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Summer of Night: A Novel (Seasons of Horror Book 1) Kindle Edition
This masterfully crafted horror classic, featuring a brand-new introduction by Dan Simmons, will bring you to the edge of your seat, hair standing on end and blood freezing in your veins
It's the summer of 1960 and in the small town of Elm Haven, Illinois, five twelve-year-old boys are forging the powerful bonds that a lifetime of change will not break. From sunset bike rides to shaded hiding places in the woods, the boys' days are marked by all of the secrets and silences of an idyllic middle-childhood. But amid the sundrenched cornfields their loyalty will be pitilessly tested. When a long-silent bell peals in the middle of the night, the townsfolk know it marks the end of their carefree days. From the depths of the Old Central School, a hulking fortress tinged with the mahogany scent of coffins, an invisible evil is rising. Strange and horrifying events begin to overtake everyday life, spreading terror through the once idyllic town. Determined to exorcize this ancient plague, Mike, Duane, Dale, Harlen, and Kevin must wage a war of blood—against an arcane abomination who owns the night...
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherSt. Martin's Griffin
- Publication dateJuly 5, 2011
- File size972 KB
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
- Marylaine Block, St. Ambrose Univ. Lib., Davenport, Ia.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
“Simmons writes like a hot-rodding angel, loading his American nightmare with scares, suspense, and a sweet, surprising nostalgia. One of those rare must-read books, I am in awe of Dan Simmons.” --Stephen King
“It stands with the best of King and Straub in the traditional modern horror genre.” —Seattle Post Intelligencer
“Impressive...combines beautiful writing and suspense into a book for which Dan Simmons deserves the bestseller status of King and Koontz.” —Denver Post
“An outstandingly eerie and truly horrifying tale, a page-turner of the first order.” –Dallas Times-Herald
“One can only wonder what Simmons will do next, now that he’s shown us he can do everything the best writers in horror and science fiction can do.” –Philadelphia Inquirer
“If you like Stephen King’s It and The Body, you will be enthralled by Summer of Night.” –Rocky Mountain News
“Blood-freezing scenarios… the true source of Simmons’ terrifying vision lies in his uncanny ability to tap into that primal dread that every child knows and every adult denies; the monster under the bed, the darkness in the closet, the not-quite-human face at the window… If you are easily frightened, don’t buy this book.” –Los Angeles Daily News
“A superior read in the genre.” –Kirkus Reviews
“An outstandingly eerie horror story about a group of Midwestern boys stalked by an ancient evil.” –Publishers Weekly
“Simmons, winner of several prestigious awards for science fiction and horror ranks with the best the genre has to offer... The children are well drawn and affecting in their bravery.” ...
About the Author
Dan John Miller, multiple Audie finalist and Earphones award winner, has been named as a “Best Voice” by AudioFile magazine. He has acted in several films including Walk the Line and Leatherheads, and is the singer and songwriter for gothic country rock band Blanche. Dan has lived his entire life in the Detroit area and is married to the painter Tracee Mae Miller.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Summer of Night
By Dan SimmonsSt. Martin's Press
Copyright © 2011 Dan SimmonsAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-312-55067-7
CHAPTER 1
Old Central School still stood upright, holding its secrets and silences firmly within. Eighty-four years of chalkdust floated in the rare shafts of sunlight inside while the memories of more than eight decades of varnishings rose from the dark stairs and floors to tinge the trapped air with the mahogany scent of coffins. The walls of Old Central were so thick that they seemed to absorb sounds while the tall windows, their glass warped and distorted by age and gravity, tinted the air with a sepia tiredness.
Time moved more slowly in Old Central, if at all. Footsteps echoed along corridors and up stairwells, but the sound seemed muted and out of synch with any motion amidst the shadows.
The cornerstone of Old Central had been laid in 1876, the year that General Custer and his men had been slaughtered near the Little Bighorn River far to the west, the year that the first telephone had been exhibited at the nation's Centennial in Philadelphia far to the east. Old Central School was erected in Illinois, midway between the two events but far from any flow of history.
By the spring of 1960, Old Central School had come to resemble some of the ancient teachers who had taught in her: too old to continue but too proud to retire, held stiffly upright by habit and a simple refusal to bend. Barren herself, a fierce old spinster, Old Central borrowed other people's children over the decades.
Girls played with dolls in the shadows of her classrooms and corridors and later died in childbirth. Boys ran shouting through her hallways, sat in punishment through the growing darkness of winter afternoons in her silent rooms, and were buried in places never mentioned in their geography lessons: San Juan Hill, Belleau Wood, Okinawa, Omaha Beach, Pork Chop Hill, and Inchon.
