Haunted House - A Novel Of Terror (2013) - Plot & Excerpts
Kilborn's modern take on the gothic horror story is a mess. The concept of the story is promising: the survivors of horrors in his other book are gathered to a haunted house for a study on fear, something they are all intimately acquainted with. But the clunky prose, perfunctory story-telling, and clumsy execution fails to bring the story to the level of its concept.The pacing and proportion of the story's action to its introduction is strange, with the first half of the book being devoted to setting up the story and its characters, and the last half with a very choppy series of events that comprise the haunted house portion of the story. Unfortunately, neither part was done very well, so the story is ultimately unsatisfying.An inordinate amount of time is spent introducing the characters and their backstories, without actually providing any insight into any of them, other than that they are survivors of some horrific incidents, but they suffer constant fear and anxiety because of it. There is little to bring a reader to care for them, other than sympathy, because the characters are nothing but survivors with PTSD. It's difficult to difficult to differentiate between them, except by the path their fear has led them to take. Kilborn helpfully included links to brief synopses of their origin stories, and this is the only way I could've remembered who was who. While this was a great feature, it would have been far more effective to actually take some time on the characterization and condensing the "invitation and travel" sequences.Once the characters are introduced, have dithered about their responses to the invitation, and have serendipitously met and bonded along the way, everyone arrives at the haunted house. At last. A few new characters are introduced - the psychic, the ghost-hunter, and the skeptic - and their introductions are so perfunctory, they might as well have shirts on with "Cannon-fodder or Conspirators? Tune in and find out!" on them. Yes, it's that obvious. I don't even think it should qualify as a spoiler, since the author didn't even have the time to pretend they matter. Most authors at least try to give some cagey POV moments with this type of character, to keep you guessing.The ghosts haunting the home are introduced, but there are so many of them, and they're all blandly awful. Again, it would be difficult to differentiate them, except Kilborn helpfully provides us with details that set them apart: one giggles, one smells, etc. But really, they're just generic psychopathic assholes with deep masochistic streaks.The action begins, and it's a rat-a-tat-tat drive-by of gore, confusion, and POV-hopping. While rapidly shuttling between scenes and POV can be an excellent technique for ratcheting up the tension, here it seems more intended to convince the reader that things are terrifying, when it's really just difficult to care about their fates at all. The gore and violence seems to just happen, and except for two storylines - one involving a black mass, the other involving a monkey - they aren't particularly interesting. Gore has its place in horror, but this was just sad and unhorrifying.Since the structure of the story is clearly based on Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House," let me say that I love the gothic haunted house tale, and it's hard to go wrong with it in my eyes. There have been "updated" versions of the story, of which "Hell House" by Richard Matheson is probably my favorite. This story tries to up the ante with gore, but it fails to do go anywhere because the tension wasn't set at the beginning. Edward Lee's "Flesh Gothic" does a far better job at telling a gooey, gory, gothic tale because his characters are distinct, and the violence and perversions feel dirty, with a strong undercurrent of sex and the occult. A few ass references and repeated mentions of figging just aren't very titillating.Ultimately, the story fails to rise to the level of its conceits. It reads much more like a fleshed-out draft than a completed novel. The spelling and grammar issues plus the sloppy storytelling make it clear that the story needs a date or two with an editor. Really disappointed, because Kilborn is usually good for a fun/queasy grindhouse story. I got this as part of a box set, and so far this is the second novel in and it is not going well! My gripe with the box set is that I can't see the point of putting a novel in that is based on characters from the writers previous novels. To me that seems a poor introduction to the author, and may have ended up unfairly colouring my ideas about the author. My gripe with the novel is that there were just too many characters, swapping and changing, back and forth between them all the time. I didn't enjoy the authors writing style, but again because of the way the novel was written, I'm not sure I got a true taste of it. Unfortunately this book has put me off J A Konrath, and at this time I'm going to give up on the Ultimate Supernatural Horror box set. I just can't bear reading another poor novel at this time, which is really unfair to the other books in this box set as they may well be very good. I just can't face it!
What do You think about Haunted House - A Novel Of Terror (2013)?
Not bad. probably closer to a 2.5. No Stephen King but a pretty good snowy day read
—jaranana
Feels less than it's preceding parts but still a fun, quick slice of horror lit.
—Ktlfreeman
fantastic read, need to read the others now!
—Stephan
