Product Description
A classic tale of supernatural horror from the acclaimed author of Koko, The Talisman and Mr X. Now reissued in a new cover style.'Floating Dragon racks you with suspense! Straub is a master at having whole communities rocked by the forces of wickedness.' ObserverThe terrors afflicting the sleepy town of Hampstead, Connecticut, were beyond imagination. Sparrows dropping dead from the trees like rotten fruit, disfiguring diseases spreading like wildfire, inexplicable murders and child drownings shattering the lives of the citizens -- never can such a list of horrors have afflicted one town. But the evil madness had a long history. A catastrophe had struck Hampstead every thirty years since its foundation 300 years before -- yet only Graham Williams, a writer and descendant of one of the original founders, had looked into the 'black summers' and their mysterious origins. When he discovers that descendants of the three other original settlers are back living in the town, he knows it will be the blackest summer yet! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (31)

The DUMBEST book, I have ever read! :(
This book was an impulse buy- 1 of 4 that day.
I was in Borders book store on the hunt for my favorite genre: Vampires.
I grabbed it because of it's unique title & have been regretting the purchase ever since.
As a person who reads about 45 books a year- mostly Sci-Fi, I have never met a book that I couldn't get through but this book makes me want to set it ablaze! The pointlessness of it all!!! :(
No more impulse buys for me!
Save yourself. Do not buy this book.

Fantastic, but maybe too ambitious?
I love Peter Straub. He is an intelligent and literary man that has single-handedly helped raise the standards of horror writing. He may be writing about boogeymen, serial killers or things from beyond the grave, but he isn't going to dumb it down.

Floating Dragon is an ambitious novel in the vein of 'Salem's Lot and Straub's own masterpiece Ghost Story. A Peyton Place like town is slowly taken over by a supernatural force or perhaps supernatural forces?

It all starts with the murder of `Stony' Susan Baxter in the bedroom community of Hampstead, Connecticut. After that we follow several plot threads: an accident at a chemical plant working on a project for the Department of Defense releases a (possible sentient) cloud of nerve gas, a child actor and his wife who have moved back to his home town and Graham Williams, a retired writer who is looking into the Hampstead's past.

This is horror on a grand scale with a cast of well written characters that are more than just fodder for a monster. Straub bounces between these characters right from the beginning. It is very disorienting at first, but helps give the novel real depth.

Don't get me wrong. This isn't some sensitive character study. If anything, in this book Peter Straub pours on the horror. There is some eye-popping stuff in here. Not extreme or graphic, just way out there and all over the place.

In fact, one fault with the novel is that it's maybe a little TOO ambitious. There are more ideas packed in this one book than any three books you would normally read. Peter Straub kicked out all the stops and at times you'll feel giddy there's so much going on.

This was my first Peter Straub book and it impressed me enough to go out and buy everything else of his I could find. However, if you were considering trying Peter Straub for the first time, I guess I would suggest Ghost Story, Mr. X or Koko to get your feet wet.

Ambitious if not entirely successful horror novel with many good points
_Floating Dragon_ by Peter Straub introduces the reader to a seemingly normal town in Connecticut, the town of Hampstead, a New York City bedroom community. It has everything a town of the time (the book is set in 1980) might have, including a bustling main street, a commuter train station, a small town police department, restaurants, a movie theater, tennis courts, a golf course, and a nice swimming beach. Oh, and a buried, ancient evil that periodically emerges and nearly destroys the town every 10 to 30 years. No place is perfect I guess.

Being a horror novel, things get pretty bad fairly quickly in the town, though most of the residents are slow to catch on and in denial when they start to notice things. In addition to the signs of an incipient, ancient evil rising once more, one dating back to the town's 17th century origins, a Department of Defense experiment goes awry, leaking a sometimes deadly but mostly hallucinogenic nerve gas into the community, a disaster that is kept quiet for a disastrously long length of time. Naturally, this gas makes it hard to parse the hallucinations from the supernatural evil. Are those real hordes of creeping red spiders coming down that wall, or it is a hallucination? Or does it really even matter?

This ancient evil capitalizes on the DOD disaster (apparently, though the evil being, while very intelligent, is not really given any point of view chapters, quite a shame) and it falls upon an unlikely quartet of people to oppose this creature, all of them descendents of townsfolk who help found the town and bested the evil when it first appeared in the 1600s.Graham Williams, an older gentlemen, writer, once an alcoholic and nearly blacklisted as a communist sympathizer in the 1950s, a man who has fought this evil once before. Patsy McCloud, a sweet woman trapped in an abusive marriage, perhaps possessing incredible hidden powers.Tabby Smithfield, a good-natured, shy teen who has bounced from home to home, state to state, with his alcoholic father who just barely manages to stay out of jail. Richard Allbee, returned with his wife Laura from living in London, hoping to continue his successful antique home restoration business and escape the long shadows of his years as a child actor on a popular sitcom.

I know this book is well loved by many fans and is considered a classic (why I read it to begin with). I really wanted to love it, hoping maybe it was something comparable to Lovecraft at his best.

I liked some aspects of it quite a bit, the small town, real feel of the city before evil started to consume it, some of the compelling secondary characters (nearly of all of which meet untimely demises), and I liked the four main characters and their final confrontation with evil. I enjoy books set in seemingly normal settings, the suburbs, areas I am quite familiar with, focusing on people dealing with something extraordinary, whether it is the apparent end of the world (_Spin_ by Robert Charles Wilson to an extent), an entire town being ripped to an alternate universe (_Mysterium_ also by Wilson), or the existence of faeries (_Songs of Earth and Power_ by Greg Bear).