Originally Old Central had been surrounded by pleasant young saplings, the closer elms throwing shade on the lower classrooms in the warm days of May and September. But over the years the closer trees died and the perimeter of giant elms which lined Old Central's city block like silent sentinels grew calcified and skeletal with age and disease. A few were cut down and carted away but the majority remained, the shadows of their bare branches reaching across the playgrounds and playing fields like gnarled hands groping for Old Central herself.
Visitors to the small town of Elm Haven who left the Hard Road and wandered the two blocks necessary to see Old Central frequently mistook the building for an oversized courthouse or some misplaced county building bloated by hubris to absurd dimensions. After all, what function in this decaying town of eighteen hundred people could demand this huge three-story building sitting in a block all its own? Then the travelers would see the playground equipment and realize that they were looking at a school. A bizarre school: its ornate bronze and copper belfry gone green with verdigris atop its black, steep-pitched roof more than fifty feet above the ground; its Richardsonian Romanesque stone arches curling like serpents above twelve-foot-tall windows; its scattering of other round and oval stained-glass windows suggesting some absurd hybrid between cathedral and school; its Châteauesque, gabled roof dormers peering out above third-story eaves; its odd volutes looking like scrollworks turned to stone above recessed doors and blind-looking windows; and, striking the viewer most disturbingly, its massive, misplaced, and somehow ominous size. Old Central, with its three rows of windows rising four stories, its overhanging eaves and gabled dormers, its hipped roof and scabrous belfry, seemed much too large a school for such a modest town.
If the traveler had any knowledge of architecture at all, he or she would stop on the quiet asphalt street, step out of the car, gape, and take a picture.
But even as the picture was being snapped, an observant viewer would notice that the tall windows were great, black holes — as if they were designed to absorb light rather than admit or reflect it — and that the Richardsonian Romanesque, Second Empire, or Italianate touches were grafted onto a brutal and common style of architecture which might be described as Midwestern School Gothic, and that the final sense was not of a striking building, or even of a true architectural curiosity, but only of an oversized and schizophrenic mass of brick and stone capped with a belfry obviously designed by a madman.
A few visitors, ignoring or defying a growing feeling of unease, might make local inquiries or even go so far as drive to Oak Hill, the county seat, to look up records on Old Central. There they would find that the school had been part of a master plan eighty-some years earlier to build five great schools in the county — Northeast, Northwest, Central, Southeast, and Southwest. Of these, Old Central had been the first and only school constructed.
Elm Haven in the 1870s had been larger than it was now in 1960, thanks largely to the railroad (now in disuse) and a major influx of immigrant settlers brought south from Chicago by ambitious city planners. From a county population of 28,000 in 1875, the area had dwindled to fewer than 12,000 in the 1960 census, most of them farmers. Elm Haven had boasted 4,300 people in 1875 and Judge Ashley, the millionaire behind the settlement plans and the building of Old Central, had predicted that the town would soon pass Peoria in population and someday rival Chicago.
The architect Judge Ashley had brought in from somewhere back east — one Solon Spencer Alden — had been a student of both Henry Hobson Richardson and R.M. Hunt and his resultant architectural nightmare reflected the darker elements of the coming Romanesque Revival without the sense of grandeur or public purpose those Romanesque buildings might offer.
Judge Ashley had insisted — and Elm Haven had agreed — that the school would be built to accommodate the later, larger generations of schoolchildren which would be drawn to Creve Coeur County. Thus the building had housed not only K–6 classrooms but the high-school classrooms on the third floor — used only until the Great War — and sections which were meant to be used as the city library and even serve as space for a college when the need arrived.
No college ever came to Creve Coeur County or Elm Haven. Judge Ashley's great home at the end of Broad Avenue burned to the ground after his son went bankrupt in the Recession of 1919. Old Central remained an elementary school through the years, serving fewer and fewer children as people left the area and consolidated schools were built in other sections of the county.
The high-school level on the third floor became redundant when the real high school opened in Oak Hill in 1920. Its furnished rooms were closed off to cobwebs and darkness. The city library was moved out of the arched Elementary section in 1939, and the upper mezzanine of shelves stood largely empty, staring down at the few remaining students who moved through the darkened halls and too-broad stairways and basement catacombs like refugees in some long-abandoned city from an incomprehensible past.
