Seven old-fashioned, mostly dead-weight horror tales by three high-profde monster-mongers; only Martin's closing—and rousing—werewolf novella saves this collection from the Hall of Shame. In his opening three contributions, King again proves that the price of being prolific is occasional mediocrity. Kicking things off is "The Reploids," which Douglas Winter in his unctuous introduction calls "a virtual pastiche of the ironic, science fictional horror of the 1950's"; translate that to mean "tired"—as here King replays the soggy notion of someone from an alternate universe popping into ours (on the Johnny Carson show). Bad taste undermines his "Sneakers," unscary business about a haunted public toilet, and "Dedication," a truly repulsive tale of witchcraft that hinges on the eating of semen. Simmons, winner of a 1986 World Fantasy Award (for his first novel, The Song of Kali), fares little better with: "Mestastisis"—more ashes-in-the-mouth stuff, this about the real cause of cancer ("cancer vampires" that grow tumors inside people as a food supply); "Vanni Fucci is Alive and Well and Living in Hell"—flat satire in which an irate soul from Hell takes a bow on an evangelical talk-show; and "Iverson's Pits," an atmospheric but turgid period piece wherein Civil War vets fight their last battle on the blood-soaked and evil-drenched fields of Gettysburg. Thankfully, there's a pot of gold at the end of this muddy rainbow: Martin's "The Skin Trade," the longest entry here, a jet-powered, marvelously inventive and suspenseful tale brightened by flashes of humor and of true terror—about a female P.I., her werewolf pal, and their pursuit of a grim beast who's slaying and flaying victims in a gothic urban jungle. Advice: King—stop pulling dusty stories out of your drawer; Simmons—write another novel; Martin—rest easy, you've come up with a scream of a werewolf story. And reader—a more sophisticated horror collection by far lurks in the forthcoming Prime Evil (p. 570).
Pub Date: July 1, 1988
ISBN: 0913165328
Page Count: 274
Publisher: Dark Harvest
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1988
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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