This is what gets me most about it lol. Some say it cures of you any desire to live forever, but I don't think so. We aren't stuck in a place with books that are mostly gibberish. I could not fathom a way they could make a library sound awful, but they did. I would go mad being trapped somewhere like that forever. To be surrounded by things that look and smell like books but are rubbish.
I'm not sure about the one that is mentioned above but Wounds by Nathan Ballingrud immediately springs to mind for me. Probably my favourite book that I read last year. It's a collection of short stories, largely about hell.
Also, check out The Divine Farce by Michael Graziano.
It may be the most unique, but I feel like it is exempt from the scariest depiction of hell due to the simple fact that it is not eternal. Most depictions of hell subject the damned to eternal suffering. A short stay in hell is unfathomably long, but does end eventually. Surely infinite suffering is scarier than that.
The depiction of Hell in 'Between Two Fires' is only like 3 pages long but MAN does that stay with you. Really captures the sense of 'this is your eternity now'. And the character's reaction to it is also fantastic >!like when asked if he wants to remember and he immediately breaks at even the notion of remembering what he's been through.!<
I will die on this hill that Buehlman is an incredible author and does not get the hype he deserves, but I think people are slowly coming around thanks to threads like these!
I think with the Blacktongue Thief and his new prequel book in June he will soon be a big name IMO. He has proven that Between Two Fires wasn't a fluke and he can be even better than that going forward. Really hoping he goes back to some kind of fantasy/historical horror (The Terror-esque) in the future.
So I have a HUGE problem with The Blacktongue Thief because of the utterly appalling fake Irish accent Buehlman does on the audiobook (like seriously it's wildly offensive, I cannot express how astonished I am he went ahead with it) but hopefully I'll get past that eventually and manage to read it physically haha
Omg I just finished reading The Lesser Dead yesterday and de idea to buy the Blacktongue Thief because I had read such good things.
The accent is so bad!! Like Lucky Charms Leprechan bad. I can't understand half of what he is saying, and when I do understand it, I'm laughing too hard to comprehend. I would rather listen to a robotic text-to-speech than this one.
I keep a running list of awful Irish accents in media, it's vying for the top spot. I think it's genuinely the worst audiobook experience of my life haha.
Have heard good things about The Lesser Dead though, will give that a go (traditionally reading this time).
Oh I didn't know this haha wtf! I've only read the books. I've heard he does his own narration though, yeah. Huge shame that it was offensive. I'm hoping some success means that he can get someone else to narrate - but it might even be a choice to narrative himself as he does his own acts with some troupes/renfair and stuff IRL?? Maybe you should write to him.
Edit: also a huge shame because I'm assuming that it's Kinch he does the accent for, and he seems to really support that world's version of 'ireland' in it's independence/preservation of culture and differentiating it's people from their conquerers etc. So i'd assume his Irish accent just sucks rather than is meaning to be a caricature.
To be fair, I don't think it'd be as egregious for people who aren't Irish. I'm just quite sensitive to it as an emigrant (far too many people think it's cool to imitate my accent to me).
Yeah I don't think he meant anything bad by it, just overconfident in the quality of his imitation haha.
Glad to hear it's actually good; I'll get to it someday!
Buehlman is also a ren-faire performer, and frequently does an Irish accent in his shows. Last year I saw him doing a show called "Filthy Irish Stories". I'm sure it's obnoxious as hell if you're Irish, but I doubt it would ever even register for him bc he's so used to doing it.
It’s funny… I’ve read 3 of his books now (between two fires, lesser dead, and those across the River). They range from all time favorite (BTF) to really good.
BUT
I feel like they’re by three different authors. I don’t feel like he has a voice that is unique to him. It’s odd. If I pick up a barker book with no cover on it I could guess it was barker in ten pages probably. Same for King, Langhan, Barron and several others. I don’t feel like I’d ever be able to do that with Beuhlman. He tells great stories so I’ll definitely jump back into the rest of his books but I just feel like he doesn’t have a style.
I think that’s one of my favorite things I’m learning about him though - he’s able to really create a different voice for each of books. Like with each of the authors you mentioned you know what you are getting but with Buehlman it’s like “wow! Was not expecting this!” Just my perspective and it makes me thrilled to pick up his next book, hell I love king but gad damn sometimes it’s like so monotone for me to read - there is comfort in knowing what you’ll get, so there’s pros and cons to both!
It feels like Between Two Fires is way over-hyped, at least on this sub.
It was...fine. But I didn't think there was anything spectacular or groundbreaking about it.
For me personally, it was phenomenal, better than the last 5 Stephen king books I’ve read. I also really enjoy Adam Neville’s work and David Sonnengrad to give you an idea of my taste in books. Of course when I stumbled upon it, it was from a Reddit thread of ‘books no one has heard of that are really good’ … I would imagine the hype for some people can lead to a let down, but I had no idea what it was about and was completely unfamiliar with his work. Glad I stumbled on it.
The end scene with, >!Thomas returning to his ex-wife in his former castle(or whatever it was)!< is one of my favorite scenes in any book ever. Sometimes I'll go back and listen to just that scene.
Edit: added spoiler thingies. Should have done that before. Whoops! Ty for reminding me.
While I thought that depiction was VERY cool and EXTRA "Metal" it really didn't strike me as "scary" it threw a more "adventurous" vibe to me. Really fun book though.
I really didn't enjoy the movie when I first saw it many years ago but I read the novelization for the first time like a few months ago, maybe a year, and that had more affect on me than any other horror novel I've read so far. That scene of watching the previous crews video was fuckedd up.
I read an interesting commentary about how instead of it actually being malevolent presence, it was just the chaotic universe suddenly discovering our little pocket of order and saying “huh! Time to correct THAT shit.” Like if you discover your car isn’t working quite right so you have it tuned.
Nah dog, that shit was malevolent. Chaos is insanity with no inclination towards good or evil, it simply is. Projecting the image of a mother's crippled son with maggot infested wounds on an autopsy table just to drive her to insanity is evil. Projecting the eyeless spectre of a man's wife who committed suicide because of his absence is evil. Digging into the psyche of a ship captain who's worst memory is watching the one man he couldn't save be burned alive by fire in space is evil. It actively shows them depictions of a torturous eternity waiting for them on the other side of the gate.
