Updated 12/08/2014
A short sharp review of Once…
James Herbert does little to shift his low-brow Stephen King associations with this perfunctory foray into the world of faerie.
A spooky house and a missing testament provide Scooby Doo plotting while flat characters and shallow research create a strangely uninvolving tale of mixed-up folklores.
Frequent sexiness will keep you reading but Herbert’s work remains dogged by seventies style misogyny.
If you’re a Herbert fan you’ll love it regardless, but this is lazy work.
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Reblogged this on Aesthetic Artisans.
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Agreed! This book was disappointing, even for Herbert. Though most of my griping with Herbert has to do with me, not him– I don’t like it when writers tell instead of show, and he’s the king of long explainy blurbs that could have been resolved with a line of dialogue! It wasn’t scary enough to be terrifying, or silly enough to be hysterical. And just because there’s lots of sex, doesn’t make it sexy. Overall– blah. Like you said, it’s lazy work.
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I was disappointed by this. I’ve yet to find a Herbert novel I really love – I’ll just stick to watching John Carpenter’s The Fog.
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Reblogged this on Lily Wight.
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Thanks for posting an honest review. (-: I really appreciate that as a reader.
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Thanks Justina 🙂 There are too many great books to get through without wasting time on the ones that don’t measure up. I’m really enjoying Justin Cronin’s The Passage right now x
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Very cool. I’ll look it up.
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