This book took forever to get through.
Nearly 600 pages in large sized paperback and the narrative goes on forever. The author can definitely write well but there are pages and pages of the story where nothing really happens. The last third of the book does move quicker but it is very predictable how it will be resolved.
I have read 2 other books by this author and they were also wordy and overly long. ( )

"Floating Dragon is a well-written but ultimately disappointing horror novel filled with a motley disaster of genre tropes."

Check out my review on https://reviewsunderground.weebly.com
( )

*Spoilers ahead*

In 1979 Peter Straub wrote Ghost Story, arguably the greatest modern horror novel; a few years later he reimagined it as an over-the-top spoof, Floating Dragon. The author has described this book as an "exuberant valentine" to the horror genre and to fans who had devoured his supernatural-themed novels up to that point, but also acknowledges that he was distancing himself from straight horror and had set out to write something excessive and even "goofy". So, from the beginning, the reader who is about to undertake the 600-page journey which Floating Dragon represents should bear in mind that it is essentially a parody of horror novels rather than the genuine article. Straub was having fun with the conventions of the genre and freely admits it.

In virtually every major feature of its construction, this book replicates the formula of Ghost Story: 1.) A group of friends, so close that they are like family, must confront a supernatural menace that is destroying an entire town. 2.) In both novels, said supernatural menace has suffered temporary defeats in the past but always returns. 3.) A pivotal moment in each book occurs during the 1920s, when--as a young man--the senior member of the group of friends is terrorized by the supernatural menace in one of its various human guises. And the similarities don't end there: scary mirrors and even scarier movie theaters figure prominently in both Ghost Story and Floating Dragon.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work nearly as well the second time around. Floating Dragon is solidly written (you can take that for granted with Straub) and sufficiently entertaining, but the characters don't quite manage to endear themselves to the reader. In Ghost Story, Ricky and Sears are so vividly rendered that you can almost see them sitting beside you; here, you struggle to picture the faces of Graham and Tabby and Patsy, which makes it impossible to believe that they're real. Straub tells you how charming and special they are, and you just have to take his word for it. There are frightening, compelling scenes and situations in this novel (even if the manifestations of the supernatural do strike me as a little overbaked), but for some reason--and I don't think it's necessarily because of the exaggerated satirical tone--I never felt wholly involved. Floating Dragon works best when the reader doesn't examine it too closely and is content to just roll with the flow. ( )

As I type this, there is blood and fire pouring out of my ears, my skin is falling off the bone, soon I will have to bandage myself back together, Then I will be known as just another Leaker :(
I have just knocked down 30 mailboxes on my home from work. Then I painted my entire house Pepto Bismal Pink, the entire inside is painted yellow... then I tore off my clothes and ran naked through the woods laughing and screaming hysterically about the man in the box I know for certain died last week. I mourn my pet cats, I wonder if they will ever come back. Where did all my neighbors go?

I am typing this from up in a treehouse . I only have a few moments before I am discovered so this will be short and sweet.

This book was terribly gripping, TERRIFYING, raw to the bone, shocking, intricately layered, intriguing original plot, loveable characters.
I couldn't get to the end fast enough and now I am sad it is gone forever.

When you read this book, come back and find me! SAVE ME, Ill be here waiting....Forever, or at least until the trains stop coming, then I will have to walk into the ocean. HURRY ( )

A government experiment goes awry and a deadly gas is released over the affluent suburb of Hampstead, Connecticut. Meanwhile, the decendants of the town's original founders return to Hampstead for the firts time in over 100 years, igniting a firestorm of events that are the continuation of an ongoing curse.

After I read (and was completely scared shitless) by Ghost Story in high school, I was afraid to read anything else by Straub. I remember passing up Shadowland and this book; by then I was involved with reading too many other writers to be concerned with him. But rereading Ghost Story last year got me thinking about investigating more of Straub's work and the 30th Anniversry edition of FD seemed like a good place to start.

I was mistaken about that as this book was a huge disappointment.

I think the biggest problem with Floating Dragon was that it couldn't decide if it wanted to be a supernatural or science-gone-awry tale. It begins with a pretty good setup of a DOD expereimental project getting released into the atmosphere and then becoems the tale of a curse over Hampstead that recurs every 30 years or so. Even as the two threads continue, they never mesh in any significant way--in fact, the narrator of the story decides that the chemical accident was merely a coincidence. So the reader is left wondering why it was needed to bloat an already over-wrought story.

Then there is the narrator of the story, a black-listed author of novels/screenplays who ex-patriated himself to England and alcoloholism until the McCarthy-era ended. He begins his story in the third person, but then breaks in with a chapter of first-person narration to explain his role in the affair. He says he got most of his information from the diaries of the three other protagonmists, but he may have made some stuff up himself--he's a writer after all, and he may not have remembered stuff very well. Then it's back to the first-person (though he does break in two more times for pointless POV narration.) So now we have a unrealiable narrator to deal with.

Finally, the overall tone of the book is one of Straub being in love with his own writing. His unrealiable narrator speaks as if he is smarter than everybody else in the room and he knows it. Add to this a setting of affluent people who are feel they are better than everybody else and there's very little to care about in this confused and off-putting tale of death and destruction. In the epilogue to the story he talks about the narrator finally publishing "the excellent book Floating Dragon"--that actually made me laugh. But it just went to the overall arrogant and confused prose relating this tale.

There was about 100 pages (divided by one of the narrator's interludes) that were pretty good--they dealt with the main storyline of the curse, not the chemical accident. And I liked the climactic scene in the Gorge at Kendall Point. But overall, this was not a memorable reading expereince. If you are a newcomer to Straub, start with another title--I recommend Ghost Story; if you're already a fan, you'll probably like it.

But Cemetery Dance's edition of the book is beautiful (I gave it and extra 1/2 star for that!) ( )