Summer of Night

Rating:
Summary: "unputdownable!"
Review: I read this book in 1992, and it still remains one of my favorite novels in the horror genre. It's story of a gang of boys in Illinois, circa early 60's, grabs you at the beginning - and won't let you go! If you liked 'It', you will love 'Summer of Night'!

Rating:
Summary: True terror....
Review: Dan Simmons "Summer Night" was incredible. The suspense is tangible. It actually had me looking under the table for things that come out only at night, even though I was sitting at a lunch table at work. I highly recommend the book, it is awesome.

Rating:
Summary: utterly ridiculous
Review: I will admit that the book had some decent suspense until about the halfway mark, and a couple of real hair raising situations, but I knew I was in trouble when those holes in the ground started to pop up. And then the description, comparing the sides of the mysterious holes to a "section of human gut, red and raw." Huh. Or how about that dead guy's face morphing into something like a lamprey and gonna try to eat somebody. Nice. I kept wondering when Sigourney Weaver was gonna show up.

That's nowhere close to scary, no matter how often you have such silliness creeping out of the dark. I mean, where else is it gonna creep out of?
Oh ya, there's an absolutely ridiculous Aleister Crowley tie-in that is downright offensive to anyone who knows anything of Thelema, and a big monster referred to as The Master with some kinda pink tentacles and an egg sack that "sizzles". Yawn.
And what else are you gonna do with such a monster but burn it down? Pump the gas to it, light it up hunny.
And this is supposed to be "good" or "powerful horror"? I think it makes great kindling. I wish someone had so simply told me and other readers what we were in for.
Simmons gets a star for a few nice scenes and some interesting ideas that unfortunately worked themselves out into, well, The Master. I was expecting some sort of twisted Osiris cult, and all I got was a big, pink, stinky monster.
If this is what the horror genre is about, I'm backing out now and going back to fantasy.

Rating:
Summary: Gave me the tremors - not!
Review: This ends up as a reasonably gripping page turner after a painfully slow start. Dan Simmons makes a brave attempt to be Stephen King, back when Stephen King was Stephen King, in the long lost "It" and "Pet Sematary" days.

I say "attempt" because although this is an entertaining read, you know where the plot is going most of the time, and the scares are generic and predictable. The monster worms come straight out of the movie "Tremors", and our spines are too rigid and jaded these days to tingle at the thought of the undead walking around.

A little bit of "It"
A little bit of "Tremors"
A little bit of "Pet Sematary"
A little bit of "Blade II"
A little bit of "Night of the Living Dead"
A little bit of "Lost Boys"

Just a lot of little bits.

As I read, I was wondering why there were loose ends in the story, and then on the final page I found the answer - there's a sequel - "A Winter Haunting".

Losing the worms, expanding on the bell, and raising the suspense levels would have improved this book, but it can still make you keep turning the pages anyway.

This one's a passable 3.5 on the horror scale.

Amanda Richards October 1, 2004


Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Great!
Review: I loved almost everything about SUMMER OF NIGHT. The characters were intruiging, and the setting was marvelous. If you liked IT by Stephen King, you will like Summer of Night. While it is somewhat of a slow starter, the reader will be entralled in the story. This was a book I did not want to stop reading..I am saddened to learn that Dan Simmons has changed genres and stopped writing horror, but at least he has left something of great magnitude for horror fans. This one really is a must read.

Rating:
Summary: Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice.....
Review: The scariest thing about this book is that it made its way through the editors with about 50% fluff.
Dan Simmons did it to me again. I had read Hyperion earlier this year, and was extremely disappointed by the same thing: he loves to write and write and write, but the plot is lost in the writing.
More exchange is needed in this book by the characters, it seems to be about 50 paragraphs of description, then some action, then another 50 paragraps of description, ad nauseum.
I was fooled once by Simmons, and I'll never read him again.
The only positive thing about this book is that it does help you fall asleep quickly.

Rating:
Summary: Decent enough, but hardly Simmons' best
Review: I purchased the original hardcover back in 1991 purely on the strength of King's review centered squarely on the back cover (I hadn't yet become fully aware that an 'amazing' review from King was pretty easy to come by). It would be unfair to say this was a lousy book - Simmons is a great writer and the 550+ pages here give him ample room to show his skill with characterization and evoking a setting and mood - I've just read better by him. There are genuine scares to be had and when a couple of the main characters get killed off or turned into zombies, you're definitely affected as a reader. I found the wrap-up of the plot to be a bit too tidy and the 'great evil' that was built up for so much of the book far too easy to dispatch of. This is a common problem with horror novels and I'm sure I'll be accused of being too hard on Simmons (why don't *you* try coming up with a better ending, Mr. Know-it-all?"), but I have read better by Simmons and was hoping this would live up to the extreme hype King was showering on it at the time. "Easily surpasses Barker's Books of Blood", Mr. King? Maybe Simmons' whole body of work could be compared to Barker's and, depending on personal preference, viewed as superior - but most definitely not based on this book alone.

Rating:
Summary: 3.5 stars is more fitting for a not so scary read
Review: Dan Simmons "Summer Night" was incredible. The suspense is tangible. It actually had me looking under the table for things that come out only at night, even though I was sitting at a lunch table at work. I highly recommend the book, it is awesome.

Rating:
Summary: First book that ever scared me!
Review: I have just about every King, Koontz, Saul, Rice, Lumley, McCammon, and Barker book ever written. Ive also written a story or two of my own. This is the first story that ever scared me. Never before have I had to make sure none of my limbs were hanging over the edge of the bed while reading. There is one scene in particular, involving a blown fuse in a flooded basement, that had me completely creeped out.

When I read the jacket cover, I thought "I take it this guy read IT by Stephen King!". The description on the jacket cover is where the comparisons end. Similar ideas, but completely different paths. This is a great book, plain and simple.

Rating:
Summary: Summer of Night
Review: Summer of night is a great book. I read it about 10 years ago. The main reason I read it is because the author is from the same small town as I. This book is based on actual characters and town settings, just with the names tweaked a bit. But it was fun as a kid to read the book and go around town looking for the spots he was talking about, trying to reinact the same adventures.