Finally, in the fall of 1959, the new city council and the Creve Coeur County School District decided that Old Central had outlived its usefulness, that the architectural monstrosity — even in its eviscerated state — was too difficult to heat and maintain, and that the final 134 Elm Haven students in grades K–6 would be moved to the new consolidated school near Oak Hill in the fall of 1960.
But in the spring of 1960, on the last day of school, only hours before she would be forced into final retirement, Old Central School still stood upright, holding its secrets and silences firmly within.
CHAPTER 2Dale Stewart sat in his sixth-grade classroom in Old Central and was quietly certain that the last day of school was the worst punishment grown-ups had ever devised for kids.
Time had slowed worse than when he was in a dentist's office waiting, worse than when he was in trouble with his mom and had to wait for his dad to come home before punishment could be meted out, worse than ... It was bad.
The clock on the wall above Old Double-Butt's blue-dyed head said that it was 2:43 P.M. The calendar on the wall informed him that it was Wednesday, June 1, 1960, the last day of school, the last day that Dale and the others would ever have to suffer the boredom of being locked in the belly of Old Central, but to all intents and purposes time seemed to have stopped so completely that Dale felt that he was an insect stuck in amber, like the spider in the yellowish rock Father Cavanaugh had loaned Mike.
There was nothing to do. Not even schoolwork. The sixth graders had turned in their rented textbooks by one-thirty that afternoon, Mrs. Doubbet checking off their books and meticulously inspecting each for any damage ... although Dale failed to see how she could tell this year's damage from the years of outrage already suffered by the moldy text from previous renters ... and when that was finished, the classroom bizarrely empty even down to the bare bulletin boards and well-scrubbed wooden desks, Old Double-Butt had lethargically suggested that they read, even though school library books had been due the previous Friday at peril of not receiving the final report card.
Dale would have brought one of his books from home to read — perhaps the Tarzan book he had left open on the kitchen table at noon when he went home for lunch, or perhaps one of the ACE double-novel science fiction books he was reading — but though Dale read several books a week, he never thought of school as a place to read. School was a place to do worksheets, to listen to the teacher, and to give answers so simple that a chimp could have gleaned them from the textbooks.
So Dale and the other twenty-six sixth graders sat in the summer heat and high humidity as a storm darkened the skies outside and the already dim air in Old Central grew darker and summer itself seemed to recede as the clock froze its hands and the musty thickness of Old Central's interior lay on them like a blanket.
Dale sat in the fourth desk in the second row from the right. From where he sat he could see out past the cloakroom entrance into the dark hallway and just catch a glimpse of the door to the fifth-grade class where his best friend, Mike O'Rourke, also waited for the end of the school year. Mike was the same age as Dale ... was a month older actually ... but had been forced to repeat fourth grade so that for the past two years the friends had been separated by the abyss of an entire grade. But Mike had taken his failure to pass fourth grade with the same aplomb he showed toward most situations — he joked about it, continued to be a leader on the playground and among Dale's band of friends, and showed no malice toward Mrs. Grossaint, the old crone of a teacher who had failed him ... Dale was sure ... out of sheer malice.
Inside the classroom were some of Dale's other close friends: Jim Harlen on the front desk of the first row where Mrs. Doubbet could keep an eye on him. Now Harlen lounged with his head on his hands, eyes flicking about the room in the dance of hyperactivity Dale also felt but tried not to show. Harlen saw Dale watching and made a face, his mouth as elastic as Silly Putty.
Old Double-Butt cleared her throat and Harlen slumped back into submission.
In the row closest to the windows were Chuck Sperling and Digger Taylor — buddies, leaders, class politicians. Jerks. Dale didn't see Chuck and Digger much outside of school, except during the Little League games and practices. Behind Digger sat Gerry Daysinger in a torn and gray t-shirt. Everyone wore t-shirts and jeans outside of school, but only the poorest kids like Gerry and Cordie Cooke's brothers wore them to school.
Behind Gerry sat Cordie Cooke, moonfaced and placid with an expression somehow beyond stupidity. Her fat, flat face was turned toward the windows, but her colorless eyes seemed to see nothing. She was chewing gun — she was always chewing gum — but for some reason Mrs. Doubbet never seemed to notice or reprimand the girl for it. If Harlen or one of the other class cutups had chewed gum with such regularity, Mrs. D. probably would have suspended them for it ... but with Cordie Cooke it seemed a natural state. Dale did not know the word bovine, but an image of a cow chewing its cud often came to mind with Cordie.
Behind Cordie, in the last occupied desk of the window row, in almost shocking contrast, sat Michelle Staffney. Michelle was immaculate in a soft green shirt and pressed tan skirt. Her red hair caught the light and even from across the room Dale could see the freckles standing out against her pale, almost translucent skin.
