand, an off-shoot novella, Isis, was quite good and has tickled my interest in reading more. Mischief, by the way, is one of the few novels I've read I thought would have profited by being longer, giving Clegg more room to build the story.
One series I have read, and would strongly recommend is Peter Straub's Blue Rose novels: Koko, Mystery, The Throat, lost boy lost girl, In the Night Room. Most but not all feature a recurring character -- whose name I won't mention; no spoilers -- and a recurring place, sort of, since Straub is interested in the differences and discrepancies between reality and fiction. I wasn't as fond of the last novel as of the others; it was good, just not up to the standard the others had set. One caveat: The first three lean more toward mysteries than horror novels, but they all have their moments.
Randy M.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks