Only finished 3 in September, as I spent the second half of the month reading The End of the World As We Know It anthology.
1. The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson. I’ve heard about this story for years now, that it’s a weird fiction classic, so I thought it was about time to give it a go. What a disappointment it turned out to be. I enjoyed the first half, about a reclusive man terrorized by strange pig people, but the the cosmic travelogue that made up most of the second half didn’t feel germane to the storyline established in the first half. At the conclusion, the book returned to the pig people storyline, but by that point I just wanted to finish the story and move on. Highly anticipated, but a big disappointment. 1/ 5
2. The Long Walk by Stephen King was a reread for me that I wanted to get in before seeing the film. My reaction to the story was similar to my reaction the first time I read it over 30 years ago. An interesting concept presented in a well told manner, with King’s usual well developed characters. Similar to the first reading, the ambiguous ending felt lacking. Overall, I feel that The Long Walk is a very good story that for me at least, falls short of being top tier King. 4 / 5
3. White Pines was the first novel I’ve read by Gemma Amor, though I think I have come across some of her short fiction over the last couple of years. White Pines was a combination of cosmic horror, folk horror, cursed villages, and dark family traditions kept secret for hundreds of years. White Pines had a slow, but not uninteresting, real world beginning. In the middle, the cosmic horror aspects kicked in and the story got too weird for my tastes, to the point that I almost DNF’d it. I stuck with it, and in the last part the folk horror aspects stood out, and that is the part of the story I enjoyed the most. Overall, I ended up really liking White Pines, and plan to seek out more of Amor’s work in the future. 4 / 5
B
1. The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson. I’ve heard about this story for years now, that it’s a weird fiction classic, so I thought it was about time to give it a go. What a disappointment it turned out to be. I enjoyed the first half, about a reclusive man terrorized by strange pig people, but the the cosmic travelogue that made up most of the second half didn’t feel germane to the storyline established in the first half. At the conclusion, the book returned to the pig people storyline, but by that point I just wanted to finish the story and move on. Highly anticipated, but a big disappointment. 1/ 5
2. The Long Walk by Stephen King was a reread for me that I wanted to get in before seeing the film. My reaction to the story was similar to my reaction the first time I read it over 30 years ago. An interesting concept presented in a well told manner, with King’s usual well developed characters. Similar to the first reading, the ambiguous ending felt lacking. Overall, I feel that The Long Walk is a very good story that for me at least, falls short of being top tier King. 4 / 5
3. White Pines was the first novel I’ve read by Gemma Amor, though I think I have come across some of her short fiction over the last couple of years. White Pines was a combination of cosmic horror, folk horror, cursed villages, and dark family traditions kept secret for hundreds of years. White Pines had a slow, but not uninteresting, real world beginning. In the middle, the cosmic horror aspects kicked in and the story got too weird for my tastes, to the point that I almost DNF’d it. I stuck with it, and in the last part the folk horror aspects stood out, and that is the part of the story I enjoyed the most. Overall, I ended up really liking White Pines, and plan to seek out more of Amor’s work in the future. 4 / 5
B