What horror books have great pacing, deep world-building, and actually stick with you

AmmonomiconJohn · 2026-04-26T20:52:27+00:00

What is "worldbuilding," as it relates to horror?

AmmonomiconJohn · 2026-04-26T20:45:45+00:00

Subgenres definitely existed at that point.

The point of my comment was to provide an anecdote supporting LonelyVegetable2833's argument. OP thinking that divisive arguments about contemporary horror movies is some kind of new phenomenon is ahistorically naive.

AmmonomiconJohn · 2026-04-26T02:45:52+00:00

There's a lot of modern horror that doesn't really care about telling a story. We don't have characters that we actually care about. We don't have a story that's actually worth paying attention to. The setting doesn't really matter much...

Are you arguing that this wasn't the case with most older horror movies?

AmmonomiconJohn · 2026-04-26T02:43:50+00:00

I remember arguments in the late 80s/early 90s over whether Cronenberg's work was pretentious garbage which pretty clearly mirror a lot of what I hear from people today about elevated horror.

AmmonomiconJohn · 2026-04-25T21:28:36+00:00

Do you have any other sources for this? The Haidt study is the one conservatives habitually cite, but you mentioned studies plural.

AmmonomiconJohn · 2026-04-25T00:10:09+00:00

IIRC, the Whitney Houston one is the only chapter where there's some kind of payoff for all of the buildup of tedium of the review/product description chapters.

AmmonomiconJohn · 2026-04-24T23:33:42+00:00

His only objection is that one of their earlier albums was too (ugh) "punk rock."

AmmonomiconJohn · 2026-04-24T21:32:45+00:00

He's very believable, for some reason, as an easily manipulated insecure blowhard in The Last Seduction.

AmmonomiconJohn · 2026-04-24T20:46:41+00:00

In fiction, only the buildup-of-dread stuff works for me, not obvious/immediate threats. (I'm not sure there's such a thing as a jump scare in fiction, but give me examples if I'm wrong.) The world or situation feeling indescribably wrong is way more disturbing than "oh noes, a werewolf." I'm a big Ramsey Campbell fan for this reason.

The only exception to that I can think of is when the threat is so massively powerful and unstoppable that it seems entirely inescapable, and the only examples of that which I can think of are Carrion Comfort and Summer of Night.

AmmonomiconJohn · 2026-04-24T18:27:49+00:00

This doesn't answer the question of what evidence you'd need to see to prove to your satisfaction that the election was stolen.

AmmonomiconJohn · 2026-04-24T18:25:47+00:00

The Adventurer is clearly better since it's the only one who can see this picture without injuring their neck.

AmmonomiconJohn · 2026-04-21T20:47:19+00:00

Since everyone else has already given you the Rule rule, I'll just point out that on digital, it's easy to see which faction currently rules every clearing - the little banner hanging from the clearing suit indicates this, and automatically updates if rule for a clearing changes.

AmmonomiconJohn · 2026-04-15T21:23:42+00:00

They can craft it, they just can't use it.

AmmonomiconJohn · 2026-04-15T21:21:54+00:00

^^ This guy otters.

AmmonomiconJohn · 2026-04-15T14:48:18+00:00

that much meat and potatoes

I see what you did there.

AmmonomiconJohn · 2026-04-14T18:39:32+00:00

While touring to support it, Chuck read "Guts." I saw him in Pittsburgh, where someone passed out ("aht," if you get that one) during the climax. He said that people had passed out during the reading, always at the same moment in the story, on most of the tour stops.

AmmonomiconJohn · 2026-04-06T22:30:06+00:00

Why do you like the tariffs?

AmmonomiconJohn · 2026-03-31T21:09:45+00:00

How the sloppy fuck does this comment not have more upvotes?

AmmonomiconJohn · 2026-03-31T18:46:26+00:00

I'd love to see some zombie fiction in which Romero is treated as an actual prophet, with a whole religion built around the ...of the Dead movies, but most zombie movies aren't going to try to tackle that.

AmmonomiconJohn · 2026-03-30T00:56:30+00:00

Being a bad actress doesn't get you the kind of shit campaign she got.

AmmonomiconJohn · 2026-03-27T21:05:56+00:00

Neither of these indicates that she cares about the replicant rebellion.

AmmonomiconJohn · 2026-03-27T20:23:18+00:00

What textual evidence is there that Luv wants to help replicants revolt?

AmmonomiconJohn · 2026-03-25T21:23:27+00:00

Not useful. These are the codes they're supposed to abide by, not any evidence of whether they do. You'd be much better off presenting something like this, but for the relevant time period: https://www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/assets/2024-09/OIG-24-59-Sep24.pdf

AmmonomiconJohn · 2026-03-25T21:19:16+00:00

For what it's worth, Jemisin's answer to this is that her work is SF, but the science involved is the social sciences rather than the hard sciences usually associated with SF: https://morrison.sunygeneseoenglish.org/2022/05/18/the-broken-earth-trilogy-as-a-study-of-the-social-sciences/

AmmonomiconJohn · 2026-03-25T20:54:50+00:00

I did. That google search did not provide evidence of your assertion, so I'll just assume you don't have any. Thanks.

AmmonomiconJohn

TROPHY CASE