Abarat by Clive Barker

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• Published 2002 (HarperCollins hardcover edition)
• Finished reading it on July 26, 2003
• It is important to know that this book is the start of a massive project of building material geared for children and intended to be distributed via Disney. Not that you'll lower your expectations but so that you can reset them slightly. The sexual tone normally found in a Barker book are not here. And it's not quite as intense as some other of his books. However, it is definitely just as imaginative and weird and fantastic as you would think. The story is about Candy Quackenbush, resident of a small and boring town called Chickentown. Bored and unsatisfied with her life there, Candy cuts school one day and finds a magical passage to the world of Abarat. A world populated by eight headed people, fish that talk and mechanical butterflies. As part of the Hereafter (our world), Candy is special amongst the other residents of Abarat, special enough to attract the attention of Christopher Carrion, a lord who wants more power and a key that Candy possesses. While the journey was fun and the world of Abarat a joy to uncover, I was a bit disappointed in the brevity of the novel. 388 pages doesn't seem too brief but there are many gorgeous illustrations and paintings to accompany the text and those take up space. The illustrations are all beautiful by themselves but they also add significantly to the context of the story. And regarding the story, it seems that Candy's adventure is just starting when the book ends. I'm quite sure it will pick up in the next novel but it does mean more waiting on the reader's side for it to be written and then published. Well, I look forward to its creation and release.

Act of Love by Joe R. Lansdale

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• Published 1995 (paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on May 19, 2000
• Having read a good amount of stuff by Lansdale, it is easy to see that this is one of his earlier works. Although the copy I read was printed in 1995, the book was copyrighted in 1981. But this is not to say that the book is bad. It's just rough in a few spots compared to the quality of stuff that he is doing now. But that is OK, because even when Lansdale is rough around the edges, his writing is still superior to a lot of other books. The story is about a detective hunting down a serial killer in Houston. And while the clues point very obviously to someone in the front of the book, don't necessarily believe it. I did and was fooled by the events as they unfolded. I do have one minor problem with the novel and that is that the police scenes did not read as being very realistic. That could be though because I just finished HOMICIDE: A YEAR ON THE KILLING STREETS which goes quite extensively in to the details of a homicide investigations and anything else just pales in comparison. Other than that one unfair point, the novel is quite a good read. Not necessarily a starting point for a new Lansdale fan but one to be read after a few of his other books have been gone through first.

The Adventures of Mr. Maximillian Bacchus and his Travelling Circus by Clive Barker

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• Published February 2011 (Bad Moon Books ebook edition)
• Finished reading it on June 23, 2025
• I think the best way to describe this story is light. There just wasn't as much to it as I hoped or wanted. The book itself is summarized nicely in the title: Bacchus takes his circus around and has some mini-adventures. There are three adventures that all flow into the same story. It's beautifully written and fun. However, while each character is unique, they aren't very three-dimensional. Plus each adventure is kind of light in content of doing much. At the same time, I can't discount that it is something. Maybe it's a target audience thing. I didn't see the book labeled as YA. And from the YA that I see my kids reading, this would actually fall somewhere between YA and kid books. If you are picking up this book because Clive Barker wrote it, don't be expecting his horror. You will get his world building and his fantastical characters. But in my opinion, this is more of an amuse-bouche than a full book that you walk away from satisfied.

Afraid by Jack Kilborn

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• Published April 2009 (Grand Central Publishing paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on June 4, 2014
• Not yet reviewed

After Midnight by Richard Laymon

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• Published March 2006 (Leisure Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on April 21, 2007
• This is a normal Laymon novel in many ways. You can expect his normal excellent writing and interesting characters. You can expect his normal level of sex and violence, probably a bit more than usual. And you can expect his normal level of crazy coincidences to get all the events started. In this case Alice, not here real name, is house-sitting when a strange man emerges from the nearby woods to go swimming naked in the family pool. She ends up answering a wrong number which scares off the stranger but also starts everything by bringing the wrong caller into the picture so that he could be quickly killed. It was an accident but for various reasons Alice needs to hide the body which is when the interesting stuff starts. As I already pointed out, you can expect all the usual Laymon's characteristics which is great if you are a Laymon fan. If instead you opt to be put off by the negative traits exhibited by the majority of the characters, then you'll find more of the same here. AFTER MIDNIGHT is not his best but it is still solid entertainment and something I would recommend.

