Cosmic Horror

If you want to learn how to write Lovecraftian horror, there's no one better to study that its namesake himself. If you want to read it, however, you should know that the genre has evolved immensely since Lovecraft's heyday. Today's cosmic horror writers bring a diversity of experience to crafting novels that are lyrical, thought-provoking, and sometimes funny in addition to being suffused with measureless dread.

To honor their achievements, this post will largely focus on titles other than those written by Lovecraft — not least because we already covered 10 of his must-read works in another post! Without further ado, dip your toes into this wide-ranging list of 15 chilling cosmic horror titles to get you started with the genre.

They are:

1. What the Hell Did I Just Read by David Wong
2. Shadows of Carcosa by Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, Arthur Machen, Henry James, and more
3. The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories by H.P. Lovecraft
4. Songs of a Dead Dreamer by Thomas Ligotti
5. The Imago Sequence and Other Stories by Laird Barron
6. White is For Witching by Helen Oyeyemi
7. Cthulhu’s Reign, edited by Darrell Schweitzer
8. The Croning by Laird Barron
9. Dreams from the Witch House, edited by Lynne Jamneck
10. Cthulhu’s Daughters, edited by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Paula Stiles
11. The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
12. Lovecraft Country by Matt Huff
13. The Fisherman by John Langan
14. Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero
15. Agents of Dreamland by Caitlín R. Kiernan