Related Subjects: Author Index Reviews Page 1 2
Book reviews for "Winter,_Douglas_E." sorted by average review score:

Faces of Fear: Encounters With the Creators of Modern Horror
Published in Paperback by Berkley Pub Group (1985)
Author: Douglas E. Winter
Amazon base price: $6.95
Used price: $2.95
Average review score:

The V. C. Andrews interview was very revealing
It's too bad this book is out of print, it's got many great personal interviews, particularly with V. C. Andrews, since this was the only real interview she ever did. It's really in-depth and you get to know the kind of lifestyle she led.A necessity along with V. C. Andrews: A Critical Companion and The V. C. Andrews Trivia and Quiz Book. Also check out your closest college library for a 1980 issue of people magazine that has some big pictures and a little article about her. It's great.


Prime Evil: New Stories by the Masters of Modern Horror
Published in Hardcover by New American Library Trade (1988)
Author: Douglas E. Winter
Amazon base price: $18.95
Used price: $0.08
Collectible price: $4.24
Buy one from zShops for: $2.25
Average review score:

A fine collection of second rate stories
I give this book one star just because of the writers it includes, and I give it a second star only for the stories by David Morrell and Peter Straub. Otherwise, this is without a doubt the worst collection of horror stories I have ever read. There is no consistant theme, not that there should be one, but a theme would have given Prime Evil at least something to separate it from all the other collections. The authors included, though famous and well respected, have seemingly selected from the bottom of the barrel. The Stephen King story, Night Flyers, is probably one of his worst and of the headliners, only Straub's The Juniper Tree had any value, and it is only a horror story by association, having no real place in a genre collection. As a whole, the book works better as a marketing campaign. Stories by Jack Cady, Thomas Tessier, and Charles Grant are amusing; otherwise - don't waste your time.

HE SAID ONCE, "HORROR IS AN EMOTION..."
And it is. More than anything, it is something felt. Something experienced. Winter's success with this anthology cannot be denied. That it is still in print after all this time is a true testament to that. The quality of work between the binds of this book is absolutely some of the best stuff in horror, all presented to you by the current masterminds. A rare superb collection.

A super collection of "horror" stories, by some of the best
There are some great stories in this collection, including "The Night Flyer" by Stephen King, which would later be released in Nightmares and Dreamscapes. The biggest surprise, however, is from David Morrell, best known for creating Rambo. His story, "Orange is for Anguish, Blue is for Insanity" is without a doubt my favorite horror story ever (and I've read more than my share of Poe, King, etc.) Why it is not included in other "Best Horror Stories" type books is beyond me. I highly recommend this book, or if you're really not interested, at least sit down with it in your bookstore and read "Orange." It's well worth the half hour investment.


Clive Barker: The Dark Fantastic : The Authorized Biography
Published in Hardcover by HarperCollins (23 July, 2002)
Author: Douglas E. Winter
Amazon base price: $24.47
List price: $34.95 (that's 30% off!)
Used price: $2.80
Collectible price: $12.50
Buy one from zShops for: $4.89
Average review score:

A fascinating read.
Reading about Clive Barker's polymathic inclinations, one recalls a scene from his book, The Great and Secret Show. In that tale, postal worker Randolph Jaffe, assigned to the dead letter room, unwittingly finds himself at a spiritual crossroads of America. Uncovering hidden truths by exploring the ramblings of the lost, the lonely, and the mad, Jaffe gets a glimpse of other worlds just under the surface of the "real" one.

Clive Barker has also glimpsed other worlds, but rather than driving him mad, these visions have compelled him to communicate what he has seen to others. This compulsion has led him to express himself in a multiplicity of media, including the sketches he drew as a child (and indeed, throughout his life), the plays he wrote in his twenties, the short stories he penned as he matured, the movies he directed, or even now, in the portraits he paints. It is this impulse that Douglas Winter, a polymath in his own right (lawyer, journalist, editor, author, book critic, public speaker), attempts to chronicle and explicate in The Dark Fantastic.