The evil to me seemed very random though. I know part of that was the result of the nerve gas, but it seemed almost arbitrary at times. Sometimes a vision of something was just that, a vision, but other times it was quite real, and it was hard to distinguish what was occurring much of the time. Townspeople became compelled to do awful things to themselves and others but was that the fault of the ancient evil or the gas? Or I guess one might ask the question again, does it matter.

The exact nature of the ancient evil, while named and depicted, was never fully explained to me why it was evil, at least to my satisfaction. Also, while I liked the final confrontation scene with it, some aspects of that were hard to completely understand.

The book had a slow pace at times, though it did allow for some good character development of the four principal protagonists, and the opening chapter was very confusing, a disjointed jumble of flashbacks and vignettes of various characters' lives from different points in the town's history, though thankfully that writing style doesn't last very long.

Overall it certainly wasn't a bad book, though I think it could have used some changes. I think the book might do better in a more visual medium perhaps, maybe as a graphic novel or movie.

Floating Dragon
This is good horror and written with pace and intelligence, I also enjoyed his book KOKO that is a subperb book. Love it.

This is a 'horror' story?
I have read a few Peter Straub novels, of which "Ghost Story" was one of the finest I have ever come across, but this piece of compacted toilet paper is total rubish.His detailed descriptions of the town is done so well that I could probably go there and walk through that town with my eyes closed, but this does not make for a good story.The third time this book hit me in the face after falling asleep, I resolved to leave it on the shelf for a year.Well it is now two years later and it still bores me to death. ... Read more

Product Description
A Washington Post Best Book of the Year

Peter Straub—bestselling author and 8-timeBram Stoker Award winner—has gathered here 24 bone-chilling, nail-biting, frightfullyimaginative stories that represent the best of contemporary horror writing.

DanChaon “The Bees”
Elizabeth Hand “Cleopatra Brimstone”
Steve Rasnic Tem and MelanieTem “The Man on the Ceiling”
M. John Harrison “The Great God Plan”
Ramsey Campbell“The Voice of the Beach”
Brian Evenson “Body”
Kelly Link “Louise’s Ghost”
JonathanCarroll “The Sadness of Detail”
M. Rickert “Leda”
Thomas Tessier “In Praise of Folly”
David J. Schow “Plot Twist”
Glen Hirshberg “The Two Sams”
Thomas Ligotti “Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story”
Benjamin Percy “Unearthed”
Bradford Morrow "Gardener of Heart”
Peter Straub “LittleRed’s Tango”
Stephen King “The Ballad of a Flexible Bullet”
Joe Hill “20th CenturyGhost”
Ellen Klages “The Green Glass Sea”
Tia V. Travis “The Kiss”
Graham Joyce “BlackDust”
Neil Gaiman “October in the Chair”
John Crowley “Missolonghi 1824”
RosalindPalermo Stevenson “Insect Dreams” ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

Boring, no thrills or chills here
If you're looking for stories to keep you up at night, looking over your shoulder every once in a while, this is not your anthology. If you're looking for short stories with a supernatural element but nothing at all scary then maybe try this out. I understand not every story needs to be a fright-fest to be a good horror story, but quite honestly I cant count the times I was shaking my head after finishing a story and just saying to myself "How is this a horror story?" Many times I would reach the last page completely baffled.

I am a huge fan of horror/suspense anthologies, and this was by far the most disappointing. I understand Peter Straub was going for different, nontraditional styles of horror stories, but I really feel he missed the mark.

There are a few good stories in here, but again, nothing scary or creepy in my opinion (SPOILERS):

"The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet" by Stephen King is about an author descending into insanity and how his insanity becomes contagious among those around him. An average King short that I think most will enjoy, but he has much creepier work.

"The Bees" by Dan Chaon was decent. It is the first short in the collection and probably the creepiest, which makes the entire rest of the anthology that much more disappointing. This story involves a man with a hidden past coming back to haunt him.

Now to the bad/horrible ones:

Probably the most head scratching story in this collection was "The Green Glass Sea" by Ellen Klages. Not a bad story on its own, but what it's doing in a horror anthology I have no clue. A man and his children drive to the site of the first atomic bomb test, and take home pieces of the sand which have turned to glass from the test. That's it.

In "Unearthed" by Benjamin Percy, a Father and his son dig up the grave of a native american whose body is mummified by still intact...which they take home with them and display as a decoration. Sounds promising! Alas, the Dad does act a little weird, but nothing actually happens. The body ends up getting destroyed without any repercussions. This ina nutshell describes the entire anthology, somewhat creepy atmospheres, tones in the beginning that lead to no payoff.

If you're looking for horror I suggest the Mammoth Book's of Horror edited by Stephen Jones, much more bang for your book.

Don't waste your time or your money.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to read a Picasso...or a bad imitation of one?Then try to read some of these "stories."You'll spend 30-40 minutes sifting through poorly written, confusing, disjointed writing only to have it come to an abrupt end.Then you'll spend several minutes flipping back and forth trying to find the missing pages only to discover that you really have reached the end.Then you'll reread the last few pages because surely you missed something, but you didn't.What you did do was waste 30 minutes of your life that you can never get back.

They are horror stories, but the real horror is the bad writing.

Read all before in other anthologies.
Half the stories in this book are not worthy of the title "Poe's Children." The title is very misleading as half of the stories do not resonate with Poe's works. Edgar Allen Poe is a tough act to follow, and some of the writers come close to Poe's atmospheric style, the others fall far short of the master. Some of the stories drag and have no visual impact and other stories just sit there. Which made me scratch my head and say "What?!" Further editing would have made the book worthy of the title "Poe's Children."A more appropriate title might be "Poe's Children and Others."

