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Summary: Poe Meets H. P. Lovecraft, By Way Of The Addams Family
Review: The Peter Straub acid test - you'll either love it, or hate it.Ned Dunstan comes from a very peculiar family. Some of them see things that haven't yet happened. Others can teleport. Or, apparently, be in more than one place at a time. Their offspring are - well, sometimes not quite right. Occasionally they have to be buried out in the Back Forty. Ned has been haunted by an "Other" since his childhood, some shadowy figure who seeks him and those around him out to do grievous harm. And he seems to have a twin, who his mother never told him about...or does he? Along with Ghost Story, this is Straub's best-written and most carefully plotted book. Also like Ghost Story, it requires tremendous patience to read. Straub writes like a Chinese puzzle box, and in highly convoluted form, presenting bits and pieces of his story in altered time frames and from different perspectives. His plot is half Poe's "William Wilson," half Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror." It is more sci-fi or fantasy than true horror, and in fact the award it won was the World Fantasy Award, which is most appropriate. It's tricky and clever, but really satisfies in the end if you simply pay attention. Won't be everyone's cup of tea, but this description should help you decide whether or not it will be yours.
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Summary: Self-important & pretentious
Review: It pains me to say anything bad about a Peter Straub book. I have been a fan for nearly 20 years. Koko still rates as one of my all time favorite reads, bar none. Mystery & The Throat were sorely disappointing, but Hellfire Club promised a return to form. A return to the horror genre by my favorite author...well, what more could I ask for? Much, in retrospect. Mr X contains more ponderous, pretentious prose than any Straub novel to date. Descriptions of places, persons, and situations drag on ad nauseum. Even the names of characters are distractingly silly. Do yourself a favor, skip this palid, self- important attempt at a modern addition to Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, and read the original.
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Summary: finally someone to read between King books...
Review: Mr. X was my first Straub book sans Stephen King. I didn't know what to expect of his 'solo' work. I have been fairly glued to a handful of authors (King, Rice, Lumley and Steven Baxter), and was hoping that, at the very least, Straub could be a distraction during the lull between releases from my favorites. Wow! I'm glad I gave him a chance! Creative,thought provoking, frightening,surprising...I look forward to reading his entire body of work!
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Summary: Here We Go Again
Review: Okay, somebody tell me why an author would want to take a reader through almost 500 pages of a book and then coyingly tell them at the end, "I'm not going to resolve this book...you do it for me!" I had just encountered this in Stephen Dobyns' "Boy in the Water," and frankly, I'm tired of spending time with could have been a very good book only to get ripped off at the end. Peter Straub is a great writer, no doubt. "Ghost Story" and "Floating Dragon" are two of my favorite tales of horror. "Mr. X" is a fascinating rollercoaster ride; I admit it's intricacies and complexities are well-constructed and ultimately fascinating. The characters are interesting, although sometimes I feel Straub is playing with us again and making us fill in some of the missing blanks. Why were the Dunstans cursed? Who cursed them? Is there really a Ned or a Robert? Are they one and the same? What is it with the monster baby at the end? And what do the final two pages really mean? Many of the customer reviews agree with me in many ways; the ones who rave about it obviously read something more in the book than me. Perhaps Mr. Straub is planning a sequel or two: "Mr. Y" and "Mr. Z". If so, please resolve your book and stop letting your literary genius swell your head so bad that you forgot who made you popular in the first place---US!
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Summary: DON'T EXPECT FORMULAIC PLOT
Review: Ned Dunstan is returning home, drawn to Edgerton, Illinois knowing that his mother (Star Dunstan) is dying. Star has kept many secrets from her son, but on her deathbed she reveals a whopper: who his father is. Ned's paternal heritage had always been in question and now, after years of wondering, he has a name. But an enigmatic one. No one is willing to talk about Ned's father, especially Ned's mysterious and (apparently) powerful aunts, May, Nettie and Joy. And by "powerful", I mean supernatural powers (telekenesis, teleportation, etc.). Ned goes on a quest to discover who his father is and why he's been having such hellish nightmares all his life. He witnesses murders through the eyes of someone and is unable to pull himself away from these horrific scenes. And Ned soon discovers that he too has a dark side. Someone (who might be his brother) "shadows" him and helps protect him from harm by any means possible (including eliminating anyone or anything that gets in his way). Ned soon discovers his own supernatural potential, as well as some interesting family tree information. The most interesting thing about this book was that it held you in a place and you knew EXACTLY where you were. I loved that. The twisting of characters and showing their good and dark sides also aided me (as the reader) in realizing that these were fully formed and error-prone people (not just totally good protagonists and totally bad antagonists). My only disappointment was that I would have liked to have seen a more definitive connection between Ned's life and his love of music. I felt that got dropped by the wayside a bit because of the necessity of Mr. Straub to reveal Mr. X's life and family heritage. But all in all a good read. Rating = A
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Summary: Should have been called A+!'
