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The Fungus isn’t Harry Adam Knight’s best book, but it’s one of the only novels from the British author still in print. King’s novel is superior, but Floating Dragon is a time capsule of ‘80s horror favorites: a child psychic, ancient evil in a small town and sneaky sci-fi government malfeasance. Floating Dragon also hinges on a recurring evil that preys on children every 30-odd years-and it precedes It by a few years. King’s clown-faced magnum opus hinges on a recurring evil that plagues a small town every 30-ish years, committing child murders and then retreating. Floating Dragon isn’t one of Straub’s best-remembered books, but it’s a worthy read in the wake of It’s renewed popularity. Peter Straub is one of the more popular novelists on this list, thanks to works like Ghost Story and his collaborations with Stephen King. Bonus points: Valancourt Books’ reissue features a haunting new cover by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola.

The town of Babylon begins to sour after an innocent 14-year-old girl is raped, murdered and left to rot in a river, and the eerie happenings won’t stop until the monster who did it is brought to bloody justice. What it is, though, is a pitch-perfect example of ‘80s horror, propulsive and shocking as filtered through McDowell’s talent in capturing Southern life. Cold Moon Over Babylon by Michael McDowellĬold Moon Over Babylon isn’t Michael McDowell’s scariest novel (that’s The Elementals) or his most exemplary (that’d be the expansive Blackwater saga, finally back in print this year). “The Ability” allows these select few to completely control others, even at a great distance-a horrific possibility than Simmons uses to great effect across real-world history spanning from Nazi Germany to John Lennon’s assassination.Ģ. The novel spans time periods and revolves around (largely immoral) people with “The Ability,” a psychic power that makes Carrie’s telekinesis look like a parlor trick. Carrion Comfort, a doorstopper in Simmons’ typical fashion, proves that it wasn’t just Stephen King who harbored an unusual fascination with psychics in the ‘80s.

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Two additional disclaimers: horror was quite male-dominated during the ‘80s, and nearly every title below had a much cooler original cover.ĭan Simmons survived the horror bust just fine, spending much of the ‘90s on his Hyperion Cantos sci-fi tomes before finding renewed horror success in this millennium with Drood, The Abominable and The Terror (the latter of which will soon debut as a TV show from AMC). Not every novel below comes from a lost legend-several of these authors pushed through to contemporary success-and not all of them conform to the salacious paperback scene that inspired Grady Hendrix’s Paperbacks From Hell, but each of them first hit shelves between 19 and are worth the attention of any confessed horror hound. That’s why King’s name is absent from the list below, along with horror perennials like Clive Barker and Dean Koontz. Unfortunately, King is one of the few authors whose output survived the ensuing horror bust, as the genre shrank back into its niche status and specialty publishers shuttered, leaving some publishing rights in limbo for years. Both on film and on the paperback spinners, horror flourished during the Reagan decade, as exemplified by Stephen King’s prolific output during the period. Here’s an understatement: the ‘80s were kind to the horror genre.

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