Simon
Parts of this book are some of the most terrifying stuff I've ever read.
Parts of this book are some of the most boring stuff I've ever read.
The first 90 or so pages are so unsettling that when you get past that bit it feels a bit underwhelming and you have to wade through the next 100 pages before it gets really interesting again. That said, I believe and I do think that after you've finished this book, thinking about it is even more terrifying than reading it.
I don't think you will find a thriller as exquisitely written as this. If you told someone the outline of this book it would sound quite boring, 5 students living in a house one gets stabbed but who did it,3 cops, couple of other minor characters. The scope of it seems so small and yet its 693 of wonderfully written, intricately plotted brilliance. Every raised eyebrow and creaking floorboard, its all important, it all means something. Huge step up from the first book.
Stay clear of your neighbours, just smile and wave and move on!!!!.
#Really good dark twisted thriller which is basically a satire on what we have become as human beings. These people ARE your neighbours and this COULD happen to you.
3.5 rounded up. Decent addition to my Dystopian Fiction shelf. There's a hell of a lot going on for just 192 pages and the author paints a brilliant picture of a desolate England, overrun by dogs cats and rats, horses and pigs. Published in the 60's it has some pretty outdated views particularly about women and lets not be coy.. rape. This was going to be a three but I rounded it purely for the ending which I thought was pretty neat.
Really enjoyed this darker crime novel. Reminded me of Mo Hayder a little bit. Harbinder is a great character and I will definitely read more.
I really enjoyed the first 300 pages of this 357 page book, I probably would have given it 5 stars if it wasn't for the unnecessary milky tea ending which just felt tagged on, like an attempt to write the perfect ending but not managing it. Not a direct sequel to The Whisper Man but the events of that book are mentioned a couple of time and there are some really good bits, particularly “the Jenny twist”, I really loved that and top marks to the author for translating that on to the page. Decent 2nd novel from Alex North, can't wait to read what come next.
DNF 67 pages
I should have known because I though Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow was massively overrated but this was something else. I guess some people will be falling over themselves at it's magical weirdness but for me it's a no. Hate myself for not fishing but I just can't.
Q ; How many shrooms would you need to ingest for this to make sense.
Utterly utterly bizarre.
If you've never read Minette Walters before, start with the first 5 novels which are superb, everything she's written after that falls into the category of “just ok”. This follows the usual pattern of novel intersected with bits of newspaper clippings, reports, emails etc and focuses on a possible miscarriage of justice. Her books are always a pleasure to read but this one is just a tad boring with an open ended conclusion that left me feeling a bit empty.
For me Koontz is so hit and miss, this is a miss. It's like one of those TV shows that comes around every few years. Mildly interesting sci-fi, mystery, paranormal type thing which starts fairly well, then gets really boring before ending with a semi exciting cliff hanger, only to get cancelled after one series never to be heard of every again.
This book is nuts, beautiful nuts. Not without faults though, so many unanswered questions and that normally frustrates me but for some reason in this case it didn't matter. Questions like how did it all start? Where did it come from? Who built it? How does it work? Also, why those particular women? and what was the “SHINE” about?. I think that covers everything.
This hovers somewhere between 3 and 4 stars. I was never overly excited, I was never bored, I just was and in the end everyone, good or bad, got exactly what they deserved.
Great fun, this is the kind of sci-fi I like, not too tech heavy, an adventure into the unknown with lots of unexplained stuff, and the promise of lost alien civilizations. Ending was a bit naff to be honest because we never quite found out who was responsible for those strange monuments. Somewhere between a 3 and 4 but I always go up.
Sex and drugs and techno music in the Devon countryside.
So, Justin used to go out with Alex but left him for Robin who he met in a public toilet. Alex is now going out with Dan who is Robin's son. Then there's Terry the local handyman and rent boy. Alan Hollinghurst has a real skill in being able to write the most loathsome of gay characters and all the main characters have a stab at winning that award but Justin wins hands down, a truly hideous being.
Atmospheric, well written, slow paced mystery. Two stories running side by side with everything linking up very conveniently in the final four chapters. I wasn't particularly surprised by anything, feeling more like “ah yes, so that's what it was”. Very strange last paragraph. Set your whelmometer somewhere in the middle.
