Creepy Books

I read a blog over on Xanga by Fibermom. She's looking for some creepy books for a group she joined that's starting to read creepy books now and up until Halloween. What Fun!

She asked for recommendations for creepy books and I thought you might be interested in my comment (which got out of hand and ran on and on).

Here's what I said:

I was surprised to find that I don't have many creepy books on my bookshelves.

I read Lightning by Dean Koontz recently. It's a time travel story told from the perspective of one person traveling through time in the normal way, so the story happens out-of-order for her, if you can follow that. Some arbitrary and scary things happen to our heroine, and she is saved over and over by a man who doesn't age. But will he continue to be able to save her? 

I also have A Wizard Abroad by Diane Duane. It's a youth book, but very good about a teen named 'Nita who is a wizard, and is sent to Ireland for the summer and runs into a lot of very old Irish myths come to life. And some of those myths are pretty scary. I enjoyed it tremendously. 

If you want evil sorcerers, vampires, werewolves and wizards, there are the Dresden Files books by Jim Butcher. They start with Storm Front. I can't recommend them highly enough, but in spite of all the magical creatures, not really creepy. They're scary, but not creepy, if you catch the difference. 

There's also Tam Lin by Pamela Dean.  articular version of Tam Lin, but I've heard praise from so many people about it. The traditional story has Tam Lin captured by fairies (more like Tolkein's elves, but with an evil streak). Tam is convinced that the fairy queen has bad plans for him, and tries to escape on Halloween with the aid of his mortal girlfriend. Fairport Convention has the Childe ballad of Tam Lin on a few of their CDs, but you can find it on Amazon available as a single song. It's VERY spooky! This is classical horror that's probably well over a thousand years old. 

My coat finally arrived yesterday, and it almost all that I could have hoped for! It IS faux suede, but, except for the weight, indistinguishable from real suede. The toggle buttons are plastic, but a pretty convincing copy of horn. And, amazement of amazements, they included an extra button (which immediately went in my button box--the one that I'm going to have to replace soon, because there's no room left in there). The buttons I bought from JoAnn Fabrics match them perfectly, so I can add them to fasten the mittens and hat to my coat so I won't lose them, once I figure out a good location for them.

I'm in ecstasy about the coat. And it's getting cooler lately, giving me hope that I may be able to wear it soon.

I'm going to regret that last statement later this Winter, when the high for the day doesn't get up to 22 degrees (F).

In intended to go to WalMart yesterday, but I got a late start, and due to a dead spot in the bus schedule, had to wait almost 45 minutes until the bus was due. It didn't show up until more than 15 minutes late, and then it wouldn't stop for me! Between the late start, and another half hour wait, I gave up on it. So, I have to do that today. And once it's done, I doubt that I'm going to want to walk over to the library, too.

There's not much on TV tonight. I'm going to be watching Bones. It's not SF, but it's good.

Have a great Wednesday!

Important Notice!

The Doctor Who episode, Blink will be on tonight (more accurately, tomorrow morning) at 5 AM on the SciFi Channel (check local listings for exact time where you are).

This is a stand-alone story. You don't have to be interested in Doctor Who to watch. It's a quiet, understated little horror story. The Doctor does appear in it, but he's just there to provide the time travel aspect of the story.

This is the only episode of Doctor Who I've found that nobody dislikes. It's the one episode that everybody wants made into a spin-off series.

This is not really a post. I'll put a post up later.

But this is important.

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Addition:

I just found a neat group on Ravelry: Folklore and Fairy Tales. They're having a Fall KAL with the theme of Tam Lin. 

For anyone who doesn't know, it's an old Scottish legend about a knight who falls from his horse and is caught by the queen of fairies. She keeps him prisoner for 7 years, during which he meets a girl and they become very close (she's having his baby). At the end of 7 years, the queen must pay a tithe to hell, and Tam Lin is afraid it's going to be him. He tries to get his girlfriend to save him.

Fairport Convention did the song, and I love it. The lyrics to the song are here. There was also a movie made, which was originally called Tam Lin, but has been rereleased as The Devil's Widow, which is a name that does not fit at all. 

Anyway, I started to realize that I really do like fairy tales, so there is a whole new Fairy Tale section in my Amazon store, and a link for it in the sidebar full of stories and movies recommended by the participants in the group.

I may or may not get an actual post up here today.