Michelle looked up from her book as Dale stared and although she did not smile, the faintest hint of recognition was enough to get the eleven-year-old boy's heart pounding.
Not all of Dale's friends were in this room. Kevin Grumbacher was in fifth grade — legitimately, since he was nine months younger than Dale. Dale's brother, Lawrence, was in Mrs. Howe's third-grade class on the first floor.
Dale's friend Duane McBride was here. Duane — twice as heavy as the next-chubbiest kid in the class — filled his seat in the third desk in the center row. He was busy, as always, writing something in the worn spiral notebook he dragged around with him. Duane's unruly brown hair stuck up in tufts and he adjusted his glasses with an unconscious movement as he frowned at whatever he was writing and went back to work. Despite the temperature in the high eighties, Duane wore the same heavy flannel shirt and baggy corduroy trousers he had worn all winter. Dale could never remember having seen Duane in jeans or a t-shirt, despite the fact that the heavier boy was a farm kid ... Dale and Mike and Kevin and Jim and most of the others were city kids ... and Duane had to do chores.
Dale fidgeted. It was 2:49 P.M. The school day ended, for some abstruse reason involving bus schedules, at 3:15.
Dale stared at the portrait of George Washington on the front wall and wondered for the ten thousandth time that year why the school authorities would put up a print of an unfinished painting. He stared at the ceiling, fourteen feet above the floor, and at the ten-foot-high windows along the far wall. He looked at the boxes of books on the empty shelves and wondered what would happen to the texts. Would they be shipped to the consolidated school? Burned? Probably the latter since Dale couldn't imagine such ancient, moldy books in the brand-new school his parents had driven him by.
Two-fifty P.M. Twenty-five minutes before summer really began, before freedom reigned.
Dale stared at Old Double-Butt. The name did not come to mind with any malice or derision; she had always been Old Double-Butt. For thirty-eight years Mrs. Doubbet and Mrs. Duggan had shared the teaching of sixth grade — originally in adjoining classrooms and then, when the population of students had declined about the time Dale was born, sharing the same class — Mrs. Doubbet teaching reading and composition and social studies in the morning, Mrs. Duggan teaching math and science and spelling and penmanship in the afternoon.
The pair had been the Mutt and Jeff, the humorless Abbott and Costello of Old Central — Mrs. Duggan thin and tall and twitchy, Mrs. Doubbet short and fat and slow, their voices almost opposite in timbre and tone, their lives intertwined — living in adjacent old Victorian homes on Broad Avenue, attending the same church, taking courses in Peoria together, taking vacations in Florida together, two incomplete persons somehow joining their skills and deficiencies to create one well-rounded individual.
Then, in this final year of Old Central's domination, Mrs. Duggan had taken ill just before Thanksgiving. Cancer, Mrs. O'Rourke had told Dale's mother in a soft voice she thought the boys would not overhear. Mrs. Duggan had not returned to class after Christmas vacation but rather than have some interloper fill the afternoon hours, confirming the seriousness of Mrs. Duggan's illness, Mrs. Doubbet had taught the courses she despised, "just until Cora returns," while nursing her friend — first in the tall pink house along Broad, then in the hospital — until one morning even Old Double-Butt had not appeared, there was a sixth-grade substitute teacher for the first time in four decades, and word was whispered around the playground that Mrs. Duggan had died. It was the day before Valentine's Day.
(Continues...)Excerpted from Summer of Night by Dan Simmons. Copyright © 2011 Dan Simmons. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- ASIN : B004TLHPZ4
- Publisher : St. Martin's Griffin; Reprint edition (July 5, 2011)
- Publication date : July 5, 2011
- Language : English
- File size : 972 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 611 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #133,845 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #110 in Horror Fiction Classics
- #430 in U.S. Horror Fiction
- #1,445 in Paranormal Suspense
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
![Dan Simmons](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/21rLSUBT0qL._SY600_.jpg)
Dan Simmons was born in Peoria, Illinois, in 1948, and grew up in various cities and small towns in the Midwest, including Brimfield, Illinois, which was the source of his fictional "Elm Haven" in 1991's SUMMER OF NIGHT and 2002's A WINTER HAUNTING. Dan received a B.A. in English from Wabash College in 1970, winning a national Phi Beta Kappa Award during his senior year for excellence in fiction, journalism and art.