Politics and religion, two of my least favourite things.
There are two parts to this book, the first, set on a paradise planet, a garden of Eden rich in resources and a peaceful race of inhabitants with no concept of good or evil, deals with questions like....
Do you open a planet to human contact ?
Do you plunder said paradise planet of resources so you can make bigger bombs?
Do you open a planet to human contact when the planet in question has no concept of good or evil?
Does a planet with no concept of good or evil actually constitute a living hell for humanity?
The second part is utterly bonkers. One of the aliens from the paradise planet is raised on earth, becomes a celebrity with it's own tv show and almost brings about the total collapse of humanity.
The whole thing ends with an exorcism of an entire planet and now I'm going to have a cup of hot sweet tea and maybe a biscuit.
A long time ago (many moons) in the 1970s, I saw a news report on the Enfield haunting, I think it was on a programme called Nationwide which was the 70s version of The One Show (and infinitely better). It absolutely scared the bejesus out of me and gave me nightmares, so much so my mum confiscated my Usborne Book of Ghosts and my Encyclopaedia of Unexplained Mysteries because she thought they were the reason, nothing to do at all with the medication I was taking at the time which was later withdrawn due it's hallucinogenic effects on children under 12 years old.
The above was the first thing I thought of when I started reading this book and when I reach the authors notes at the end, there it is, mentioned briefly and clearly an influence on this novel story
Can't really say anything else without giving the plot away but If you like supernatural mysteries then this is for you. It reminded me, in style, of Neil Spring's Ghost Hunters or The Watchers. Excellent first novel by the author.
“In the eyes of the others, those who met them saw ourselves, and there were demons there”
Fiction based on fact or maybe what might have happened directly after the Roswell crash in 1947. This story will be familiar if you've watched X-Files for Taken (Spielberg), in fact some of it is so similar to Taken, I'm surprised Strieber didn't get a credit.
Strieber has real knack of writing the most mundane prose, then he hits you with a line so devastatingly chilling you have to put the book down. There are moments of that here, just not as many of them as Communion. Decent read if you like Alien conspiracy stuff and the ending is REALLY trippy.
Not really my thing, I tend to stay away from action thrillers because I find them a bit corny, full of self loathing and chest beating. The corn factor is fair to middling with this one but it's more good corn than bad corn. The premise is sound and quite exciting and The Blackwell Brothers well written and highly original psychos, there's a decent twist towards the end that “I didn't see coming” and all the plot holes that will be messing with your mind are filled in over the last few pages. Unfortunately it's the high number of what, how, why, seriously let me roll my eyes moments that made me knock off a star at the end.
Well, that was a bit weird. Sometimes funny, often brutal but utterly confusing (and it doesn't take a lot to confuse me). So many names, so many characters to deal with, some of which had more than one name (I think) and the meandering prose didn't help with it's many many tangents. BUT, I sort of did enjoy myself just not as much as I wanted to.
I will finish with these wise words that an old lady in the Hospital waiting room said to me while we were discussing the benefits of well stocked spice racks.
“If ever a book needed a glossary of terms it's this one”.
Definitely a case of “not really my thang”. The human side of this story, set during and after the Bosnian War, is really good. Kara's life reduced to nothing, sowing the seeds of fanaticism. It's the other side, the black ops, the chest pounding, muscle showing and Euro politics, that I found a bit boring. If you like that sort of stuff then this is probably for you.
Someone recommended this to me because I loved The Terror by Dan Simmons. I don't really know what I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting it to be as dark and as brutal as it was. The first chapter is draw dropping; pain, brutality and suffering leap from the page. As a baddie, Drax is humanity at it's basest level, almost animal like. Very good indeed.
Hold on to your friends.
Historical fiction, WW2, German occupied France, Books, Libraries, bla bla bla. Yes it's all that, but for me, this is a book about friendship, trust and acceptance. It's about making mistakes and living with consequences. Duel time line (WW2 France and 1980s Montana), wonderful characters, happy tears at the end = + 1 star.