Gotten to reading more of Straub's slow burning horror novels. Really long while since the last two I've read, "Ghost Story" and "Floating Dragon". And today's recent read is his 1980 novel "Shadowland".
In this one two school friends are spending the summer in a dark house set deep in the woods of Vermont. A season of horror as apprentices to a master magician.
There they learn secrets that were best left unlearned, and enter an evil and incalculable world far more ancient than death itself. And more terrifying and real. And in the end only one will make it.
The last two Straub novels obviously have that fantastic quality to them, and that's not a surprise. But in "Shadowland" that fantasy element is taken up a notch, obviously making it a fantasy-horror novel. The fantasy element being the magic and the references to old fairy tales.
Like the last two novels, this is a real slow burner, with lots of literary flavor! Picks up slowly and then gets faster and faster as the story goes on. Really love Straub's literary and experimental way of writing. Stephen King (Whom Straub would also do a collaboration with for both "The Talisman" and "Black House") balances both literary and pulpy styles, Straub leans more to his more literary influences.
Much of straub's works, the few books I've read so far, are all novels. I need to start grabbing some of his short story collections. Really have to start digging into some of his shorter fiction and see what I might expect from them!
by i-the-muso-1968
1 Comment
Omg, Floating Dragon. One of my fav books (liked Shadowland, but prefer F.D.). The phrase “Pasta is prologue” still lives in my head.