Book Reviews

[Theli]

Great review. Campbell is an author I have been intending to read for a long time, and have read some of his shorts, which I loved. This books sounds right up my alley. I love occult stories and have read a decent amount about it myself. Your review reminds me a bit of Stir of Echoes, but maybe more esoteric.

[RonClinton]

Campbell is another whose work I should love, whose legacy and influence is undeniable and admirable, and whose short stories I've largely enjoyed...but his novels, for whatever reason, typically fall flat with me. Too oblique and subtle, too dense and Liverpoolian, too much obfuscation to create a true narrative flow, I don't know...but while I have enjoyed his short stories for the most part (ALONE WITH THE HORRORS, in particular, is a fine collection), that style that works for me in the short form just doesn't carry over into the long form. I do think early novels, like THE PARASITE, tend to be a bit accessible before he fine-tuned his style to a razor's edge, but I still wouldn't call them my cup of tea.

Not anymore, anyhow -- I think I used to have more patience for that type of writing Back in the Day, so I have read a number of his novels, but that just hasn't continued to today. Looking at Wikepedia, I've read these, with perhaps an exception or two:

The Face That Must Die (expurgated version 1979) (Restored text: 1983)
The Parasite (1980) (published in the US with a different ending as To Wake the Dead)
The Nameless (1981) (filmed in 1999 as The Nameless)
The Claw (1983) (AKA Night of the Claw, Claw) (written as Jay Ramsay)
Incarnate (1983)
Obsession (1985) (Note: Written under the working title For the Rest of Their Lives)
The Hungry Moon (1986) (Note: Written under the working title Blind Dark)
The Influence (1988)
Ancient Images (1989)
Midnight Sun (1990)
Needing Ghosts (1990) (novella published stand-alone; later collected in Strange Things and Stranger Places)
The Count of Eleven (1991)
The Long Lost (1993)
The One Safe Place (1995)
The House on Nazareth Hill (1996) (AKA Nazareth Hill)
The Last Voice They Hear (1998)
Silent Children (2000)
Pact of the Fathers (2001) (filmed in 2002 as Second Name)

...but that 2001 novel was the last one I've read. As I recall, PACT OF THE FATHERS was one of three (the final?) novels that were more thrillers than horror, an experiment he was trying with his writing and career. It didn't click as he'd hoped, so he returned to his horror roots. I, however, didn't go along for the rest of the ride.

[Theli]

Ron, of the ones you did read, how would you rank them or what were your top few?

[RonClinton]

Ron, of the ones you did read, how would you rank them or what were your top few?

Yikes, you're asking me to go back 20 or 30 years on books that I wasn't too enamored to begin with (just read a lot more and a lot faster in those days)...but I'll give it a shot. The four that stand out as having some sort of positive connection to memory (the others are just essentially blank...I know by title that I read them, but otherwise...) are THE PARASITE, THE HOUSE ON NAZARETH HILL, ANCIENT IMAGES, and OBSESSION. Oh, and THE FACE THAT MUST DIE is an odd semi-biographical work that is worth adding to the mix. Based on the small nuggest of memory that I have of each, I'd probably give the nod to THE HOUSE ON NAZARETH HILL and ANCIENT IMAGES...but were it me, I'd give ALONE WITH THE HORRORS a try first, and if that floats your boat then give his full-length works a try.

[bugen]

I'll throw in some support for The Influence. I thought that one was excellent.

[bugen]

Here's a horror review I missed posting on CD due to a horrific move...

[bugen]

The Terror - Dan Simmons

With luck he’d get almost two hours of a drunkard’s sleep before the next day of darkness and cold began. With luck, he thought as he drifted off, he wouldn’t wake at all.

The Terror is the fictionalized true story of Francis Crozier’s disastrous attempt to find a passage through the polar northern hemisphere. The author doesn’t skimp on the journey, giving you an adventure of death that clocks in at nearly 300,000 words–be prepared to commit. The journey is so full, so alive with struggle, once you’ve given it a chance you’ll be forced to see it through.

Soon after the voyage begins, two ships, The Terror and The Erebus become locked in ice, and not the brutal ice we know from the northern states here in the U.S., but ice so tough and thick and unyielding but yet still moving as an unstoppable force of nature it might as well be cruel, living, breathing stone. How to describe the climate so cold and dry that a mere minute of exposed skin causes frostbite in the best scenario?

And here’s where it gets really interesting. Simmons has a creature native to the frozen wastelands that’s hunting the men down while they’re locked in the ice, unable to move their ships and careening through the stores they had for the journey. Avoiding spoilers means leaving descriptions to the author, but this creature means instant death. And while this thing went about slaughtering sailors left and right, it was actually the least of their problems. An unstoppable killing machine paled in comparison to the elements with which these men contended, not for weeks or months but for years.