Afterlife by Douglas Clegg

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• Published 2008 (Cemetery Dance Publications hardcover signed, and limited to 1,250 copies edition)
• Finished reading it on April 19, 2010
• It's been a little while since I've read a Douglas Clegg novel. This was a conscious decision on my part because I was having issues with reading some of his early stuff. I couldn't figure out what was happening in some of his books; plus there were flashbacks within flashbacks within flashbacks that were confusing me. His writing technique was well done but it was his style that I wasn't liking. So how did I end up reading AFTERLIFE? I'm a member of the book club at Cemetery Dance and this was one of the "book of the months" that were sent out. Rather than denying the book its purpose of being read (corny but I do feel like that at times), I read it. And I'm very glad that I did. The novel was much better than I expected. Julie Hutchinson has her life taken a sudden turn for the worse when her husband is murdered. She's dealing with the pain and loss while also helping her daughter and stepson cope. Fortunately she has friends and family that want to help. Unfortunately stranger things start happening that they can't help with. Things like her husband's body disappearing from the morgue, realistic and erotic dreams of her husband and a stranger being in and disappearing from within her house. She turns to a TV psychic for some help and he seems to help. But is he really trying to help or do something more? The characters are all fleshed out nicely. The story proceeds at a very quick and suspenseful pace. And I was very pleased with the book. AFTERLIFE has changed my opinion of Douglas Clegg's writing. I'm probably not going hunt down his next book quite yet but I will have positive thoughts going into whatever book of his I end up with next.

Alabaster by Caitlin R. Kiernan

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• Published August 2006 (Subterranean Press hardcover signed, numbered and limited to 350 copies edition)
• Finished reading it on December 9, 2007
• This book is actually a collection of short stories centered around Kiernan's character Dancy Flammarion. The book has five stories but I'm also going to discuss a sixth called "Highway 97" that came as a chapbook when I bought the book. All in all, I was a bit disappointed. The stories are well told and I want to learn more about the characters but that was part of the problem. Each story pretty much follows the same pattern as the other stories. Dancy is sent to some location by an angel so that she can kill the monsters that reside there. Unfortunately nothing more interesting than that occurs. There is very little doubt or thought by the characters that occurs during the story. Everyone but the monsters end the story in the same spot as when it began. The only deviation to that formula was with "Bainbridge." This could be considered Dancy's origin story. Otherwise the stories were mostly boring. Maybe if I had read them one at a time rather than in one chunk it would have made a difference. On the purely positive side, I was blown away by the art by Ted Naifeh. The cover was awesome! All the interior art was amazing! I would love to own some original art by him. Or even a print. A large reproduction of the angel in the road (page 104) would be fantastic.

Alien Nation: Body and Soul by Peter David from a teleplay by Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider

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• Published December 1993 (paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on June 9, 1996
• Peter David does an excellent job in all of his novels by making them very easy to picture. While reading the novel, it is incredibly easy to see all the characters acting as they do. And this is not just from being based on a teleplay. I have read other books by David (originals and Star Trek stories) and they all are this great and easy to visualize. He has an excellent knack of getting the characters down quickly and this then pulls you in and gets you interested. Plus he includes things that were not in the TV movie of the book, so you can get additional information. I definitely recommend it. And if you like it also, you might want to seek out some of his other books or even some of the comic books that he writes which are done just as well. "Aquaman" and "Incredible Hulk" are two he writes that I very much recommend.

Alien Sex edited by Ellen Datlow

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• 19 short stories by such authors as Harlan, Ellison, Pat Murphy, Larry Niven, Lewis Shiner
• Published March 1992 (Roc paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on May 15, 1998
• This is a pretty good mix of stories. All of them are stories about people and beings having sex with an alien of some sort. Not all are aliens from outer space but also just alien-ness of the sex act with new and different partners. There are some real gems here and my favorites are below.

  "How's the Night Life on Cissalda?" by Harlan Ellison - The ultimate in sexual intercourse comes for a visit.

  "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" by Larry Niven - The reality of Superman's sex life.

  "Roadside Rescue" by Pat Cadigan - A weird story that turns out to be sexual.

  "All My Darling Daughters" by Connie Willis - An excellent story that seems to be light-hearted at first but turns out to be VERY intense.