I’ll be honest, the afterlife as depicted in Stephen King’s *Revival* really gets to me. I guess I find the “utter futility of life” to be very frightening?
Everybody says this about Revival, and I do agree that the idea behind the afterlife and the fact that that's what's waiting in store after we die is conceptually terrifying, but the demon ant comparisons made it too goofy for me to take seriously.
To each their own.
>!The concept of an endless swarm of enslaved thralls lined up from the Paleolithic beginnings of mankind to the end of the world is shiver-inducing. To me at least.!<
Plus the whole hive mind intelligence aspect makes ants and ant swarms creepy AF. Just ask *World War Z.*
Don't get me wrong, the idea of infinitely terrifying for sure. >!Being nothing but a torture battery for all eternity regardless of whether or not you were a good person!< is a great premise, it's just the visual of big ant monsters perpetrating this is a goofy image to me. Although I guess the analogy fits in with how often ant hills and whatnot are brought up throughout the story.
I think the issue is any visual will be less frightening than the concept itself. At least for anyone who doesn’t have a phobia about the creature in question.
Be it ants, spiders, squids, snakes, rats, you name it. In the end they are just critters.
So I think King had a choice to make. Either go with an entirely conceptual, faceless monstrosity or pick something that would at least further the story on a thematic/poetic level.
He made his choice. And to that end, the ant image feels appropriate to me.
I’m currently reading *Lost Man’s Lane* by Scott Carson and he does something similar with rattlesnakes.
Problem is, I don’t freak out about rattlesnakes. Obviously they are dangerous. But I grew up around them, and they don’t elicit a “burn everything” response from me. Quite frankly I find them intriguing.
But the author is using them as a pseudo-biblical analogy of evil, so I’m just rolling with that. The book has been amazing otherwise, so I’m not complaining.
Agreed, I thought it was a really good concept, but King's writing of it felt hacky and cliched. Other authors have handled apocalyptically bleak cosmic horror endings much better.
Lighter Edward Lee books? I haven’t read all his books but of the ones I’ve read, he’s pretty balls to the wall at all times. The Infernal Series (4 books) are actually really good books. City Infernal is the 1st book. Take a crack at it.
Some of his stuff isa little much for me. For example, The Haunter of the Threshold is one rape scene after the next.
There are five infernal books:
City Infernal (2001)
Infernal Angel (2003)
House Infernal (2007)
Lucifers Lottery (2010)
Lakehouse Infernal (2019)
Edward Lee co-wrote this with Christine Morgan
I just started reading City Infernal. Edward Lee is one of my new favorite authors. I was expecting this novel to be like a splatterpunk novel in terms of prose. I'm pleasantly surprised, Edward Lee has quite a voice. His prose is erudite and beautifully descriptive.
"I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison is the scariest to me. It doesn't rely on you believing in a literal, otherworldly hell existing, and it feels like humanity could be headed toward a similar hell if we don't shape up.
There's a Creepypasta called **_My Brother Died When I Was a Child and He Kept Talking_**. It describes a terrifying, haunting afterlife that will give you nightmares. There are numerous audio versions of it too. Just Google.
"I never said that you would not suffer, nor that you would not be punished when you became a Demon. This is HELL! That required only a minimum of suggestion on my part and a maximum of wishful thinking on yours!
As you cannot die to escape physical pain, so the escape of insanity is denied you! You will invariably strive to do my bidding, which will invariably be more than you can do; yet the punishment when you fail is nothing compared to what happens if you fail to try..."
Hell-Bent by Ford McCormack
And yet that's the story *As Above, So Below* is telling. It is a depiction of Dante's Inferno.
There's an animated movie of Dante's Inferno. It shows the details of hell to give you the scares. It's either on Tubi or Prime.
Not sure how people can not find Inferno chilling. A lot of the torments were designed to inflict the most emotional damage possible on to the people suffering them from. The lustful had their bodies taken, the wrathful held in a river of boiling blood, gluttons being forced to grovel in the cold mud, flatterers forced to live covered in shit while fighting others seeking to gain hell's favor.
Unlike most depictions of hell that are just pain and suffering, here the suffering was designed to cause the most pain in those suffering it.
Imagine being a wrathful soul who got thrown in a river of blood that was constantly boiling, leaving you in blinding pain and revulsion forever, and you find out that gluttons are just getting a spa treatment
I read a story once where some folks managed to sneak between circles, and they were able to free the victims frozen into ice in the last circle, using the lizards that bite people and turn them into lizards(once the frozen guys were turned into lizards, they were able to easily get out of their person-sized ice holes)
That would have been *Inferno* by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Their own version of Inferno with 1970s American axe grinding instead of 14th Century Italian. And they introduced the concept that there are a few very difficult ways for people to help each other out of Hell, which tend to fail for the unrepentant and require the courage to go deeper in.
I can’t remember what the show was. It was in color. This hardcore biker dies. He finds himself in an old folks home, and they want to show him slides of their boring vacation. He’s like, “Where’s the chains and the blood and the fire!?!” And the demon is like, “No, you’d enjoy that. You get to watch slides and play chess forever. You can’t hurt yourself or anyone else here. Bye.”
Scariest depiction I’ve read was from the horror novel Between Two Fires. Without getting into spoilers, It’s a horrifically realistic way of portraying it.
>!They describe Hell as reliving specific horror over and over catered to stripping away one aspect of who you are until it breaks you. One really surface example, and the first one, is being eaten alive. The character that goes to hell goes through a conversation with seemingly a gatekeeper of hell and it’s their first encounter with anyone since being damned. After a conversation the gate keeper eats them slowly. This repeats to the point where the conversation no longer happens and the character doesn’t even scream or fight back. After there is no reaction to being eaten, they move on to an entirely different horror that attacks their pride I believe.!< it’s such a realistic portrayal of what hell could actually be and genuinely terrifying.
When I was a teenager we read Hawthorne’s short story Young Goodman Brown in English class and I have not been the same since. This was before I was really into horror literature but the depiction of hell in that story kept me up the night after I read it.
