I gave it three stars, thought about two. Some real creepy and disturbing parts, but then the middle bogs down (it could have been 50 pages shorter). Then the ending. What can I say? Pointless and silly supernatural effects and people acting like people never would in a real situation. Stevie finally deals with her demon (Why didn't she do it sooner?) and is suddenly okay with all the weirdness that continues in her life.

Bishop tried to do a Philip K. Dick thing with what is reality?, what is dreaming?, what is imagination?, but it was just too obvious too early that this is what was going on. The first time it was really disturbing but then you realize what is going on and say to yourself: "ah, this part isn't really happening." Even the crossover where reality became weirder than imagination or dreaming was too obvious.

He also tried to do a Stephen King sort of thing where you take a seemingly very normal small town setting and make it go weird and wild. At this he probably succeeded but the idea isn't very original.

Now for the monkey, ah the monkey. A nice menacing and eerie effect at first just becomes tedious as you realize the capuchin is not really very threatening other than Stevie just wanting to get it out of her life. The blood sucking is pointlessly introduced and then never really used to build menace again.

The first half was pretty good but the ending just ruined it for me. It was like, "oh man, is that all it is." ( )

What an unusual and surprising book! It's listed in both the 100 best fantasy (pringle) and the 100 best horror (jones) books, and I was expecting more horror but ended up with more fantasy--and a parody of Stephen King, really--and a rich soupcon of postmodern metafiction (a la My Little Blue Dress or, more closely, the film version of Adaptation.

I thought it was terrific, though not quite moving enough to push it to 5 star status. But really, really interesting, and just my cup of tea. (I was relieved it wasn't too horrific--I like horror, but light horror only ... anything dwelling on gruesome torture of people is not for me).

Do stay for the author's afterword, it's delightful.

(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). ( )

A novel written with the intent to lampoon the burgeoning horror genre of the 1970's and 1980's. In my opinion, despite Bishop's obvious talents as a writer, this somehow missed the mark.

The book started off pretty well but went off the rails in the second half. The denouement was especially strange and scattered. The intended-to-be-witty skewering of Stephen King was also a bit silly. As a reason for writing a novel, it comes off rather churlish. While Stephen King may not be the best writer to have ever graced the planet, I will always give him props for characterization and world-building. Few authors have the ability to drag their readers into their worlds and into the heads of their characters the way King does. Someone on another book site that I frequent said, "King makes worlds you can go live in for a while." I whole-heartedly agree with that statement. In the other two Bishop books I have read so far, (Brittle Innings and Transfigurations), Bishop also did an admirable job with both of those elements. However, in this book, he begins to build a very credible world and then proceeds to dismantle it with jaunty smirks and corny in-jokes. Having read a lot of King's work back in the day, I caught many, many references - and some of them were quite clever - but the underlying story is too muddled to work effectively as satire and not strong enough to stand alone as a horror novel.

Now, even though the book ended up not working for me, I would ordinarily give it 3.5 stars on the strength of Bishop's writing alone - but I had to knock half a star off for the eye-rolling final scene with the troop of monkeys; a painfully obvious *nudge, nudge - wink, wink* moment that just hurt me to read. Too bad because Michael Bishop really is a superb writer that truly deserves wider recognition. ( )