Remedy

Ah, Lord of the Flies. I read that for school. Personally, I think it's a decent book; not all that much to rave about, but little to rant about either. I don't think it's truly all that horror though, unless the horror lies in the behavior exhibited, which it very well might.


Anne Rice is someone who has a very distinct writing style; you either love her, or you hate her. I hated her writing; I found it very dry, too talking at, and too void of all things interesting. On the other hand though, I have a friend who loves her, so to each their own and all.

A lot of the books on your list sound familiar in the "I think I've read that, but I can't remember way", which tells of both my fairly awful memory and how much the books impressed me.

Flintenspiel

Horror is a really broad term. There are so many facets of horror that can be discussed. It really begs the bigger question of who defines where books go on the bookshelf? Who says that this book is horror and this book isn't?

As for the list:
Anne Rice- Certainly a little bit dry, but definitely an influence to the genre.
Richard Matheson's I am Legend- Horror in the sense of what happens in a person's mind. That's where the horror comes in.

Those are the only two remember from the list.

moderan

I can highly recommend, if you can find it, Ray Russell's Sardonicus. Terrific collection-the title story was made into the film Mr Sardonicus which is remarkably faithful to the text.
Theodore Sturgeon's Some of your Blood is very well-written but isn't really horror in the classic sense. It involves a form of vampirism. Caviar is a collection of sf short stories, extremely good but not at all horror. I would guess that King recommends those because Sturgeon was a master craftsman.

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velo

I what King means is that while most certainly all of these titles can not be considered "horror" novels, something about the story has contributed to the genre. It's like a metal band saying BB King was one of their influences. Doesn't mean they play the electric blues, too, but it just means they took a particular bit of his playing or music and adapted it to their needs.

Look at Watership Down, no way can you call that "horror." But it is fairly brutal, unforgiving, and macabre at points, all aspects that it shares with the horror genre.

I don't really read horror books, so many of them are so boring, formulaic, and poorly written. How Dean Koontz ever 'made it' as an author is beyond me. I read a couple of his books based on recommendations from friends in high school and was shocked at how agonizingly painful they were to read.

King, on the other hand, is a damn good writer. I don't go in for his more gruesome stuff but have read a few of his books and enjoyed them, but more for the overall story such as in "The Stand," and not the horror elements.

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Are you kidding Velo? Even Malone won't touch this one-adrianhayter

Carpe diem, quam minimum credulo postero -Horace