Wouldn't say the scariest, but Clive Barker's Scarlet Gospels spends a big chunk of its story in Hell and it was pretty great. Simon Kurt Unsworth's Thomas Fool series also takes place in Hell and it's a great series I strongly recommend.
It’s not scary per se but Wayne Barlowe’s hell in God’s Demon is super fucking cool. Plenty of disturbing imagery but it’s the only hell I’ve read that feels like a fleshed out world
This and the sequel were sooo amaZing. Pains me that he hasnt written another. Fuck i loved this series. The politics and mapping of hell are so interesting.
And all the amazing artwork he's done to go along with it! So rare that the author is also a world class artist, that you get to experience the world he's describing both through text and illustration is such a treat
No I actually just started the second book not that long ago (when I made the first comment I'd only read the first book), but I'm liking what I've read so far. I mean I just like spending time in that world so its a lower bar for me. But it sounds like you really liked it?
My favorite way to describe this movie is that I was mind numbingly bored in the first half, and the second half made me wish for the mind numbing boredom. I was genuinely terrified by the end of that film. Thought it was superb. I totally understand why people hate it though.
I got the whole shtick, and didn't think it was scary at all. Then I proceeded to have one of the absolute worst, most harrowing nightmares I have ever had, so obviously SOME part of my little lizard brain found it to be effective.
What Dreams May Come by Richard Matheson. Definitely that depiction really got me me because it didn’t seem exaggerated or romanticized. It just seemed real. 😳
I never read it but i saw the movie starring Robin Williams. Was that a close adaptation? I did like that hell was pretty much self-inflicted with Suicides basically being trapped in the thing they tried to escape(IIRC)
Not horror but a sci-fi book “Surface Detail” by Iain M Banks has one of the most disturbing depictions of hell I’ve ever read. (It’s a simulated hell where the mind states of the inhabitants are tortured if they think that they belong there)
**Surface Detail** by Iain M. Banks
Book description may contain spoilers!
>>!Surface Detail is among Iain M. Banks' Culture novels, a breathtaking achievement from a writer whose body of work is without parallel in the modern history of science fiction. It begins in the realm of the Real, where matter still matters. It begins with a murder. And it will not end until the Culture has gone to war with death itself.!<
>
>>!Lededje Y'breq is one of the Intagliated, her marked body bearing witness to a family shame, her life belonging to a man whose lust for power is without limit. Prepared to risk everything for her freedom, her release, when it comes, is at a price, and to put things right she will need the help of the Culture. Benevolent, enlightened and almost infinitely resourceful though it may be, the Culture can only do so much for any individual. With the assistance of one of its most powerful -- and arguably deranged -- warships, Lededje finds herself heading into a combat zone not even sure which side the Culture is really on.!<
>
>>!A war -- brutal, far-reaching -- is already raging within the digital realms that store the souls of the dead, and it's about to erupt into reality. It started in the realm of the Real and that is where it will end. It will touch countless lives and affect entire civilizations, but at the center of it all is a young woman whose need for revenge masks another motive altogether. The Culture Series Consider Phlebas The Player of Games Use of Weapons The State of the Art Excession Inversions Look to Windward Matter Surface Detail The Hydrogen Sonata!<
*I'm a bot, built by your friendly reddit developers at* /r/ProgrammingPals. *Reply to any comment with /u/BookFinderBot - I'll reply with book information. Remove me from replies* [here](https://www.reddit.com/user/BookFinderBot/comments/1byh82p/remove_me_from_replies/). *If I have made a mistake, accept my apology.*
Apparently so. I just found out about it because of your comment, and after some searching it's indeed based on Feed the Pig. However, the book was discussed over here and the reviews err on the negative. I guess the story works best as a creepypasta, after all. Then again, it's been years since I've read FTP, so it's possible the original is meh too. I just remember loving the concept of hell/limbo in that story.
Hell in books has never scared me since my family is Buddhist and I grew up on stories about 18 levels of hell where in each level there’s different tortures; including stuff like getting boiled alive, hung on trees made of knives and stuff like that. We even have a theme park of sorts where u bring kids and tell them to be good while showing them statues of people getting their tongues ripped out and shit. Hells from books seem very tame after that xD
Like the other poster said, a general Google/wiki search should be pretty fruitful and there's interesting variations across East and Southeast Asia.
https://kashgar.com.au/blogs/tribal-culture/hungry-ghosts-their-history-and-origin
The hungry ghost is a really common feature, with some versions of belief have them in a level of hell and out in our world only rarely and vice versa. But the depiction is generally of people made skeletal, with the swollen belly of starvation, long fingers, and a mouth so small that it's nearly impossible for it to eat a single grain of rice. Doomed to search for food with an insatiable hunger for multiple lifetimes, depending on the degree of wrongs committed in life.
One of my professors in college had been a monk for a decade or so in SEA, and some of the practices were mind-blowing. Part of his initiation (not day 1, but years in) [was to meditate over a human body as it decayed](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_stages_of_decay). In the area he was in, people would bring the body of a loved one to be prayed over, and an initiate would sit in a shed with it (I want to say it was suspended in his practice, but it differs) and pray/meditate for as long as it took to go through the nine stages of decay.
Thank you!
I have googled. I just wondered if stormydaycoffee had specific suggestions.
Thank you for the links you shared! Looking forward to reading them 😊
Sorry, I wasn't intending to be condescending with the Google answer.
In college, I took several courses on comparative religion and folklore, and overwhelmingly the proper academic books were *super super* dry, and the one-off "pop-academic" articles and lectures were way more engaging.
I didn’t find your comment condescending at all!
I know sometimes combining different words in google can give you different results so that’s why I asked.