  "Saving The World At The Moon Motel" by Roberta Lannes - A troublesome relationship leads to an incredible result.

  "Love and Sex Among the Invertebrates" by Pat Murphy - The next generation of beings after humans.

All Hallows by Christopher Golden

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• Published January 2023 (OrangeSky Audio audiobook edition)
• Finished reading it on September 17, 2023
• Not yet reviewed

All The Rage by F. Paul Wilson

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• Published October 2001 (paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on November 19, 2002
• I first got introduced to Wilson's work with his Adversary Cycle (THE KEEP, THE TOMB, THE TOUCH, REBORN, REPRISAL, NIGHTWORLD). And while his other novels are still very good, I think that the Adversary Cycle was still his best. Now growing out from those has been the Repairman Jack stories, the protagonist from THE TOMB. In fact, this novel takes place just a month after THE TOMB. Anyway Repairman Jack is kind of a fixer; he's a non-descript man who doesn't exist in any government computers and who gets paid to resolve weird problems. Sort of a private eye but more on the fringe. This time he's hired to investigate why a woman's boss is being forced to associate with a known criminal lord. The investigation turns up a mysterious drug that lets its users tap into their primal selves, a complicated revenge plan against the same criminal lord and a mysterious creature that is a dangling plot thread from THE TOMB. Wilson does a good job of juggling the various subplots while simultaneously keeping all the characters fascinating and intriguing. Things come together at the end pretty fast but at the same time very realistically. My only regret for the book was that it had been a while since reading the prequel so I wasn't quite up on everything that was current for the story. Was it important and necessary to read it? No, but it would have given more to the story. I definitely recommend this book. And as an aside, if you do like it I further recommend that you try any books by Andrew Vachss; his Burke character is just a hardcore version of Repairman Jack.

All Tomorrow's Parties by William Gibson

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• Published 1999 (Penguin Books hardcover edition)
• Finished reading it on March 22, 2003
• For some reason I had a real hard time getting into this novel. It's not that it is too large; it's only 277 pages. And it's not Gibson's writing because I like his other novels. Whatever it was, I just took a long time to finish this when it should have been much quicker. The novel is a sequel / continuation from IDORU though you don't really have to have read it first. Rei Toei, the idoru, is part of a nodal point that is going to change life as you know it on the planet. Or for those not quite up on their cyber-speak, a virtual woman is one part of many to tie in to an undefined but still significant event that will cause massive changes. And while the story is good and I enjoyed the characterizations, I think that it was the sheer number of characters and the massive lead up before things happened which caused me to keep losing interest. I'm glad that I read the book but I think that it could have had a few less characters. But then it is hardly a nodal point when you have just a couple of people meeting.

All Too Surreal by Tim Waggoner

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• Published originally in February 01, 2002 (Prime Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on March 09, 2005
• This wasn't a bad collection of short stories but it wasn't something that I considered great. All of the stories were extremely well written. They invoke feelings and thoughts and make you consider new ideas. You end up confronting the ending of each story and being moved by it. However as the title of the collection suggests, the stories are all a little too surreal and they also leave you perplexed and wondering exactly what is happening at times. Many of the stories feel like that moment when you first wake up and you remember a very strange dream that you had but the details are fading and you get left with this feeling that something fun or exciting or scary occurred but you are not sure what. It makes the collection a good read but at the same time it becomes harder to pick out favorites. I've picked two below but probably half of the remaining stories would be ranked equally well.

  "Anubis Has Left The Building" - Death proves to be universal for all.

  "The Other Woman" - A man's affair slowly becomes his whole life.

Allhallow's Eve by Richard Laymon

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• Published June 1998 (Headline Book Publishing paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on April 1, 2007
• This is the type of Richard Laymon novel that I love! Well, I also love most of his later stuff too but this one was firing on all cylinders for me. It had the large cast of characters that left you not exactly sure who the main protagonist is. This means that everybody and anybody is fair game to be killed. The plot was a relatively simple one, focused on revenge and not filled with too many wild coincidences. A party is being thrown on Halloween at a haunted house and no one is sure who the host is. That doesn't stop people from showing up though and having a night they'll never forget. Other than finishing it too quick and wishing for more, there are no issues I have with this book. An extremely fun read!

