by Peter Straub
Shadowland was a surreal book right from the offset. It start's when Tom Flanagan now an adult tells a tale of his youth to someone. That tale is woven with magic, and fantasy and adolescent Adventures. I'm not going to lie I found this book a struggle by the time I got to the middle of it, I had to...
Despite the fact that Peter Straub is my second-favorite author, I always go into his books with a slight sense of trepidation and doubt. Straub is an excellent writer, no doubt about that; his books just require a certain frame of mind because... well, they aren't always as they seem. Straub is the...
Shadowland was the third in the books I enjoyed so much as a kid, but when I read as an adult, I realized that this book wasn't ever really about looking back on the idylls of youth. In fact, there wasn't even much of a pretense of putting anything idyllic in this novel at all. The only redeeming ...
Shadowland was one of the first horror books I read growing up (I think I may have been twelve at the time that I read it). Along with some of the early works of Stephen King, it was one of the big reasons I became addicted to the genre and later became a writer. Shadowland is a richly written, comp...
Thirty years ago I loved this book. It still has redeeming qualities, but it isn't pure awesome. It has some flaws. For one thing, the form is a muddle. the narrator is a reporter who is putting together bits of this story he's heard from Tom Flanagan about events that took place twenty years earlie...
This was really a good book except for one scene involving Bugs Bunny. Bugs Bunny? Come on, someone should have told Mr. Straub to cut this scene. It added nothing and detracted from the overall mood of the book.
Peter Straub always provides a fun read, and this was no different. If you enjoy his buddy Stephen King, you'll enjoy Straub's work.
I remember this as being outstandingly creepy, and pretty much nothing besides. Considering how well Ghost Story has held up to rereading, I should give it another go.