Rating: 
Summary: combines an amateur sleuth with a fine paranormal story
Review: Returning to his home in Hawthorne from working at the North American Aircraft plant in Inglewood, Tom Wallace sees the car of Philip, his brother-in-law a psych major at Berkley. That night Tom, his pregnant wife Anne and Phil go next door to attend a party. Phil offers to hypnotize any volunteers, but no one steps forward so he informs "brother man" that he is the chosen victim. Phil successfully hypnotizes Tom.That night while unable to sleep, Tom begins hearing voices of people he knows and impressions in his dead culminated with a ghost in his living room. Suddenly, Tom's middle class American dream lifestyle seems meaningless as the hypnosis has aroused psychic abilities that he never knew he had. He hears the intimate most confidential thoughts of those around him and learns secrets that shake his existence, but worse is the visits from the murder victim demanding he help her find her killer. This is a reprint of a 1950s thriller (and a one degree Bacon movie) that combines an amateur sleuth subplot within a fast-paced paranormal story line containing a ghostly element and psychic abilities. Tom is a terrific protagonist as readers observe the contrast between his lifestyle and his new ESP abilities. The support cast adds depth to Tom's travails as he tries to solve a homicide and regain his former existence without "hearing" the thoughts of others. Richard Matheson shows why he is one of the masters of the thriller genre as this "historical" piece ages nicely. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: combines an amateur sleuth with a fine paranormal story
Review: Returning to his home in Hawthorne from working at the North American Aircraft plant in Inglewood, Tom Wallace sees the car of Philip, his brother-in-law a psych major at Berkley. That night Tom, his pregnant wife Anne and Phil go next door to attend a party. Phil offers to hypnotize any volunteers, but no one steps forward so he informs "brother man" that he is the chosen victim. Phil successfully hypnotizes Tom. That night while unable to sleep, Tom begins hearing voices of people he knows and impressions in his dead culminated with a ghost in his living room. Suddenly, Tom's middle class American dream lifestyle seems meaningless as the hypnosis has aroused psychic abilities that he never knew he had. He hears the intimate most confidential thoughts of those around him and learns secrets that shake his existence, but worse is the visits from the murder victim demanding he help her find her killer. This is a reprint of a 1950s thriller (and a one degree Bacon movie) that combines an amateur sleuth subplot within a fast-paced paranormal story line containing a ghostly element and psychic abilities. Tom is a terrific protagonist as readers observe the contrast between his lifestyle and his new ESP abilities. The support cast adds depth to Tom's travails as he tries to solve a homicide and regain his former existence without "hearing" the thoughts of others. Richard Matheson shows why he is one of the masters of the thriller genre as this "historical" piece ages nicely. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: Stir of Echoes
Review: Richard Matheson is apparently the writer who influenced Stephen King more than any other. The similarities in the carefully constructed worlds of each are obvious, every detail crafted to draw paralells with the daily life of each reader. Subsuqently the descent into nightmare is believable and chilling, and something ordinary can achieve a terrifying significance. Matheson is on top form here as ever, easing us gently into the lazy pace of suburban life. When the main character is hypnotised at a party, the slide begins. Awareness of things previously unseen and telepathic messages from people he's never met are only the beginning. Matheson's gift is to make the outlandish seem possible, if not probable. He makes no mistakes here. Chilling, entertaining, thoroughly enjoyable. Matheson is a giant of the genre.
Rating: 
Summary: Spooky and Hypnotically Scary.
Review: Richard Matheson's Stir Of Echoes is a good little suspense novel. I really enjoy Matheson's writing in the first person. He does it so well, you feel like the character. The novel had me right from the start. Spooky, and frightening, I don't think I ever want to get hyptonized, ever. I really enjoyed this novel, but would have liked it more if there were a few more characters that the main character could sense. I really sympathized with the main character's family, but never really liked anyone else in the novel. The ending is pretty good, but I felt like the suspense ran out of gas a little more that midway through. It became a whodunit adventure shortly afterwards.
Rating:
Summary: Matheson Makes Good
Review: Stir of Echoes focuses around "everyman" Tom Wallace. He's a normal guy with a normal job, a young child, and another kid on the way. He lives in a fairly regular town, with what seem to be fairly regular neighbors. One night, his brother-in-law hypnotizes him. As a weird side-effect Tom develops psychic powers which enable him to see the future, read minds, and see something like ghosts. What he can't do is control his power, which becomes more of a bane than a gift. This book is not really spooky or scary, whether because it was written in the '50s and lacks the impact fifty years later or just because it isn't. What it does do quite well is create people and situations. Matheson convincingly shows two sides of people, their public faces and their private ones. He comprehensively shows realistic responses to this extraordinary event. At times a human drama and times a murder mystery, this book is quite good. The age shows only in the dialogue and even then, it is not so crippling that a reader today could not thoroughly enjoy the book.