Allison by Jeff Strand

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• Published March 2020 (Amazon Digital Services ebook edition)
• Finished reading it on May 30, 2021
• While you know that Jeff Strand is going to give you a solidly entertaining and good book (sometimes even great), you don't always know what type of book you are going to get. Something with more humor than scares? Something gory and scary? Something completely different? If I was creating hashtags for this book, I would use serious, uncontrolledSuperPowers, and strandTrademarkHumor. The story focuses on Allison. As a child, she had a traumatic life changing event occur to her and her family. An event that she was able to rescue herself from but in doing so she created an even more traumatic life changing event. Now she lives a life of solitude in order to avoid more trauma. Until one day when someone tries to take advantage of her. As I mentioned before, since it is Strand, you know the story will be good. The uncontrolled superpower that Allison has is handled as I would suspect in real-life. Something scary and powerful and exciting. Also since it is Strand, you know you are going to get a lot of his humor mixed throughout the book. This time though, I think that was a negative. While I enjoy it at the moment, it ended up blending the characters too much. Allison and Cody (a guy she meets) end up being too similar; their voice in my head was the same. The mobsters were also a bit cliche in their approach. Overall I was left happy during the readying but then afterwards realizing that the characters were kind of flat.

Already Dead by Charlie Huston

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• Published December 2005 (Ballantine Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on June 27, 2008
• On one level, you might be inclined to group ALREADY DEAD into the same group as Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris and others. After all, it's an on-going series with the undead involved. (Technically ALREADY DEAD is the first book in Huston's series and if I read this when it was first released, I wouldn't have known it was going to be a series. However I read it recently and the sequels were already written, so we'll ignore that timing mishap.) As a (new) fan to Huston would tell you, totally different ball game. Huston fits much better in the heavy pulp noir and mystery section. There's not any romance to really speak of in the book. Vicious killings and violence though are plentiful. Joe Pitt is a vampyre existing in New York City, a section that includes many other undead groups or gangs. There is the Coalition, the Society, the Enclave and others. Each organization has their own quirks and characteristics. Pitt tries to stay outside of it all. However, he finds himself caught between the warring clans when he is hired to find the runaway daughter of a Manhattan socialite. The story that results is fun and gory and humorous and bloody. And what makes all of it even better is that all the characters are rich and three-dimensional. If you are a fan of Tom Piccirilli or just hard hitting noir, then give this a try. You won't be sorry. And then like me, you can buy, borrow or steal NO DOMINION and the other books in the series.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

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• Published May 2002 (Harper Torch paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on March 22, 2003
• This is an excellent novel. It's Gaiman doing what he does best: writing about gods and beliefs and the mythos that surrounds them. The story follows Shadow, an inmate in prison who wants nothing more than to get out and move on with his life. However, as the gods might have it, they have bigger plans for Shadow. He ends up being recruited by the mysterious Mr. Wednesday and begins a journey of legends. The amount of effort and research that Gaiman must have put in to get the story right for all the gods is amazing. There were many that I didn't recognize and I wasn't sure if I had just never heard of them before or if they were made up for the book. Either way, the characters were extremely enjoyable. Overall the book also makes you think to a degree about what God or gods that you worship. Roman gods would demand sacrificing an animal which we can look at as being barbaric but today's gods of Television, Internet, Getting Ahead all demand sacrificing your mind, your interpersonal skills or your personal life. Who's to say which is better? Plus the core of the novel is very true: American are a fickle bunch and we'll quickly move away from old gods and new gods in favor of even newer gods.

The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson

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• Published January 1979 (Bantam Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on June 30, 1982
• Not yet reviewed

Among The Missing by Richard Laymon

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• Published October 2000 (paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on April 27, 2002
• I don't know if this is indicative of most of Laymon's novels but two of the three of his novels that I read take place in the course of a single day. This is the second like that. Don't get me wrong that this makes the book bad because it doesn't. The novel is still an excellent one and kept me enthralled. It follows a murder that happens in a small town outside of Lake Tahoe. While a simple premise, Laymon's writing keeps you involved by filling the story with real characters that are interesting. And at that point the story becomes more complicated and more than just a simple murder story. If you want to read a good book with solid characters, then this is it.