This isn't "New" horror at all.
This isn't "New" horror.These are standard authors of the past 40 years.If you want NEW horror you should get some of the Darkened Horizons volumes.THAT'S new horror.

so-so horror collection
I read 10 stories in this anthology and although two of them were outstanding ("Cleopatra Brimstone" by Elizabeth Hand and "20th Century Ghost" by Joe Hill) and one was good ("Plot Twist" by David Schow) the others were a bit disappointing. The whole "literary horror" theme is pretentious to me. Why do these stories deserve the title "literary horror"? To me a story is good or isn't and being skillful and eloquent with words can't save a mediocre story. Many of these stories were well written but were just boring.

Quick rundown of the others I read: "The Bees" was okay, "The Man on the Ceiling" was the worst of the lot and not even a story, "The Great God Pan" was confusing, "The Voice on the Beach" was slow and not in the least bit scary, "The Sadness of Detail" was interesting but needed a better ending, "In Praise of Folly" was creepy but cliched, and "October in the Chair" was pointless. ... Read more

Product Description
In a house in London a woman starts a new life, trying to put tragedy behind her. Then a pretty blonde child runs into view, bringing with her an inexplicable suggestion of evil.

Once Julia Lofting had a husband and a daughter. But everything has changed since she bolted from her marriage, in flight from the unbearable truth of her daughter's death. For Julia, there is no escape. Another child awaits, another mother suffers, and a circle of the damned gathers around her. The haunting has begun . . .


From the Paperback edition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (22)

Anticlimatic
I really don't understand the comparisons to "Rosmary's Baby", "Julia" lacked the wit,intrigue and mystery that RB did and had one of the most anticlimatic endings I've read in a long time. What I found to be true about this book is that the favorable reviews do a better job of describing the intent than the book itself. By the end you are left wondering WHY the ghost was so evil when it was alive.What was it about it's personality that made it want to continue to live to haunt others. Well when you find out these answers , you are left disappointed especially after the build up of the first 150 pages. The novel Ringu did a 100% better job of letting you know the horror behind the supernatural being. This novel really left it up to the reader to imagine those circumstances. This is not one of Straubs best.

Booring...
This is his bomb. I kept falling asleep, taken me 3 times longer to finish because of it.

Not the greatest books ever!
I once read the Finnish edition of Peter Straub's Julia.

Out of curiosity I read also the one in the original language.

I have to say, that there is a ghostly feeling in it. The feeling is very much like 1970ish "Rosemary's Baby" -like in a nine years after -feeling.

The characters are interesting, but not quite human.

The relationship with the ghost, Olivia Rudge and Julia seems to be sexually connected.

WELL-WRITTEN GHOST STORY...
This is a well-written ghost story in which a feeling of dread permeates the pages. American heiress, Julia Lofting, living in England, leaves her domineering and cruel husband, Magnus, after the unexpected death of their young daughter. She then buys an old Georgian house, which she hopes will pave the way fir a new beginning for her. Unfortunately, not only wont her husband leave her alone, but the house seems to have a mind of its own.

Before she knows it, Julia is living a haunted existence, and her life continues to unravel. As her house of cards comes tumbling down around her, Julia discovers much about the house and her husband. Unfortunately, none of it is good. As the past intrudes upon the present, the feeling of dread and angst mounts as the story barrels down to the grand finale.

Captivating From The First Page To The Last; The Kind Of Book That'll Have You Jumping At Shadows
There are just too many excellent authors to ever try to narrow it down to a single Best of all time.But if you're going to try and pick a Scariest, then Peter Straub just might be it.And when arguably the most skilled writer at creating terror also excels on so many other levels - characterization, relationships, pure style of writing, etc. - you're going to get a lot of the greatest, most multi-faceted, and memorable horror novels ever written.

Fresh off the tragic loss of a child and in the midst of separation from her domineering husband, Julia Lofting buys a new home for herself almost on snap decision, a large manor in a nice London neighborhood.It's a snap decision she'll soon have reason to regret, and one whose impetus turns out not to have merely been her own whims.The daughter, Kate, that Julia and her estranged husband Magnus had, was a sweet and innocent little girl; but there was a very different kind of little girl who used to live in the neighborhood Julia now calls home.There are few things so disturbing as a truly Evil child, because there's something about all that malice in adults around the world and throughout history that just isn't Supposed to be able to flourish in a little child.To convincingly capture pure evil, unmitigated by sentiment or reason or some kind of tragic formative incident, within an adult psychopath can be unsettling.To have it show up in a child can be horrifying.

There are a lot of terrifying ideas in here (like the concept that a sufficiently powerful manipulator can not only pull the strings of a good, or at least not rotten, person toward committing evil but can make it so they Enjoy it) but the main horror is the child who used to live in that neighborhood, as sadistic and perverse a creature as any you'll encounter.This book isn't just tense or disturbing, it's electrifyingly frightening - the kind of book where glimpsing a mote of floating dust out of the corner of your eye while reading can make one flinch.

