A lukewarm 3 stars.

This really felt like a Stephen King novel, if Stephen wrote well. So much if fact that while reading it, many times I thought "Oh well, look at Stephen go, I misjudged him, this is actually pretty okay."
The similarities are more than just the main fact that a troubled writer faces ghosts and his past while in a small town. There are random descriptions of nipples, violent teens, and an obsession with describing fat people as disgusting and vile, while having at least one sympathetic character being also fat so we can pretend to be "PC an OKAY!".

No likeable characters here, all women feel weird, like they're all specters of how good and bad women ought to be. The writer constantly weeps about "political correctness" in a way that makes it obvious he's uneducated about it.
Meh.

The horror part is good, the writing is good, and the atmosphere is creepy.
Had it not the previously mentioned faults, along with the rape phantasies and backstory, I would have loved it.
But male writers man, they just can't keep themselves from inserting sexual violence everywhere.
Hadn’t read the previous books in the series, and I think this made the story even more interesting. There wasn’t much exposition so the world felt rich and real. I’m intrigued as to what happened back when these characters were kids, and even though this book may have spoiled it for me, I think I’ll go back and read about them too.

( )

Sometimes I wish books came with an "asshole main character" warning.

For me to enjoy horror, I need to feel the tension. I need to worry for at least one character's safety, otherwise I'm just bored. And if I dislike every notable character, I just do not care about what's happening. It doesn't matter that the main character is (presumably) insufferable on purpose.

The plot is not really anything special either, pretty scattered and disjointed by the end.

I'm pretty bummed that this was my first Simmons, but I'm hoping his sci-fi is better. ( )

Not Simmons' finest work: A weak-willed English Professor has a "thang" with one of his graduate students, thus losing his home, family and jeopardizing his job. So, what does he do? Tries to kill himself and fails; moves back to his hometown and writes a book. Ghosts are involved. All white pipos. Meh. ( )

This is a solid horror story. Part psychological, part supernatural. It's my first Dan Simmons novel and I'm told it isn't his best, but I enjoyed it. Got creeped out at times. Liked all the literary references. Kept me guessing and worrying about what was going to happen next. Made me happy I don't live alone. Even after finishing it I find myself thinking about its twists and turns.

A Winter Haunting is the second horror novel in a row that I've read that goes beyond just tipping its hat to Henry James. In this book James's short story "The Jolly Corner" (1908) looms large. In the prior horror story I read, The Turning (2012) by Francine Prose, it was "The Turn of the Screw" (1898). Makes me want to read more James.

Another book that's mentioned is James Dickey's Deliverance (1970), which I recently finished and have been digesting. This book is set in rural Illinois, in the central part of the state, and there's a small gang of neo-Nazis involved. Not that there were neo-Nazis in Deliverance, but there was the violence of rural, backwards people and the threat of the wilderness to modern man. Similar things going on here in some ways. There are dozens of other literary references--from The Egyptian Book of the Dead to Beowulf to Proust--so this is a fun book for book nerds. Computer geeks will enjoy the ThinkPad the protagonist uses (DOS is part of the plot!).

As I said, A Winter Haunting is set in Illinois, where I live, so it was the perfect pre-Halloween read for me. I plan on giving it away tomorrow for All Hallow's Read. ( )

Simmons non mi dispiace affatto, ma continuo a preferire lo stile di King. Nel complesso un buon seguito, che potrebbe essere affrontato anche se non si è letto L'estate della paura. ( )