The book is arranged chronologically, following Barker from his early life in Liverpool, to his years on the London theatre scene, culminating in the present day, where we find him in Hollywood at work on his latest undertaking, the multimedia project known as The Abarat Quartet. Winter seems to have had unrestricted access to his subject and to those around him, as he cites knowledge gained from interviews with Barker and a plethora of Barker's family, friends, lovers, ex-lovers and business partners. Although Winter makes no claim of objectivity, he maintains a respectable distance from his subject, providing valuable insights into both the man and his work. Doing so, he makes a convincing case for Barker's inclusion in the pantheon of the leading creators of fantastic literature.

Perhaps the most important revelations are found near the end of the book, where Barker becomes more comfortable with his sexuality, finding true love with photographer David Armstrong. There also, he deals with the death of his father and his subsequent descent into depression. Barker's latest epiphany is the most fascinating, as he comes to realize that hundreds of paintings, seemingly created at random to combat his depression, all contained common themes, themes that eventually coalesced to form the basis of his Abarat Quartet project. The fact that he unconsciously worked his way towards mental health, even while breaking new barriers, is both inspirational and awe inspiring.

The book's upbeat 'ending" (Barker's only fifty as of the publication date) bodes well for the future. Barker, it seems, will continue to receive messages from other realities, filtering them through his artistic sensibilities to make them more palatable to us lesser mortals. We, the audience, merely have to open our minds, experience his work, and learn. By allowing Barker to take us to other worlds, we can more easily absorb the lessons he has to teach us about our own.

the man and his art
I do not often read biographies, but since Clive Barker is one of my favorite authors and I enjoy his writing so much, I figured I would give this book a shot. First off, if this book were just about the life of Clive, it would be at probably only half as long. Winter uses much of the book as an in-depth critical analysis of Barker's fiction. At first I didn't like this method, and if you are not familiar with all of the works he discusses, the respective sections may not be as informative. However, as I read more and more of the book, it became clear that Winter was not only analyzing Barker's fiction, but Barker himself as well. At times this works wonderfully, shedding light not only on Barker as a writer and person, but on the process of creating art and literature. I learned a lot about writing and many times discovered things in his fiction that I had not seen before. Thus, if one was rereading Barker's works, Winter's book could be an insightful commentary. The only problem that I had with the book was that at some points if felt not like a biography but only a critical interpretation of certain pieces. The in-depth analysis of most pieces of Barker's work seemed a little overboard for a biography. Otherwise, this is a very well-written, insightful, and overall entertaining book. A must for any fan of Barker, fantastic fiction, or an interest in creativity in general, since Barker seems to leave very few creative endeavors unexplored.


Run
Published in Paperback by Canongate Pub Ltd (2000)
Author: Douglas E. Winter
Amazon base price: $8.00
List price: $10.00 (that's 20% off!)
Used price: $6.50
Average review score:

Burdon Lane's story is out there, but Winter didn't tell it
I read this book on the strength of the reviews on the cover, most notably the one by Elmore Leonard that said that this book doesn't run, it flies, that Winter is opening a whole new way of writing crime/action thrillers. Wow I thought. I love Leonard's work. If he says this is good then I'll love it. I reckon that EL wrote a whole lot more about what doesn't work in this book than what does and of course the publisher didn't print that on the cover!

Yes, this book has a furious pace to it. That's about all it's got, and it's very tiring.

In order to have a reader stick with the story, Winter, like all authors, has to create empathy for his characters. If a story doesn't have someone to root for the reader eventually gets to the point where they think, so what? I got to this point during the USC thing in the sewers.

The characters are all one-dimensional: CK, Doctor D, Renny etc. Characters with any dimensionality are all over the place. Jinx is supposed to be a violent street thug, but he shows a tender side. He's horrified when a woman's remains are discovered in a car. Gimme a break!

I reckon that Winter's first draft had all the characters portrayed true to form the way they should have been - the bad guys were just bad guys as in Reservoir Dogs. Then someone told Winter or he recognized himself that no one was going to finish reading his story if there wasn't someone you cared about. So in his second draft he attempted to draw some sympathy into his characters. But because this story is founded on the plot and not the characters, it fails.

Winter creates sympathy for Lane by:
- having him talk to a photo of his dead mother;
- having him read his mother's copy of Crime and Punishment and talk about it;
- being implicated in the assassination of a public figure;
- losing his partner;
- forming a friendship with Jinx;
- being betrayed by his girlfriend.