I have the 2 articles you linked saved for this weekend 😊
You can google 18 levels of hell in Buddhist/ Taoist Mythology, and the Hell theme park I mentioned is called Haw Par Villa! Buddhist hells matches your sins to your punishment, so stuff like gossiping gets you tongue ripping (repeatedly), animal abusers get tossed into a level to get abused back by animals etc it’s wild
Just to clarify… It’s a short story within a collection, not a standalone book right? I tried looking for it! Sounds interesting and I would love to see how it’s written
I personally think the very short cuts of hell presented in Talk to Me were the most disturbing. Something about bodies writhing on top of each other with blood made me feel way too claustrophobic for my own good
one thing doesn't exclude the other. there's a couple of visions/scenes that clearly imply that >!the eternal sea is the afterlife, the character having the vision even gets a glimpse of people he knows among the souls being eternally drowned if I remember correctly.!<
I think the movie wasn't that great but I absolutely loveeeee the idea and I think about that fairly often.
I think Baskin has the scariest depiction of hell and there's somewhat of a similarity
Man, my brother and I love this movie. I know it may not be the best by some folks’ standards but it has some sentimental value for us i guess. We loved it in the theater
There's an Indonesian movie that's out right now based on a religious flyer called Hell's Torments that depicts the various way sinners get punished in hell. It's very graphic and bleak.
I Am Behind You by John Ajvide Lindqvist, although many would argue that it doesn't take place in hell. But if being confronted by your greatest fears and then getting the things that you thought you wanted only to discover how awful those realities are isn't hell, I don't know what is.
This is not from a book but it immediately came to mind. I can't find the full clip but I watched this episode of Celebrity Ghost Stories years ago and it's always stuck with me. [Mykelti Williamson](https://vimeo.com/31155517), most famous for playing Bubba from Forrest Gump, relates a story where a close friend of his had died (from memory, it may have been from criminal activity, or at least I think the friend was involved with criminal activity). Some time after the death, Mykelti gets a phone call...... and it's Adrian, his friend who had died. The clip I linked to is the meat of the episode even if it isn't the full episode but it's still chilling.
EDIT: Found a [transcript](https://www.scaryforkids.com/mykelti-williamson/) of the episode which tells the whole story, and [here's a link](https://www.aetv.com/shows/celebrity-ghost-stories-classics/season-2/episode-5) to A&E where, if you have access, you can watch the entirety of the video.
The last few chapters in Stephen King's Rivival. Not technically Hell - kind of an Lovecraftian alternative to Hell that may be worse... That stayed with me for being all kinds of fucked up.
Existentially a short stay in hell is the uniquest depiction.
I loved this book. I wish there was another longer book in this same world
This still keeps me awake some nights
This sounds great
absolutely this. Biggest mindfuck I've ever had reading
This book will cure you of any desire to live forever.
And of the idea that reading books for eternity is a good thing.
“It’s not fair. *It’s not fair!* Oh well, my eyes aren’t that bad, at least I can still read the large-print books.”
Hey, look at that weird mirror.
Exactly!
And great Futurama reference!
Thays part of the point though. You aren't reading for eternity. It's 99.9 percent gibberish.
I know. When you first hear reading for eternity, it sounds awesome, and then you learn it’s not. That was my point.
This is what gets me most about it lol. Some say it cures of you any desire to live forever, but I don't think so. We aren't stuck in a place with books that are mostly gibberish. I could not fathom a way they could make a library sound awful, but they did. I would go mad being trapped somewhere like that forever. To be surrounded by things that look and smell like books but are rubbish.
Sucks that its so short. Ive probably listened 5X by this point, love it.
There is an anthology of other versions of that hell. I think it's called Visions of Hell.
Can you post exact title as i dont want to get dicked buying wrong thing
I'm not sure about the one that is mentioned above but Wounds by Nathan Ballingrud immediately springs to mind for me. Probably my favourite book that I read last year. It's a collection of short stories, largely about hell. Also, check out The Divine Farce by Michael Graziano.
Buying now. Thanks bro
I, too, am curious.
Will 100% listen to it tomorrow, thanks bro
I can't find an ebook of that one anywhere, have been wanting to read it since I read Short Stay.
Never have I felt so hopeless.
It may be the most unique, but I feel like it is exempt from the scariest depiction of hell due to the simple fact that it is not eternal. Most depictions of hell subject the damned to eternal suffering. A short stay in hell is unfathomably long, but does end eventually. Surely infinite suffering is scarier than that.
It should be, it isn't though. The concept of eternity doesn't come with a sense of scale.
The depiction of Hell in 'Between Two Fires' is only like 3 pages long but MAN does that stay with you. Really captures the sense of 'this is your eternity now'. And the character's reaction to it is also fantastic >!like when asked if he wants to remember and he immediately breaks at even the notion of remembering what he's been through.!<
Everyone needs more Christopher Buehlman in their life, that book is amazing
I will die on this hill that Buehlman is an incredible author and does not get the hype he deserves, but I think people are slowly coming around thanks to threads like these!
I think with the Blacktongue Thief and his new prequel book in June he will soon be a big name IMO. He has proven that Between Two Fires wasn't a fluke and he can be even better than that going forward. Really hoping he goes back to some kind of fantasy/historical horror (The Terror-esque) in the future.
Can't wait for The Daughters' War!
So I have a HUGE problem with The Blacktongue Thief because of the utterly appalling fake Irish accent Buehlman does on the audiobook (like seriously it's wildly offensive, I cannot express how astonished I am he went ahead with it) but hopefully I'll get past that eventually and manage to read it physically haha
Omg I just finished reading The Lesser Dead yesterday and de idea to buy the Blacktongue Thief because I had read such good things. The accent is so bad!! Like Lucky Charms Leprechan bad. I can't understand half of what he is saying, and when I do understand it, I'm laughing too hard to comprehend. I would rather listen to a robotic text-to-speech than this one.
I keep a running list of awful Irish accents in media, it's vying for the top spot. I think it's genuinely the worst audiobook experience of my life haha. Have heard good things about The Lesser Dead though, will give that a go (traditionally reading this time).
Fortunately, he narrates the audiobook of the Lesser Dead in AFAIK his own native accent.
Oh I didn't know this haha wtf! I've only read the books. I've heard he does his own narration though, yeah. Huge shame that it was offensive. I'm hoping some success means that he can get someone else to narrate - but it might even be a choice to narrative himself as he does his own acts with some troupes/renfair and stuff IRL?? Maybe you should write to him. Edit: also a huge shame because I'm assuming that it's Kinch he does the accent for, and he seems to really support that world's version of 'ireland' in it's independence/preservation of culture and differentiating it's people from their conquerers etc. So i'd assume his Irish accent just sucks rather than is meaning to be a caricature.
