A review by ashleylm
The Businessman: A Tale of Terror by John Crowley, Thomas M. Disch
5.0
It's really a 4.5 for me, but I'm rounding up because I'm surprise I liked it so well. Normally anything subtitled "a tale of terror" is probably not going to be my cup of tea, but this was definitely more The Good Place than Saw, to use TV/film analogies! Yes, there were some brutal murders, but when the victims show up in the next chapter complaining in the afterlife, it's hard to take it all too seriously.
So it reads more like a fantasy than a horror, with more attention being paid to events in the afterlife than on earth. We get to follow the ghosts, or spirits, or souls, what have you, and see how they feel about it all. It's funny, it's satirical, it's suspenseful, it's thought-provoking, and it wasn't at all what I was expecting.
(Now I want it to be a streaming miniseries, because I'm so looking forward to the episode with the ambulatory Virgin Mary statue!)
P.S. It only took this long to read because it was my read-while-at-work-waiting-for-microwave book. I have Very Specific times that I read books--I even have a read-when-eating-Chinese-takeout-from-CitySquareFoodCourt, believe it or not.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve!
So it reads more like a fantasy than a horror, with more attention being paid to events in the afterlife than on earth. We get to follow the ghosts, or spirits, or souls, what have you, and see how they feel about it all. It's funny, it's satirical, it's suspenseful, it's thought-provoking, and it wasn't at all what I was expecting.
(Now I want it to be a streaming miniseries, because I'm so looking forward to the episode with the ambulatory Virgin Mary statue!)
P.S. It only took this long to read because it was my read-while-at-work-waiting-for-microwave book. I have Very Specific times that I read books--I even have a read-when-eating-Chinese-takeout-from-CitySquareFoodCourt, believe it or not.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve!