History NightmareFuel / Literature

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel/WorldWarZ

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel/WarriorCats

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel/TheLaundrySeries

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel/TheHungerGames

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel/KafkaOnTheShore

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel/HouseOfLeaves

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel/{{Discworld}}
** HighOctaneNightmareFuel/AHatFullOfSky

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel/{{Hexwood}}

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel/{{Haunted 2005}}

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel/ClassicalMythology

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel/EdgarAllanPoe

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel/ConanTheBarbarian

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel/TheBible

** HighOctaneNightmareFuel/PerdidoStreetStation
** HighOctaneNightmareFuel/TheScar

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel/AutobiographyOfAWerewolfHunter

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel/{{Animorphs}}

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel/HPLovecraft

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel/TheEdgeChronicles

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel/TheBookOfLostThings

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel/{{Shannara}}

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel/TheDresdenFiles

*** There's a reason [[ExterminatusNow Lothar Hex's]] reaction to that book is the HighOctaneNightmareFuel page quote. And this is a character who once shouted, [[InVinoVeritas after a heavy night]], "[[NoodleIncident You can't prove I ate that baby!]]"

** Multiple short stories from Reynolds' ''Galactic North'' anthology fit the ''HighOctaneNightmareFuel'' bill. In the ''Nightingale'' story, the protagonists [[spoiler:set out on an exploration mission of a supposedly abandoned medical spacecraft that ends up being a ''LivingShip''. In the end the team is surgically fused by the ship into a single ''BodyHorror'' being to send message about the horrors of war]].

* Shirley Jackson's short story ''TheLottery'' is such HighOctaneNightmareFuel. It's that bad. In fact, don't click the link if you want to sleep soundly tonight.
* Similarly, just ''thinking'' about ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cold_Equations The Cold Equations]]'' leads to HighOctaneNightmareFuel.

** That's it? Hell, the entire book is HighOctaneNightmareFuel from the moment they set foot inside the village. What got me was when a character is convinced that the vines are ''underneath his skin'' and he starts cutting himself open to get rid of it. The worst part? [[spoiler: He's right.]] Then there's the very end where it's all but explicitly stated that [[spoiler: the whole ordeal is going to start ''again'' with the would-be-rescuers.]] God''damn'' that's one sadistic plant.

** [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel/TheTimeMachine And how about those wacky Morlocks]]?

* ''The Testament of Magdalen Blair.'' A woman forms a psychic bond with her husband, who later dies of kidney disease. So she, of all people who have ever lived, gets to learn whether there is life after death. The good news? There is. The bad news? [[spoiler: The soul remains tied to the body, [[AndIMustScream unable to act]] but participating in every moment of decomposition, except that after death the perception of time ceases and every second feels like an infinity. Even after the body is totally gone, the soul will participate in [[CrapsackWorld the overall misery of the universe]]. FOR EVER. The title character attempts to blow her own head off to shorten her own-post death suffering.]] You can read it [[http://www.horrormasters.com/Text/a2055.pdf here.]] But trust me, [[SchmuckBait you don't want to.]] The author commented in his [[http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/confess/chapter71.html autobiography]]: "I read it aloud to a house party on Christmas Eve; in the morning they all looked as if they had not recovered from a long and dangerous illness. I found myself extremely disliked!" HighOctaneNightmareFuel indeed...

* The first book of ''WheelOfTime'' made me, a troper who has watched TheShining at midnight and slept soundly afterwards, shake with horror under my blanket with the nightlamp on. There are the Ways and ''Machin Shin'', Black Wind, which eats your soul and speaks of drinking your blood and tearing your skin and ''braiding the skin strips''. And after the protagonists barely escape that, they enter the Blight, where all plants rot while still alive and EverythingIsTryingToKillYou, and then the Worms, which eat everything and are nigh-invincible, start hunting them. And [[ItGotWorse it gets worse...]] they enter a mountain pass, and the Worms give up the hunt. The explanation? ''They are afraid of the things that live in the passes.'' This is HighOctaneNightmareFuel cranked UpToEleven. It gets considerably milder in the following books, though. Tells something about me that I was actually disappointed about there being no more horrors.
** In my opinion, there is HighOctaneNightmareFuel in the later books when The Dark One's prison starts to weaken and he can "touch the world." Countless and seemingly random cases of death(usually by way of BodyHorror), the dead walking the earth, and so many cases of EverythingIsTryingToKillYou. A few examples: the ground/floor absorbing people, tents try to strangle the people sleeping in them, and an [[spoiler: ENTIRE VILLAGE that goes insane at night and kills each other, only to have them wake up in the morning perfectly fine, but with fuzzy memories of the night before. [[FateWorseThanDeath If they try to leave, they'll simply wake back up in the village the next morning]].]] No one can predict what is going to happen or when. All they can do is try to deal with it and save lives when it comes, and even that can't always stop it. While the HighOctaneNightmareFuel does tone down for awhile in the subsequent books, it returns cranked UpToEleven.
** If you're an Aes Sedai in TheWheelOfTime, becoming a damane is definitely HighOctaneNightmareFuel. Having to assume a pet-like, subordinate identity that your handler chooses for you, right down to a new name? Check. Not being able to channel, and in some cases, not really being able to do ANYTHING without your handler letting you? Check. Strong chances of developing StockholmSyndrome in these circumstances? [[AndIMustScream Cue the screaming.]] Literally [[spoiler: in Elaida's case.]]

