B-Sol at the must-read blog Vault of Horror has once again gathered the voices of the "Horror Cyber Elite" (a self-deprecating title...) to produce a fascinating "greatest of" list, this time devoting attention to "The Greatest Horror Fiction" of All-Time.Eight of my top ten personal choices made this list of thirty best. Those eight titles were: Frankenstein, Dracula, The Black Cat, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, At the Mountains of Madness, Who Goes There? and The Hellbound Heart.
One title that didn't make the list was my Stephen King selection: Carrie. Still, King is well-represented on the final list, I think. Also, on my list, I put Frankenstein ahead of Dracula -- in the number 1 spot. But with the enduring popularity of vampires, I can't take much issue with the first place finish of Stoker's work.
For me, one of the great values of such a list involves B-Sol's dedicated parsing of the data, breaking down and cataloguing information by decade, century, author, and so on. The list thus provides a good guide to horror history, and more than that even, a valuable snapshot of the genre (and genre tastes), right now, in 2009. Can't wait to see the next list, and as always, it's a pleasure to be involved. Make sure you go read the entire list of thirty, and read B-Sol's analysis.
Thanks for the link, JKM. That's a splendid list of horror lit. And any such list that includes Richard Matheson's seminal work, I Am Legend, is aces with me. Great work the by panel (which included you). Thanks for this.
ReplyDeleteThanks again for linking me, John. I love doing these lists, and I'm glad they seem to provoke so much discussion.
ReplyDeleteI gave kudos to B-Sol and you for spurring me to write a post on one of my all-time favorite novels because of your horror literature list/blogposts. Thanks for this.
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