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Title: A Winter Haunting by Dan Simmons ISBN: 0-380-81716-0 Publisher: HarperTorch Pub. Date: 31 December, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.42 (65 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: A short winter....
Comment: Like other reviewers, I was happy to see Dan Simmons revisit characters from Summer of Night. Having read Children of the Night and Fires of Eden both, which have adult incarnations of characters from Summer of Night, I enjoyed seeing another variation of that. As was the case with so many others, Summer of Night was a book that touched me in a wonderfully nostalgic way, even for a horror tale.
A Winter Haunting strives to bring us back to the horrors of Elm Haven, or at least a small corner of it. The McBride farm was the home of Duane McBride, childhood chum of the protagonist of this novel, Dale Stewart. Duane, a quasi-narrator for this tale, was murdered in Elm Haven when just 11 years old. Now Dale, 51, author and English professor, has returned to his hometown to rent Duane's home to write his latest novel, and revisit the horrors of Elm Haven. Freshly separated from his wife and daughters in Montana; abandoned by his decamped mistress Clare; Dale is depressed and suicidal...and in revisiting the horrors of Elm Haven, Dale finds a few new ones joining them upon his return.
However, an intriguing premise very quickly becomes a paradox here. Dale has visions of a soldier in a cemetery; black dogs appear from nowhere to stalk him, metaphorically referring to his depression, as Winston Churchill termed his own the 'Black Dog'; childhood acquaintances come back to 'haunt' Dale; a room in the McBride house produces 'amorous' desires in a man suffering from medication-induced impotence; a group of skinheads threatens Dale time and again over a series of articles he published; and a voice from beyond seems to guide him in his quest to retain his sanity as the horrors of Elm Haven are once again unleashed upon him at a fever-pitch.
But don't get too excited...only a few of these riddles are answered by the end of the book. Only the tangible elements of this conundrum are explained.
I enjoyed revisiting Elm Haven with Dan Simmons as the tour guide. However, there are lengthy passages of this book that really don't fit, and are wasted space in a 300 page novel. Too much is left to imagination, or just plain unexplained, by the time the end of the tale is reached. Perhaps Mr. Simmons wanted it that way...that the events are just as unexplainable to the reader as they were to the character...perhaps a publishing deadline overshadowed the fleshing out of the details...or perhaps I simply want too much from a horror tale.
Whatever the case, I am glad to have strolled down Main Street Elm Haven again, but unfortunately this Winter tale won't haunt me for very long.
Rating: 4
Summary: A Winter Haunting
Comment: Dan Simmons latest foray into horror with this sequel to 'Summer of Night' will give you the chills. It reminds me a lot of Stephen King type horror.
Dale Stewart is an English professor, rugged westerner and a published author. After a love affair ends (not his choice), he becomes deeply depressed, suffering what he calls 'the black dog', a term for depression coined by Winston Churchill. He returns to his childhood home in a small Illinois town to write a book about his childhood. Renting an abandoned childhood friends house, a friend who died in mysterious circumstances when he was eleven years old, some really strange things start to happen. Stewart starts to wonder whether he's going crazy or if these weird things are actually happening. Giant black dogs. Seeing dead people. Neo Nazis. Okay, the Nazis could be real.
I have not read the first book that takes place in the summer of 1960/61, where they are young kids. I think this book stands well by itself. I might have gotten more out of it if I'd read the first though.
It is written in a very stylish and enthralling way. There comes a point in the book where you as the reader, are not sure what's real and what isn't. You don't always know if the character is really that crazy or not. Is it reality or psychological? You'll have to decide.
Recommended
Rating: 2
Summary: Summer of Night 2? It's Not Even Close!
Comment: Earlier this year I stumbled upon Dan Simmons and his fantastic novel Summer of Night. Summer of Night was just a fun, hackels raising read, and when I heard of this follow-up tale featuring Dale now grown up and back in his old home town, I couldn't get a copy quick enough! Having just finshed A Winter Haunting today, I feel completely let down! The courageous boy from Summer of Night, turned into a complete louse, and an unlikable protagonist in A Winter Haunting. At least Children of Night, another Simmons sorta-sequel to Summer of Night, featuring Mike, portrayed the former boy-hero as a sympathetic, and still heroic figure. A Winter Haunting turned Dale into a huge glob of self-pity. As a reader who truly cared about this character in a pevious novel, I felt like reaching into the pages to slap some sense into the now Prozac dependent slug. At what point was I supposed to be scared? By a ghost that writes in Old English? Or of a couple dogs prowling around? I mean come on, that might have worked in another story, but this is Dale from Elm Haven who fought off a murderous janitor in a rendering truck, who saw his kid brother yanked under his bed by ghostly pale arms, who crawled through miles of tunnels into an abandoned school turned into the birthplace of a demon! This guy is supposed to be afraid of a ghost that quotes Beowolf? I still give 2 stars to A Winter Haunting if for no other reason that we get to revisit Duane, Jim Harlan, Michelle Staffney and some of the other great characters from Summer of Night. And for the inclusion of the murderous skinheads who give the novel it's only gripping moments when chasing Dale through the muddy back-country of Illinois. But if you enjoyed Summer of Night as much as I did, pass on A Winter Haunting, it will only taint the characters you enjoyed so much.
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Title: Summer of Night (Aspect Fantasy) by Dan Simmons ISBN: 0446362662 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 March, 1992 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Hard Freeze (St. Martin's Minotaur Mysteries) by Dan Simmons ISBN: 0312989482 Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur Pub. Date: 01 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Hardcase (St. Martin's Minotaur Mysteries) by Dan Simmons ISBN: 0312980167 Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur Pub. Date: 01 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Children of the Night by Dan Simmons ISBN: 0446364754 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 1993 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons ISBN: 0446359203 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 1990 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
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