Dan Simmons returns to the territory of his classic novel Summer of Night in its sequel, A Winter Haunting. Taking place almost forty years after the events of its predecessor, Haunting sees Dale Stewart -- a recently divorced and suicidal college professor/author -- return to the small town of Elm Haven and the memories from childhood it holds for him. He rents the home of a childhood friend for nine months, hoping to finish his latest novel and get a grip on his post-marriage life.

From the start, I noticed this novel is a pretty brisk and succinct read -- usually, Simmons's novels are sprawling epics with a lot of back-story and world-building. A Winter Haunting clocks in at just over 300 pages, making it one of the briefest books in the Simmons canon. The action starts in the first chapter and does not let up until the last page.

The idea of a man who has seemingly lost it all -- his wife, his kids, his stability, his will to live -- immediately brought to mind a novel that came out around the same time as this one, and that novel is Stephen King's Bag of Bones. In both, the story revolves around one man (with some peripheral characters, of course). Both of their marriages end brutally. Both are writers. Both hole up in a secluded house of importance, and both of those houses are haunted. Coming out in 2002, this book released four years after King's novel... and don't get me wrong! I don't think Simmons ripped off King in any way -- sure, the two novels are pretty similar at their cores, but King's tale is one of lost romance and moving on; Simmons's is of lost childhood and innocence. Perhaps Simmons was inspired by Bag of Bones, but whatever ideas it gave him blossomed into something radically different. I just thought I would point out the two books' similarities because I thought it was interesting. Maybe I'll read them back-to-back someday -- that could make for a very interesting blog post.

Something I absolutely loved about this book is Simmons's ability to catch me off guard. I won't say too much because I'd hate to ruin the fun, so i'll just say this: nothing is what it seems. This place which Dale Stewart has returned to is not a nice place, and hasn't been a nice place for a very long time. It was bad in 1960 during his eleventh summer, but now -- here in 1999 -- it has only gotten worse. People aren't what they seem, and nothing is safe. There are horrors around every corner -- dark or otherwise.

If I had to make a complaint, it would be Simmons's use of the "voice from beyond the grave" technique. The voice is that of a certain important character from Summer of Night. The voice narrates a good deal of the book, but not all of it. At times, I enjoyed his or her narration, but at other times it just felt intrusive and weird. By the story's end, Simmons's still hadn't given a satisfactory explanation of the voice to begin with, so I deducted half a star from my rating. It's not too big a deal, but it is sort of annoying.

Of the two, I think I prefer Summer of Night if only because that book had more of an epic, all-worlds-are-involved feel. By comparison, this book is rather claustrophobic and chilly, but that is also fitting -- Dale Stewart has left the magic of childhood and grown into a depressed man with no real future prospects. It is prudent that Summer of Night be read before this one, but if you already have that horror classic under your belt.... then, by all means, look into this.

Boring. Boring. Boring. For a book that has "haunting" in the title, it's quite light on any actual haunting. It didn't help that the main character, Dale, is not someone I give a damn about. Here be spoilers, though frankly I don't think any of it is interesting enough to merit being called a spoiler.
Dale, Dale...what a loser. He's a fifty-something professor who spends the whole book pining for the insufferable twenty-something grad student that he had an affair with, thus blowing up his marriage. Not surprisingly, his young mistress has predictably decided she's not down with spending her life with someone who's 30 years her senior. She's off to her post-grad program and hooking up with guys her own age. Who could've seen that coming? The book was full of flashbacks to the last months of the affair and I hated them. I took to speeding up the audiobook narration to 3x speed during those sections. The haunting bit, once it finally played out, was bland and boring. And frankly, I was rooting for any supernatural force to put both Dale and me out of his misery.

This was a slog that unfortunately didn't add much to Dale's story. Nowhere near as endearing or amazing as ‘Summer of Night’ is.
Video review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VQoC...

It wasn't until I read A Winter Haunting that I realized how much I enjoyed the "kids teaming up to conquer an ancient evil" theme of the first book, Summer of Night. This one was a solid read, and I enjoyed following adult loser Dale through his return home and inevitable haunting.

But did I love it? Ehh, it was fine.