Simmons tackles an environment so brutal I was sitting in the warm California sun, baking, no shirt and no shoes, yet still freezing my ass off by living and breathing in the world transported to the reader. Remember Hoth, the ice planet from Star Wars? How they unwrapped scarves from their faces to yell at each other in the blistering cold? Uh-uh. That’s death here.

What makes this book so special isn’t the catastrophic true story. It isn’t the horrific conditions or the creature ripping and tearing through survivors. The Terror is so extraordinary because of the skill with which the author brings you there. He plants you there in a realm of death and dares you to keep reading. And it’s a dare you’ll accept, because there will be no choice.

The Terror is an example of monstrous skill, a literary work so cold and hostile to life it’ll drag you right out of your easy chair to the heart of misery, chipping away at your internal temperature till your fingers are so cold it’s difficult to turn the page. But you must.

Dan Simmons is a genius.

Maybe reading is a sort of curse is all I mean, concluded Fowler. Maybe it’s better for a man to stay inside his own mind.

5- (5?) stars

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[Sock Monkey]

That is one gorgeous edition! I really need to get around to finishing this one. I had started it about a year ago and then lost my paperback edition for months and only recently found it. Thanks for the review (both written and video) and the pics! I also agree that Simmons is definitely one our best authors. Maybe not the easiest read at times (his research is exhaustive and, as you mentioned, his work can be quite dense) but it is always worth it.

[Theli]

Another excellent review! My one complaint about your reviews is that it makes me want to read each book reviewed, and, damn it, I just don't have the time! But man that looks like a hell of an edition too. The marbled endpapers are stunning.

[bugen]

Haha, thanks! Once when I was a kid a friend called me a 'professional appreciator' because if they had some possession (a stereo, a toy, a movie) I'd find the good in it and talk about it and my friends would end up liking it more afterwards.

The vast majority of books read I'll end up considering 'good' or better, and it helps that most of them are older and have been out for a while so it's easier to find out ahead of time whether or not it's something I should like. The Terror still took me by surprise. It's Simmons, and I knew it would be good, but I had no idea it could warp you to the arctic like that while detailing such a miserable mission.

[bugen]

The Girl in a Swing - Richard Adams

Though I cannot tell why, I know without doubt that I shall never again undergo any supernatural experience. That music has ended, and now there will be silence.

Alan Desland, a porcelain and fine china dealer approaching middle age, has accepted his lot and found satisfaction being alone and working towards bettering his moderately successful business. On a trip to Copenhagen he has a chance meeting with an incredibly attractive young woman, and his tune changes to one of the love-lost. A brief courtship leads to a marriage proposal and a trip to America for the ceremony, then the two return to his home in England.

What follows, and makes up the majority of the book, is a whirlwind romance. Karin, the exceedingly beautiful and talented bride awes everyone around her, but her enigmatic past remains locked away and Alan decides, with the guidance of his great friend and progressive-leaning minister, Tony, to leave it be and support her in away way he can. Tony and Karin form a friendly, combative relationship when it comes to religious belief. Her inquiries into the teachings of Jesus and the nature of forgiveness combined with her refusal to be married in a church begin shedding some light on her past, and that steadily darkening mystery is increasingly interesting. But the heart and soul of the story is the couple’s devotion to each other.

They live in the moment, and it’s a wonderful, inspiring sight. Inevitable challenges arise, starting with the perceived impropriety of their lightning relationship, but Karin’s skill and charm and Alan’s hopeful adoration dispels them even in polite, proper, elite British society. Alan’s business flourishes, due in no small part to Karin’s involvement, and their happiness combined with her mysterious background gives a disquieting feeling, steadily progressing as the story deepens and otherworldly elements are introduced.

The novel is rich, employing an extensive vocabulary, British sensibilities and a flowery tongue somewhat in the tradition of the Victorian masters. This is not a fast-paced roller coaster; it’s a gondola ride of passion, impossible love and mystery. Even plug-chewing, beer-swilling rednecks, shotguns set aside and safely mounted in the truck’s gun rack, can lose themselves in this world if they give it an honest try and dive in with full heart and mind. Make no mistake, it requires investment from the reader. It doesn’t pay you to read, instead offering a generous exchange for the effort you put in. One of the reasons it is so damned effective is that it plays off your investment.

The Girl on a Swing deserves more than a single pass, but if you give the novel your full attention, and the universe allows, it will sweep you away the first time out.

The performers–even the composer–can achieve only so much. The rest is not even up to ourselves, but a gift. Sometimes we are mysteriously empowered to enter the presence of the god: sometimes we cannot, but remain fluttering up and down and impenetrable sheet of glass while the sun shines on outside.