Dan received his Masters in Education from Washington University in St. Louis in 1971. He then worked in elementary education for 18 years -- 2 years in Missouri, 2 years in Buffalo, New York -- one year as a specially trained BOCES "resource teacher" and another as a sixth-grade teacher -- and 14 years in Colorado.
His last four years in teaching were spent creating, coordinating, and teaching in APEX, an extensive gifted/talented program serving 19 elementary schools and some 15,000 potential students. During his years of teaching, he won awards from the Colorado Education Association and was a finalist for the Colorado Teacher of the Year. He also worked as a national language-arts consultant, sharing his own "Writing Well" curriculum which he had created for his own classroom. Eleven and twelve-year-old students in Simmons' regular 6th-grade class averaged junior-year in high school writing ability according to annual standardized and holistic writing assessments. Whenever someone says "writing can't be taught," Dan begs to differ and has the track record to prove it. Since becoming a full-time writer, Dan likes to visit college writing classes, has taught in New Hampshire's Odyssey writing program for adults, and is considering hosting his own Windwalker Writers' Workshop.
Dan's first published story appeared on Feb. 15, 1982, the day his daughter, Jane Kathryn, was born. He's always attributed that coincidence to "helping in keeping things in perspective when it comes to the relative importance of writing and life."
Dan has been a full-time writer since 1987 and lives along the Front Range of Colorado -- in the same town where he taught for 14 years -- with his wife, Karen. He sometimes writes at Windwalker -- their mountain property and cabin at 8,400 feet of altitude at the base of the Continental Divide, just south of Rocky Mountain National Park. An 8-ft.-tall sculpture of the Shrike -- a thorned and frightening character from the four Hyperion/Endymion novels -- was sculpted by an ex-student and friend, Clee Richeson, and the sculpture now stands guard near the isolated cabin.
Dan is one of the few novelists whose work spans the genres of fantasy, science fiction, horror, suspense, historical fiction, noir crime fiction, and mainstream literary fiction . His books are published in 27 foreign counties as well as the U.S. and Canada.
Many of Dan's books and stories have been optioned for film, including SONG OF KALI, DROOD, THE CROOK FACTORY, and others. Some, such as the four HYPERION novels and single Hyperion-universe novella "Orphans of the Helix", and CARRION COMFORT have been purchased (the Hyperion books by Warner Brothers and Graham King Films, CARRION COMFORT by European filmmaker Casta Gavras's company) and are in pre-production. Director Scott Derrickson ("The Day the Earth Stood Stood Still") has been announced as the director for the Hyperion movie and Casta Gavras's son has been put at the helm of the French production of Carrion Comfort. Current discussions for other possible options include THE TERROR. Dan's hardboiled Joe Kurtz novels are currently being looked as the basis for a possible cable TV series.
In 1995, Dan's alma mater, Wabash College, awarded him an honorary doctorate for his contributions in education and writing.
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book interesting, sweet, and nostalgic. They also describe the plot as a good scary story that holds their attention throughout. Readers say the characters are well developed and the tone is unique. Opinions are mixed on the writing style, with some finding it well-written and detailed, while others say it's clunky and bloated with descriptions. Reader opinions are mixed also on the pacing, with others finding it slow to get going.
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Customers find the book interesting, good, and a great ride. They also say the author is a master storyteller and the book is great for the beach or a cold night in front of the fire. Customers also appreciate the wonderful descriptions of summer life on the Great Plains. They say the research is meticulous and the author's resolution of the mystery is remarkably clever.
"...Thank you Mr Simmons for this incredible book along with many other of your great books like "The Terror" to name just one...." Read more
"...and for the most part the descriptive writing style was effective and engaging. The suspenseful parts really pulled me along and kept me reading...." Read more
"Summer of Night was one of the most incredible books I have ever read and mind you it's not because I'd rather read a book on a Friday night than..." Read more
"This book was amazing. I highly recommend it. Very difficult to put it down." Read more
Customers find the plot good, scary, and suspenseful. They also appreciate the creepiness and unexpected twists. Customers say the book builds up the terror slowly and creates a believable world. They say it's spooky and riveting from the beginning.
"...I would say this book is very suspenseful, but not horrifying...." Read more
"...Dan Simmons used the most intense, sublime and imaginary language to spin his tale, that I have never read before in a scary book...." Read more
"...While on the longish side (600 pages), it is well-paced, building to a truly terrifying and suspenseful climax...." Read more
"Read above. I found the story compelling and hard to put down. I’ll try more of Mr Simmons in the future" Read more
Customers find the characters well developed and say the author doesn't do stereotypes.
"...By clever writing and plot development combined with his amazing characters we the reader BELIEVE that these children are real...that Elm Haven is..." Read more
"...The author creates some interesting and dynamic characters, and for the most part the descriptive writing style was effective and engaging...." Read more
"...weaving the mystery thread-by-thread, with a rich and convoluted cast of villains, both real and surreal...." Read more
"...The author created a vibrant, living town with interesting, unique characters that worked well together...." Read more
Customers find the tone unique, describing a part of their childhood. They say the book pulls them into the lives and adventures of the main characters. Readers also say the story captures the essence of summer as experienced by a kid. They describe the book as an atmospheric tale with chills.
"...the final analysis, "Summer of Night" is a well-crafted and unique mixture of nostalgia and familiar childhood fears. A highly recommended read." Read more
"...This novel is a beautiful blend of the magic of youth and friendship and chilling horror...." Read more
"...At times sweet, nostalgic and humorous, the book truly delivers on its promise of a worthwhile horror tale...." Read more
"...character development; steady ratcheting of tension; humor; the charm of nostalgia for those of us old enough to remember what childhood used to be..." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the writing style. Some find the book well-written, vivid, and methodical. They also appreciate the depth of the world and characters. Others however, find the writing clunky, bloated with descriptions, repetitive, and lacks common sense.
"...I disagree. By clever writing and plot development combined with his amazing characters we the reader BELIEVE that these children are real...that..." Read more
"...The characters all stand out in their own way, so clear, so precise so pristine that when bad things happened to some of them, I had a tissue..." Read more
"...As a criticism, I would say that the writing quality fluctuates throughout the book, and some of the character development was a little too drawn-out..." Read more
"...-fashioned Gothic horror, Don Simmons' "Summer of Night" is a well-written page-turner definitely worth the time...." Read more
Customers are mixed about the pacing of the book. Some mention that it's well-paced and hooks them early, while others say that it takes a while to get going.
"...The result is uneven pacing.I also found the behavior of the boys to be unbelievable...." Read more
"...While on the longish side (600 pages), it is well-paced, building to a truly terrifying and suspenseful climax...." Read more
"...The story moves so slowly that I am not sure it is scientifically accurate to call it movement at all...." Read more
"...as much if not more so than this one, as it is moving along at a very smooth pace and does not seem as long as this one...." Read more
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The similarity between my childhood and Simmons characters in SON is really amazing.
I also had a "bike gang" of 6 male friends during the period of 1958 through 1961. Summers were the "golden times" of our lives and we were free from sunrise to the long summer nights where it was still light at 9:00. Our bikes were our passports everywhere we wanted to go and explore. From the shores of lake Loveland to the old ice house to the city dump where we would find many a treasure.
I lived with my parents and my older brother Ron. He was in High School at old Truscott Junior and Senior High on 4th near the railroad tracks and the huge old ice house. It was unknown to the gang why it was called Truscott, but it was a mammoth old brick 4 story structure meant at one time to hold many more students than it did in 1960 just like "Old Central" in SON. The school was next to the railroad track that crossed 4th Street and ran behind the school passed the old ice house, over the City Ditch and out next to the fairgrounds down on 1st and Washington. There had been no trains since 1955. That was the year that the two big canning factories closed and they moved their new automated canning business to the big city of Greeley.
Dad, Mom, Ron and myself lived in an old Victorian that had seen better days. It was nice as I had my own room for the first time and the privacy needed for a young boy on the verge of manhood. Our big house was right across the street not from a school, but a huge 3 story brick mansion that had been deserted since the end of WW2. Perfect for illegal exploring for the Bike Gang on warm summer nights. The mansion was called the "Woodberry" estate as before the town grew up around it the owners had over 300 acres of land. Old "Buck Woodberry died of the "Spanish Flu that had swept the country in 1918 and 1919. He apparently had gambled his fortune away and left the family with some land and a decrepit 117 year old 23 room mansion. It was said old Gladys Woodberry stayed afloat by selling off parcels of land during the first half of the 20th century. Her two sons both died on "Porkchop hill" precipitating Glady's final stroke in 1944. The enormous old place lay vacant the last 16 years. It was ripe for our gang to sneak into during our "Golden" summers. Summers just like those that Dale and his gang found themselves in that summer of 1960.