One of many things I admired about this novel was the characterization.There were the protagonists, there were the unlikable characters, there were the ones who were sort of 'neutral', but they didn't just stay in those niches.Sometimes something noble or sympathetic would arise in a highly unlikely character; at other times a streak of some less admirable trait would surface in one of the 'good guys'.And it didn't mean they were about to turn, it just meant that there were characters with very apparant imperfections that I liked anyway, and there were other characters who were more villainous but that I could understand, and sometimes even sympathize with, in certain parts of their character.Magnus is one character I think I can reference without giving too much away.That guy was beligerant, arrogant, psychologically abusive, and controlling, but he adored Kate and he loved Julia as much as it was possible for a man like him to love a woman.I think that during their marriage he even subconciously tried to mitigate or hide away the most obnoxious parts of himself (not that he was always successful) for her sake, although conciously Magnus would probably scoff at the notion of 'taming' himself for anyone's sake.All this doesn't mean I became a fan of the character, but it made him an awful lot more interesting.

On the other hand we had Julia, who unlike some of the other protagonists, remained one of the purest heroines to ever grace a horror novel (although come to think of it, there is one incident that some may interpret in an entirely different way than I did).I don't mean 'pure' in that she lived like a nun or was this always pious, never angry or scared character.I mean it like this: okay, a lot of times when you've got a story where there's a house that's clearly haunted or otherwise afflicted by some kind of unearthly threat, the big question is why on Earth would anyone stay there.With Julia, it was as simple as this: she realized there was something terribly, unnaturally, wrong in her new home; she figured parts of it out early on, she realized (in a way that was not implicitly stated) that the danger was not going to stop existing even if she did manage to get herself out of its path; and she made a decision (without seeming to even think about a decision needing to be made) that she was going to stay, in proximity to those she cared about and feared for, and try to put things right for the endangered and the innocent....and even for the guilty.

Straub did a tremendous balancing job between bringing out revelations and leaving certain things unexplained."Julia" was powerful, thrilling, and totally immersive, and I hated it when it had to be over.One of the best ever. ... Read more

Product Description
Peter Straub's Blue Rose trilogy (Koko, Mystery, and The Throat) is one of the landmark accomplishments of modern popular fiction. Ranging from the Caribbean to Vietnam to the American Midwest and spanning decades of tumultuous history, these books are both unforgettable narratives and indelible portraits of people in extremis, struggling to survive in a world marked by grief, loss, pain, trauma, and homicidal madness. The four stories gathered here are offshoots of that larger fictional universe. Each one stands entirely on its own. Together, they shine a revelatory light on the mysteries and hidden corners of the novels that inspired them.

"Blue Rose" recounts a defining moment in the childhood of Koko's Harry Beevers, the moment when the ten-year-old Harry discovers his capacity for violence and brutality. "The Juniper Tree" describes, with almost unbearable clarity, a lonely young boy's encounter with adult betrayal, and with the darker aspects of human sexuality. "The Ghost Village" takes us to the phantasmagoric landscape of Vietnam, where the barriers between the living and the dead begin to dissolve, to mesmerizing effect. "Bunny is Good Bread" is arguably Straub's single most harrowing story. With relentless attention to detail, it anatomizes the creation of a human monster through abuse, cruelty, and neglect.

These disturbing, beautifully written stories have a moral weight and emotional resonance that only the finest fiction achieves. They are the clear product of a master storyteller at the very top of his game. No one who reads them is likely to forget them, or come away unchanged. ... Read more

Product Description
Offered for the first time in a collected format, this selection of short stories features five gripping tales by one of the horror genre's most literate and endlessly inventive writers, Peter Straub - "Little Red's Tango," "Lapland, or Film Noir," "The Geezers," "Donald Duck," and "Mr. Aickman's Air Rifle." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Disappointing.
This book is not what I expected from a writer of Mr. Straub's caliber. These stories don't flow well or capture the imagination as other stories and books written by the author do. I could not see the action or the stories unfold, these stories are just words on paper. It would have been better if the book had been classified as to genre and content on the overview page because I would not have purchased the book if that information had been available. A disappointing work.

Confused?!?
This is the probably the sixth Peter Straub book I have read and was a bit confused and disappointed by the stories.I have loved all the other books of his until this one, this is the most recent one I have read.Only buy it if you want to read a very strange and different set of stories that are unlike any others by this author.

a new great collection from Peter Straub
This is a new wonderful collection of short stories by Peter Straub. Each story is more surprising than the one before. There is a tale about a jazz collector; one about the films noirs in the 50'; even a dark comedy about Donald and his family; a murder mystery and a Robert Aickman pastiche. Each story seemed great to me but for a different reason each time. The Aickman-ish story leaves you with an incredible feeling of horror. Don't miss this collection. It recently was Awarded. Thanks to Peter Straub for writing so well and havaing such a great imagination. ... Read more

Product Description
Over twenty years in the making, SIDES represents the first ever collection of non-fiction by bestselling author Peter Straub. Featuring introductions, essays, afterwords, and even a "frivolity" along with the collected works of Putney Tyson Ridge, Straub's "self-invented human speed bump and alter ego" this collection presents a rare glimpse into the author's tastes and personal musings on topics ranging from The Stepford Wives and Dracula to Lawrence Block and Stephen King.

Also included is "The Fantasy of Everyday Life", Straub's Guest-of-Honor speech at the 1998 International Conference of the Fantastic in the Arts, and "Mom", an essay that appeared in a book that combined short stories written by mother-son partnerships with essays written by male writers about their mothers. The "frivolity" here "Why Electricman Lives in New York" was written for an anthology celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of New York Is Book Country.

This long awaited collection closes with Putney Tyson Ridge's reviews and commentaries on every Peter Straub book published since the 1970s.

