Behold, it's horror with lore.
I honestly don't see that often. Most of the horror things I've encountered don't have a larger system of magic/spookiness, instead preferring to leave their monsters mostly unexplained. And I get why that is; up to a point, the less you know about the thing terrorizing the characters, the scarier it is. Like all tropes, it's a trope for a reason, and if you're good at writing it can work really well.
But, because that trope is so widespread, it's a breath of fresh air when a series doesn't do that. And yes, I said a series; this is book 1 of like 5. I may or may not (but probably will) get some of the others out of the library, because this one was pretty good.
You get the sense that the ghost lore is fully fleshed out and we're just not seeing it; the parts we do see, however, hang together and make sense. This is in contrast to those books whose lore is obfuscated and whose visible pieces don't hold together very well; the author may have it all thought out, but that doesn't come through in the narration. I think one of the main deciding factors to which kind of book you get is whether or not your main character knows and understands the lore; if the main character is confused, readers will probably also be confused. (I'm looking at you, Steal Fire from the Gods).
[EDIT, 9/20/2025: Fixed a spelling error]
I can't seem to pin down what time period this is set in. It has Victorian/Edwardian vibes, but it also has random mentions of things like televisions and washing machines. At the same time it doesn't seem modern (nobody has cell phones), so my tentative theory is that it's set in the 1950s.
Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for scary scenes. This is, after all, in the horror genre, even if it's closer to urban fantasy than most horror things.
4 stars.
(Endnote: "AAAAAAAAAaAAAAAaA!" -the staircase)
No comments:
Post a Comment