Horns in Fantasy-Faction.com

Oct 19, 2014 Laura Hughes rated it liked it · review of another edition

As its October, I fancied dipping into a horror novel. Aside from a few teenage forays into King and Herbert, I’m something of a stranger to the genre, but Joe Hill’s work has appealed to me for a while now. I own both Horns and Heart-Shaped Box, but decided to go with Horns as it’s the subject of the group read on a forum I participate in.

The main impression I had of the majority of the book was “meh”, which is as close as I can get to a verbal shrug of indifference.

It’s unfortunate: Horns actu As its October, I fancied dipping into a horror novel. Aside from a few teenage forays into King and Herbert, I’m something of a stranger to the genre, but Joe Hill’s work has appealed to me for a while now. I own both Horns and Heart-Shaped Box, but decided to go with Horns as it’s the subject of the group read on a forum I participate in.

The main impression I had of the majority of the book was “meh”, which is as close as I can get to a verbal shrug of indifference.

It’s unfortunate: Horns actually starts off very promisingly. Hill throws us right in at the deep end by having the protagonist, Ig, discover his new predicament – that a nice sharp pair of horns have begun growing out of his forehead – on the very first page. He then proceeds with the story logically and rapidly, with Ig taking a visit to the walk-in centre and accidentally discovering the side-effects of his new pointy accessories: that people he talks to now confess their darkest desires to him without prompting. Worse still, when he makes physical contact with a person, he can see every dark secret and every nasty thing they’ve ever done. However, this quickly becomes repetitive, with every single person he meets wanting to either hurt or have sex with someone they know.

After learning that Ig’s girlfriend was murdered a year ago, we’re then treated to long sequences of flashbacks from the early days of their relationship. I have to admit that much of this had me sighing and flicking forward to see when each chapter would end. However, much later on in the book, the flashbacks do become quite poignant, as they reveal just how tragic and probably avoidable many of the events really are. I wasn’t overly-enamoured with Ig as a protagonist, but began to like him more towards the end of the book, when the pace picked up and he began to embrace his new knowledge.

I’m a bit disappointed that Horns wasn’t actually scary in any way –after all, I only really picked it up because I fancied a good scare – but it makes up for a lot of that in dark imagery and even blacker humour. It’s not spectacular – in fact, I think it’s one of the weaker books I’ve read this year – but it’s a fairly short, easy-to-read novel with a solid story and a great ending. ...more

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Jul 22, 2013 Caleb Hill rated it it was ok

Shelves: did-not-finish

This book appears to be a very polarizing novel. You either love it or hate it. I fell into the latter for a good portion of the story. It's starts off disgusting. Gross things is not normally something I have a problem with. Truth be told, the only scenes that have evoked this much disgust is Zachary Jernigan's No Return. That was a much better book, though.

I guess it would be beneficial for me to say that I don't like "I want Mommy to burn" Supernatural Horror. It feels cheap. Yeah, I can alre This book appears to be a very polarizing novel. You either love it or hate it. I fell into the latter for a good portion of the story. It's starts off disgusting. Gross things is not normally something I have a problem with. Truth be told, the only scenes that have evoked this much disgust is Zachary Jernigan's No Return. That was a much better book, though.

I guess it would be beneficial for me to say that I don't like "I want Mommy to burn" Supernatural Horror. It feels cheap. Yeah, I can already hear you mocking me. I love SFF, yet found this "unrealistic." I'm not about to argue that point, frankly because I don't agree with the term "realism" in Fantasy. But there's something about this brand of Horror that I strongly dislike. Not about to make excuses or points for it. You either understand or you don't.

Moving on, Ig was a strange character. Not in the sense of eccentric, but that he didn't always fit his own behavior, or sensible behavior for a "normal" guy. His flippish attitude toward the Horns in the beginning, not freaking out, just idly commenting that he's going to the doctor, was weird. His inconsistent ideas are also taxing. Near the beginning, he walks into a church, asking for God's help. At the end, through only a mild spout of anger, he starts throwing vulgarity and hate at religion. See, this wouldn't be so bad or wrong if Hill hadn't established in the previous chapters that Ig disliked God. Why flip to wanting help then jump back? This happened in the flashbacks too.

On that point, the flashbacks were the only thing that made me get to the halfway mark. They were concise, strong in their plot. They lacked any demon-y crap, so I enjoyed them. Reminded me a lot of Ian Banks's Stonemouth. Once again, the demon-y crap is tolerable in other books. Not this, where essentially being the Devil (which I never found out, but am pretty sure) allows you to spring lighters out of your pocket with no problem at all. Can I hear dues ex machina?

You may call that nitpicking. I call it inconsistency. Books need guidelines. What's to stop Ig from getting a small gun from his pocket when need be? Why not throw out any risk, if he can have a tool whenever he wants it?

The introspection really bogged down the story. I mean, who thinks in third person? Really? Even so, the pacing was remarkable. That doesn't help the novel in way, though. The only thing that garnered a second star was the flashbacks, which were top notch.

His much needed punctuation, which is inexcusable from an edited author and son of Stephen King, was not.

The tipping point for me was the dream sequence smacked right in the middle of the novel. It was told in present tense (this is a past tense novel) from a different POV. (we've only had 1 POV this whole time.) I'm not a fan of dream sequences anyway. They're hard to pull off. Really hard. But this right here was ridiculous. Completely threw out everything Hill has set up for the past 200 pages. ...more

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Oct 25, 2014 Roland rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2014

So as an introduction to Joe Hill I'd have to say I'm impressed. I wasn't interested in reading this book at all. I have purchased his Locke & Key books as well as NOS4A2 but all sit on my bookshelves. It wasn't until I heard that this was getting a movie and saw the book in Target with Daniel Radcliffe on the cover. An interesting choice to play Ig. Well on a long grocery day I read 60+ pages in the store. Got home and read it slowly and very in depth. Some chapters I had to reread. It was enga ...more

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Jun 17, 2013 Miriam Michalak rated it really liked it

This book hooked me straight away - the story of Ignatius who wakes up one morning after a drunken night with hangover and a pair of horns growing from his forehead.

A well crafted horror/mystery/supernatural tale from Joe Hill, character driven (which I always enjoy) with a strong plot. A fun read!

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