*** This is HighOctaneNightmareFuel for Chloe herself, and she's ProperlyParanoid about sleeping ''anywhere'' there might be corpses. As an added bonus, [[MadOracle most necromancers eventually go insane later in life]], and the trend seems to be that [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity the more powerful they are, the faster it happens]]. Unlike most superpowers, being an exceptionally powerful necromancer is, unsurprisingly, [[CaptainObvious not exactly a good thing to be]]. At least [[spoiler:her werewolf boyfriend can usually sniff out any corpses for her]].

** The NewJediOrder bleeds HighOctaneNightmareFuel. Especially with a device called the Embrace of Pain. Also with [[TheresNoKillLikeOverkill Chewie's death]]. [[HeroicRROD And Anakin's.]]

** ''LukeSkywalkerAndTheShadowsOfMindor''. Why is Cronal's stormtroopers' armor black? Hint: That's not paint. Also, Cronal controls the rocks of the planet, so he can [[AndIMustScream create a prison for Luke]]. He then [[MindRape forces]] Luke to see the heat death of the universe; Luke [[GoMadFromTheRevelation does not take it well]]. Throw in {{Body Surf}}ing, and you're looking at some HighOctaneNightmareFuel, punctuated by {{Take That}}s to the fanboys.
* The children's book Snorre Sel by Norwegian author Frithjof Sælen. It tells the tale of a vain little seal pup that ventures from his family in the arctic, on the behest of some nefarious wildlife. His father is eaten and he almost gets eaten. A lot of Nordic children were traumatised by the story. It also happens to have been written as an allegory on the evils of the Nazis that had just occupied Norway when the book was written. HighOctaneNightmareFuel isn't so strange.

* "The Hangman", an allegorical poem by Maurice Ogden, is slightly unsettling...until you realize [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust what it's about]]. Then someone decided to make a [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEPSIAkmzAE short film version]], which takes a creepy poem and combines it with [[SurrealHorror surreal]] [[MindScrew and]] [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel terrifying]] imagery.

* Although it isn't necessarily HighOctaneNightmareFuel for everyone (more interesting for me) a lot of people I have came across have lost sleep over the imaginary and description of horrific crime scenes and often taking the persona of the messed up individual as one of the perspectives. This is in essence, most books by Stuart McBride, but most notably the Logan McRae series. One in particular, the titular character and police officer Logan is fed human flesh. Very unpleasant but quite interesting StuartMcBride is very good at making you feel the Squick.----

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel/{{Temeraire}}

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel/TheLordOfTheRings

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel/RoaldDahl

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel/FactionParadox

**** Or he pilfered it from George Fielding Eliot's ''The Copper Bowl'', HONF in itself, which dates from 1928.

* German author Gudrun Pausewang is the queen of HONF. (Not under ordinary NightmareFuel, since she obviously wanted to ScareEmStraight.) Most (in)famous example: ''Die letzten Kinder von Schewenborn'' (The last kids of Schewenborn), about the life of an ordinary German family during and after global thermonuclear war. Including excessive descriptions of radiation sickness, mutilated people, lots of children dying (incl. all the siblings of the narrator), a baby born eyeless and armless, the mother of the family going mad and forcing the family to return to Frankfurt which she believes wasn't destroyed (of course it was, being one of Germany's most important cities), and also the description of the helplessness of the people. She also wrote books about a nuclear power plant going Chernobyl in Germany, the poorness of people in third world, another right-wing populist taking power in Germany, and a biography of young AdolfHitler. Some of these books even got prizes for being (supposedly) good literature.

* ''Halfheads'' by Stuart MacBride has this. The title refers to a punishment for crime that involves removal of the lower jaw and a lobotomy-like procedure on the brain that leaves the person badly damaged. Halfheads are used for menial labor most of the time, but the antagonist of the book is a woman who came through the procedure with her mind still intact and naturally she wants revenge. She tortures one of the characters into helping her get jaw reconstruction, but the real HONF is her flashback to the procedure itself, which she's conscious during. Sure, she's given something to block any pain, but it's still enough to make this troper shiver. "We start by splitting the lower jaw..." Eesh.

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel/ASongOfIceAndFire