“Necroscope,” by Brian Lumley

FM's rating:

1.      Premise 8

2.      Prose 6

3.      Plot 8

4.      Characters 7

5.      Overall 7

Comments (optional - but try to keep it under 3000 words!)

A few years ago, I read the second book in this series – this one being the first – and found it a bit confusing, as if I was missing something.  My impression is that “Necroscope” is better, but the other one may have made more sense to me if I’d read them in order.  Duh.  I can’t decide whether Lumley is going for the center of “mainstream horror” or trying to break new ground.  Like a lot of works in the horror genre, there is a campiness here, a sense that the author or director is not expecting to be taken too seriously.  But Lumley is a little inconsistent in this aspect, alternating “grade B movie” scenes with some that are more realistic.  There are mini-climaxes throughout the book where the horror element really comes through strong.  This evokes the approach of horror films which consist of several separate stories back to back, but here they are tied together in an admirably coherent overall plotline.  The prose is littered with clichés just enough to be a detractor.  One of his favorites when a character says, “Oh?” after another character makes a statement he or she disagrees with or hadn’t thought of.  Phrases like “for all intents and purposes” seem to crop up in awkward places – an attempt, perhaps, to seem chatty or familiar to the reader – and it really isn’t effective.  The characters are somewhat stereotypical, but maybe that’s expected in this type of novel.  There are just enough fine passages to make this book almost worthy of recommending; but it misses the mark, in my estimation.  Glad I read it – don’t necessarily recommend it.

“Violin,” by Ann Rice

FM's rating:

1.      Premise 7

2.      Prose 8

3.      Plot 5

4.      Characters 8

5.      Overall 7

Comments (optional - but try to keep it under 3000 words!)

Tedious!  I like the story well enough, but like far too many, it feels like a short story stretched out into a novel.  Putting in what I call “filler” would be bad enough.  This story, told in first person, actually has the protagonist re-hashing the same thoughts over and over again, varying little more than the phrasing.  Yes, the character is obsessed with the death of loved ones over the years, and yes, such obsessive people do think of the same things all the time.  If that’s what Ms. Rice is attempting to illustrate here, it’s not really working for me.  At times, especially early in the book, the prose reads like poetry, just set as paragraphs instead of separate lines.  That works for this writer, and it isn’t overdone.  When we do get to dialog passages, the dialog is handled very well.  But then we’re back to the re-hashing of memories of her dead mother, her dead daughter, her dead whatever, and very little that’s new in between.  I read Rice’s “Interview with the Vampire” many years ago, but didn’t read the sequels because they were just too lengthy and I knew what to expect.  The movie was great!  Much, much later I read “Pandora,” seeing that it wasn’t a very thick book.  Tedious!  About halfway through this book, the pace begins to quicken a bit; we finally get to see where the story has been going.  Three quarters of the way through, we’re up to speed and going at a fairly nice pace.  By the time we get to the end, it’s a fine bit of work, but we had to pay too high a price to get there.  The twist at the climax – fittingly in the last seven pages – is worthy of the best short stories; which is what this should have been!



Here’s the November line-up!
“Lives of the Monster Dogs,” by Kirsten Bakis [11/7]
“Die Trying,” by Lee Child [11/14]
“Strangled Prose,” by Joan Hess [11/21]
“Downbelow Station,” by C.J. Cherryh [11/28]

(As always, if there are any books you’d like to recommend for the next month, please do so!)

“The Hellbound Heart,” by Clive Barker

FM's rating:

1.      Premise 8

2.      Prose 9

3.      Plot 9

4.      Characters 7

5.      Overall 8

Comments (optional - but try to keep it under 3000 words!)

This is the classic horror story out of which the movie “Hellraiser” was made.  And it definitely reads like Classic Horror.  I carp a lot about 200-page novels being “crammed” into 500 page books, so here is the model: a 164-page novel neatly packed into a 164-page book!  It wasn’t any shorter or any longer than it needed to be; hence the “9” rating on Plot.  Barker has his own unique way with words, pacing and phrasing that lends itself perfectly to the genre.  The standard elements of horror fiction are here, presented in a way that somehow escapes being trite.  Very enjoyable!





Here’s the November line-up!

“Lives of the Monster Dogs,” by Kirsten Bakis [11/7]
“Die Trying,” by Lee Child [11/14]
“Strangled Prose,” by Joan Hess [11/21]
“Downbelow Station,” by C.J. Cherryh [11/28]

(As always, if there are any books you’d like to recommend for the next month, please do so!)
  

“The Laughing Corpse,” by Laurell K. Hamilton

FM's rating:

1.      Premise 8

2.      Prose 8

3.      Plot 9

4.      Characters 9

5.      Overall 9 

Comments (optional - but try to keep it under 3000 words!)

Yet another author that I haven’t read before that is an instant favorite!  If I had known it would be, I wouldn’t have made the mistake of reading the second book in the series first.  But I’m going to read the first one immediately, and probably the third as well before moving on.  The similarities to the Charlaine Harris Sookie Stackhouse books are a little too close, but these may predate them.  Doesn’t matter, they are both highly entertaining.  The humor here is refreshing; not as sophisticated as some of my favorite authors, but having its own voice and slant – it even took a little getting used to – and there’s a lot more humor here.  Sprinkled throughout are truly horrific images and descriptions.  One scene in which two murder investigators try to gross each other out with the body parts of the victims at the crime scene is horror slapstick at its finest!  Just a lot of fun here and I’m definitely coming back for more.  [Days later.]  After finishing “The Laughing Corpse” I did in fact go on to read the first book in the series, “Guilty Pleasures” and then “Circus of the Damned,” the third.  “Guilty Pleasures” is fun, but in truth, I might not have gone on to read “The Laughing Corpse” if I had started with GP.  The author seems to be struggling to find some momentum in the first book; to establish parameters that can be used to continue the series.  It pays off, of course, but it’s a bit of a rocky start.  CD (“Circus of the Damned”) picks up where LC leaves off and may even be better, bringing each of the ratings up a notch – including the Overall rating.  There are many more books in the series, but the ending of CD wraps up this trilogy very nicely, resolving issues that began in book one.  The very last line, to cap off the trilogy, is perfection itself:  “Most women complain that there are no single, straight men left. I’d just like to meet one who’s human.”

“Needful Things,” by Stephen King

FM's rating:

1.      Premise 9

2.      Prose 10

3.      Plot 10

4.      Characters 10

5.      Overall 10

Comments (optional - but try to keep it under 3000 words!)

This one’s a real treat.  It takes its time and that’s okay.  A 500-page novel by a lesser writer usually seems too long, gets tedious.  A 600-page novel by Mr. King is often just right.  This is a great example of that, with passages that stretch out for pages but manage to keep the reader enthralled for all that time.  Reading King is rarely hard work, more like eating chocolate than chewing a steak.  Fluff?  Many would say so.  But he makes the fluff seem like the most interesting thing in the world at the moment you’re reading it.  If it’s fluff, it’s brilliant fluff!  In the meantime, everything we suspected we knew about human nature is confirmed, the good with the bad.  We feel we know these characters, they seem so real.  The climax, as spectacular as it is, doesn’t completely satisfy intellectually, but other than that, there are no real flaws in this work.  Oh, one could always point to King’s rather crude prose, but he has developed that crudeness of prose to such a fine art that it should probably be seen as a trademark.  I have to admit that I was put off by the title for years, and that even hearing a little of what the premise was left me shrugging.  I should have known better!