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

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• Published October 2006 (HarperTorch paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on July 20, 2008
• In this quasi-sequel to AMERICAN GODS, Gaiman does his usual wonderful job. He has written a novel that weaves reality with mythology and leaves you wanting for more. Fat Charlie was trying to lead a normal life; a life separate from his father who was a perpetual embarrassment to him. And then his father drops dead in a bar in Florida. Shortly afterwards, Fat Charlie finds out he has a brother. Then when he finds out his father was a god and his brother inherited the powers, Fat Charlie's life gets more complicated. Gaiman's characters are fun to read about and often ones with which you'd like to interact. As Fat Charlie tries to get control of his life and do what he wants to do, we the readers get to like him more and more. And by extension, we enjoy the book more and more. I definitely found it very involving and hard to put down. Something that you'll want to relish every moment.

And Eternity by Piers Anthony

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• Published February 1991 (Avon Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on March 31, 1994
• Not yet reviewed

And The Devil Cried by Kristopher Triana

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• Published October 2021 (Stygian Sky Media ebook edition)
• Finished reading it on April 20, 2023
• Triana did a great job in this book of creating a protagonist that is a completely despicable monster. Someone that with every page of the book I hated a little bit more. But at the same time, the novel was gripping. Sharp. The violence and action kept me going. Maybe to see what was next. Or maybe to see who escaped, because there was a lot of characters hurt and killed in this book. In case you haven't realized it yet, this is one of Triana's intense, don't read if you have a sensitive stomach type of books. Jackie has just gotten out of prison. While inside he was running drugs and prostitutes for the mob; now he's out and ready to do anything for the local crime boss. Killing people is one of Jackie's favorite things. Jackie is revealed to be detestable, morally reprehensible, and has not qualms about anything. When the crime boss wants revenge for his son being killed by a drunk driver, Jackie takes to it with zeal. Now before you start thinking "cool, a hard-boiled crime novel", the book is that but it's done with Triana's brutality. There will be scenes that are hard to get through. Intense and graphic is normal for pretty much everything Jackie does. We the readers get presented with that in a non-flinching, blunt manner. The story is addicting though. I was not disappointed by Triana and I would carefully recommend the book; it won't be for everyone. Each Triana book has been different but all have been exciting!

Angry Candy by Harlan Ellison

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• Published originally in December 1989
• Finished reading it on January 20, 1997
• I'm pleased to say that I enjoyed this collection of stories by Ellison much more than I did the last one I read. (See my review of DEATHBIRD STORIES below.) In a weird paradox, although these stories involved deaths and being angry at being denied the person's presence, I enjoyed them and found several to be pretty positive. Oh, they are still disheartening in sections and they make me extremely thankful of being lucky enough to have not experienced the same amount of loss as Ellison describes in his Introduction. But I also thought that they were enjoyable enough to not be extremely depressed by them. My favorites are below.

  "Escapegoat" - A team of reverse-"Quantum Leap"ers.

  "When Auld's Acquaintance Is Forgot" - Forgetting bad memories is never easy.

  "Broken Glass" - A victim turns the tables.

  "On The Slab" - Mythology gets brought to modern life.

  "Laugh Track" - A comedic rescues his dead aunt's laugh.

  "Stuffing" - The reason to keep voting.

  "The Avenger of Death" - A man creates an interesting circle.

Angry Ghosts by F. Allen Farnham

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• Published May 2009 (Cadre One Publishing ebook edition)
• Finished reading it on June 2, 2024
• I was disappointed with this book for a couple reasons. The first was maybe something that I should blame myself more than the author. ANGRY GHOSTS is a great title. It evokes images to me of a haunted house and violent ghosts trying to harm people. Spirits that are upset about being trapped and are taking it out on the living. That is what I was expecting when I started reading the book. However, instead the book is a science fiction book that focuses on the surviving humans that was supposedly wiped out of existence centuries ago by some aliens. Totally not what I was expecting. Maybe no big deal if the story was solid enough or it applied as a haunted spaceship with some angry ghosts. Unfortunately not. Instead the book focuses most of its efforts on psychoanalyzing the surviving humans and how/why they evolved the way they did. And when maybe it gets interesting with the introduction of another group of human, it again fails. Another chunk of psychoanalyzing on how that group survived and how the two groups will survive together. Not what I was hoping for in the slightest.

