Slime far livelier than in the overstuffed Necroscope vampirifics.
Prolific British horror/fantasist Lumley follows up his excruciatingly creepy Fruiting Bodies and Other Fungi (1993) with a second volume of reprints that includes a short novel.
Lumley has a huge following for his ongoing Necroscope series (11 whopping volumes so far), plus two other series. The current gathering rounds up stories from as far back as 1967, three of them from Weird Tales, others from other fantasy magazines and from Kirby McCauley’s 1976 hardcover collection, Fright. As Lumley tells us in his introduction, several of these works pieces a large debt to the wellspring of 20th-century horror, H.P. Lovecraft—no surprise to followers of Lumley’s Titus Crowe series. Outstanding here is the title story, which draws on the old song “The other day upon the stair / I met a man who wasn’t there— / He wasn’t there again today, Oh, how I wish he’d go away.” Benton, the narrator, meets a foul-smelling, black-hatted little hunchback who takes over his train compartment and has Benton ejected. Afterward, Benton asks the conductor why he allowed this, and the conductor denies that any such creature exists. Something similar happens the next day in a pub, and the bartender again denies that the hunchback was ever there. Then the succubus invades Benton’s bed. . . . The novella, “The Return of the Deep Ones,” is set in deepest Lovecraft. A benefactor from Innsmouth, in America, sends British conchologist Vollister a conch with a supremely rare left screw, or anticlockwise spiral to its shape. Then a man with some antique books offers to help explain certain incredible phenomena to Vollister that lead into the history of a prehuman, interstellar race from the ocean depths, including those dreaded slimethings, the shoggoths. Soon enough, Vollister finds himself the center of a resurgence, or rebirth, of these horrors. Is he himself a—oh, no!
Slime far livelier than in the overstuffed Necroscope vampirifics.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-312-87695-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2000
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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