SIDES is a unique and exclusive Cemetery Dance book, with no other editions planned anywhere in the world! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

PETER STRAUB ON PETER STRAUB
I have read about everything Peter Straub has written, this is not a book for entertainment. He does however give great insight to the Authors and books that he reads (good food for thought), and gives some background information on the books he has written. If anything it is good to have on the shelf next to a collection (if you have one), to give others, in his own words, why or why not to read them. ... Read more

Product Description
A spectacular collection of short fiction which includes the seeds of Straub's powerful Blue Rose trilogy.

"You expect the horrifying in the fiction of Peter Straub...and you get it." (New York Times)

"Straub at his spellbinding best." (Publishers Weekly) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Dull and overwritten
This is a book of similarly themed short stories, half of which are short shorts only a few pages long. The characters are people whose lives are untenable. They come from abusive upbringings and are now feeling trapped in their lives.

Straub is an excellent writer and creates vivid, if odd, characters. However, most of these stories didn't work for me. The short shorts were for the most part vague ramblings, not cohesive stories. Of the longer pieces, Blue Rose was the best. It's about an 11 year old boy who reads an old book on hypnotism and discovers he has a gift for it when he puts his younger brother under and something terrible happens. The story suffers only from a weak, anticlimactic ending. The Juniper Tree is a rote pedophilia tale that also ends poorly. The Buffalo Hunter and Mrs. God were both overwritten, going on far longer than was necessary.

Save your time! Save your money!
If there was something less than a "one star rating" this book would qualify! Just a terrible collection of short stories going nowhere. Very dis-jointed. Very wordy. I kept reading to the end, in hopes of finding some kind of conclusion. The only conclusion found is to share the bad experience, in hopes of saving others from some pain and frustration! I'll never read Peter Straub again! Ugh!

Evocative, But Never Pretentious
This collection of short stories lifts its title from an Emily Dickinson poem ("Doom is the house without a door..."). There is a sense of doom pervading each of the stories, as the major characters are cursed by psychological maladies (psychosis, repression, obsession) or are forced to interact with powers beyond their (and our) comprehension. Some of the stories end with the characters clearly not escaping their doom (most notably in "The Buffalo Hunter"), while others leave it to the reader to guess at the outcome ("Mrs. God," "The Juniper Tree"). All of the stories, including the interludes, work overtime to produce a dark mood and an off-kilter worldview.

"The Buffalo Hunter" and "Mrs. God" were my favorites. The former presents a loner who gets lost in his own imagined relationships and later in the paperback novels he reads. I'm a fan of Raymond Chandler's work, so Straub's pastiche of "The Lady in the Lake" was particularly enjoyable. If I were more familiar with Anna Karenina I might have had a better appreciation for the ending of the short story, but as it was I sensed something bad coming and Straub didn't disappoint. "Mrs. God" felt a lot like Ghost Story to me; particularly nice was the way Henry James and other authors were woven into the piece. I had read "Blue Rose" when Penguin issued it as a stand-alone mini-book in the mid-90's; it's the "oogiest" of all the stories - even the second time through it still creeped me out and made me slightly nauseated.

I enjoyed these stories a great deal. Straub can be crueler and more terrifying than some of his contemporaries, even while his syntax and phraseology are more refined. If you're a fan of Straub's or the psychological/horror genres in general you'll likely enjoy this book. Beyond that, there aren't many to whom I'd recommend this collection of short fiction, unless it would be a student who wants to see how words can be used effectively to create mood and transport readers to worlds they'd not likely find on their own.

Doors that go nowhere
Initially, I was excited to pick up a collection of short stories by Straub. But, this has got to be my least favorite of all of Straub's work. Every story seems disjointed an incomplete. I never got a full sense of what happened by the time i finished each story. I kept reading the book, however, in hopes of finding a gem. I came close with "Mrs. God", but again felt let down on the outcome. Each story is too much buildup and not enough delivery. I was glad to finish this book and put it back on the shelf. Despite the positive reviews, I was not impressed.

Great short stories, very creepy mood
Houses Without Doors presents short stories with incredibly creepy moods.Their creepiness comes not from grotesqueness, but rather, from the very normalcy of the settings that horrid things take place in.You aren't transported to some otherwordly place, rather the terror is brought straight into your personal living space.

Each story has it's own focus, much having to do with the type of horror that children find themselves confronting - and even perpetrating.Those who like Stephen King's child-type characters may also enjoy these.The stories are eerie in their familiarity, but work more on a psychlogical/emotional level than they do through plot.Many of the stories are non-linear, a tool that the author uses to great effect.Not only does it add to the moodiness of the story, it also notches up the emotions that the characters seem to feel.Readers who enjoy non-linear story telling will definetely enjoy this book.Those who prefer a plot-heavy and/or super-suspenseful type book may not like it as well.

Overall excellent stories, frightening characters, and perfect horror mood.Definetely a book well worth the money. ... Read more

Product Description
They beckon you to a twilight world of flesh and spirit....

They are dream-spinners weaving macabre nightmares...phantasmic voices whispering words of dread...spectral visions taunting you into an early grave. They are ghosts, young and ancient, mischievous and maniacal, glimmering and ghoulish. Now, journey with Peter Straub, one of today's best ghost storytellers, as he and fourteen other premier peddlers of gooseflesh take you into the shivery haunts of Ghosts.

Beginning with Straub's "Hunger," a magnificent story about the cravings of the restless dead, here are stories never to be read past nightfall .stories of an unholy seductress gorging on men's souls...a Hollywood B moviemaker unexpectedly cast in the role of ghostwriter...a psychic investigator who unearths far more than he bargained for...and a burned out novelist desperately seeking the phantom muses of his childhood.... ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Ghosts and Spirits and Shades ... Oh My!
After a lengthy (41 page) Introduction by Peter Straub (worth the read, its actually a story), the shivering tales begin.The book is divided into five separate categories: Dark, The Kids, Mom And Dad, Cold, and Our Work.Like many of the collections from Horror Writer's Association, the stories here may introduce you to a new favorite talent or give you a fresh tale from a chosen author.

