What are the best horror novels of the 21st century? Which books will loom largest upon the Gothic landscape to come? Do we have a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for the years after 2000?
We are almost sixteen years into this new century, giving us a substantial body of work to reflect upon.
Caveats: let's draw some boundaries around this quest. We're talking novels, not short story collections, not novellas, nor movies. Let's assume English-language work, including recent translations. And published after 1999.
How to determine these grand books? We can start with the Bram Stoker Award winners, which are the horror field's leading awards. Let's pick the best novel award winners.
Several observers have created lists, like those from Dead in the South, Matt Barone, and Rich Kleffel. (more anthologies than novels in that list). We can use those.
EDITED TO ADD: we've also taken this question to writers and critics participating in the 2015 Necronomicon conference.
What to rule out? Goodreads has a list, but it is unfortunately far too long, with hundreds of titles.
Now we have a dataset of sorts, from which we can build a bibliography.
What follows is in alphabetical order by author, and by title when multiple responses occur for a single author. Two asterisks (**) appear beside any title that appears in two or more sources.
Jeffrey E. Barlough, The Cobbler Of Ridingham
Laird Barron, The Croning
Lauren Beukes, Broken Monsters
Laird Barron, The Croning
Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History Of The Zombie War
Ramsey Campbell, The Grin Of The Dark
Justin Cronin, The Passage
Mark Z. Danielewski, House Of Leaves
Bret Easton Ellis , Lunar Park
Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects
Neil Gaiman, American Gods< br> Ray Garton, The Folks
Joe Hill, Heart-Shaped Box **
" " , Horns
" " Twentieth-Century Ghosts
Charlee Jacob, Dread in the Beast
Brian Keene, The Conqueror Worms
" ", Ghoul
" ", The Rising
Jack Ketchum, The Lost
Caitlin R. Kiernan, The Drowning Girl
Stephen King, Doctor Sleep
" " Duma Key **
" ", Lisey’s Story **
" ", Under The Dome
Sarah Langan, Audrey's Door
" ", The Missing **
Richard Laymon, The Traveling Vampire Show
John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let The Right One In
Bentley Little, The Walking
Jonathan Maberry, Ghost Road Blues
Josh Malerman, Bird Box
Michael Marshall, We Are Here
Joe McKinney, Flesh Eaters
David Morrell, Creepers
Adam Nevill, Last Days
Weston Ochse, Scarecrow Gods
Chuck Palahniuk, Haunted
" " , Lullaby
Norman Partridge, Dark Harvest **
Tom Piccirilli, A Choir Of Ill Children
" ", The Night Class
Dan Simmons, Drood
" " , The Terror
Bryan Smith, The Freakshow
" ", Soultaker
Scott Smith, The Ruins
Peter Straub , A Dark Matter **
" ", In the Night Room
" ", lost boy lost girl
Steve Rasnic Tem, Blood Kin<
Jeffrey Thomas, Boneland
" ", Punktown
Paul Tremblay, Head Full of Ghosts
Jeff Vandermeer, the Southern Reach sequence
David Wong, John Dies At The End
Rio Youers, Westlake Soul
Which of these do you recommend, dear Infocult reader? Are there other titles we should add?
Happy reading!
Audrey's Door? Really? The Missing and The Keeper were fantastic, but Audrey's Door was apartment horror (the creepy old people of Rosemary's Baby inhabiting the building from The Sentinel) with a protagonist no one could root for because she serially screws up her life and damages her relationships and then feels sorry for herself for having a screwed up life and damaged relationships. Strike that one from the list.
Posted by: RobertsRulesOfHorror | August 17, 2015 at 11:29
I haven't read any Langan. Where should one start, The Missing?
Posted by: Bryan Alexander | August 17, 2015 at 22:59
I started with The Missing by accident, not realizing it is a sort of sequel to The Keeper. One could start with The Keeper for the obvious reason that it is the first book.
Getting it backward didn't diminish my enjoyment of either novel, though. There is a connection between the two novels but The Keeper has its own resolution and The Missing is not a direct continuation of the story of the first book. You don't need to know what happened in The Keeper to enjoy The Missing. Further, when I went back and read The Keeper, knowing broadly what would happen to its faltering industrial town introduced an element of dramatic irony that otherwise would not have been there.
Posted by: RobertsRulesOfHorror | August 18, 2015 at 14:58
The Keeper sounds good to me. Thank you.
What about the rest of the list, any standouts?
Posted by: Bryan Alexander | August 19, 2015 at 23:26
The Terror by Dan Simmons was harrowing and excellent, especially if you enjoy historical fiction as well as horror. It offers an account of the lost Franklin expedition's final, fatal icebound months as the men struggle against forces natural and supernatural.
Not one of my favorite books, but Creepers by David Morrell is worth a read. It's quick and compelling. It definitely put me off of urban exploration though - I'll stick to perusing photographs of our crumbling built environment here at Infocult.
Posted by: RobertsRulesOfHorror | August 20, 2015 at 19:52
Agreed on The Terror. I kept wanting to read parts aloud to fellow air travelers.
I'll keep helping with your safe fears.
Posted by: Bryan Alexander | August 20, 2015 at 23:21