Horror Aficionados discussion

Welcome all. Starting 3/1 at your own pace with spoilers.

So far its:

Andy
Kirstin

I just bought this yesterday, I'm in! It may take me a couple of days to start though.

Same here. First of the month and I added 6 books to currently reading today. Yeah right!

Exactly. What's one more? Lol

I'm in!

Andy wrote: "Same here. First of the month and I added 6 books to currently reading today. Yeah right!"

Same here more or less. Too many books simultaneously.

I'm lurking here. I like the premise but the Dan Brown comparison is killing it for me before I even start.

11811 - Don't let the Dan Brown comparison get you down. This is well written (not that Dan Brown isn't...) and well worth giving a shot. It has the potential to become a living nightmare, which Dan Brown attempted but only reached pulse racing concern, not nightmare status.

It's still on my tbr. I'm gonna keep lurking you guys until there are significant spoilers and maybe get it from my library if my current pile isn't overwhelming.

Fair enough. :)

Stay creepy my friend! (Only teasing)

K4tie wrote: "Fair enough. :)

Stay creepy my friend! (Only teasing)"

Always creeping and lurking. It's what I do :)

I placed a hold. Damn peer pressure.

Hooray!! :)

I found the book by chance at my library! I'm in for this one too.

I'm in for this!

Sweet, new recruits! :)

50 pages in. Intrigued so far.

This is next on my list to start. Hopefully tomorrow.

60 pages or so in, I like the story. Sort of feel sorry for the main character, but I like his relationship with his daughter and O'Brien.

I'm at about 100 pages. As a part-time hypochondriac, the whole theme of demonic possession really freaks me out.

The scene when the main character finally arrives at the house in Venice was really scary. Given what has happened since, I hope that the supernatural element of the book won't be overdone and that thing remain believable. I also like the academic tone of the main characters thought process. The book is well researched.

The themes remind me a lot of Song of Kali, which is one of all time great travel-horror stories. Have you read that one?

Yes! Song of Kali is one hell of a scary book, and really heartbreaking at the end. This book seems to have a possible bit of redemption for the protag whereas Song of Kali was just downhill the whole way. We'll see, it could all still go totally wrong. I know what you mean though, the whole idea of evil undercurrents in a city, Pyper really gets that feeling in good at the part where the main character is in Venice.

At 60 pages in. I like the father/daughter relationship too. The O'Brien conversation made me sad. I really liked the descriptions of Venice and the room scene was nice and spooky.

I'm about 70% done. Can't wait to see how it ends.

I can't wait to see what you think of the ending, Andy.

This is taking me forever to read! Ugh! I'm liking it and it has some creepy moments. The scene with the two old ladies was great.

I'm guessing the ending kinda sucks. Lol

I finished last weekend and was surprised that I really disliked the second half of the book. By the end, I found the moving from place to place and clue to clue to be repetitive and really not all that clever. The use of lines from Paradise Lost was cool, but I felt there could have been more done the apply the mythos of the book to actual plot events. It just kind of fizzled out for me.

The clues are so vague I have a hard time believing he would pick them up. It also seems like the 'followers' would find him wherever he went anyway, so what's the point? I do like the writing style and the mythology, the suspense and sense of panic are missing. He's too blasé about it all.

I know I finished this late. Overall, I really enjoyed his writing style. Some of the interactions with the demon were extremely creepy, such as the two old ladies. I also loved the references to "Paradise Lost". However, it seemed like the story lost steam 3/4 the way through the book. I think it would have been neat if he got arrested and showed that tape to the police and it was blank. That might have been a better ending. I think I would have left Tess' fate a mystery to the reader.

Overall, I liked the book, but it could have been much better presented.

I was disappointed that there wasn't any deeper significance of Paradise Lost than just quotations. That was what attracted me to the book in the first place.

I also didn't buy any of David's decisions on his road trip. I had to reread several passages to try to understand a lot of the "why" behind them. And they still didn't make much sense.

I thought the narrative style of the book was it's biggest drawback. Writing in the present tense presents several problems in the book:

1. The characters aren't drawn as well as they might have been. The character of David was well-done, but his daughter and best friend were not as complex as they needed to be.

2. Because the narrator does not know the outcome of his or her actions, the suspense isn't very sustainable. The tension created was stop and go. A past tense narration would have allowed for heightened reader involvement.

The whole thing seemed like an outline to a meatier novel. I would rather have had this been a 1000 page tome than a 200 page novel.