Table Of Contents:
Hunger: An Introduction by Peter Straub
DARK:
Styx by Norman Partridge
Jubilee by Kathe Koja
Not Far From Here by Tim Smith
THE KIDS:
Momma Ghost by Alan Rodgers
Daddy's Girl by Gordon R. Ross
Coventry Carol by Chet Williamson
MOM AND DAD:
And He Who Mourns by David B. Silva
His Mother's Hands by Clark Perry
COLD:
Bill Smith's Sleigh Ride by Tyson Blue
Sotto Voce by Lawrence Greenberg
A Real Babe by Brad Linaweaver
OUR WORK:
Looking For Mr. Flip by Thomas F. Monteleone
Present In Spirit by Don D'Ammassa
The Wedding Party by Paul M. Sammon

My favorites include 'Not Far From Here' by Tim Smith, a tale of ghostly, ghastly psychopaths with a strange tie-in to the ether world; the strange haunting of young parents by their lost child in 'Coventry Carol' by Chet Williamson; who is haunting who in Clark Perry's 'His Mothers Hands'; a childhood terror-toy haunts Jack in 'Looking For Mr. Flip' written by Thomas F. Monteleon; the corporate downfall of James Nicholson as the people he's stepped on in the past come back to him in 'Present In Spirit' by Don D'Ammassa; will you recognize mysterious Albert and Mr. Z. in Paul M. Sammon's nineteenth century horror tale called 'The Wedding Party'?

What I love about the collections from Horror Writers Association is that your often get the unexpected in their stories.Though telling of ghosts or witches or vampires, there's always one or two that will stretch your imagination to its limits while still molding to the form of the theme.Many authors mean many views, and Ghosts doesn't disappoint in bringing us ghosts from the early 1900's to the most modern of hauntings.If you like a good ghost collection, be sure to pick this one up.Enjoy!

Ghosts of the mind
Peter Straub has selected some extremely interesting ghost stories in this book. Very systematically he looked for stories that depict a deranged mind more than real paranormal phenomena. The ghosts are living in the minds of the main characters and that gives a real twang to the book. No special effects, no monsters with a zipper in the back but phantasms, imaginary beings, delusions, all the result of a mind that does not know where to stand any more. And when you lose your footing, you have the tendency to see the ground floating over your head and the air harbouring a lot of incredible beings and creatures. In other words these stories are perfectly plausible, most of them, and they give you a real feeling of unease because you know you could experience the same thing under some circumstances.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Perpignan

A mixed bag of spirits.
Choosing Peter Straub, author of the classic supernatural tale Ghost Story, as the editor for this was another neat marketing trick by the HWA.Too bad the tales he gathered are less than impressive.Straub's story "Hunger" is literate and fascinating, but most of the rest fall flat.Chet Williamson's offering does get under the skin though, causing a rash of gooseflesh.Die hard horror fans will want to check it out, so I recommend it for at least those two tales.

Gross, but not very scary
I thought the stories in this collection were well-written, in some cases sliding over into the realm of 'pretentious'.Lots of blood and gore, which I don't particularly care for in a ghost story (in fact, I hurled thebook into the wastebasket after reading one particularly bloody specimen). My main objection to the stories is that none of them were particularlyscary. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

unbelievable condition
Purchased "Ghost Story" from "Wonderbook and Video". The item stated used but very good condition. The hard bound book came as stated. It was absolutely perfect, like new condition and I saved around $10.00.

Great deal.thanks for the quick ship.
So far it is a really good book.I was very happy with the price and quick shipping.Recommended seller.Thanks again!

Shivers me timbers!!!!!
The best "ghost story" I've ever read.Don't bother with watching the movie, though.

Great Transactions!
It was a great transaction! The book was described well and came in stated condition. It was shipped promptly and made it well before the due date. The whole transaction was easy and simple, no troubles.

BENCHMARK TERROR of the highest sort!!!
1979 it was, I believe, when I became first acquainted with this stunning work by Peter Straub. It put a completely new face on the "written" terror!

Of course, back in High School, and College, many years ago, Poe was who one looked to for "creepy", and "a good scare".....

Then, Stephen King burst onto the scene with "Carrie", "Salem's Lot", and "The Shining", and horror had a new "King" so to speak! Certainly, "The Shining" was one super-creepy and scary piece of work. And, it would come to be followed up by this little shocker by Peter Straub.

Truly, of all the books I have read in my 61 years, this, "Ghost Story", is the one single book that I remember and think of as "the scariest book I have ever read"....bar none. Perhaps in the case of "The Andromeda Strain" by Michael Crichton, we get "scary" of another sort, certainly unnervingly upsetting and worrysome to the reader, but I place this "Little Shocker" in a class held solely by itself, perhaps touched only by Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House"...surely another of the great classic horror stories of all time.

While reading this book, I distinctly recall getting up "to check the doors", "closing the blinds", and several times while wending my way through it, "putting it down for a bit" because I was, frankly, too unnerved to continue at the moment to "go on".....

Sadly, "Hollywood", when it came to make this into a movie, ruined this scarey story completely, by delivering up anything but the story here in the movie version. I have LONG waited for someone else to come along and FINALLY turn this into a faithful horror flick....it truly would be awesome, were someone to do this book justice.