On Saturday evenings Dr Perkins and Dr Brown would pull up into Loveland park and set up the big old projector borrowed from the recently closed Rialto Theater on 4th street. They could project films directly onto the white wall of the White Swan Cafe. Dr Perkin's wife Eleanor May owned the cafe and the building itself. She even had her stuck up son Randy P.Q. paint the two story wall two times that year in 1960. After the first white coat Randy had applied and was finished someone (everyone thought it was bad boy Jimmy Linkletter, but no one had any proof) threw a bucket of animal blood and guts onto the nice movie screen wall. It took him three days to clean up that mess and repaint the wall in glistening white paint.
Then on nice warm summer evenings a large crowd of townsfolk including myself, Gary Disney, Bruce Templeton and usually Jerry Alexander and his little sister Glenda would travel to the park for the free movie night. We would meet at Gary's house and Gary's Dad, Simon would help the group pop lot's of popcorn. After everyone had a large grocery paper bag from the Piggly Wiggly over on 9th and Roosevelt filled nearly to the top, Simon would melt a pound of butter and pour the hot golden liquid onto the top of our giant popcorn bags. As we made our way to the park our bags would glisten as the butter stained the inside of the bags. I never forgot that smell of hot butter on freshly popped corn in a big paper bag. A smell of innocence lost as we found our usual seats on the cement bandstand just inside the park with a perfect view of Randy's handy work and settled down for the nights enjoyment. We had our hot buttered popcorn and the Nehi Grapette soda pop that Simon insisted we take with us to enjoy the show.
We would enjoy at least two cartoons (my favorite was Woody Woodpecker) before the main feature. We saw "Some Like It Hot" which became very controversial as the ladies from the Baptist Church on 5th and Cleveland gave Dr Perkins a petition signed by the good ladies demanding that the "filth" that was shown to the town must stop! Dr Perkins responded two week later on the 4th of July weekend by showing "Let's Make Love" with Marilyn Monroe. What a wonderful time!
My friends and myself didn't have the EVIL that came from the Borgia bell, but we scared ourselves silly with all our secret investigations of the many places I have mentioned. We had the freedom of our youth and the wonderful freedom from fear and paranoia that is the curse of the 21st century.
Dan Simmons in the "Summer of Night"has captured me and at 72 years old I see the river Styx clearly from my window as I treasure Dan Simmon's "Summer of Night" with it's joy of that innocent time.
Dan Simmons is a brilliant writer. I believe he is the better of King in many ways. One of which is his ability to connect the innocent with the evil the children of Elm Haven eventually have to face and conquer. At over 600 pages many reviewers complain Simmons could have cut out a lot of the build up to the final terror. I disagree. By clever writing and plot development combined with his amazing characters we the reader BELIEVE that these children are real...that Elm Haven is real...that Old Central and it's building's horror is real. WOW! What an amazing book! I have purchased it 3 times and now have it on Audible. Once the Audible book finishes I will have "read" "Summer Of Night" over 7 times during the last 27 years. Thank you Mr Simmons for this incredible book along with many other of your great books like "The Terror" to name just one. You deserve my endless thanks for taking me back to my childhood and then scaring the crap out of me with such a great ending. This book is just SPECIAL!!!
As a criticism, I would say that the writing quality fluctuates throughout the book, and some of the character development was a little too drawn-out. There are some unnecessarily long and repetitive descriptions, and there are parts where the depiction of the setting is just plain confusing. As a rule, though, the writing is good.
I would say this book is very suspenseful, but not horrifying. It definitely gave me the creeps and put me on the edge of my seat several times.
I felt that the ending was just a little bit too "happily ever after". This is just a matter of my own personal taste, however, and isn't meant to reflect badly on Mr. Simmon's writing.
For me, this story was entertaining and worth the money, and I would recommend it.
Dan Simmons wove a masterful tale of 1960's Illinois with its cozy little town and streets, Saturday outdoor movies and the kids who were the true heroes of the story. It reminded me of Goonies in places as we quickly grow to like Dale and his younger brother Lawrance, Mike, Duane and Kevin and Jim Harlan, friends, schoolmates and brave, lovable kids who have turned this book in a magical tale that swept in front of my eyes. I have never read a more real story that has horror, fantasy and people dying feeling as real as this tale. The characters all stand out in their own way, so clear, so precise so pristine that when bad things happened to some of them, I had a tissue dabbing my eyes. The book is long, counting 600 pages but I know I will read it over again in a few years and I'm sure it will taste even better, just like leftover dinner with the deepening flavors and spices.