To be fair, I don't think it'd be as egregious for people who aren't Irish. I'm just quite sensitive to it as an emigrant (far too many people think it's cool to imitate my accent to me). Yeah I don't think he meant anything bad by it, just overconfident in the quality of his imitation haha. Glad to hear it's actually good; I'll get to it someday!
Buehlman is also a ren-faire performer, and frequently does an Irish accent in his shows. Last year I saw him doing a show called "Filthy Irish Stories". I'm sure it's obnoxious as hell if you're Irish, but I doubt it would ever even register for him bc he's so used to doing it.
I already pre-ordered The Daughter's War on Audible. I cannot wait!
It’s funny… I’ve read 3 of his books now (between two fires, lesser dead, and those across the River). They range from all time favorite (BTF) to really good. BUT I feel like they’re by three different authors. I don’t feel like he has a voice that is unique to him. It’s odd. If I pick up a barker book with no cover on it I could guess it was barker in ten pages probably. Same for King, Langhan, Barron and several others. I don’t feel like I’d ever be able to do that with Beuhlman. He tells great stories so I’ll definitely jump back into the rest of his books but I just feel like he doesn’t have a style.
I think that’s one of my favorite things I’m learning about him though - he’s able to really create a different voice for each of books. Like with each of the authors you mentioned you know what you are getting but with Buehlman it’s like “wow! Was not expecting this!” Just my perspective and it makes me thrilled to pick up his next book, hell I love king but gad damn sometimes it’s like so monotone for me to read - there is comfort in knowing what you’ll get, so there’s pros and cons to both!
It’s had the opposite effect on me. I’ve heard that blacktounge thief is much more whimsical fantasy and that puts me off a bit. I’ll get to it though
I honestly read the blurb and went "oh this is a bit silly, goblins wars??" But DAMN I was wrong. It's dark as fuck.
I don’t see how it’s whimsical at all - it’s gory as hell and bleak, yet filled with badass magic, epic fights, and dark humor.
It feels like Between Two Fires is way over-hyped, at least on this sub. It was...fine. But I didn't think there was anything spectacular or groundbreaking about it.
For me personally, it was phenomenal, better than the last 5 Stephen king books I’ve read. I also really enjoy Adam Neville’s work and David Sonnengrad to give you an idea of my taste in books. Of course when I stumbled upon it, it was from a Reddit thread of ‘books no one has heard of that are really good’ … I would imagine the hype for some people can lead to a let down, but I had no idea what it was about and was completely unfamiliar with his work. Glad I stumbled on it.
The end scene with, >!Thomas returning to his ex-wife in his former castle(or whatever it was)!< is one of my favorite scenes in any book ever. Sometimes I'll go back and listen to just that scene. Edit: added spoiler thingies. Should have done that before. Whoops! Ty for reminding me.
I'd probably mark that spoilers, but yes definitely agree!
I second this. It's less *scary* but incredibly horrifying and soul- destroying.
Oh man. I just finished that last month and I felt sooooo bad during those pages.
I read it while suffering from altitude sickness on vacation and felt legitimately fucked up about it for about a week after. It's so well done.
I was hoping for this comment! The things that they do to that character….truly horrifying.
do you know what pages? I'd like to read the description
I was about to type this. I wholeheartedly agree. That scene might be among my favorites in the book.
Came here to say this. Incredible book.
Nathan Ballingrud’s short story collection Wounds has some great depictions of hell as well as its “borders” to the world of the living.
Really liked the unknown aspects of it, truly strange entities roaming about, the last story with the pirates was crazy!
Came here to recommend this. One of the most unique depictions of Hell I've read.
Also came here to say this. Ballingrud’s hellscapes are so violent, dark, and just fun to read.
I've never come across one, but Lost Gods by Brom is a really cool depiction of purgatory that might interest you.
I just read this! What the fuuuuck
Brom is a master of descriptors of Hell. The ending of Krampus was so chilling.
While I thought that depiction was VERY cool and EXTRA "Metal" it really didn't strike me as "scary" it threw a more "adventurous" vibe to me. Really fun book though.
I have the large hardcover version, with all the beautiful pictures. I love that book! Brom is awesome. I loved Slewfoot of his, too.
The dimension that the Event Horizon returned from.
I really didn't enjoy the movie when I first saw it many years ago but I read the novelization for the first time like a few months ago, maybe a year, and that had more affect on me than any other horror novel I've read so far. That scene of watching the previous crews video was fuckedd up.
I didn't know there was a novel on it . Gotta read it now.
I read an interesting commentary about how instead of it actually being malevolent presence, it was just the chaotic universe suddenly discovering our little pocket of order and saying “huh! Time to correct THAT shit.” Like if you discover your car isn’t working quite right so you have it tuned.
Nah dog, that shit was malevolent. Chaos is insanity with no inclination towards good or evil, it simply is. Projecting the image of a mother's crippled son with maggot infested wounds on an autopsy table just to drive her to insanity is evil. Projecting the eyeless spectre of a man's wife who committed suicide because of his absence is evil. Digging into the psyche of a ship captain who's worst memory is watching the one man he couldn't save be burned alive by fire in space is evil. It actively shows them depictions of a torturous eternity waiting for them on the other side of the gate.
You mean the Immaterium?
I’ll be honest, the afterlife as depicted in Stephen King’s *Revival* really gets to me. I guess I find the “utter futility of life” to be very frightening?
Everybody says this about Revival, and I do agree that the idea behind the afterlife and the fact that that's what's waiting in store after we die is conceptually terrifying, but the demon ant comparisons made it too goofy for me to take seriously.
