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Summary: A real page turner
Review: This book grabbed me from page one and wouldn't let go. My only complaint was that I wasn't on vacation when I read this (well, okay, I wanted it to be longer too). I was immediately swept away by the characters and their situations. The settings--switching from 1980 to the present and back and forth again over the course of the narrative--didn't bog the reading experience down the way I thought it would. It only served to keep me interested in reading further. For example: finding out more about Wendy. Clegg does a fine job of teasing you with this character, making you want to know about her and then the setting shifts and you are back in the present and you are hearing things about her in the past tense from other characters. This all continues to build until the climax, which was extremely satisfying for me as a reader. I've read elsewhere that Clegg indicated he had cut two hundred pages or so from this final version; personally, I wouldn't have minded if this wasn't cut because I was really into the characters and the story so much. Maybe some time down the line their will be the "definitive edition".
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Summary: You Come When I Call You is fantastic!
Review: Loved this book! I picked Clegg's book up for fun and its a real page turner of horror. Its a real adventure. I give it 5 stars.
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Summary: First Book of Clegg's I've Read--A Near Miss
Review: This was the first book I'd read by Douglas Clegg, and, ultimately, even though I'd have to say I enjoyed it, I think it was a bit of a let-down. Other reviewers have pointed out the similarities between this book's storyline and such classics as _It_ and _Swan Song_ (maybe Dan Simmons' _Summer of Night_?). But it's because of these similarities that I think the book didn't work for me.For one thing, Clegg's characters are not people I could connect with or relate to. I never really cared what happened to these people, and that was a big failure. In the scenes set in the town's past, he ought to have done more to create convincing, compassionate portraits of these people if he wanted us to care about them in the later scenes. For another thing, the whole "epic" story really felt a bit rushed as I read it, with whole scenes and situations alluded to or referred to in passing, but never fleshed out. I thought I was going to go crazy with the delay of the "Terrible Thing" that the survivors had done. It's continually referred to throughout the book, but only in the last 30 or so pages do we find out what it is (and, another question, how could Than have taken part in this?). This really wasn't such an epic horror story, after all. Certainly not on the scale of _It_ or _Swan Song_. This is not a book that I can see myself wanting to come back to and read again, the way I've reread these others. All in all, I'd have to say it was a near miss.
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Summary: A great start, and an ending that almost delivers...
Review: I really wanted to like this book a lot. I've been enjoying Clegg's work in the past few months, and am kicking myself for not signing up for his last e-mail serial, "Naomi." (Luckily he has another one coming out this summer, "Nightmare House.") After the great beginning, when the characters and situations are coming at you fast and furious, the middle part sags a bit with the introduction of the two elderly women. I wanted more of the three main characters. Also, too much of the book was anticipation, too much hand-waving. There were a lot of sentences like "And then there was (that evil thing) he did back then" that keeps you reading but gets frustrating after a while. My other problem was there was too much telling in the final section, too much explanation by the various characters. But overall, I DID like the book! I was just expecting it to be... a bit more. I'd still recommend it, on the power of Clegg's prose.
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Summary: Clegg delivers the best novel of 2000!
Review: I've waited 3 years for this epic novel to be released. I was not dissappointed! Clegg delivers real characters, a situation that feels like it could (or has) happened and a narrative voice totally unique. The best aspect was the way Clegg unfolds the story of a town destroyed 20 years ago and mixes it with the happenings of today. Themes of possession, Time...and that the past is never dead all come through crystal clear. The way Clegg uses different mediums to tell the story added to the enjoyment of this book. He uses taped interviews, written notebooks/confessions, etc. Also the way Clegg mixes what the characters see...in htis time span and in the past/alternate realities...all mixed into a strong plot line with a few twists that you don't see. Was it worth 3 years of anxiuos wait?? Hell yes!!
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Summary: Douglas Clegg is a Master of Horror
Review: If there is a new horror novel you read this year, make it YOU COME WHEN I CALL YOU. People are throwing around comparisons to GHOST STORY by Peter Straub, IT by Stephen King, and SWAN SONG by Robert McCammon. I couldn't agree more. This novel grabbed me from this first page. It's fast paced and the characters became real in my mind. I found myself thinking about this book days after I finished it, something that hasn't happened in a very long time. Make the time to read this book. I can't believe any fan of horror fiction will be disappointed by the epic work that took Clegg twelve years to write.