I thus cast down the gauntlet, to all Hollywood, or Independant Directors, challenging one of them to PLEASE take this awesome scary story and make a truly "fitting" film version of it!

Do grab yourself a copy of this book, and sit yourself down to a truly frightening, and deeply upsetting read.....you will LONG remember "Ghost Story"....believe me!

operabruin ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

unbelievable condition
Purchased "Ghost Story" from "Wonderbook and Video". The item stated used but very good condition. The hard bound book came as stated. It was absolutely perfect, like new condition and I saved around $10.00.

Great deal.thanks for the quick ship.
So far it is a really good book.I was very happy with the price and quick shipping.Recommended seller.Thanks again!

Shivers me timbers!!!!!
The best "ghost story" I've ever read.Don't bother with watching the movie, though.

Great Transactions!
It was a great transaction! The book was described well and came in stated condition. It was shipped promptly and made it well before the due date. The whole transaction was easy and simple, no troubles.

BENCHMARK TERROR of the highest sort!!!
1979 it was, I believe, when I became first acquainted with this stunning work by Peter Straub. It put a completely new face on the "written" terror!

Of course, back in High School, and College, many years ago, Poe was who one looked to for "creepy", and "a good scare".....

Then, Stephen King burst onto the scene with "Carrie", "Salem's Lot", and "The Shining", and horror had a new "King" so to speak! Certainly, "The Shining" was one super-creepy and scary piece of work. And, it would come to be followed up by this little shocker by Peter Straub.

Truly, of all the books I have read in my 61 years, this, "Ghost Story", is the one single book that I remember and think of as "the scariest book I have ever read"....bar none. Perhaps in the case of "The Andromeda Strain" by Michael Crichton, we get "scary" of another sort, certainly unnervingly upsetting and worrysome to the reader, but I place this "Little Shocker" in a class held solely by itself, perhaps touched only by Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House"...surely another of the great classic horror stories of all time.

While reading this book, I distinctly recall getting up "to check the doors", "closing the blinds", and several times while wending my way through it, "putting it down for a bit" because I was, frankly, too unnerved to continue at the moment to "go on".....

Sadly, "Hollywood", when it came to make this into a movie, ruined this scarey story completely, by delivering up anything but the story here in the movie version. I have LONG waited for someone else to come along and FINALLY turn this into a faithful horror flick....it truly would be awesome, were someone to do this book justice.

I thus cast down the gauntlet, to all Hollywood, or Independant Directors, challenging one of them to PLEASE take this awesome scary story and make a truly "fitting" film version of it!

Do grab yourself a copy of this book, and sit yourself down to a truly frightening, and deeply upsetting read.....you will LONG remember "Ghost Story"....believe me!

operabruin ... Read more

Product Description
Small PB-Gift Quality, no shelf wear, no scuffs, tight binding, clean pages, no marks, no spine crease, smoke/pet free home. Ships anywhere 7 days a week ... Read more

Product Description
A woman commits suicide for no apparent reason. A week later, her son- fifteen-year-old Mark Underhill-vanishes. His uncle, novelist Timothy Underhill, searches his hometown of Millhaven for clues that might help unravel this horrible dual mystery. He soon learns that a pedophilic murderer is on the loose in the vicinity, and that shortly before his mother's suicide, Mark had become obsessed with an abandoned house where he imagined the killer might have taken refuge. No mere empty building, the house whispers from attic to basement with the echoes of a long-hidden true-life horror story, and Tim Underhill comes to fear that in investigating its unspeakable history, Mark stumbled across its last and greatest secret: a ghostly lost girl who may have coaxed the needy, suggestible boy into her mysterious domain. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (29)

not worth the time!
I usually like a good Peter Straub read but found this to be a pathetic read from him. Slow and boring and not worth the time to read .

My Review
This is the thing about Straub's books: They are folded in on themselves so tightly that sometimes I'm left wondering just what the hell happened. Now, I don't think this is a bad thing because Straub seems to be the only writer out there willing to walk the tight rope to write the kind of books that will not only challenge his readers, but push back as well. lost boy lost girl is such an amazing book because of the fact that it's folded so tightly. One of the things Straub does best is to fit a story inside the story. There always seems to be something dancing and jittering below the surface--Straub plays with reality and his unrealiable narrators will spin you around so fast your eyes won't settle down for a week. With all of his books you've got to PAY ATTENTION to everything. When I finished lost boy lost girl I had the feeling of being sunk: I've read all but three or four of his books and I knew at my core that I had missed something important, something that would unlock the novel for me. If you haven't read this book--do so. I won't tell you what it's about or what came to me when the book spred itself wide open. I'll just say this: Look for the book within the book. Pay attention to everything said and how it's said. I love Straub's books--but this one really blew me away. Have fun.

A Solid, Scary Tale
While not quite as good as the books that make up the "Blue Rose" trilogy ("Koko", "Mystery", and especially "The Throat") "lost boy lost girl" is still a solid read from Mr. Straub.I felt the book was not quite up to his earlier efforts, and felt a little unfinished at its conclusion (perhaps that was intentional-considering how much "In the Night Room" has in common with this tale) but still well worth a look.

Tame horror but not terrible
This was not by any means a terrible story...it reads really fast and I was constantly wondering what was going to happen to all the characters at the end. The ending requires some imagination on the part of the reader...if you are one of those conservative logical scientific types, you will simply not understand what happens to Mark. Rather then spoonfeed us everything, some authors want to force our imaginations to work.

