With Halloween lurking right around the darkened corner, now is a frighteningly good time to talk about authors who will scare you right out of your reading glasses. We know you know about horror heavy hitters like Peter Straub, Stephen King, and Ramsey Campbell, but how about Laird Barron? Already a favorite among horror and dark fantasy aficionados, Barron mixes cosmic horror, supernatural noir, and the occult into terrifying tales that should be topping your Halloween reading list. Strikingly original and expertly crafted, his novels and story collections have already won three Shirley Jackson Awards, received multiple Bram Stoker and Locus nominations, and been favorably compared to the work of H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe. So if you’re in the mood for a good scare, try to be brave and check out one of the following Laird Barron books. They’re guaranteed to give you the creeps if you give them the chance. Happy Halloween!
Barron’s latest story collection was declared an “instant classic” by author John Langan and is sure to make Barron a household name in horror. Combining “psychological horror, slasher fiction, and earthy weirdness,” these 12 spine-tingling stories are set in far-future dystopias and a hellish Alaskan wilderness where a cyborg war dog, a modern day Jack the Ripper, and a psycho sorority girl all roam wild. The first book in a planned “Alaska” cycle, this collection is a nightmarish must read.
The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us and Other Stories
This cosmic horror gem is the final book of a “loose trilogy” that includes the award-winning story collections The Imago Sequence and Occultation. Featuring eight interlinking tales and the World Fantasy Award nominated novella Hand of Glory, these chilling stories are so well crafted author Kelly Link insists you’ll forgive Barron for the sleepless nights they cause.
Barron’s debut novel tells the story of 80-year-old Donald Miller, a geologist whose sanity is tested as he unearths dark secrets about his wife and their adult twins. Filled with black magic, weird cults, and unspeakable things looming in the shadows, Barron’s book is a “disturbing imagining of a modern day Rumpelstiltskin” that is by turns touching and terrifying.
Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be a zombie these days. With a single-mindedness that only an animated corpse could muster, the zombies have recently risen from the grave to enjoy unprecedented heights of popularity. But even as they rub rotting elbows with the “beautiful people,” the zombies have always managed to stay true to their rancid, flesh-eating roots. Sure, they’ve experimented a little on their way to the top. They’ve dipped a gangrenous toe into 
