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acoustic_insect's review against another edition
5.0
I really enjoyed this book, lovecraftian horror without all the sexism and racism. Hooray!
(and a touch of gay, nice)
(and a touch of gay, nice)
krisrid's review against another edition
5.0
Normally, I'm not a fan of short-story compilations, but this was an exception. I absolutely LOVED almost every story in this short story collection!
Couple of reasons why I think I enjoyed this so much:
1) All the various stories in the book were linked through a single character who appears in each story in a more or less prominant role - Kyle Murchison Booth. Booth is a socially inept, but brilliant curator and rare book and puzzle/mystery expert at the Samuel Mather Parrington Museum, where he seems to come across more than his share - more than most ANYONE'S share, really! - of malevolant spirits, haunted artifacts and just generally creepy things. The link of Booth being involved in each story made it feel more like a connected book, even though each of the tales is a unique story with the other characters and events each being a stand-alone.
2) The "necromantic mysteries" as the subtitle of the book describes the various vignettes are, we are told in the author's prologue, all meant to be homages to the works of H.P. Lovecraft and M.R. James. Having not read either of those authors myself, I can't speak to that, but I can say that all these stories were very Hitchcockian and/or Poe-esque, because all the stories have a surface veneer of normality and ordinariness that is ultimately proven to be false. These stories are seriously creepy, and gave me the delicious thrills and chills of the very best ghost-stories. If you think too much about how some of them play out, you could conceivably let your imagination run away with you and be obsessively checking in empty rooms, or sleeping with the lights on.
The stories are all really creative and well-written. As I said earlier, each story is unique with a completely different otherworldly focus but all of them have something that should make you shiver. I really enjoyed this anthology and would recommend it to those who like to be scared by their books just enough to get the blood flowing, without a lot of gore or slashing - there's really none of either here - all the stories rely on psychological terror to grab you by the throat. A wild but enjoyable ride!
Couple of reasons why I think I enjoyed this so much:
1) All the various stories in the book were linked through a single character who appears in each story in a more or less prominant role - Kyle Murchison Booth. Booth is a socially inept, but brilliant curator and rare book and puzzle/mystery expert at the Samuel Mather Parrington Museum, where he seems to come across more than his share - more than most ANYONE'S share, really! - of malevolant spirits, haunted artifacts and just generally creepy things. The link of Booth being involved in each story made it feel more like a connected book, even though each of the tales is a unique story with the other characters and events each being a stand-alone.
2) The "necromantic mysteries" as the subtitle of the book describes the various vignettes are, we are told in the author's prologue, all meant to be homages to the works of H.P. Lovecraft and M.R. James. Having not read either of those authors myself, I can't speak to that, but I can say that all these stories were very Hitchcockian and/or Poe-esque, because all the stories have a surface veneer of normality and ordinariness that is ultimately proven to be false. These stories are seriously creepy, and gave me the delicious thrills and chills of the very best ghost-stories. If you think too much about how some of them play out, you could conceivably let your imagination run away with you and be obsessively checking in empty rooms, or sleeping with the lights on.
The stories are all really creative and well-written. As I said earlier, each story is unique with a completely different otherworldly focus but all of them have something that should make you shiver. I really enjoyed this anthology and would recommend it to those who like to be scared by their books just enough to get the blood flowing, without a lot of gore or slashing - there's really none of either here - all the stories rely on psychological terror to grab you by the throat. A wild but enjoyable ride!
alt_air's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
wealhtheow's review against another edition
3.0
A collection of spooky stories, connected by the presence of a stuttering bibliophile main character. The very scariest were "Bringing Helena Back" (just from the title you know the terror that awaits, but Monette freshens the revenant story by using a POV outside the revenant and the lover that won't let her go), "The Venebretti Necklace" (because ghosts haunting basement libraries with uncertain lights and a dangerous metal staircase hits far too close to home), and most terrifying of all, "Wait For Me." (Dead little girls are scary. Mirrors that show things that aren't there are scary. Faces without eyes are scary. Combine all of those into a single, generation-long haunting? I will pee my pants.) Others delve deeper into Booth's character and history, like "The Bone Key" and "The Green Glass Paperweight." I quite liked Booth, who is almost incapacitated by social situations but brave and absolute in the face of necromancy and ghoul pensioners. And I loved the dream logic by which the horrors often operated; it worked for me in a way few ghost stories manage to. A very solid collection.
(I should mention that I do not read the horror genre, as a rule, and so to veterans of that area these stories may seem less fresh and scary. To a fantasy fan like myself, they were on the verge of being too scary to enjoy.)
(I should mention that I do not read the horror genre, as a rule, and so to veterans of that area these stories may seem less fresh and scary. To a fantasy fan like myself, they were on the verge of being too scary to enjoy.)
ninetytimesnine's review
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
izzi's review
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.0
maddietherobot's review
4.0
I was genuinely worried there for a while that I just don't really like horror (or at least—horror writing; horror movies of course take the cake). But worry not! It's just bad horror (writing) that I dislike.
These stories are fun, though probably not particularly scary, and well paced; though I think some points where (I think?) I was supposed to realize the subtle horror that had been there the whole time...um..where is this sentence going? What I mean is sometimes I think the "subtlety" of it didnt work, maybe because it was just too subtle or maybe because I'm just dumb. But there were several points where the main character apparently is stricken with growing realization about, um, something.
Speaking of: the main character, the subtitular Kyle Murchison Booth, is compelling, too, a fun twist on the smarmy academics of Lovecraft and co., and the stories do good work at developing his humanity without it being the main focus of most of them. In fact I think that background work, developing Booth as well as the world at large, is the high point of Monette's writing, and justifies the packaging of these as a collection, a pseudo novel, rather than real stand-alones. That being said, I think they could be read as stand-alones, or anyway could be read in basically any order, though I wouldn't recommend it.
These stories are fun, though probably not particularly scary, and well paced; though I think some points where (I think?) I was supposed to realize the subtle horror that had been there the whole time...um..where is this sentence going? What I mean is sometimes I think the "subtlety" of it didnt work, maybe because it was just too subtle or maybe because I'm just dumb. But there were several points where the main character apparently is stricken with growing realization about, um, something.
Speaking of: the main character, the subtitular Kyle Murchison Booth, is compelling, too, a fun twist on the smarmy academics of Lovecraft and co., and the stories do good work at developing his humanity without it being the main focus of most of them. In fact I think that background work, developing Booth as well as the world at large, is the high point of Monette's writing, and justifies the packaging of these as a collection, a pseudo novel, rather than real stand-alones. That being said, I think they could be read as stand-alones, or anyway could be read in basically any order, though I wouldn't recommend it.
magneticcrow's review
4.0
Begins well enough but tumbles into real greatness about halfway through. Booth, the protagonist, definitely has the strength and fallibility of character that's lacking in so many Victorian/esque horror and gothic novels. I really hope Monette picks him up to run with him some more.