3.5 star fine. Rounded up because it brought back so much that I enjoyed about the first book.

One star on a Dan Simmons novel. I can't believe I just did that. But it's a deserving rate I'm afraid. It is rather hard to admit that this novel was not one of his best. I admire Dan Simmons and his far-reaching knowledge that he utilizes in his stories, as well as all the detail he includes to remain grounded in reality is astonishing. But A Winter Haunting is anything but. This novel does not even feel like a Simmons book. It's almost as if an envious ghostwriter hell-bent on destroying the author's reputation typed out this narrative and then tried to pass it off as one of Simmons' own. It's hugely disappointing, and saying that in a public forum is not easy. When I first realized that A Winter Haunting was in fact a sequel to his Summer of Night, I couldn't wait to sink my teeth into this tale of a grown up Dale Stewart. Summer of Night is without a doubt my favorite Simmons novel, and being able to be reintroduced to the same world, albeit forty years on, was an exciting notion. But none of that detail-oriented truth can be found here; it is nothing other than a five and dime paperback worthy only to read on the train to work. The direction the story took on was something completely out of left field, and not in a good way. There were so many unanswered elements that were only briefly touched upon sort of as a last minute wrap-up to bring it all together. Sort of. I would have liked to seen more of Dale at least trying to bring to light all the things that weighed him down over the years, and by so doing, marrying his childhood and adulthood into one cohesive self in order to discover who he really is and what purpose he should maintain throughout life. I wished there was more to sink my teeth into, but this novel has no meat left on the bone, and that is a trait I thought I'd never utter when in reference to Dan Simmons. I wish to say more, but can't bring myself to bring the man down any further. Please, fellow reader, do not judge the author based upon this book alone. There were probably circumstances in which he was stressed to finish a particular deadline, and was unfortunate to rush through and produce this work to a salivating editor barking for more. Dan Simmons is a real treasure, and if you need proof, please read Summer of Night. Then perhaps move forward, forget A Winter Haunting is its partner, and forage on to his other works, like Children of the Night, or even Flashback. They are works of pure art and Simmons really is a true master.

This one is a good, quiet, haunting ghost story, and a good follow-up to Summer of Night, which should be read first. It's much shorter and more direct than Summer of Night, and has more the feel of a coda, if you will, than a direct sequel. (The other books in the "Seasons of Horror" sequence aren't really impacted by the reading order.) It's also a good mystery story, and the ambiguity of the mental state of the protagonist adds some question as to the reliability of his narration. It's a very good study of characters, too. It's a fine read for a chilly Halloween season evening.

A welcome change and departure from the second book in the Elm Haven Trilogy return us to what made Summer of Night so appealing to me: real people dealing with their past and what it was that made them afraid. Yes, I am well aware these are not "real people" and that the situations they are in are fantastical, but all the same, the story speaks to the things in our past that either make or break us.

Dale has made a lot of mistakes, he has not recovered from many of them and his plan to go home to his small corner of Illinois is plagued by these ghosts and demons. What he finds will tie everything that happened in Summer of Night into the current times and give us an understanding of what happened to the bike patrol and their lives post SON

Well, my library loan came in, and although we’re sliding into summer hereabouts, I read A Winter Haunting by Dan Simmons. In it, a college literature professor takes up residence in the isolated home of his deceased childhood friend. I loved all of the literary and historical references, from Henry James’ ghost story Jolly Corner to Beowulf, from Geoffrey Chaucer to ancient Egyptian religion. The main POV character has made a series of terrible decisions (including more than one suicide attempt) and is a tremendously unreliable witness, which makes this tale interesting. There is a second POV character which adds to the intrigue. This book hosts black dogs and “black dog” in the psychological sense, racist skin heads, murdered people, ghosts or time travelers or something like that, and much more.

I discovered this is the second book in a series, but it is perfectly readable without having read the first book. (I followed along without any trouble. The first in this series is called Summer of Night.)