But in the end I thought--Lane, you're a gun runner. You should be used to violence, your expectations from life would be tempered by living outside the law with violent, murderous people. Someone who can live like this wouldn't have an intimate relationship with someone. We have no investment in his relationship with his girlfriend so who cares? We don't identify with Lane's pain because we haven't grown to like the girlfriend; we haven't seen how their relationship is important to him.

Lane loses his partner Renny - again, so what? We don't know the guy. Does Renny even say anything in the book? We have no investment in their relationship, did Lane even like him? When the partner's killed, we don't care.

The problem with the reader not caring is that these are Lane's prime motivations for the climax of the book. The foundation for the big payoff at the end of the book hasn't been laid in the middle.

The Jinx character is just completely from Winter's imagination and breaks all credibility. Douglas - he's a psychopath, a murderer, a drug dealer. He's not Malcolm X. The whole USC thing is entirely misconceived. I got confused. At the start of the book Doctor D is the head of DC's most notorious gang of drug dealers - ruthless, violent, sociopathic. Come the middle of the book I discover they're actually a nurturing, loving commune - a drug-dealing CCNV! A self-sacrificing bunch of misunderstood brothers, their women and children. C'mon (I'm rolling my eyes here.)

If you like stories that are founded on plot machinations, with characters forced into them, this book is for you. I have this image in my mind of Burdon Lane kicking and screaming wanting to tell his real story as Douglas Winter forced and twisted him into the plot he'd already created. Burdon Lane's story is out there, but Douglas Winter didn't tell it!

I would've prefered a book that shows us that Lane is a guy worth caring about. That shows he has a good relationship with Renny, that he loves his girlfriend. Then when things start going topsy-turvy, you'd be there right behind Lane.

There are lots of great books out there that tell you how to write books with characters you care about: How to Write A Damn Good Novel by Frey, Characters and Viewpoint by Card, Stein on Writing by Stein.

Don't give up hope.
For those of you who bought this book and scratched your head as to why...don't give up. The strange style of writing (no quotation marks for dialog and first person gangster) really turned me off at first. After reading the first few chapters I was ready to put the book down for good. But reading all the great reviews here on Amazon though, I decided to continue on. I'm glad I did. It's an entertaining story featuring some good characters and although somewhat predictable at times, still very enjoyable. A quick read.

The basic premise is this. The main character Burdon Lane is called into an arms for money deal which goes wrong. Before he knows it, he's on the run from the FBI, police and his business partners. While on the run, he forms an unlikely alliance with a DC gang member who was also involved in the deal-gone-bad. They struggle to make it back to DC, find out what exactly happened and make those responsible pay.

Don't Walk -- Run For This Book
As contemporary crime novels go, Run is like a Glock 17 loaded with hollow points: sleek, deadly, and fully cocked to blow the target (i.e., you, dear reader) away. Winter, best known as an award-winning editor, short story writer, and biographer, aims, shoots, and scores.

This is a terrific first novel from a highly original voice. So why only four stars? Smart readers may, like myself, figure out a key plot twist early in the novel. Does it detract from the narrative? No, but it seemed just too damn obvious coming from a writer of Winter's talent. Furthermore, some of the African American characters in the book seemed too familiar, like they'd just stepped out of New Jack City or King of New York. But then what do I know? As Melvin Van Peebles once said to me, "boy, you're just a middle class white guy from England."

These are just observations, not criticisms per se.

If you are a fan of crime novelists like Michael Connelly, Andrew Vachss, or Elmore Leonard, you'll really enjoy Run. But be warned, don't start this book late at night becuse YOU WILL FINISH IT.


Revelations
Published in Hardcover by Harper Prism (1997)
Authors: Douglas E. Winter and Clive Baker
Amazon base price: $24.00
Used price: $0.70
Collectible price: $6.35
Buy one from zShops for: $3.99
Average review score:

Yikes that was bad
Words fail me, which is not usual at all. All I can say is if they decide to do another one of these things for God's sake pick an editor that knows what he's doing!

surprisingly, substandard
Well, I finished revelations ed by Douglas E. Winter. I appreciate what he tried to do here, a novel of short stories, and it was a good idea, but it just seemed to fall flat. I could never quite see the connection between the stories. But it fell short. And I was surprised that this wasn't that great, because Winter put together _Prime Evil_, which I truly enjoyed.

