Red’s Comments (group member since Apr 06, 2014)

Red’s comments from the Literally Geeky group.

Well due to my getting all confuzzled over GMT, I missed the Hangout yesterday, but having watched the recording, I'll post my notes a little after the fact.

The key quote for me is:

“Only it turns out Hell is right here, it’s all through us and around us and in us like the microbes that swarm through your lungs and guts and veins.”

My initial thought was "a slacker Ghostbusters", which wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Aaron's "‘Jay and Silent Bob meets Ghostbusters’" is a much better description though.

Very filmic, with hints of Scream (for the knowing way in which horror tropes are dealt with), Fright Night (via the Roddy McDowall character of Peter Vincent), and Lost Boys (the Frog Brothers)

The film link also brings us back to the quote above - our horror reflects who we are, which I think is what the book is trying to say overall. I'm not sure I found it as funny as all that (although there are some genuinely funny bits), but if I wanted to get all serious about it, I would say that the book is basically a phenomenological tract, in that it is about the appearances of things, or things as they appear in our experience, or the ways we experience things. Yes, there are accidents of history (the survival of Mr Rooney being the main example in the book), but however they turn out, we, as human beings, create the world we live in, rather than experiencing something that is predetermined and external to us, and we basically get the world we deserve.

I think I now need a lay down in a darkened room...John Dies at the EndDavid Wong

Yes, it drags, but yes, it manages to turn itself around. I'd recommend keep going

Not sure I could roll a "Top 10" off the top of my head - I think perhaps books that I have read more than once would have to count, but I can't think what they would be over and above LOTR at the moment... Let me get back to you

Bookmooch, eh? What a good idea. Think I might look into that - thanks Ez

Interesting - I've read several other reviews that say they dislike the flashback element of this book, but I can't say it bothers me (although I am only about a third of the way through, so maybe it gets trickier). For me, the thing that niggles is the fact that it reads at times like a film treatment, although a lot of books are like that nowadays. Hell, even Neil Gaiman gets a bit like that with his novels sometimes...