Rating:
Summary: Matheson Makes Good
Review: Stir of Echoes focuses around "everyman" Tom Wallace. He's a normal guy with a normal job, a young child, and another kid on the way. He lives in a fairly regular town, with what seem to be fairly regular neighbors. One night, his brother-in-law hypnotizes him. As a weird side-effect Tom develops psychic powers which enable him to see the future, read minds, and see something like ghosts. What he can't do is control his power, which becomes more of a bane than a gift. This book is not really spooky or scary, whether because it was written in the '50s and lacks the impact fifty years later or just because it isn't. What it does do quite well is create people and situations. Matheson convincingly shows two sides of people, their public faces and their private ones. He comprehensively shows realistic responses to this extraordinary event. At times a human drama and times a murder mystery, this book is quite good. The age shows only in the dialogue and even then, it is not so crippling that a reader today could not thoroughly enjoy the book.
Rating: 
Summary: For The First Time...
Review: The author had a great idea writing this book. I just wonder if he understands what the word redundant means? Can he be more imaginative rather than repeatedly saying; "he said.." then "he said..." and again "... he said."? For the very first time I can actually say I thought the movie was better and did this book much justice!
Rating:
Summary: A minor effort from an importat writer
Review: The reappearance of this book, with its musings on expanded mind capabilities and contact with the beyond, seems timely now that a lot of the public has been fond of things New Age and of pop spirituality. Sadly, the novel is but a curious yarn and not too much else. Maybe this is due to its episodic nature, where the conflict-development-conclusion cycle is repeated over and over again, without the different episodes meshing well together. Maybe it is that the focus of Mr. Matheson's story isn't clear, since most of the tension is placed on the "message from beyond the grave" scenes, but that plot is always being delayed by other events. Maybe it's the final twist at the ending, which, even when it can be believable on the basis on what happened before in the book, frankly just seems to come out of the blue. "A Stir of Echoes" is a busy book: a lot of things are happening one after the other. But "busy" most of the time gets things done in a rush, and that does happen with this story: all the events rush by, without a real reflection on what happened or its significance. This book was quite a letdown for me, but I happen to think Richard Matheson is an important author to the development of fantasy fiction. Not only has Stephen King acknowledged him as a big influence on his own work, but works like "I am Legend" and "Somewhere in Time" (originally, "Bid Time Return") are some of Matheson's best regarded and more popular works. Previously I had read "The Shrinking Man", and that's the kind of Richard Matheson book I can treasure.
Rating:
Summary: Stir of Echoes
Review: This book had a very good story line, but I felt that there were some pieces missing. They may have been included in the original manuscript before being edited, but the book could have been much better had it included some aspects which were not held within it's contents. It had an extremely good plot, but some of the occurancesd were not all together that real. I must admit that "Stir of Echoes" did keep me on the edge of my seet wanting to know the end of the story. Although, the end of the story made the entire book worth reading! At the end I was really glad that I had tuffed it out through some dragging parts and I really enjoyed reading this book!
Rating:
Summary: Stir of Nothing
Review: This book has accomplished something that few 200 some odd page do - make it feel like a 500 page book. The main problem I have is that for most of the book is that hardly anything happens. This book neither captivates you with a plot, develops any characters, or immerses you in a setting. Basically, a man gets hypnotized and starts reading peoples minds and predicting the future. He sees a ghost, reads a neighbor's mind, has an encounter with a baby sitter, and fights with his wife. That's the first ninety percent of the book. Matheson probably realized that nothing happened, so he threw in some hackneyed plot twist to add some excitement. Needless to say, it doesn't work. Another problem I had with this book is the flow and language structure. He likes throwing brief tidbits of conversation, which annoyed me to death. Many times I had to re-read paragraphs due to the fact that he omitted context and who said it. Ignore all those people who say that this delves into great psychological terror. Nope, it deals with a boring man with a boring gift living a boring place. Silence of the Lambs this ain't. What makes a good book? Not being able to put it down. What makes a bad book? Not being able to pick it up. This book is boring and tedious - the only reason why I finished it is because I actually spent my hard earned money on it.
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