I Tried To Read The Croning

I'm trying. I'm trying very hard to appreciate and enjoy newer writers in the horror genre. The truth is, I am not very successful.

Thanks in part to the ease of producing and distributing books through Amazon/Createspace, there is a glut of material out there. Even many small presses are using the service now, and who can blame them?

But when there is a glut, quality tends to deteriorate.

Everything seems to leave me flat these days. I recently did enjoy some newer books: Save Yourself, by Kelly Braffett, and Fat Kid Saves The World, by K. L. Going. Neither are precisely horror fiction, but both have disturbing elements in them.

Part of the problem, for me, is the abundance of writers trying to emulate Richard Laymon, Jack Ketchum, and Edward Lee. Over-the-top stuff makes me yawn most of the time. Been there, done it.

I've heard nearly universal acclaim for Laird Barron, so I took the plunge and ordered his sole novel, The Croning. I didn't get very far. The dialogue in the first chapter was ridiculous to me. I also did not care at all for the setup, which featured a Spy and a Queen.

Where are the game changers of today? The horror novels that literally change the genre? In the past there were knockout books like The Shining, The Ceremonies, Swan Song, even Lost Souls. The last thing I can think of that had anywhere nearly as much influence as those is Brian Keene's The Rising.

Maybe I am just getting older. I keep looking to the past for my reading fixes. I just finished up Philip Jose Farmer's mind-blowing A Feast Unknown, which I originally read around thirty-five years ago. I'm listening to Red Dragon in my car. I'm also going back and re-experiencing beloved titles from my past by Peter Straub, Stephen King, F. Paul Wilson, Charles Beaumont, Ray Bradbury, etc.

I'm much more apt to find something I like in the YA dept instead of a book labeled "Horror".

The funny thing is, I don't mind most current horror movies. Sure, many leave a lot to be desired, but to me watching a movie is an escape and reading is mental concentration. But more books seem to be directly influenced by movies these days than ever before.

Funnier still, most fans and writers seem to "support" up-and-coming horror writers, while many disdain most of the genre stuff that plays the multiplexes.

I don't like all horror movies, of course. Texas Chainsaw 3D is one of the most wretched things I have ever had the displeasure to watch, and I can't get aboard the Rob Zombie bandwagon.

I really am trying. It's hard when you don't do the Kindle thing, and paperbacks run anywhere from ten to twenty dollars. Sometimes they are even more expensive. And when I am disappointed most of the time, it is hard to continue to try new stuff.

In the meantime I will read the writers I love, and to rediscover the joys of the past.

I will continue to try, but I am beginning to despair that I, or the genre, is hopelessly out of touch.