Animals by John Skipp and Craig Spector

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• Published November 1993 (Bantam Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on March 30, 1996
• Awesome novel!! I very much enjoyed it. One of my most favorite in a while. It starts out with a variation of a well-worn cliché; but it's a familiar cliché. One that grabs you from the start and pulls you into the story. From that moment on, you follow Syd, the protagonist, as his life goes through very rapid changes and becomes more than human. As you enter part two, the novel takes a different turn which will make you wonder where the story is going. But then it all comes together and you look back and it's only obvious that the story was heading this way. Everything ties up at the end very well. Overall an extremely gripping novel that excites and gets the pulse pounding. The last 100 pages went by in what seemed a blink of the eye. Highly recommended!

Ankle Snatcher by Grady Hendrix

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• Published September 2023 (Amazon Original Stories ebook edition)
• Finished reading it on December 14, 2023
• Not yet reviewed

Another Life by Andrew Vachss

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• Published September 2009 (Vintage Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on February 17, 2012
• Not yet reviewed

Apocalypse Watch by Robert Ludlum

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• Published May 1996 (Bantam Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on April 20, 1998
• I'm sort of mixed on this novel. I enjoyed the story very much and thought that Ludlum did a fantastic job of weaving a spell of intrigue and mystery while simultaneously keeping a quick pace going and propelling the story forward. The plot contains his usual twists and turns and unexpected events leading to a spectacular conclusion. However (you knew that was coming, didn't you?) I couldn't really build up any emotions for the characters. They were all very flat and boring. They explained themselves too much. They all side-tracked the conversations so that they could reiterate the same point for the 100th time before some other character would basically say "Stop that and let's talk about this neo-Nazi who just tried to kill me but first let me tell you how angry I am and that I am motivated by my brother's death to stop this evil plot." As opposed to usually enjoying dialog scenes, I almost always dreaded them. I could literally feel the pace and rhythm screech to a stop at the excess alliteration. Originally I also thought that it was just me, but an airline stewardess told me almost the exact same thing when she saw what I was reading. Although her phrasing was along the lines of "enough with the stupid word descriptions, give me some pictures and action." It makes me yearn for THE CHANCELLOR MANUSCRIPT (my first Ludlum) or THE BOURNE IDENTITY.

The Aquitaine Progression by Robert Ludlum

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• Published February 1984 (Bantam Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on April 30, 1987
• unreviewed

The Art of Arrow Cutting by Stephen Dedman

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• Published March 1999 (paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on May 15, 2001
• This is an excellent novel that met and exceeded all my expectations. And considering that I spent a while trying to track it down, my expectations had been built up. The story starts off about a photographer traveling through Canada who is given a magical key by a beautiful woman. When he decides to track her down, he befriends a ninja who helps him fight off attacks from Yakuza thugs and Japanese mythological beings while the photographer learns how to use the key. I know that it sounds pretty off beat and weird but believe me, the story flows really well and makes sense. Besides, it's not classified on the front cover as "a novel of magic-noir suspense" for nothing. The characterization is extremely rich and three dimensional. The dialogue is realistic and different for each character. And while fantastical the story is still believable. The only negative that I have for the book is that some of the Japanese names were too similar to each other. Yea, looking back the names weren't that similar but when you're first being introduced to these characters, it would momentarily throw me off whenever I got to one of those names. Otherwise this is a wonderful book that I can't recommend strong enough. And I eagerly await Dedman's next novel.

Ash Wednesday by Chet Williamson

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• Published July 2010 (Crossroad Press ebook edition)
• Finished reading it on January 29, 2019
• Death. This novel is about death. Not just what happens after but how death affects the living, the before. This shouldn't be anything surprising though considering the story is about the dead returning as ghosts. Specifically, overnight the town of Merridale has semi-transparent blue apparitions appear; these are 3D snapshots of the last moment of the dead. Sometimes appearing at their place of death; sometimes they are at someplace important to their lives. And while the dead don't cause any physical harm, the mental fatigue is significant. Jim Callender who lost his son in a school bus accident sinks into a guilty depression; Brad Meyers who lost his son in the same accident has his rage go from a simmer to a boil. Some come back to try to get closure while others run to get away from what they fear. Either way, the spirits have a lasting affect on the town. Getting back to death though, while near the end of the book Williamson does an excellent job of dwelling on the impact of death, the point hit me much sooner. Jim was telling his back story and what happened to Terry, his son. I was actually thinking that the novel was moving slow, that for a novel about ghosts returning to town as blue, hovering spirits that we were spending very little time on those ghosts. Then Jim's story sunk into me and I was floored. The book turned from a slow moving story to something that left me wondering and thinking and near tears. That was the point where I realized that the characters were complex with good and bad, that they had their issues to work through, that they were real. From that point on, I could hardly put the book down. Not because it was a page-turner full of excitement but because I had to know what was going to happen. I had to know how people were going to deal with the impact of the ghosts. Needless to say, the book is highly recommended.