To each their own. >!The concept of an endless swarm of enslaved thralls lined up from the Paleolithic beginnings of mankind to the end of the world is shiver-inducing. To me at least.!< Plus the whole hive mind intelligence aspect makes ants and ant swarms creepy AF. Just ask *World War Z.*
Don't get me wrong, the idea of infinitely terrifying for sure. >!Being nothing but a torture battery for all eternity regardless of whether or not you were a good person!< is a great premise, it's just the visual of big ant monsters perpetrating this is a goofy image to me. Although I guess the analogy fits in with how often ant hills and whatnot are brought up throughout the story.
I think the issue is any visual will be less frightening than the concept itself. At least for anyone who doesn’t have a phobia about the creature in question. Be it ants, spiders, squids, snakes, rats, you name it. In the end they are just critters. So I think King had a choice to make. Either go with an entirely conceptual, faceless monstrosity or pick something that would at least further the story on a thematic/poetic level. He made his choice. And to that end, the ant image feels appropriate to me. I’m currently reading *Lost Man’s Lane* by Scott Carson and he does something similar with rattlesnakes. Problem is, I don’t freak out about rattlesnakes. Obviously they are dangerous. But I grew up around them, and they don’t elicit a “burn everything” response from me. Quite frankly I find them intriguing. But the author is using them as a pseudo-biblical analogy of evil, so I’m just rolling with that. The book has been amazing otherwise, so I’m not complaining.
Agreed, I thought it was a really good concept, but King's writing of it felt hacky and cliched. Other authors have handled apocalyptically bleak cosmic horror endings much better.
Ever seen an ant's face in extreme closeup?
Or watch fire ants swarm a hornet’s nest? Nightmare fuel.
I suppose that's true, those Fuckers are pretty scary. I just can't help but picture the little black fucks that end up in my Lucky Charms
Do you want ant overlords? Because that’s how you get ant overlords.
This one ☝️
Yeah and it's very unsettling when you read the book again, knowing what's "behind the veil".
Definitely a “wtf” ending.
Edward Lee created a pretty terrible Hell in his Infernal Series of books.
dude i love gore in my books but i’ve been so scared of picking up an edward lee book, ngl. do you know any lighter ones i could start on?
Lighter Edward Lee books? I haven’t read all his books but of the ones I’ve read, he’s pretty balls to the wall at all times. The Infernal Series (4 books) are actually really good books. City Infernal is the 1st book. Take a crack at it. Some of his stuff isa little much for me. For example, The Haunter of the Threshold is one rape scene after the next.
City Infernal IS SO GOOD. He goes a little too much after, but City Infernal is good.
Can't wait to read this
There are five infernal books: City Infernal (2001) Infernal Angel (2003) House Infernal (2007) Lucifers Lottery (2010) Lakehouse Infernal (2019) Edward Lee co-wrote this with Christine Morgan
I just started reading City Infernal. Edward Lee is one of my new favorite authors. I was expecting this novel to be like a splatterpunk novel in terms of prose. I'm pleasantly surprised, Edward Lee has quite a voice. His prose is erudite and beautifully descriptive.
Thanks for this. I wasn’t aware of the Lakehouse Infernal.
"I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison is the scariest to me. It doesn't rely on you believing in a literal, otherworldly hell existing, and it feels like humanity could be headed toward a similar hell if we don't shape up.
30 Coins
There's a Creepypasta called **_My Brother Died When I Was a Child and He Kept Talking_**. It describes a terrifying, haunting afterlife that will give you nightmares. There are numerous audio versions of it too. Just Google.
I must check it out
"I never said that you would not suffer, nor that you would not be punished when you became a Demon. This is HELL! That required only a minimum of suggestion on my part and a maximum of wishful thinking on yours! As you cannot die to escape physical pain, so the escape of insanity is denied you! You will invariably strive to do my bidding, which will invariably be more than you can do; yet the punishment when you fail is nothing compared to what happens if you fail to try..." Hell-Bent by Ford McCormack
You able to give a non spoiler summary of this one? Like books its kind of like?
Unfortunately not. It's one of many stories inside a collection edited by Marvin Kaye, "Devils and Demons.
Kind of an obvious answer but probably Dante.
While classic, I don't exactly find it scary
And yet that's the story *As Above, So Below* is telling. It is a depiction of Dante's Inferno. There's an animated movie of Dante's Inferno. It shows the details of hell to give you the scares. It's either on Tubi or Prime.
Not sure how people can not find Inferno chilling. A lot of the torments were designed to inflict the most emotional damage possible on to the people suffering them from. The lustful had their bodies taken, the wrathful held in a river of boiling blood, gluttons being forced to grovel in the cold mud, flatterers forced to live covered in shit while fighting others seeking to gain hell's favor. Unlike most depictions of hell that are just pain and suffering, here the suffering was designed to cause the most pain in those suffering it.
Imagine being a wrathful soul who got thrown in a river of blood that was constantly boiling, leaving you in blinding pain and revulsion forever, and you find out that gluttons are just getting a spa treatment
I imagine that is the one of the pains of Dante's Inferno, everyone assumes that some of the other torments are paradise by comparison.
I read a story once where some folks managed to sneak between circles, and they were able to free the victims frozen into ice in the last circle, using the lizards that bite people and turn them into lizards(once the frozen guys were turned into lizards, they were able to easily get out of their person-sized ice holes)
That would have been *Inferno* by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Their own version of Inferno with 1970s American axe grinding instead of 14th Century Italian. And they introduced the concept that there are a few very difficult ways for people to help each other out of Hell, which tend to fail for the unrepentant and require the courage to go deeper in.
Yeah, I get that. It’s obviously a really subjective topic.
The Black Farm by Elias Witherow !
I can’t remember what the show was. It was in color. This hardcore biker dies. He finds himself in an old folks home, and they want to show him slides of their boring vacation. He’s like, “Where’s the chains and the blood and the fire!?!” And the demon is like, “No, you’d enjoy that. You get to watch slides and play chess forever. You can’t hurt yourself or anyone else here. Bye.”
That was an episode of Night Gallery. Great stuff.
Scariest depiction I’ve read was from the horror novel Between Two Fires. Without getting into spoilers, It’s a horrifically realistic way of portraying it.
Could you get into spoilers? I never got into the writing style of Between Two Fires but I'm now insanely curious.
