Ken's Reviews > The Sundial

Having only read her in-every-anthology short story, "The Lottery," I was expected something quite suspenseful. Pip could've warned me about Great Expectations, I guess.

This book looked like it was searching for itself. Really. I'm surprised I didn't find it in California. Or any location where crystals are sold.

It started like it might be spooky. Big house. Crazy old lady. Giant maze outside to get lost in while "warm" marbled statues reach out and touch her.

But spookiness was run down and tackled by silliness before long. Crazy lady is visited by her dead father, who warns her of the impending end of the world and tells her that the ancestral home is the only place to survive.

There is no explanation for this and many other things. Will the house float in case of flood? Is it fireproof in case of fire? Does it have nuclear warhead deflector shields in case of some fool ass pressing a button?

God only knows, but everyone seems to play along and take her warning seriously. Right down to the last Masque of the Red Alert Death party (cue Auld Lang Syne and ring out the old).

Characters rush forward, then fade into the background. Plot threads are picked up, then summarily cut with scissors. Characters vie in an Olympic-style contest to win readers' scorn.

But (and it's a Big Bertha-style "but") Jackson does occasionally serve up set pieces that work. Aunt Fanny lost in the maze (all too briefly!). A young girl trying to escape the grounds in the car of a psychopathic cab driver (all too briefly!).

And there are some funny lines, too. Deadpan. Dry. Sardonic. But it's all off and on and without a compass (alas!). Fans looking for Jackson's horror-writing need not apply. Fans looking for Jackson's dark humor writing need not apply. The servings are just too skimpy to give anyone that full feeling. The kind you get on Thanksgiving when you eat too much turkey and stuffing and ______ before retiring to the TV room to not watch some football.

You know: Zzzzzzzzz.