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Sarah's Reviews > Carrion Comfort
Carrion Comfort
by
by
Sarah's review
bookshelves: audio, world-fantasy-nominee
Sep 23, 2015
bookshelves: audio, world-fantasy-nominee
Read 2 times. Last read February 27, 2022 to March 12, 2022.
Below review is from my first read.
Five words that I never thought I would say: "Couldn't it have been longer?". Seriously, for someone who dreads a book that passes the 600 page mark, I should have been absolutely dying over this 900 page monster. But...
This is one of those rare horror books that manages to maintain the suspense and horror over the course of the book. Long books often make it difficult for the author to maintain suspense without the story dragging (I'm totally looking at you Stephen King) but I found that Simmons managed to maintain a fairly consistent level of suspense. In 884 pages and 39:32 of audio, I was never once bored. Another truly impressive thing was that he created some of the most harrowing scenes I've ever read in a horror book but he never relied on gore to do it. Chess? Yes, I will never look at chess the same way again.
Much of the suspense of the story is in how it develops so I don't want to give a synopsis. I'll just say that there are these really bad dudes (and dudettes) that are able to control the actions of other people. Over the course of the book they're eventually called "mind vampires". One of the bad guys does use this for sexual violence so there are definitely triggers in this, but it did only happen at the beginning and then the story became much larger and more complex and he wasn't in the book enough for it to be a consistent issue.
A horror book with only one disemboweling and characters that redefine sadism. It was a very solid 4 stars and easily pushing 4.5. A truly fantastic book and now I want to read anything Simmons has written.
EDIT: I'm increasing the rating to 5 stars. I'm comparing it to all of my monthly reads and I have several 5 star reads, yet this was my favorite read of all of them.
Five words that I never thought I would say: "Couldn't it have been longer?". Seriously, for someone who dreads a book that passes the 600 page mark, I should have been absolutely dying over this 900 page monster. But...
This is one of those rare horror books that manages to maintain the suspense and horror over the course of the book. Long books often make it difficult for the author to maintain suspense without the story dragging (I'm totally looking at you Stephen King) but I found that Simmons managed to maintain a fairly consistent level of suspense. In 884 pages and 39:32 of audio, I was never once bored. Another truly impressive thing was that he created some of the most harrowing scenes I've ever read in a horror book but he never relied on gore to do it. Chess? Yes, I will never look at chess the same way again.
Much of the suspense of the story is in how it develops so I don't want to give a synopsis. I'll just say that there are these really bad dudes (and dudettes) that are able to control the actions of other people. Over the course of the book they're eventually called "mind vampires". One of the bad guys does use this for sexual violence so there are definitely triggers in this, but it did only happen at the beginning and then the story became much larger and more complex and he wasn't in the book enough for it to be a consistent issue.
A horror book with only one disemboweling and characters that redefine sadism. It was a very solid 4 stars and easily pushing 4.5. A truly fantastic book and now I want to read anything Simmons has written.
EDIT: I'm increasing the rating to 5 stars. I'm comparing it to all of my monthly reads and I have several 5 star reads, yet this was my favorite read of all of them.
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Reading Progress
September 23, 2015
– Shelved
September 23, 2015
– Shelved as:
to-read
March 9, 2016
–
Started Reading
March 20, 2016
– Shelved as:
audio
July 25, 2016
– Shelved as:
world-fantasy-nominee
February 27, 2022
–
Started Reading
February 27, 2022
–
30.0%
March 12, 2022
–
Finished Reading
March 12, 2022
–
Finished Reading
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by
Matthias
(new)
Mar 28, 2016 02:49PM
I should read more horror. I've only read Stephen King in that area so far. Simmons will be my next stop I think! I already find chess scare in itself so can't wait to see how it could be made even scarier :-D
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I'm intimidated by chess as well ;) This was such a great book. I gave it four stars at first but it's my favorite of the month. I love horror. There's something about being physically safe and mentally scared that is SO much fun :D
You know, in retrospect, the absolutely most scary scene that Simmons ever wrote was actually in his Hyperion with the cruciform priest. *shiver* But that's officially SF, so is it disqualified? ;)Second to that, his Chess scene was still brilliant. :)
I have to agree with you about his ability to keep suspense tight! :)
Oh, I think there's such a thing as Sci-fi/Horror. Actually my SpecFic nomination was Blindsight, which has space vampires. I liked the way that Carrion Comfort was mostly a suspense novel and he just kind of twisted me up with horror elements every now and then. It was more subtle and I loved it. I haven't read Hyperion yet. I think it's down for May.
I absolutely loved Blindsight and it's sequel, though not as much. I'll never look at right angles the same way. :)Hyperion (and it's essential companion that should have been just tacked onto the first, The Fall of Hyperion) is still one of my absolute favorite SF novels of all time. :) I will do a reread, but I hope we're doing both at the same time. :)
I only have the first one scheduled. It's with the SFF book club. I keep hearing Fall is really good.
It is. The Shrike was sooooo damn awesome when he came out to play. And, of course, both of the novels are MUCH better if you have a working knowledge of The Canterbury Tales... oh shit... do we have that scheduled as a companion piece?
It occurs to me that Canterbury Tales might be easy as hell to read as audiobook. :)
Carrion Comfort is one of the best thriller/horror books that I have read. My copy is all worn from being read by friends and family.
I can see why :) It's an exceptional book and I hope I get to read it frequently. I also can see loaning this to everyone. "Here! You must read this! Now!".
I was just thinking back on it and I realised that besides the immense and constant suspense of a masterful plot as well as the horror, it is the characters and their human traits that are portrayed in such a believable way. One really rooted for the good guys, and sometimes a bit for the not so good ones.Oh by the way, if you are looking for an unusual horror story, I can recommend Whitley Strieber's Communion: A True Story. It is a mix of many genre (horror, SF, philosophy/religion). The author claims it to be the truth, and I do believe that he believes it to be so and may have in some way experienced what he describes. This just adds to the eeriness of the story. It is one of the few books that I found outright scary to read -- although this was some years ago. Taken objectively and scientifically, I would not take it too seriously, but it was nevertheless a unique and fascinating read.
That looks really creepy!
I haven't read any of his horror books, but I've loved the Hyperion Cantos and Ilium (I actually have a signed copy of Olympos). I look forward to reading this, now
I'm reading Hyperion next month. This was my first and I find that the more I think back on it the more impressed I am. It was really well done. This popped up again because I just added it to my top-5-potential shelf. I just keep thinking about it :) That must mean it was a favorite. I'm also reading The Abominable next month.
Sarah, I would like to recommend a title from Simmons called Summer of Night. I loved this book. It is reminiscent of King’s It, but IT IS MUCH BETTER.