The story itself is around a school called Old Central, where Tubby, a not so god kid disappears on the last day. It's a huge old building that is going to be closed down as all the kids are supposed to go to a new school. Dale, Lawrance, Mike, Duane, Kev and Jim all go to the same school but they are very young, around 11 yrs old, some younger, some tad older yet they are real kids; at times with bratty tough attitudes, yet Simmons doesn't pretend to sketch out a superhero in a child's body, he takes each characters and builds on it making them as real to me as my own family. I grew to love each one of them as they enriched my book with their plans to find the missing kid. As the kids started to piece together what was going on, very bad things started to happen. Unusual dark forces such as walking corpses and black worms polluted their world as sun settled and sent real life terror that was really more terrifying than any other horror book I have ever read. I laughed, cried and even took a day of from work just to sit and read this book as it slowly and beautifully unfolded its mysteries to me.
Dan Simmons used the most intense, sublime and imaginary language to spin his tale, that I have never read before in a scary book. I could feel the first day of summer, the sunshine, the happiness and the approaching gloom with the kids he so intensely described. I could probably use every single one of his sentences as a quite but when he said this about the evil things my hair really stood straight, as it was true: "Beyond the cone of light, large things circled and waited". Evil did strike at night but made some terrifying appearances at day time. When the kids run into mysterious soldiers, butchered animals in a barn with human sacrifices, mysterious holes in the ground, random neighbours dying with cries of terror on their face they know that nothing is imagined and that It wont go away unless they stop it.
So don't miss this glorious story, but have some time to read it and don't miss the sequel that follows where the ending stopped years in the future, its called A Winter Haunting and I cant wait to read it!
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Einer Clique von Kindern bleibt es überlassen, sich dieser Bedrohung zu stellen. Damit sie erfolgreich sind, müssen sie nicht nur ihre letzten Kraft-und Mutreserven mobilisieren, sondern auch sehr schnell lernen, wie Erwachsene zu denken und zu handeln.
Der Lovecraft-artig gestaltete Horror des Buches ist eine Sache. Die andere starke Seite des Buches ist die Beschreibung des USA-Provinzlebens anno 1960, mit all seinen Verstrickungen und lokalen Machenschaften. Da behält Dan Simmons im Vergleich zu Stephen King die Nase vorn, obwohl "It" kein schlechter Roman ist.
Fünf Punkte dafür und eine Empfehlung für die nächste Urlaubslektüre!
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J'ai voulu continuer à découvrir la plume et le style de D. Simmons avec "Le chant de Cali", qui m'a finalement laissé un sentiment mitigé. Partant du principe que l'on ne peut pas etre "parfait" en permanence, et qu'il arrive par conséquent à de nombreux auteurs de ne pas toujours etre au mieux de leur forme, je me suis offert "Summer of Night" (cet été justement ^^).
Si dès les premieres pages, on a l'impression que l'histoire part sur les chapeaux de roue, notamment avec la description de la tres lugubre "Old Central" et la disparition mystérieuse de Tubbie, on est tres vite décue, en tout cas, en ce qui me concerne. Car tres rapidement, l'auteur se perd dans des descriptions interminablement longues, des descriptions qui n'apportent absolument rien à ce que l'on sait déja ou que l'on devine déja depuis plusieurs dizaines de pages, voire depuis plusieurs chapitres!
Bref, pour moi, ici, l'auteur fait purement et simplement du "remplissage", comme si son éditeur lui avait imposé de faire absolument un livre d'au moins 600 pages ( le livre, dans sa version originale fait bizarrement pile poil 600 pages, pas 598, pas 602, pile poil 600!!). Ce roman, pour moi, aurait gagné en efficacité, en pertinence et en intéret, si Simmons s'était contenté de 300 ou 400 pages, ce qui aurait été largement suffisant!
Bon, mis à part ce gros défaut qui m'a amené à lire les 10 ou 15 derniers chapitres en diagonale, voir meme à completement ignorer des passages, les personnages sont sympatiques. Mention spéciale pour Duane McBride et Cordie Cooke, cette derniere m'a bien fait rigoler avec sa spontanéité à toute épreuve et son franc parler (à l'occasion, j'ai appris pas mal de gros mots, de jurons et autres petits noms d'oiseau en anglais, meme si ce n'etait pas le but ^^).
En résumé, "Summer of Night" selon moi, est tres moyen. Pas mauvais mais pas bon, décevant... Dan Simmons fait cependant toujours partie de mes auteurs préférés (avec Stephen King ^^), et pour preuve: j'attends qu'Amazon.com me fasse parvenir "Carrion Comfort" ("L' échiquier du mal" en francais), qui semble etre une oeuvre majeure et qu'il me tarde de découvrir :)!
Bonne lecture!