Rating: 
Summary: A top-notch thriller
Review: Move over Stephen King and Dean Koontz, because Caitlin Kiernan clearly has her eye on your crowns. This book is even better than her award-winning first novel, relying on Kiernan's deft hand with characterization and her extraordinary prose, as well as a keen instinct for the frightful. Threshold is a novel about the secrets that lurk behind what we assume to be the "real world," a story of ancient beings and vengeful monsters, angels and secrets. Dancy Flammarion and Deacon Silvey are two of my favorite Kiernan character yet. If you fancy yourself a horror or sf fan, you absolutely have to read this novel.
Rating:
Summary: Really good
Review: My brother was reading this book, and I usually never like his books, but I like this (I'm not done yet, but I'm on page 127). Hard, but cool. Kind of like Scary Movie with science. I asked my brother if I could borrow it because it has a trilobite on the cover, and there are trilobites in the book, too.
Rating:
Summary: Scary
Review: This is the scariest book I've read in forever. Caitlin R. Kiernan is as good as Ramsey Campbell and Poppy Z. Brite. She can make you see exacly what she wants you to see, even if you don't want to!
Rating:
Summary: This book is the bomb!
Review: No kidding, Kiernan is hot, hot, hot. I loved her first book, Silk, but Threshold was more exciting and a lot scarier. The ending took me totally by surprise, and that's good because I hate horror stories where I can see the ending coming from a mile away. You definitely can't say that about Threshold! I can't wait for her next novel.
Rating:
Summary: Kiernan's Best Yet
Review: I was very impressed with Caitlin Kiernan's second novel. It is a worthy successor to Silk, though it's a much more fast-paced book. Threshold reads a little like an M. Night Shamalyan movie written by H. P. Lovecraft, it's that powerful and that weird. I do not hesitate to recommend this as one of the finest works of supernatural horror in a very long time.
Rating:
Summary: Deep Time Strikes Back
Review: This phenomenal sophomore effort by Caitlin Kiernan is her most ambitious, and best written fiction yet. I liked the angst-ridden tone of SILK, as well as many of her short stories, but taken in bulk, they begin to tire one out. She had established a style with those previous works, but there was always something lacking on my part as the reader. Maybe because I had a pretty good childhood and turned out relatively normal. It was always difficult to empathize with Kiernan's characters, a motley assortment of junkies and transsexuals and the poverty-stricken. But with THRESHOLD, I couldn't have been more empathetic. Her portrayal of Chance and Deacon and Sadie and Dancy played beautifully against the horrific Lovecraftian backdrop. These were characters that, although far from perfect, were far easier to identify with. Chance has just lost her grandfather, the last member of her family. Deacon drinks obsessively to blunt the piercing effects of his latent psychic abilities. Sadie spends hours in a comfortable used bookstore, lost in tales of all kinds, then spends hours more at her battered computer trying to create those tales for herself. Dancy fights the monsters she sees, trying desperately to convince the others to fight too. Kiernan's writing is exponentially better in this, her second novel, and I simply can't wait for her next one.
Rating: 
Summary: Sophmore Novel
Review: Being a fan of Poppy Z. Brite, Dean Koontz and Caitlin R. Kiernan, I was thrilled when I found that Kiernan had recently published a new novel. I bought it, read it, and sat back to digest. I re-read Silk by Kiernan and discovered that I enjoyed her first novel (with its amazing writing and fantastic characters) a lot more than Threshold.
The ending in Threshold was a disappointment and the characters were not as developed.
I was expecting more.
Rating:
Summary: Finallly!
Review: I was so happy to get this book in my hands. Once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. I don't want to give too much away, because the end was unexpected. I really felt like I got to know all the characters, and I was on all their sides. It was very interesting the way Ms. Kiernan used her knowledge and love of paleontology and created this story, not only was the story line interesting, but it was also informational. I actually learned as I was reading along. It was great! Sometimes things are not what they seem, and this book is a wonderful example of the way authors can twist your mind into stupor. I was sad when it ended, because I wanted to spend more time with Chance and Deacon. I recomend this book to anyone who loves Caitlyn R. Kiernan and/or Poppy Z. Brite, it was definately a great read.
Rating: 
Summary: Good stylist - weak ending
Review: Threshold initially intrigued me. I heard good things about this book so I picked it up as soon as I could. After reading a couple of chapters it became apparent that Ms. Kiernan is a talented writer with a knack for good characterization and flowing prose. The initial intrigue wore down almost halfway into the book. I love the slow buildup to whatever cosmic menace is threatening humanity, but this book just didn't deliver.Some things kept me from enjoying this book, and that led to severe annoyance at times. The first is the constant use of made-up compound words such as icywet; it could be my predjudice, but it smacks of pretension. Also, the motivation of the characters was unbelievable at times. I couldn't believe that Deacon would go to Florida to follow up on a flimsy lead and leave his girlfriend and ex-girlfriend in potential life-threatening danger. Plus the plot line really moved in fits and starts; there were long sections where you're finding out about incidental information, waiting for the story to start again. Finally, the really exciting build up that led to a seriously cliched ending. I was actually raging, walking around the house swearing after I finished this book. I don't get that Ms. Kiernan was writing the kind of book that deliberately denied you a tidy ending. I felt cheated after I finished the epilogue. I don't know if Ms. Kiernan couldn't figure out how to end her book or if she just ran out of ideas, but the ending she chose left me feeling like I'd wasted my time reading the book. I wouldn't recommend this book, but I'm open to check out what she does next.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic writing, drab story
Review: Kiernan is a deft, poetic writer. You could flip open this book anywhere, point a finger, and find a sentence that is pure pleasure to read. However, I didn't find that masterful writing made up for a story that was mostly implied. The background of the novel was very sketchy and this was frustrating because what little was apparent was very very interesting. Lovecraftian hints of ancient supernatural menace kept me interested for the first half of the book. But closer to the end I was skimming through the pages eager for something to happen and to learn more about what exactly was going on. I can better experience an atmosphere of fear and dread from a book if the sinister elements are more than shadows across doorways and tentacled things half seen out of the corner of the eye. In my opinion, those situations serve as promissary notes for More Terrible Things to Come. I'm not saying that horror must be evoked with chase scenes involving moaning, shambling zombies, not at all, but for me to appreciate a story I need more than shadows, mysterious symbols, and freaky people quoting ancient texts.
|
