Quote:
Originally Posted by JLM
Just finished The Day of the Triffids.
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Nicely done - you should try to track down a VHS of the film adaptation; the Triffids themselves are a tad laughable in the film, but the core horror of a world gone completely blind is pretty visceral. I understand there's a contemporary sequel called Night of the Triffids, but I know very little of it.
I finished Stephan Laws'
DARKFALL a week or so ago; it's a Leisure Horror mass market paperback and concerns the mysterious disappearance of an entire office complex's population during a strange storm on Christmas Eve. It's relatively high concept, but the execution is poor, and the latter half of the book is as repetitive as it is unimaginative. Laws' isn't an incapable writer, but his plots have a tendency to ultimately fall flat as a result of poor structure; see his earlier book, THE WYRM, for another example of a great set-up that peters out. He's more adept at characterization than most of the authors Leisure publishes, though, so Laws is still an easier read than, say, the shallowness of Tim Lebbon.
Similarly, I read Gord Rollo's
THE JIGSAW MAN, a freshly minted novel also from Leisure; it happens to be Rollo's first novel, too. Rollo's got some good characterization, too, but ultimately, it's the first person point-of-view that does the greatest disservice; Rollo doesn't use it to its full extent in terms of having a better understanding of the protagonist; it feels a lot less like we're inside of his head, seeing him make decisions, and more of us as spectators to his choices. Compare Rollo's first person to John D. MacDonald's in any of his Travis McGee novels; MacDonald was a master as first person, and although it's unfair to compare an author's first novel to the establishment that is MacDonald, it's still obvious a lot of potential was left on the table. Rollo's plot itself is a little derivative, and it hurts a bit to have the major element of the story esentially given away by the title, but at the very least it strikes upon that common fear of mutilation drummed up by the mere notion of surgery. Rollo lacks solid, interesting antagonists - the two he has are stock characters, unfortunately, and neither particularly memorable - but it's a good first effort that readers better than some of Leisure's veteran authors. I think Rollo would really shine with a stronger story and definitely a different point of view.
Now right I'm reading Peter Straub's
GHOST STORY ... it is fairly mind-bending in its use of stories within stories within stories. It harkens back as much to old Gothic tales as it does postmodernism ... but Straub weaves a beautiful atmosphere so far.
