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Post by GRWelsh on Sept 5, 2017 11:38:04 GMT -5
I just started this on the recommendation of a cousin who is also a Lovecraft fan. I know nothing about it, other than it is supposedly well done atmospheric horror on the more 'literary' side and that it won a Bram Stoker award.
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Post by Scott on Sept 5, 2017 12:32:49 GMT -5
Let me know how it goes.
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Post by GRWelsh on Sept 8, 2017 7:35:47 GMT -5
I haven't quite finished it yet, but I like it so far. I recognize the sources of inspiration, but it is its own thing, as well. It's like the author took MOBY DICK, PET SEMATARY, THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD, and SOLARIS and put them in a blender, to use in his own recipe. It has a nested story within a story, and sometimes goes deeper down than that. The only thing that feels awkward is that the middle third of the book shifts from 1st person point of view past tense (yet set in the present) to 3rd person/near omniscient point of view present tense (yet set in the past). The main narrator addresses this and tries to explain it away, but it still feels awkward.
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Post by GRWelsh on Oct 12, 2017 11:35:50 GMT -5
I finished this and I liked it, overall, the writing was good and it had interesting ideas but it could have used a heavier hand from an editor. The nested story is so long that it is a bit jarring to finally come back to the original framing story, and the change in tense is just confusing and doesn't serve any purpose that I can tell. But the core idea of merging grief with horror is a good one. (Slight spoiler) Imagine someone's wife and kids died in some horrible accident and he's an emotional mess, and then some monsters reach into his mind and read his memories and then shapechange to make it appear they were his wife and kids. But they are just a bit off. Even though he knows it can't be, he gives into the illusion because his grief is so great. That's a pretty disturbing idea.
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