Review: Peter straub is Agatha Cristi of horror novels. I found lots of people who read crime thrillers but never read Agatha Cristi! I think main reason is- unlike the other so-called crime thrillers, in A.C.'s book you need to THINK! And who like that. People here read book which they can read while smoking,travelling,or anythime. Well if you are from this crowd then DO NOT read Straub! Peter Straub's writing nmneeds EXTREME attention and you need to ponder,go back,think. Always rewarding. I read Ghost story and Floating Dragon- I dont know how many time!!! Love those. Read Mr.X two times and no ashamed o accept that I missed a lot first time! So if you want to enjoy your horror in your mind then read Peter Straub. If you want to read book with graphics details then read any 5.99/6.99 book available in Stores! They are like that! Most of new authors do that! Hah! WHY WOULD STEPHEN KING WRITES TWO BOOKS WITH HIM OUT OF 100'S OF OTHER HORROW AUTHORS?
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Summary: Not so good, not so bad...
Review: This was my first Peter Straub novel, and although I liked the basic plot of the story and almost all the characters, there were times I was reading, and Straub just seemed to go on about something or other that was supposed to tie into the book. If it weren't for the actual plot, I would've quit before it got good. It did end kind of crummy, for my liking. But, overall if you are a fan of Straub, read this. If not, you aren't missing anything.
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Summary: Contrived, convoluted, dull
Review: I have been an avid reader of Peter Straub ever since I read his amazing novel "Ghost Story". Unfortunately, however, of all the novels I've read since, I've only found two ("Shadowlands" and "If You Could See Me Now") to be even remotely comparable. I still read him in hopes of finding a third. Mr. X starts out quite well...I was thinking that this one might be the next gem. But it quickly becomes confusing and contrived. Characters are thrown in, it seems, for good measure and there's way too many of them. In fact, during the latter half of the book, I found myself wondering what exactly the point was to Robert, his "other half". Although staged as a main character, he seems to have very little relevance. But maybe I just missed it. I did doze off quite a few times while reading. If you want a creepy, well written horror novel, read "Ghost Story", "Shadowlands", or "If you Could See Me Now(all, I think, far better than anything Stephen King's ever written). If you want semi-creepy, semi-well written, read "Floating Dragon", "The Hellfire Club", or "Julia". Otherwise, stay away from Straub. His good stuff is really good. His bad stuff is really bad.
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Summary: Nothing Literary or Horrifying About this Mess
Review: Peter Straub has often been described as a "literary" horror writer, a craftsman whose poetic use of language and carefully developed characters rank a definite step above Dean Koontz, John Saul, Stephen King, and other pulp-fiction hacks. Even some of the other reviews posted on this website praise MR. X as a work of great literature rather than popular fiction. MR. X is my fourth experience with a Peter Straub book. I thoroughly enjoyed GHOST STORY and FLOATING DRAGON, both entertaining and well-written supernatural horror novels (though hardly literary) and stumbled through the plodding, poorly conceived MAGIC TERROR. I must confess, the dreadful MAGIC TERROR almost caused me to swear off of Peter Straub for good. But when I saw MR. X for sale in hardcover ...in the bargain bin, I took the plunge once more. What I found was a wordy, meandering mess that contained few horror or supernatural elements and suffered from a convoluted plot that read more like a Gothic soap opera than a story of terror and suspense. As if that wasn't bad enough, Straub added to this mixture a list of painfully trite cliches, such as the "mysterious twin", the "evil woods that continuously beckon", the "dark family secrets that everyone knows about except for our protagonist", the "dark stranger whose face we never see" whose name--"Mr. X"--is in itself as unoriginal as it is silly. The novel almost reads like a parody of the horror genre. Now don't get me wrong. I don't mind a cliche or two; heck, without cliches, there would be no horror genre at all. But Straub doesn't do anything intelligent, compelling, or remotely interesting with any of these cliches. He simply throws them into his melodramatic, soap-opera plot and hopes they'll float. They don't. In the end, MR. X is a disappointment on all fronts. Fans of the supernatural will be let down by how little the supernatural actually figures in this novel, and fans of gut-wrenching horror will probably laugh at the contrived sinister nature of (scary organ music, please) "Mr. X". Perhaps fans of Robin Cook or Danielle Steel will enjoy the contrived, meandering plot, but it's unlikely those folks will bother with a Peter Straub novel to begin with. There is nothing even remotely literary about Peter Straub or his latest novel, MR. X. Some of his other works are supremely entertaining, well-written horror novels, but to exalt him to the status of a literary figure and place him alongside Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Richard Matheson, or Bram Stoker is ridiculous. I suppose this novel is worth a try if you're a die-hard Peter Straub loyalist or if you're an absolute H.P. Lovecraft fanatic who enjoys reading pretentious allusions (and MR. X is full of pretentious allusions to Lovecraft); all others should probably avoid. In the meantime, if you're looking for a truly great horror novel, try Richard Matheson's I AM LEGEND or William Peter Blatty's THE EXORCIST--even if you can't find them in a bargain bin.
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Summary: Big Let Down
Review: Thank goodness I bought this used. This book reminded me of a lot of horror movies...great beginning, great premise....BIG LET DOWN in an Anne Rice "Taltos" way. Straub's other books are much more compelling and creepy.
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