1. dean koontz
2. michael crichton
3. keith ablow
4. anne rice
5. stephen king

not all the authors are defined as horror oh well

i have a tough time with horror authors .. most of them are pretty bad.

Stephen King blew his wad years ago and just keeps pumping out the same smug formula. And Re. the detail .. too true.
He takes 3 or 4 pages to describe something Charles Dickens could paint more vividly in one sentance.
Dickens was brilliant in the way that he could throw out the perfect pieces of a framework that would allow you to build the rest on your own. HE was a master. King seems to believe that people are completely devoid of imagination so he has to spell every single little thing out for you.

I used to like Clive Barker ... but he's gone off a bit too ..
And even from the Damnation Game up he has a way of writing an entertaining book but has no idea how to end it ..

Herbert is a decent writer ...
McCammon was entertaining .. Kingish without the smugness ..

Wilson was kind of fun to read .. good characterizations ..
Then he started to do the King Universe thing too and tie all of his stories together.

I guess you have to expect when a horror author becomes one of the widest read authors in the world .. that he is going to influence a lot of other people.

Koontz wrote decent science fiction .. but his horror work - his characters lack developement...- too cliche ...

I'm actually looking for inspiration in this thread to give me cause to start reading horror again because i gave up on it.

if anyone here knows where i'm coming from and still has some suggestions, I'd love to hear them !

ablows work isn't horror (more mystery i guess) but most of his books deal with serial killers and psychopaths

In no particular order:

Stephen King
Clive Barker
Anne Rice
Edward Lee
Edgar Allen Poe
H.P. Lovecraft
Bram Stoker
Mary Shelley

in this order:
1. most definately STEPHEN KING
2. John Grisham ( not really horror but whatever)
3. Peter Straub
4. Dean Koontz
5. Elizabeth Lowell ( kinda horror but not really)

In no particular order:

James Patterson
Anne Rice
Patricia Cornwell
Stephen King
Edgar Allen Poe

1. Stephen King
2. Dean Koontz
3. Shaun hutson
4. Clive Barker
5. James Herbert

Ray Bradbury
Graham Greene
Summerset Maughan
Arthur Conan Doyle
Charles Dickens

my 5 are

steven king

anne rice

peter james

sean huston

james herbert