I didn’t know this novel was the third part in a series, but I’m not in the slightest upset about this news. I’m heading off to find book one and two to listen to, and then I’ll probably just listen to book #3 again so they are then set straight in my head. And with a good book like this one, listening to it again is no chore. In fact, I listened to the last two-thirds of the last chapter three times just now, so I could keep everything straight in my flu-addled brain. It was awesome, and I cannot wait to get ahold of the first two novels in this series.
Again, Bronson Pinchot the actor narrated this audiobook. Again, kudos to Blackstone Audio for hiring him to do these novels. His pronunciations (if that really was him) of Egyptian and Old English was superb, and masterful. Listening to him (or someone?) pronounce them so fluidly was absolutely enjoyable to me. But I have to admit, trying to figure out Old English is easier for me in print, lol.
Please give this series a try, you will love them. 4 stars, and highly recommended.

We get it, she had big breasts

"Призраци през зимата" е чудесно четиво за зимните вечери, представляващо амалгама между хорър и трилър на Стивън Кинг, меланхоличния и така любим Бредбъри и разбира се усещането на Stranger things. Докато четох "Призраци през зимата" разбрах, че тази книга е продължение на "Лятото на страха" и ще ми бъде крайно интересно да я прочета и нея. Определено открива нови измерения в писането на Дан Симънс (към моите ограничения до момента само с Хиперион и Ендимион).

I think that Stephen King tried to do this in "It," and I think he and Peter Straub tried it again in "Black House." Whether this is true or not, neither book succeeds in the way that "A Winter Haunting" succeeds. Here, Simmons gives us what we so rarely see in horror fiction - the psychological and emotional aftermath of a horrific experience.

Simmons also takes the standard genre elements and turns them on their collective head, all the while telling a good story that keeps you reading. "A Winter Haunting" is an admirable novel, and I can't imagine a more fitting continuation of its predecessor, "Summer of Night."

I re-read "Summer of Night" just prior to this book, to have the story fresh in my head. I don't think that it's strictly necessary to read the older book to appreciate "A Winter Haunting," but I would have to say that knowing what happens in "Summer of Night" definitely adds several important perspectives to the events of the later book.

Dan Simmons has made a career out of writing excellent novels in multiple genres, and "Summer of Night" was no exception; one of the great modern horror novels. As in most such books, the story ends when the evil is defeated. "A Winter Haunting" reminds us that, in real life, the story never really ends there. Those who endure after suffering loss and trauma have to live with what has happened, have to deal with it as best they can.

Dale Stewart, in "A Winter Haunting," has dealt with the horrific events of his childhood by not dealing with them - by shutting them out, by refusing to even remember them. A writer now, as well as a college professor, Dale is also the survivor of a failed marriage and a failed affair with one of his students. The books he has written thus far are formulaic adventure stories. He is visiting the town where he grew up, living in the house of his friend who died in the summer of 1960, in order to try and gain something intangible that he feels he has lost, and to write a new sort of story about that long-lost summer that he cannot remember.

In returning to Elm Haven, the town where he grew up, Dale confronts a few of his old childhood fears as well as many of his new, "adult," ones. What is really interesting about this is that we come to see that many of the troubles he has suffered as an adult are at least partially a result of that terrible summer in 1960, which he has never faced and dealt with directly. In "A Winter Haunting" we get to see what most horror novels never show us: we see what happens to someone who confronts evil and lives to tell the tale. There are no pat conclusions or pithy observations in "A Winter Haunting" - just an implied truth that sometimes memories are too terrible to be relived, and that some stories take a long time to tell.

Though "A Winter Haunting" is a sequel to "Summer of Night," as I read it I got more of a feeling of remembrance from the book. It builds upon the events of the earlier story, but it also deviates from them quite dramatically in tone and theme. It's not a nostalgic novel at all. In fact, it's almost anti-nostalgia. As Dale tries desperately hard to create memories of a summer he can't remember, even as he confronts new terrors both real and spiritual, we are led to the conclusion that some things simply cannot - or should not - be recalled with fondness.

In "A Winter Haunting" we are reminded that horrible events have consequences beyond the events themselves. They can exact a psychological toll that can take a lifetime or more to overcome. Once again Simmons has given me a pleasant surprise; not because he has written yet another fine novel (that's an expectation by now), but because he has explored original territory in the horror genre. And he has staked his claim well.