The Association by Bentley Little

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• Published September 2001 (Signet paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on December 14, 2002
• This is the book from Little that I've been waiting for. Not only is it scary and freaked me out at times but, and this is the important part, his ending didn't suck! For some reason I find the endings of Little's books to sort of dissolve into nothing and they leave me frustrated and wanting something more. This time though the ending worked very well. The story is about Barry and Maureen who move from the LA area into their dream house in a remote corner of Utah. (Side note: I don't see how people can think that moving from the big city to a small remote town is going to be perfect. If you enjoyed the big city, then why are you going to enjoy a small town when the two are so opposite in nature? But I digress.) Everything is fine until they discover that they now belong to a homeowners association, one that has a few more rules than most others and that has a more severe method of enforcement. Things like the "no pets" rule is enforced through active poisoning and killing of cats and dogs. Landscape changes are first fined with a pink slip and then if not fixed, the changes are implemented by mysterious parties in the middle of the night. As Barry and Maureen continue living there, the rules change over night and become more and more stringent. This continues until the big finale of Barry facing off against the association. OK, so maybe the big finale was a bit over the top and ridiculous but at the same time, it's exactly what I wanted as the closure to the book. Yea, Barry and Maureen should have moved out much much sooner and at times I was yelling out them to "Just move!" but if they had moved, then there wouldn't have been much point to the book. What this really plays on is every homeowner's fear of being stuck obeying the rules of an association and the power they can wield. While some of the rules listed in the book were too much, there were many that are really enforced at some locations. Overall, I would definitely recommend this book; it chilled me while also thrilling me.

Asylum by Patrick McGrath

• Purchase it here
• Published March 1998 (paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on December 10, 2001
• Unfortunately McGrath didn't do that much better of a job with ASYLUM than he did with SPIDER. It was just as slow and boring. OK, he did do a better job with ASYLUM because at least here he made me care enough about the characters to want to know what happens where as before, I had no emotional commitment at all. So this time I skimmed the second half of the book instead of just skipping it. The story involves the wife of a psychiatrist who falls in love with one of the patients at a maximum security mental hospital. I can't really tell you too much more than that without ruining the story; maybe if there wasn't such a long period of nothing happening between events then I could. I hope if you are reading McGrath's works that you like them, and there are plenty of extremely positive comments that I've heard about his work. As for me, two extremely painful and boring books is enough to turn me off from any more stuff by him.

Audrey's Door by Sarah Langan

• Purchase it here
• Published September 2009 (Harper paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on October 26, 2012
• A good haunted house story should involve ghosts, scary moments that are possibly real or not and a feeling of dread that leaves the reader or audience glad that they are not in that house. While AUDREY'S DOOR has most of those elements, the one thing that got left out was "scary". It is an interesting story due to the problems that the main character encounters but it wasn't really strong enough to leave me spooked or overly concerned. Audrey Lucas, a young architect in New York City, moves into an apartment in the Breviary, a building with Chaotic Naturalism that combined with the super cheap rent makes it very appealing for her. After she finds out that the previous tenant drowned her four children there, Audrey starts to notice more and more things odd with building. At the same time she must deal with her boyfriend's unwelcoming family and her own OCD problems. The supernatural elements don't really kick in though until the last third of the book; unfortunately I thought that Langan hit a good stopping point shortly before that point. There would have been unanswered questions but it seemed a more natural stopping point. The supernatural parts didn't quite fit the story as nicely as I would have liked. Audrey and her boss were both interesting characters. There could have and should have been more interaction between them. Or maybe more parallels drawn between their lives. With the horror elements gone, it would have targeted a different audience and thus lost me as a reader but I think it would have been a more satisfying book.

Send comments or your opinions on these books to mike@kazba.com.

Last modified on May 6, 2023