Cellars

Cellars was the first horror novel I ever read by John Shirley. It was so intense, that authors like Barker, Lumley, Garton, and others positively paled in comparison. Cellars is unflinchingly executed. Gritty, dark, and truly scary - it keeps you guessing until literally the last page. I can't recommend this book for those who like Hollywood horror where everything is happy and fine after the minor scares. For those of you that are tired of the predictable, toothless horror novels that glut the shelves - give Cellars a read.

I've read this book twice (with about 8 years between each reading), and it still scares me. John Shirley has a knack for taking something I do without thinking about it, such as closing my eyes, and makes me SCARED of doing it. In Cellars, he's got New York City subways, and sub-subways, and psychics, and street urchins, and horrible "blessed" people, and secret societies, and things coming up from drains, and each horrific event is more disturbing than the last--all the way to the last page. Shirley doesn't write many horror novels, but when he does... Well, you have to read one for yourself. The only other book that actually scared me--and I read a LOT of horror stories--was another John Shirley book, In Darkness Waiting.