In the last POH, Scott Bradley asked what some of our least favorite or most disappointing novels were.

Mine were:

Ghost Mansion by J.N. Williamson - I like Williamson and I liked his novel The Haunt but Ghost Mansion was not scary at all and very depressing.

The Place by T.M. Wright - I really liked the idea that the back of the book led me to believe that the book was primarily about "...the Place, Greta's imaginary world, is touched by terror. The bright blue sky has turned black-red, and the magical cats won't talk anymore." this was a very minor part of the novel. Most of it was about a crazy murderer and the whole thing didn't seem supernatural at all. To be honest, if a horror novel doesn't have supernatural stuff happening I have no interest in reading it. This one I felt tricked me into reading it by making it seem like it was supernatural based when it really wasn't. Ultimately I felt cheated by it.

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A couple I disliked (but didn't loathe) were:

TickTock by Dean Koontz. I thought it was a rip-off of Dragon Tears (which is really good) and it was just too humorous for my taste.

Dispatch by Bentley Little. Grabbed me at the beginning but then it just lost me.

Houses Without Doors by Peter Straub, for some reason I never finished that one and I really don't want to pick it up again.

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I'm still trying to think of a response to Scott, in terms of what pure crap is.

Like, I want to say Shaun Hutson....but I actually enjoy how terrible his books are.

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(Copy of Email sent to Scott)

What is the definition of pure crap?

Rarely has a novel made me so angry that I was tempted to throw a book across the room. But WYRM by Stephen Laws nearly succeeded; if I had not been reading on a bus in a foreign country at the time, I might just have done so. The novel hadn't been going well anyway, very mediocre, but near the end the protagonists were tapped in a church, surrounded by vampire-like creatures, with little hope of escape. Then a sweet and innocent little girl asks for protection from “Jesus meek and mild” and the monsters retreat from her, allowing every one to get away. Normally the faith and belief of characters don't bother me even when its different from my own lack of religiosity, but it just didn't work in the context of this story, and seem a little too much like a deus ex machina solution to a bad situation. If I'd been writing the book, the little girl could still have prayed to Jesus (or Allah or Yahweh or Buddha or other), but the monsters would have ripped her into strips of lunch meat, then everyone else could escape during the feast, except maybe her mother who'd also be eaten when she rushed to protect her daughter.

I've also come up with three general examples of Pure Trash:

1. Books written too much like movies: I'm sure many readers and authors love film, but a novel that reads “just like a movie” is probably going to be highly superficial. Mary SanGiovanni's THE HOLLOWER is a recent example. The nature of her beast was an evil of inner torment and psychology, but by the end it had morphed into a visual shifting landscape of “wouldn't this be cool CGI” events. I think if authors want to write that like, they should set aside the novel and start a film script.

2. Nearly Indestructible Monsters: HUNTER by James Byron Huggins and NATURAL SELECTION by Dave Freedman both have this fault. Credibility and believability fall apart when a creature can be hit by dozens and dozens of bullets from military caliber weapons, survive, heal from its wounds within hours, then be ready to attack again and again until the heroes can finally trap it under an unending barrage of heavy firepower. Then... wait, here is the tricky part... it is still not dead! I can Both authors attributed their monster's power and vitality to natural evolution which, in my mind, is more of a stretch than claiming the beast is the reincarnation of Demon Lord Woo-Woo.

3. Lack of restraint (for lack of a better term): I think the best horror holds back and never buries reader under a heap of the over the top supernatural. While FOREVER WILL YOU SUFFER by Gary Frank didn't have a killer kitchen sink, it had way too many other things going on. Ancient cults, witchcraft, ghosts, monsters, demons, possession, and time travel (yes, time travel!) were all tossed into this novel like a stew of leftovers from other books. One or maybe two supernatural elements would have worked much better, more subtle

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