I loved the last 50 or so pages...the relationship between Mark and the ghost was so romantic and beautiful, all while the world of the living was obsessed with the "sick" reality of death as they seen it.

This book could have been better...it was not at all scary (some real fear would have been awesome), and I think Peter Straub could have done alot more with Mark and his new friend and the way everyone reacts. Tim Underhill is so understanding at the end about everything regarding Mark (which seems unrealistic) and Joseph Kalendar could have taken more of a part in the last half of the story. Right when things could get really good, Straub ends the story.

Overall, I don't regret reading this book. Straub could have done more, and he didn't. It is great for those who are new to horror books and need a tame one thats not too dull or boring to start out with. Don't try to analyze the ending too much...you will ruin it if you do. Of course, that goes with any book really.

Needs More Stars
This book deserves more stars. I read this book a long time ago and I still remember the closeness I felt with the characters. There is a deep and tortured soul feeling to this book. If you like Straub, you will love this book too. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Layers of Intrigue
I loved the variety/multiple pieces of the story (or mysteries). It's like a puzzle. It's written for avid Mystery/Suspense readers. So many dimensions that will cross paths & all tie together at conclusion. You should enjoy intrigue - this is not a quick light read. Many curiosities & unlike any other read. Oh yeah, and it's a thick book - apx. 550 pages. Enjoy! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Don't Underestimate Mrs. God
I typically don't review books, because I tend to agree with what other people think - the good ones are good and the bad ones are bad, but this time, seems I'm outside the majority. I have to five star this, as it's easily one of the most engaging reads I've ever come across.

Mrs. God is the story of a man who abandons his greatly pregnant wife, teaching position, and Country to spend three weeks at an isolated English country house to study the poems of his grandfather's one time wife. From the moment he arrives at Gatwick Airport, things transpire in an increasingly odd manner, little incidents that, in the exhaustion of travel, can be written off as 'jet-lag', but they persist, and then, start to become sinister. Esswood House is staffed by unseen servants. The family that owns the house, the Schneschals, are scorned by the locals and their dead are barred from the local cemetery. The ghost of his great aunt wanders about - or does she? None of it is substantiated, but the end, and the way the end ties back into the beginning, is skillful, exciting, mesmerizing.

In the past, I have forced the story on others and made them report back, what did they think this meant, what did they think that meant, is it a horror story about a haunted place, ala Stephen King's the Shining, or a story about an already mad man letting an environment hasten him along to a violent end, ala Stanley Kubrick's the Shining? I have one friend who thinks the book, at it's center, is about Vampires, and I am tempted to agree, although the author never comes close to mentioning such a thing. Another thinks that it's a warning against the marital condition and how mistrust and hatred can worm their way under an otherwise perfect reasonable man's skin and destroy him.A third thinks it's veiled sermon against abortion.

I have come to the decision that it's literary David Lynch. You come into the story when, like life, so much of what is pertinent has already transpired and you have to trust this somewhat shady and rather unreliable narrator who's guiding you through his own perceived experiences. I call it my plane book (I used to have the anthology, Houses Without Doors, but alas, left it on a plane. Ah, life!) because the sub-200 page story is the perfect length to devour on a flight. I've read it no fewer than a dozen times and have had countless wonderful conversations about it - I'm a voracious and avid reader, and this is, without parallel, the best story I've ever read.

Aickmanesque
MRS GOD was Peter Straub's attmept at the kind of story Robert Aickman is known for: one where everything happens belows the surface of the story. That said, neither Aickman nor this story are for everybody. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that most people shouldn't bother with reading this. It really is a complex story. The audiotape no doubt contains the version included in Straub's "Houses With Doors" anthology, which is actually an easier, more reader-friendly, version of the story. For the true masochist, track down a copy of the Donald M. Grant (publisher) hardcover of the story. That nut's hard to crack! As to what the story is actually "about"...well, I won't give it away, but it has a lot to do with the troubles between the hero and his wife.

Pretty Awful
I'm glad to see that everyone else gave this book a low rating, too.I don't think I've ever given a book one star.I would have given it negative stars if possible.I listened to the book on tape and the selling point was that Kevin Spacey (the actor) was the one reading the the book.Since I always enjoy the movies Kevin Spacey acts in, I thought that I'd enjoy a book he narrated.Not so.The book is about a professor that gets the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to travel to the United Kingdom to do research on his favorite author who, I believe, is a relative of his.He is chosen as the privileged professor for that year who gets to stay in this enormous mansion and use their one-of-a-kind library.Things get a little weird.He rents a car from the airport and encounters strange people along the way.And when he finally gets to the mansion, the people living there are even stranger.You've got mysterious figures in windows, cobwebbed passageways, and a room full of dozens of miniature replicas of the mansion.The description of the book sounds interesting and eerie enough, but the author is confusing.He adds elements to the story that make no sense.You go over a passage in the book and go over it again without being able to figure out what in the world the author is trying to say.Is it fact or fantasy?What actually happened?Did anything happen?Where did the concentration camp people come from and what do they have to do with anything?What's the story about the mysteriously dying children mean?I suppose it's supposed to be a ghost/horror story.And I suppose that the author knew what he was talking about in his own mind, but he is unable to put pen to paper and make the story make sense to the reader.It seems as if the author got tired of writing and decided to resolve everything all at once so that he could leave this mess of a book behind him.Maybe he should have just stopped completely.

Started out as exciting but became terribly convoluted
I was looking forward to this tape but after the first half hour it sank into a morass of death metaphors and insecurities. Although I adore the work of Kevin Spacey, not even his considerable efforts could save thischoppy audiotape. ... Read more