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Summary: Come on in --
Review: I have always thought that waking up from our dreams of what life is into the stark reality of what life can be is a struggle for all of us -- and sometimes reality is too much. Dreams allow us to survive and perhaps even have some dominion in a world that may just be out of control. So, I wrote this novel about demonic possession, spanning 20 years in the lives of the people in the novel -- and it grew, and grew, and took me 12 years to complete the vision I had for it. I revised and cut and rewrote and rethought, but in the end, my original vision remained intact. You Come When I Call You is a thematic phrase for me and for this novel. Say it aloud, with authority: you come when I call you. We say this to dogs, and sometimes children, and those beyond our control. It is also an invocation of sorts, and in many ways, a play on words from one of my favorite short stories, "Oh Whistle and I'll Come To You My Lad" by M.R. James. It is a phrase that invokes, for me, what we as men and women do within the world, our dominion, our holding on to what can't be held (the past? a loved one? our sanity?), our longing to keep the dreams of who we are in place. The novel is about demonic possession, but the story is about control in our lives and the place love and memory share there - as redemption or as slavery. And, I hope the novel is a fun one for you too. It's structurally unsound -- it's a tenement of horror with rooms that will take you to dark places, and corridors of nightmare turning into chambers of light. Thanks for grabbing this novel, should you choose to, and for coming along with me in the past year or two with The Halloween Man and The Nightmare Chronicles.
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Summary: I Was Possessed!
Review: In 1980 an ancient evil came to the desert burg of Palmetto. Bringing with it a power that will ultimately destroy the town. When the dust clears the only trace of Palmetto's inhabitants are three haunted teenagers with a story of demons and death. Twenty years later those same kids, who are now full grown, are unable to ignore the call from the No Mans Land caves outside Palmetto to finish what they started 2 decades earlier. This story celebrates excellent execution and timing. Shifting from one character to another. From Past to Present. Casually dropping small revelations when your least expecting them. This is Clegg at his best. Convincing you to trust his voice as it drags you through Hell. And enjoy it. "You Come When I Call You" ranks with the best classic tales of possession.
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Summary: Unique and Visionary
Review: With the release of You Come When I Call You, Douglas Clegg demonstrates clearly and without any doubt that he is one of the best horror writers in the business. The epic tale brings the reader into a world where nightmare and reality freely mix-and sometimes neither the characters nor the reader are quite sure which is which. The story, which takes place over a twenty-year period, is written in a style that is best described as a spiral. Clegg begins by sporadically revealing bits and pieces of the tale to the reader-some of the information from today, some from twenty years ago-developing the characters and story with each chapter, gradually adding new details, drawing the reader in, until everything becomes clear in the final pages. Although this nonlinear method of storytelling may be disconcerting to some readers, it actually serves as an extremely clever tool for holding the reader's interest and maintaining the suspense of the story. The novel starts in the small desert town of Palmetto-the kind of town where everyone knows everyone else and not much happens on a day to day basis. One by one several of the town's young people cross paths with Wendy Swan, the beautiful daughter of "The Beekeeper," one of the town's many eccentric characters. They eventually come to understand her true nature, but only after it is too late to help themselves or their town. In an attempt to try and save themselves (and their sanity) they perform a brutal, terrifying ritual, only to discover their mistake twenty years later when they are all called back to what little is left of their decimated former home. Several of the main characters suffer from what they call "waking nightmares," a kind of terrifying hallucination where both nightmare and reality are experienced simultaneously and to varying degrees. Clegg uses intense imagery that allows the reader to feel they are truly witnessing a dream, which makes the story all the more powerful. The author takes his work very seriously, with this novel taking twelve years from initial conception to publication, and the years of labor are apparent in the quality of the finished product. You Come When I Call You has all the elements I look for in a horror novel-blood, guts, terrifying imagery and dark atmosphere, but only when it serves to enhance the story rather than for its own sake; meticulous character development, such that the reader can identify with and care about each of the main characters; and a style of writing that makes the book difficult, if not impossible, to put down. You Come When I Call You is one of the best horror novels that I have read in the past year, and I give it my highest possible recommendation.
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Summary: A Horror Original
Review: I would recommend YOU COME WHEN I CALL YOU to anyone who enjoys a great novel - horror or otherwise. This was one of the most original works of fiction coming out of this genre since The Stand by Stephen King. Although the book is long, there is no fat whatsoever in this dense, muscular prose, and the storytelling is better than any I've read in popular fiction in a long while. What I really loved absolutely the most here was getting to know the people in this book. Douglas Clegg manages to tunnel back into their lives so that by the end we really know Peter, Than, Allison, and Charlie in a way that is rare for horror fiction.
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