Alright here's a new feature on booklikes so I'll throw something into the blender and see if we can get anything started. Feel free to start other threads. Here goes...

I'm reading this book called The M.D. by Thomas M. Disch. It's subtitled "A Horror Story." It is part of a quartet of books called "Supernatural Minnesota." The other titles are: The Businessman, The Priest, The Sub. The M.D. is #2 in the quartet.

Does anyone know anything about these other books in the quartet?

If this is too esoteric, how about what is your favorite horror book/author? My favorite author is H.P. Lovecraft but my favorite book is the novella "The Hellbound Heart" by Clive Barker.

I haven't read this series nor heard of it--sounds interesting (I know a lot of authors from Minnesota and Wisconsin who tend toward the macabre--what's going on up there?). Too much Scandinavian melancholy, perhaps!

I love Barker and Lovercraft, but my pride of place goes to M.R. James (who Lovercraft deeply admired), author of those late Victorian/Edwardian ghost stories such as "Ghost Stories of an Antiquary" (1904). I'm a professor and teach Gothic literature courses often, with my favorite old standbys being the humorous (if not quite horrific) Castle of Otranto by Walpole, Frankenstein, Dracula (obvious ones), and another favorite Victorian author, Sherdian Le Fanu. Have you read "Green Tea," "Camilla," or "Uncle Silas"? Good--if somewhat antiquated--stuff.

I've read all of James and probably most of Le Fanu's stories. I've been meaning to reread Le Fanu. I have however never read Uncle Silas but do believe I shall soon.

I've never read Disch but am curious. Are you enjoying M.D.?

As for the others, I love Le Fanu (I'd like to re-read In a Glass, Darkly) and M.R. James. I don't actually find Le Fanu antiquated. Certainly his style is different than most modern author of any genre, with a slow and patient narrative, and visions that are not horrific but creepy because of their ordinariness (monkeys, whistling men and shadows). I also really enjoyed Castle of Otranto which I read fairly recently and even posted a short blog at Casual Debris (http://casualdebris.blogspot.ca/2013/08/horace-walpole-castle-of-otranto-1764.html)

Noted horror scolar S.T. Joshi just hates Le Fanu probably because Le Fanu's woldview is not consistent with the type of cosmicism that Joshi seems to think needs to be at the center of all horror.

I'll have to check out your site--I, too, love The Castle of Otranto and often teach it in my classes (in fact, I'm teaching it next week!).

As for Joshi, that's one of the beauties of academia, a scholar who makes his personal biases an consistent thesis! Ironically, Joshi loves and has edited the complete stories of M.R. James, who I feel is pretty consistent with Le Fanu's aesthetic. I mean, James had an aversion to anything "cosmic" whatsoever and even berated a writer who once claimed that she felt he was speaking for a generation of mystic writers/thinkers (he was horrified--he was a pretty staid Eton man, after all!).

The M.D. by Disch is one of the strangest "horror" stories I've ever read. It is also one of the funniest books I've read for awhile while remaining truly horrific. Disch also takes shots at just about everything in the process.

I liked the entire Disch horror series, though it was long enough ago that I can not remember the details. Disch was an interesting guy. He started in SF with some important work, but he was also a significant poet. He also as a children's author wrote The Brave Little Toaster. As a literary critic he ranged over SF, poetry, theater and opera. (I remember liking that too--I think I read it in the Nation.) Just a really smart, literate writer.

Reply to post #6 (show post):
That's awesome. I'd be interested in your reading of Otranto since you're no doubt more than familiar with the text.

Otranto is such a fun work, though you have to take it with a grain of 18th century salt. It's one of the first 'Gothic' works, meaning it tried to pretend to be a relic from a bygone age (Walpole said it was an old Italian manuscript found in a monastery--very M.R. James). The work was supposed to be full of "feeling," in that it put characters in unnatural situations and wanted the readers to sympathize with their terror--and at times, their love for one another. The element that people find strange today, and in the 18th century many positively detested, is his humor: he throws in ridiculous situations out of Monty Python that make no sense and are never truly explained (giant helmets, giant swords, giant legs, walking portraits, etc). Also, he has comic servants running around taking the piss out of every terrifying situation. He loves to alternate terror and humor, since he felt one put the other in greater relief. So if you read the book as a forerunner of Frankenstein AND Monty Python/Black Adder, I think you'll really dig it. My students usually end up liking it, though they're pretty bewildered at first. I think it's a well-written, exciting book given that it had virtually no predecessors, and everyone copied it--even a book like Dracula wouldn't exist without it.

If you want to see how my class is approaching the book, I have some of the discussion questions on my blog: grassobrit1.blogspot.com. It's a few posts down, since sadly we're on to other works.

I ordered the rest of the Supernatural Minnesota Series by Thomas Disch: The Business Man: A Tale of Terror, The Sub: A Study in Witchcraft, and The Priest: A Gothic Romance. The Sub is about a substitute teacher! They are all in a numbered uniform trade paperback format from the University of Minnesota Press, in other words, they look nice on the shelf :D

No, it's only about 100 pages, give or that. Udolpho is 700+! Plus, in Otranto, the ghosts are real; everything is over-the-top, absurd, 'horrific,' but real. Udolpho explains everything away, though it's interesting for other reasons. I think it's a wonderful little work, madly eccentric, but so original. The Dover version retails for about $3 (for a paperback copy), and there are probably many free e-books available. An easy investment!