Rating: 
Summary: Good book, but sub-par for Dan
Review: First off, Dan Simmons is one of my five favorite authors. I have every single one if his books in hardback and have read most of them multiple times. That being said, this was a good book, better than average even, but not up to Dan's usual extremely high standards. Yes, it was a ghost story in that it had ghosts in it, but I was never creeped out or scared at all. It was just a little too tame for me to call it a ghost story. It was more of a slightly unnerving psychological analysis. I read it straight through, it was enjoyable and kept a good pace and I was never bored and I do reccommend it, but if I was ranking all of Dan's books, this would be very close to the bottom.
Rating: 
Summary: Say it isn't so, Dan!
Review: Others here have adequately filled you in on enough of the plot of A Winter Haunting, so I won't rehash what's already been written. What I will say is this: if you are a true Summer of Night fan, if you've read it more than once and have enjoyed the other exploits of its characters as adults (Fires of Eden, for example)you may be sorely disappointed in this book, as I am. SPOILER .....
After all is said and done, this "update" on Dale leaves the reader with the sad possibility that none of the true horror elements of "Summer" ever happened, and that this it (Summer) was Dale's memoir which has been tweaked by the ghost of Duane to spin it into a horror tale.
Dan, oh Dan, say it isn't so!!
Rating:
Summary: Kind of a letdown
Review: I was really looking forward to this book. I do not buy very many hard cover books because of expense. I had just finished Carrion Comfort by Simmons, which knocked me out. But Winter Haunting was knd of a letdown. Wait for the paperback and spend your money on Night of the Beast by Henry Shannon instead. Or go buy Carrion Comfort or Children of the Night.
Rating: 
Summary: Total Disappointment
Review: I absolutely loved Summer of Night and was eagerly waiting the sequel. Upon reading it I was very disappointed. It seems that Dan Simmons is an author who is losing his touch. In no way was this how I thought the main character of Summer of Night would turn out. The story has poor pacing and a pretty stupid plot. Simmons seems to want us to come away with the opinion that the events in Summer of Night were subjective and perhaps a hallucination. If you want a better sequel look towards Children of the Night or Fires of Eden, both of which have characters from Summer of Night in them. Avoid this book unless you are a diehard Simmons fan.
Rating: 
Summary: I read this book everywhere
Review: ... waiting for the bus, on the bus, in my lunchbreak, I just couldn't put it down. Ten years after Summer of Night, Dan Simmons returns with a sequel which is (IMO anyway) a distinct improvement on the original. When I first read Summer of Night I felt it was a rip-off of 'IT' and a disappointment from the author of Hyperion. However I feel that I should warn Summer of Night fans that AWH is NOT really a sequel at all - there is hardly any connection with the events of the first book though a few characters do reappear. What really impressed is that unlike some authors I could mention (step forward Mr Stephen King and Mr Dean Koontz) Simmon's writing style has matured with the years and he has avoided the trap of over-writing which so many have fallen into - instead this is a slim volume of around 200 pages in which not a single word is wasted.
Rating:
Summary: This is what a sequel should be!
Review: This is a great novel! "A Winter Haunting" is everything a sequel to a classic like "Summer of Night" should be. It's dark, creepy and disturbing: And, it has enough subtle tie-ins to the original novel to make you smile with nostalgia, but, not so many tie-ins that you HAVE to read "Summer Of Night" before you read this book. Dean Koontz was right: Dan Simmons IS brilliant!
Rating:
Summary: A Let Down
Review: Summer of Night scared the crap out of me, but this novel was disappointing. Half of the plot didn't make sense: i.e. Dale "meeting" old schoolmates, and what happened with his young mistress Clare? Did he kill her or didn't he? Later in the novel he was asking himself if it was Clare's ghost he saw in the house. I was disappointed that The Soldier didn't make a bigger return - yes, that was him in the cemetery day after day. Simmons is a great storyteller but this sequel just didn't work.
Rating: 
Summary: A HAUNTING TALE
Review: Although "A Winter Haunting" isn't quite as good as its "Summer of Night" predecessor, it still evokes a genuine sense of dread and terror. It is a mind game, and there are times when you really start wondering if Dale has lost his mind. There are several disturbing scenes with the black dogs, especially in how it starts out with one small dog and gravitates to several huge killers.
It's a good book for a cold winter night to read by the fireplace and look over your shoulders.Simmons is an ace writer.
Rating:
Summary: What happened here?
Review: i recently began reading dan simmons' novels, and the two i started with are summer of night and winter haunting. after finishing summer of night, i was thrilled to find that winter haunting contained some of the same characters. i was expecting the same feeling of terror while i read it. the book was entertaining but definitely not as great as its predecessor. in fact, i was rather disappointed at the fact that the author could not keep continuity between the 2 books. i know they were written 10 years apart, but for goodness sake, some of the differences were really noticable. and i couldn't help but wonder if the intent was to totally negate summer of night. such a shame because it's such a wonderful book.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant character supernatural character study
Review: "Summer of Night" was impressive as a horror novel because of the quality of scene after scene after scene that accentuated a single nightmare or horrific situation (the old woman on the second floor of Harlen's house when it should be empty, the thing pushing back on the closet door when Dale tries to shut it, and on and on). It's weakest parts to me were the use of the phrase "the Master" and the whole Borgia Bell concept which didn't live up to the incredible events leading to the book's conclusion.
"A Winter Haunting" has very few faults, if any, and is a brilliant almost non-sequel to the earlier novel. I re-read "Summer of Night" immediately prior to reading this one and there is an incredible poignancy to reacquainting myself with Dale and his friends in 1960 and reading about what is happening to him now. This unsung hero of the previous book has suppressed (lost?) his memories of that earlier time and now, in his fifties, his life is a mess and he finds that he may actually be insane; we wonder along with him. Like Hugo Wilcken's "The Execution," the unwinding of the main character's mind, especially a person who was so strong and able in the earlier book, is absorbing to the utmost.
There are no wrong notes here. This is a wonderful book and reminds me more of Simmons's "Phases of Gravity" more than any of his other books. While I'm sure everyone won't get what the book's truly about, read it and find out if you do.
Books like this are what we're hoping for every time we pick up something new to read.
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