Clive Barker's wraparound story wasn't very good. It had some interesting parts to it, but really, not his best work. Landsdale, who wrote the first story (each story took place in a different decade...but I'm not sure when barker's story took place) wasn't too bad. David Morrell's story I'd say the same about. F. Paul Wilson's story about Nazi Germany was excellent. Probably the best in the book. Poppy Z. Brite and Christa Faust's story was a good one. charles grant's story wasn't bad. Whitley Streiber wrote an unintelligable, very bad story for the 50s decade. I never really caught on to what was happening. Elizabeth massie wrote what would be the second best story in the book, it too was excellent. Matheson, who I know is a good writer wrote some garbage for the book...it sucked. David J. Schow and Craig Spector wrote a story for this book that was okay, it was almost good, but something is missing from it (hmm...I wonder if that'd be Skipp). And since at least half of this book was bad, I was worried when I got to the last decade/story which was written by ramsey campbell. Luckily he wrote a pretty good story.

An incredible anthology!
Doug Winter has outdone himself. This assemblage of writers and stories is guaranteed to thrill and chill you. The Joe Lansdale story is worth the purchase price alone. It will (allegorically and literally) blow you away. Clive Barker's "bookend" pieces are also fantastic. There are no weak links in the century long chain in this book. This is what an anthology should be like


The Skin Trade (Night Visions, 5)
Published in Paperback by Berkley Pub Group (1990)
Authors: Stephen King, Dan Simmons, George R.R. Martin, and Douglas E. Winter
Amazon base price: $5.99
Used price: $0.57
Collectible price: $2.64
Average review score:

GOOD SHORT STORIES

3 stories by Stephen King: "The Reploids", "Sneakers" and "Dedication".

3 stories by Dan Simmons: "Metastasis", "Vanni Fucci is Alive and Well and Living in Hell" and "Iverson's Pits".

1 story by George R. R. Martin: "The Skin Trade".

While the stories by King and Simmons are more or less short, the story by Martin is long, taking up almost half of the volume.

The only (almost) original story is "Metastasis" by Simmons, where a medical experiment lets a man see strange violet creatures (usually invisible) feeding on human beings like vampire slugs, causing cancer.

"Sneakers" is a ghost story, while "Dedication" is about urban witchcraft and "The Skin Trade" is a story about werewolves and investigation.


Stephen King
Published in Paperback by Plume (1992)
Author: Douglas E. Winter
Amazon base price: $4.95
Used price: $5.20
Collectible price: $13.72
Average review score:

Interesting, readable, but not all that insightful.
This is an interesting collection of essays on King's early novels--from "Carrie" (1974) through "The Talisman" (1984). It's got some interesting things to say about images and structures of the novels--I particularly enjoyed his comparison between Jack Sawyer in "The Talisman" and Huck Finn. The essays include comments from both from interviews with the author and quoted from other sources. But Winter is really more of a fan than a critic, and his praise tends to be a bit too gushing and somewhat less critical than I would hope. A readable book and interesting if you're into King and horror commentary. But I'm still waiting for a more insightful commentary on King's work.


The Art of Darkness: The Life and Fiction of the Master of the Macabre: Stephen King
Published in Paperback by Hodder & Stoughton General Division (01 November, 1989)
Author: Douglas E. Winter
Amazon base price: $
Used price: $6.45
Average review score:
No reviews found.

Dark of the Night: New Tales of Horror and the Supernatural
Published in Hardcover by Pumpkin Books (1997)
Authors: Stephen Jones, Stephen Baxter, Ramsey Campbell, David Case, Jo Fletcher, Christopher Fowler, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Roberta Lannes, Stephen Laws, and Richard C. Matheson
Amazon base price: $26.00
Used price: $17.95
Collectible price: $31.76
Average review score:
No reviews found.

Millennium
Published in Hardcover by E P Dutton (2003)
Author: Douglas E. Winter
Amazon base price: $22.95
Average review score:
No reviews found.

Related Subjects: Author Index Reviews Page 1 2

Reviews are from readers at Amazon.com. To add a review, follow the Amazon buy link above.