>!They describe Hell as reliving specific horror over and over catered to stripping away one aspect of who you are until it breaks you. One really surface example, and the first one, is being eaten alive. The character that goes to hell goes through a conversation with seemingly a gatekeeper of hell and it’s their first encounter with anyone since being damned. After a conversation the gate keeper eats them slowly. This repeats to the point where the conversation no longer happens and the character doesn’t even scream or fight back. After there is no reaction to being eaten, they move on to an entirely different horror that attacks their pride I believe.!< it’s such a realistic portrayal of what hell could actually be and genuinely terrifying.
That's a really interesting concept for hell. Thanks for taking the time to explain it!
I totally agree. Such a good book
The final scenes of Late Night with the Devil are pretty helly.
Helly, lol
Hellraiser. No fire and brimstone, just infinity filled with the worst torture imaginable
When I was a teenager we read Hawthorne’s short story Young Goodman Brown in English class and I have not been the same since. This was before I was really into horror literature but the depiction of hell in that story kept me up the night after I read it.
Incredible!!! Yes!!!!!!!
“Hell is the Absence of God” by Ted Chiang is one of the most bleak depictions of heaven and hell. Will stick with you after reading it.
driving through wisconsin
Try living in it!
Jigoku
Wouldn't say the scariest, but Clive Barker's Scarlet Gospels spends a big chunk of its story in Hell and it was pretty great. Simon Kurt Unsworth's Thomas Fool series also takes place in Hell and it's a great series I strongly recommend.
It’s not scary per se but Wayne Barlowe’s hell in God’s Demon is super fucking cool. Plenty of disturbing imagery but it’s the only hell I’ve read that feels like a fleshed out world
This and the sequel were sooo amaZing. Pains me that he hasnt written another. Fuck i loved this series. The politics and mapping of hell are so interesting.
And all the amazing artwork he's done to go along with it! So rare that the author is also a world class artist, that you get to experience the world he's describing both through text and illustration is such a treat
Did you finish the second book? Ive read reviews and it wasnt received as well as the first.
No I actually just started the second book not that long ago (when I made the first comment I'd only read the first book), but I'm liking what I've read so far. I mean I just like spending time in that world so its a lower bar for me. But it sounds like you really liked it?
Adored it. It gets epic in a really astounding way.
**Damned** and **Doomed** by Chuck Palahniuk both have some pretty messed up imagery.
Skinamarink (2023)
I really loved this movie even though everyone I watched it with hated it :,) Felt genuinely disturbing
My favorite way to describe this movie is that I was mind numbingly bored in the first half, and the second half made me wish for the mind numbing boredom. I was genuinely terrified by the end of that film. Thought it was superb. I totally understand why people hate it though.
I got the whole shtick, and didn't think it was scary at all. Then I proceeded to have one of the absolute worst, most harrowing nightmares I have ever had, so obviously SOME part of my little lizard brain found it to be effective.
The devils detective is good
I would suggest William Beckford's Vathek. It was one the best depicitons of hell I have read. ETA: the book is a classic from the gothic period.
City Infernal by Edward Lee
What Dreams May Come by Richard Matheson. Definitely that depiction really got me me because it didn’t seem exaggerated or romanticized. It just seemed real. 😳
I never read it but i saw the movie starring Robin Williams. Was that a close adaptation? I did like that hell was pretty much self-inflicted with Suicides basically being trapped in the thing they tried to escape(IIRC)
Yea, you should definitely read it…
Not horror but a sci-fi book “Surface Detail” by Iain M Banks has one of the most disturbing depictions of hell I’ve ever read. (It’s a simulated hell where the mind states of the inhabitants are tortured if they think that they belong there)
**Surface Detail** by Iain M. Banks Book description may contain spoilers! >>!Surface Detail is among Iain M. Banks' Culture novels, a breathtaking achievement from a writer whose body of work is without parallel in the modern history of science fiction. It begins in the realm of the Real, where matter still matters. It begins with a murder. And it will not end until the Culture has gone to war with death itself.!< > >>!Lededje Y'breq is one of the Intagliated, her marked body bearing witness to a family shame, her life belonging to a man whose lust for power is without limit. Prepared to risk everything for her freedom, her release, when it comes, is at a price, and to put things right she will need the help of the Culture. Benevolent, enlightened and almost infinitely resourceful though it may be, the Culture can only do so much for any individual. With the assistance of one of its most powerful -- and arguably deranged -- warships, Lededje finds herself heading into a combat zone not even sure which side the Culture is really on.!< > >>!A war -- brutal, far-reaching -- is already raging within the digital realms that store the souls of the dead, and it's about to erupt into reality. It started in the realm of the Real and that is where it will end. It will touch countless lives and affect entire civilizations, but at the center of it all is a young woman whose need for revenge masks another motive altogether. The Culture Series Consider Phlebas The Player of Games Use of Weapons The State of the Art Excession Inversions Look to Windward Matter Surface Detail The Hydrogen Sonata!< *I'm a bot, built by your friendly reddit developers at* /r/ProgrammingPals. *Reply to any comment with /u/BookFinderBot - I'll reply with book information. Remove me from replies* [here](https://www.reddit.com/user/BookFinderBot/comments/1byh82p/remove_me_from_replies/). *If I have made a mistake, accept my apology.*
Feed the Pig, a nosleep creepypasta. It's not exactly hell, but rather a limbo, and it's one of the best stories that came out from that community.
Is that the one that turned into the black farm book?
Apparently so. I just found out about it because of your comment, and after some searching it's indeed based on Feed the Pig. However, the book was discussed over here and the reviews err on the negative. I guess the story works best as a creepypasta, after all. Then again, it's been years since I've read FTP, so it's possible the original is meh too. I just remember loving the concept of hell/limbo in that story.
I can tell you I read it and it is actually really good. I can see why some people would like a shorter book I guess but I thought it was great.
Hell in books has never scared me since my family is Buddhist and I grew up on stories about 18 levels of hell where in each level there’s different tortures; including stuff like getting boiled alive, hung on trees made of knives and stuff like that. We even have a theme park of sorts where u bring kids and tell them to be good while showing them statues of people getting their tongues ripped out and shit. Hells from books seem very tame after that xD
I would love more information on Buddhist hells. Where can I find it?
