Conference With The Dead

Book Name : Conference With The Dead
Author : Terry Lamsley

What is it about : Over ten short horror stories, mostly based in rural northern England. A young man applied for what he thought to be an easy job of walking an animal, only to discover the "walking" had to take place after midnight and turned out to be more a feeding frenzy; an enthusiastic cyclist looking for a hot cuppa and stumbled upon an out-of-the-way tea house and being followed back to the BnB by a spirit; a middle-age man inheriting his mother's house and uncovered her dark past and found himself to be the object of an ancient local cult; a child holidaying with his grand parents in a sea-side town where old folks came to live out their remaining years, noticed the strange going-on's at the local old people's home where the staff were un-characteristically more interested in keeping these geriatrics alive.

Some thoughts after having read the book : The themes and beginnings of each story had great potential but the endings fell well short of reaching any climatic explosion. However, the book did have its moments of brilliance in making my hair stand up. Perhaps the stories needed to be better followed through with more coverage, needing perhaps 10 to 20 pages more on each short story to give the stories more oomph, punch and bite. The final endings almost always left me un-satisfied and hung in mid-air, not with suspense of horror, but actually a wanting to be thrilled.

Would I recommend this book to you : An easy read for a plane ride, may be. I certainly did not feel I wasted my time here. But if you're looking for atmosphere, blood, dare and un-stoppable actions, try Anne Rice's The Witching Hour and her Vampire Series.

Our Tragic Universe

Book Name : Our Tragic Universe
Author : Scarlett Thomas

What is it about : All the "hapnings" in the sea side town of Dartmouth, southwest of England with Meg, reporting first hand on the affairs, emotional upheavals and history of her many friends past and present, her dog as well as her own sorrowful / hopeful love stories.

Some thoughts after having read the book : As the book was packed with interesting, dull, comical and tragic characters as well as curious topics and surprising dialogues, the story lines in this book would make great situational comedy (sit-com) materials - with the central figure, Meg appearing on every episode and with the "lesser" characters appearing on and off as when the story reached their parts. Of course, the dog Bess would make a welcomed entry whenever her part was required to liven things up a bit. The sit-com would run for about a year, half-an-hour each night with different stories interspersed into each other - Libby pushing the car into the sea and the local police turning up on her door steps, Meg having constant struggling exchanges with Christopher (come back to bed babe...), leading to their break-up, Tim being spaced out after following the beast of Dartmoor etc. Hey I didn't expect Dartmouth to be SO full of events and sordid affairs !

Would I recommend this book to you : I would recommend this book as a shining example of how one could write a book of more than 300 pages by : jotting down all the incidents and affairs of all your friends and relatives, "google" all the scientific big ideas and re-write them in a layman-understandable sort of way, read and research on the DUMMIES series for Taoism, Tarot cards, and dog psychology and so on and voila !, your very own story-less story as the author had once or twice mentioned in this book. Of course, you would need to be clever to string up these different aspects into one coherent, interesting and enjoyable book and that's where this author excelled. Go read !