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Quicksand House (2013)

by Carlton Mellick III(Favorite Author)

4.65 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1621051005 (ISBN13: 9781621051008)

languge

English

genre

Horror

publisher

Eraserhead Press

review 1: This book is a beautiful, sad kind of magic. It's the best I've read of CMIII's recent work (which focuses more on subdued, methodical storytelling than the fragmented, almost experimental feel of his early writing), and a chilling, grotesque evocation of the terror of childhood: the mystery of adults and wanting to be loved in a frightening world. It also makes great use of elements I've always loved about Mellick's writing: a tendency to nonchalantly wound or kill very important characters; a general sense of having no safe place to return to, or having nothing in life and just having to deal with it; and the transformation of very normal experiences into something alienating or disgusting... and then, sometimes, making those same things tender or adorable. This one has ... morean especially good premise and some fantastic scenes along the way. Also the pages just melted in that beautiful way that CMIII books do, and it's definitely the one I'd recommend to anyone interested in his newer books, which tends to be less shocking but incredibly solid in how they're composed.
review 2: Creepy nightmare story that held my attention well enough to finish in just in two sittings. I especially appreciated the author's note at the beginning that succinctly cued me in to the kind of creepiness he hoped to evoke (a sort of uneasy feeling based on the memory of his parents moving things around in his absence, leaving signs of their presence to be discovered by accident later?), because I found that keeping that in mind helped me feel that the story did have an emotional core more interesting than the overt content suggested. The content is really pretty old-fashioned SFnal Horror--I can't help thinking of two very well-known Ray Bradbury stories ("The Veldt" and "There Will Come Soft Rains"). And I can easily imagine Twilight Zone episodes made from two or three scenes in this book. That's not 100% complimentary, because the Twilight Zone defined what would be old-fashioned and cliché 50 years later. But there were some genuinely weird images, and in spite of the absurd, dream-like qualities, this held together as a coherent story. less

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