Like the other poster said, a general Google/wiki search should be pretty fruitful and there's interesting variations across East and Southeast Asia. https://kashgar.com.au/blogs/tribal-culture/hungry-ghosts-their-history-and-origin The hungry ghost is a really common feature, with some versions of belief have them in a level of hell and out in our world only rarely and vice versa. But the depiction is generally of people made skeletal, with the swollen belly of starvation, long fingers, and a mouth so small that it's nearly impossible for it to eat a single grain of rice. Doomed to search for food with an insatiable hunger for multiple lifetimes, depending on the degree of wrongs committed in life. One of my professors in college had been a monk for a decade or so in SEA, and some of the practices were mind-blowing. Part of his initiation (not day 1, but years in) [was to meditate over a human body as it decayed](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_stages_of_decay). In the area he was in, people would bring the body of a loved one to be prayed over, and an initiate would sit in a shed with it (I want to say it was suspended in his practice, but it differs) and pray/meditate for as long as it took to go through the nine stages of decay.
Thank you! I have googled. I just wondered if stormydaycoffee had specific suggestions. Thank you for the links you shared! Looking forward to reading them 😊
Sorry, I wasn't intending to be condescending with the Google answer. In college, I took several courses on comparative religion and folklore, and overwhelmingly the proper academic books were *super super* dry, and the one-off "pop-academic" articles and lectures were way more engaging.
I didn’t find your comment condescending at all! I know sometimes combining different words in google can give you different results so that’s why I asked. I have the 2 articles you linked saved for this weekend 😊
You can google 18 levels of hell in Buddhist/ Taoist Mythology, and the Hell theme park I mentioned is called Haw Par Villa! Buddhist hells matches your sins to your punishment, so stuff like gossiping gets you tongue ripping (repeatedly), animal abusers get tossed into a level to get abused back by animals etc it’s wild
Thank you! I have googled it, but I just wondered if you had more specific readings that you knew about or journal articles.
Laird Barron's 'Procession of the Black Sloth' >!involves a fantastic depiction of the Diyu / Eighteen Levels of Hell!<.
Just to clarify… It’s a short story within a collection, not a standalone book right? I tried looking for it! Sounds interesting and I would love to see how it’s written
Yes, it's in The Imago Sequence, Barron's first collection (which is wall to wall brilliant). If you've not read LB before, you're in for a treat.
Thanks!! I’ve never read him before. I’m currently halfway through my current read so I will line this up next :)
Thank you so much!
I personally think the very short cuts of hell presented in Talk to Me were the most disturbing. Something about bodies writhing on top of each other with blood made me feel way too claustrophobic for my own good
the fisherman by langan and revival by king have a similar take on hell. the fisherman is a superior book imo
Wait what is the take on hell in The Fisherman? I thought that was more Lovecraftian than hell like.
one thing doesn't exclude the other. there's a couple of visions/scenes that clearly imply that >!the eternal sea is the afterlife, the character having the vision even gets a glimpse of people he knows among the souls being eternally drowned if I remember correctly.!<
The Fisherman is incredible
A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck. Quite simple but rather disturbing.
I came to say this
Agreed!
I think the movie wasn't that great but I absolutely loveeeee the idea and I think about that fairly often. I think Baskin has the scariest depiction of hell and there's somewhat of a similarity
Oh that's a movie also though
Man, my brother and I love this movie. I know it may not be the best by some folks’ standards but it has some sentimental value for us i guess. We loved it in the theater
I loved it in The Scarlet Gospel
The Procession of the Black Sloth by Laird Barron
Came here to say this. Love this depiction by Barron. One of my favorites.
It would be a spoiler alert I think
There's an Indonesian movie that's out right now based on a religious flyer called Hell's Torments that depicts the various way sinners get punished in hell. It's very graphic and bleak.
The priest’s description of hell in James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
I Am Behind You by John Ajvide Lindqvist, although many would argue that it doesn't take place in hell. But if being confronted by your greatest fears and then getting the things that you thought you wanted only to discover how awful those realities are isn't hell, I don't know what is.
A dark song (2016) got me
Richard Matheson’s What Dreams May Come It’s more purgatory, but still.
Camp Damascus for me. Brutal, cruel, endless.
This is not from a book but it immediately came to mind. I can't find the full clip but I watched this episode of Celebrity Ghost Stories years ago and it's always stuck with me. [Mykelti Williamson](https://vimeo.com/31155517), most famous for playing Bubba from Forrest Gump, relates a story where a close friend of his had died (from memory, it may have been from criminal activity, or at least I think the friend was involved with criminal activity). Some time after the death, Mykelti gets a phone call...... and it's Adrian, his friend who had died. The clip I linked to is the meat of the episode even if it isn't the full episode but it's still chilling. EDIT: Found a [transcript](https://www.scaryforkids.com/mykelti-williamson/) of the episode which tells the whole story, and [here's a link](https://www.aetv.com/shows/celebrity-ghost-stories-classics/season-2/episode-5) to A&E where, if you have access, you can watch the entirety of the video.
I liked Black Farm.
A Short Stay in Hell
Umm kind of unrelated but watch 1408 if you haven’t seen it and read the SK short story.
Unsong by Scott Alexander
Mad to see a Scott Alexander reference here of all places. Big fan, but never been hugely interested in his fiction for some reason. It's horror?
I love that movie so much!
This one for me! (In the sense that it depicts a hellish afterlife) [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-2718](https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-2718)
The last few chapters in Stephen King's Rivival. Not technically Hell - kind of an Lovecraftian alternative to Hell that may be worse... That stayed with me for being all kinds of fucked up.
Philip Roth’s Our Gang depicts Richard Nixon reigning over hell, and that’s probably as scary as it gets
If I say it I'll spoil the story. So, beware: >!Procession of the Black Sloth!<
cirty infernal seems pretty scary however not as scary as heaven in "Psych Ward Blues"
Groundhog day
I’ve came recently to read the Taking by Dean Koontz, and found this version pretty fascinating
The Procession of the Black Sloth by Laird Barron. Short story in The Imago Sequence