4+ (5-?) stars

(Note: Kindle readers beware, you’re going to have to put up with scores of textual errors. I’ve written Amazon, and if enough people do the same maybe they'll fix it—under no circumstances should readers expect this level of quality in a full-priced, prestigious book.)

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[bugen]

Thought this next one deserves a bit more attention than it'll get on my little site.

[bugen]

That Which Should Not Be by Brett J. Talley

Words, my young friend. Words are all the power in the Universe. It was by words God created the Earth, the heavens and Hell. Is it any surprise that a book be the most powerful force in the world?

Carter Weston, a young student from Miskatonik University, is dispatched to recover a book reputed to be one of the earliest surviving manuscripts of occult power. On his journey, the student encounters an unlikely group at an inn and each of them tells the student his troubled story:

1. A group of trappers finds themselves in the wilderness, contending with a creature, the Wendigo, that has no place in our world. The creature can’t exist on its own, but instead inhabits the body of one of the travelers.

2. Two friends decide to travel the world together, but instead of seeing the sights that many search out, such as Rome and Paris, the two journey to areas much less traveled. When they reach an impasse at a mysterious monastery, they decide to stay for a few days in hopes the pass can be cleared or another route found. As they suspect, the monastery is more than it seems.

3. A student is granted his degree early in order to transfer to a mental hospital to further his study. When the police show up asking about his former professor, a man now thought to be connected with murder, the young doctor must uncover the truth.

4. The frame of the story resumes, but as the student wonders where to search next, a weathered ship’s captain appears and convinces the student to accompany him and hear his story.

After the fourth and final story is told, the student knows something of what must be done, and he sets out on an adventure that will likely end in his death even if he’s successful in saving the world from annihilation.

Lovecraft’s writing is considered cold and clinical, and to the uninitiated his style is difficult to penetrate until you've made a strong push at the work. This is significantly warmer and more accessible—just a couple of pages and you’re in.

The book’s an unqualified success. Its pacing is fantastic. Its characters are interesting and compelling, horrified at the situation in which they’ve found themselves but determined to do whatever they can to save us all. And, as with the best mythos stories, its full of occult reference and power and deals with the final annihilation of the universe.

That Which Should Not Be is an wonderful entry in Lovecraft’s world and an astounding accomplishment from a first time author.

"The Book seeks its owner. It calls you now. Don't you hear it?"

5- stars

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[Martin]

Joe Hill's Strange Weather

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Strange Weather contains 4 novellas with a weather or nature event involved in each story. I will review each story independently and I will be careful not to include spoilers.

I did not read the stories in the order they fall in the book, I will review them in the order I read them.
RAIN:
The rain coming from the sky changes to crystals that form into crystal nails. The story follows one person in the aftermath of the first downpour. Through three fourths of this story I thought I may be reading Joe Hills best story to date. At the three fourth mark the story got a little heavy handed for me. He righted it at the end but for a short time it felt like he was trying to deliver a subtle message with a sledge hammer.
I really liked the story but that little piece moved it back to a 4 star for me.

ALOFT:
So you find yourself in a plane about to jump out while strapped to a man with a parachute. You are deathly afraid of heights. You are here as a rememberence of a friend who died. Truth be told you are there because a person you have been in love with for a long time is there and you wanted to be with her. As events unfold you find yourself stuck on the cloud. This cloud can see your thoughts and can react to them. Need someplace to hang your harness, it appears, looking like a cloud but sturdy enough to hang your harness on. You are on the cloud, not sure where it is going, not sure how you will get off. Alone, or are you alone?
I loved this story, very unique, 5 stars for me!

SNAPSHOT:
This story was previously published, although this version has some changes, in an issue of Cemetery Dance Magazine. This is a story of a man going around taking pictures of people with a polaroid camera. Only it is not a polaroid, it is a solaroid. Only the pictures that come out are not of the subject but of there memories and when to solariod take the picture of the memory it is lost for good. I read this as a story about the horrors of Alzheimer's.
A very good story, 4 stars for me.

LOADED:
This is probably the hardest for me to discuss without spoilers. The story is about some people with their own set of problems and their guns. The story covers the convergence of their lives. I think this is the weakest story in the book but it is still a strong story.
A good story, 3 stars for me.

I generally love novellas. When told right a hundred page story can pack a solid punch. Joe hill succeeds in packing that punch in each of these stories. I hope this will not be his last foray into this format.

Now if www.cemeterydance.com would announce the limited edition I will be all set!

Overall I give this book 4 stars

[Brian861]

Good to hear you like it overall, Martin. I'm really forward to it's release next month.