...the Soul of Wit

Here's my latest wrap up; enjoy!

The Lost Book of Adana Moreau by Michael Zapata

Zapata's debut, The Lost Book of Adana Moreau very elegantly and very skillfully braids the intersecting lives of a myriad of people, concentrating on a frame story revolving around Chicagoan Saul Drower and Maxwell Moreau, grandson of the late ingenious science fiction writer Adana Moreau. It is a love letter to science fiction, parallel universes as well as storytelling in general and really has the potential to enchant you. I'm a sucker for the "story-within-story" technique, so was really delighted Zapata uses it so masterly here. Unfortunately I did not read it in print, I listened to the audiobook. And the thing with audiobooks is that if you don't click with the narrator it can substantially reduce your enjoyment of the book and that happened to me here. I might try reading it in print at a later stage maybe.

Love in the Time of Dinosaurs by Kirsten Alene

When a few months ago I sent my nephew (whom I never saw in person thanks to COVID19!) for his first birthday a sound book about various sorts of dinosaurs and the noises they make (I have no idea how the authors know), my brother reported that he was scared silly and started to cry unconsolably at the roaring and bellowing sounds, looking for places to hide. Setting aside the fact that I am a bad aunt who gave a little boy I have never seen before his first fright in life, I have then come to the realization that a kid so freshly born might remember a terrifying and traumatic prehistorical time, a time where dinosaurs and humans were at war with each other. And Kirsten Alene's Love in the Time of Dinosaurs might exactly reflect this quarrelsome time that traumatized him so. Gun-carrying dinosaurs (called Jeremies) patroling the woods, looking for humans to kill. Human monks receiving ruthless trainings to combat Jeremies. And inbetween them a nameless monk and Petunia the trachodon immediately falling in love with each other. Will their love find a way? Very surreal, very fun little story which will make you chuckle more than once. Don't be fooled though, this is not a romance story as the title would suggest- it would make a great military science fiction story if it were science fiction, this bizarre little book.

The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse

Elin Warner, a former detective with a trauma, and her boyfriend Will travel to the Swiss Alps for her estranged brother's engagement party in a former sanatorium turned into an imposing and luxurious hotel. Almost as soon as they arrive her future sister in law goes missing and the discovery of yet another female body points that something's not quite right here.
Honestly, I didn't really like this book. The main character Elin didn't really make sense to me, why would she go to the engagement of a brother she despises so? The family affair (they should have talked openly in the first place!!!), the murderer and the motive behind the killings also seemed a little weak and farfetched to me. Still, it has kept me reading until the end, so I guess it's not as bad as I make it out to be. I'm not thrilled, though.

The Other by Thomas Tryon

In an article on this book, Grady Hendrix discusses how it is on par with Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist, all three being written in the same era but The Other never quite making it despite its brilliance. Now, I have only watched the movies and not read the books of the former two, so I can’t really compare them on a textual level. But having just finished listening to the audiobook of the latter, I am still wondering how that could be?

The Other is the quintessential creepy kid story. And I'm no horror historian, but I understand it might be the creator of a very specific and fascinatingly evil subgenre within that trope that has been used as the pointe or twisty ending to many movies and books ever since. So, it is today seen as a little washed out and doesn't really surprise anymore. I think it is this work’s strength that, even though it must have been shocking for its time, it doesn't rely on the mere revelation of a twist to be a great book - the psychological tension that permeates throughout the story, the interaction between the characters living in a Connecticut small town in the 30s, family relations are all themes that are treated so masterly here that they alone are worth a read. Notwithstanding the beautiful prose.
I have to add that I listened to the audiobook and I can't praise the late narrator William Dufris high enough. His reading voice was so gripping yet sooo creepy, so wonderful that it added infinitely to my enjoyment of this book!

Later by Stephen King

A dear friend from the horror book club recently told me that even though people keep saying King books aren’t what they used to be, that is not true; he even gets scarier and better. His latest publication, Later seems to confirm that statement: Goodreads, right now, is in a state of delirium, flooding with 4 and 5-star reviews and every horror community on the net is literally raving over the story of little Jamie Conklin who has the ability to see and talk to dead people. When he asks them questions they have to say the truth before they slowly fade away, those are the rules. After years of urgings from his mom to keep his skill a secret because of the ways in which he can be exploited and abused for it, Jamie will finally be drawn into the pursuit of a murderer who is a different kind of dead person and his life will undergo changes he didn't really ask for.

Don't even think of giving King your thunder; fairly early in the book does he himself acknowledge the nod to Shyamalan’s best, The Sixth Sense. The similarities are still there, but King turns this admittedly too old premise into a gripping crime story with enough scares for it to still be classified as horror, all the while throwing in adorable coming of age elements which ensure a very smooth reading.

It is nothing new for the constant reader that King again manages to suck them into the world of his lead character from the first page on, keeping them at the edge of their seats rooting for him. He IS the king of storytelling after all. Nor is it surprising that it is a child who shares his life, story and insights with us; that seems to become King’s new trademark as he ages and he indeed is a master in capturing the essence of youth like no one else can. Although I personally think Later isn’t King at his best and I neither love nor loathe it, it is these factors that make it a perfectly pleasant reading experience to spend a few diverting hours with.