| Title | : | Strange Seed (Strange Seed, #1) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0812527623 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780812527629 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 309 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1978 |
Strange Seed (Strange Seed, #1) Reviews
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a couple move near the forest where one of them grew up. something comes out of the forest. the couple enter a forest of their own, a forest of uneasy dreams where each day brings something inexplicable that they force themselves to treat as normal. or maybe it is all actually normal after all - to the forest at least, and to the things it creates.
Strange Seed hit a wonderful sweet spot for me. the rain was pouring, the trees were shaking, the wind was crashing into walls and windows. I could almost imagine I was in the middle of nowhere on the edge of a forest rather than locked in the middle of a bustling city full of lights and cars honking. I made it two-thirds of the way through, went to bed, woke up to a sunny day, and finished it off. it turned out to be just as creepy when read to the sounds of birds and people under a blue, sunny sky. a superb book and a sterling example of quiet horror. which apparently is an actual sub-genre of horror. I was so excited by that idea that I quickly made a shelf for it.
these covers sure don't feel like "Quiet Horror" to me, but for some reason I love them:
Wright is excellent with the prose. he writes like he's dreaming: sharp details combined with a hazy story, prosaic reality walking hand in hand with unfathomable unease, people acting like everything's perfectly normal when they should be screaming at the bizarre weirdness going on around them. Strange Seed's story is both delicately nuanced and disturbingly awry. questions go unanswered. ambiguity reigns. don't read this if you want pulpy thrills or in-your-face horror. read this if you have an interest in contemplating disturbing things at a leisurely pace.
so the forest is home to many things and many things are born there. new things, young things, curious things. a boy becomes a man. the man subjugates himself to concrete reality. he meets a woman. the woman subjugates herself to the man, and the house, and what comes from the forest. the woman enters a dream and decides to live there. the man wakes himself up from his dream of reality and joins her. into the woods they go! ah, nature. it lives forever.
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A horror novel that has fallen into obscurity and rightfully so, Strange Seed features no successful scares, zero adequate world building, a lack of rendered setting, and one of the most unlikable married couples I’ve ever read about. Stephen King praises this book in Danse Macabre and my paperback novel features a blurb from him in which he calls this the “best supernatural novel since Interview with the Vampire.” Don’t believe the hype. The only thing this one has going for it is its wicked cover art.
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A T. M. Wright novel is a wonderfully surreal experience which often leaves you with more questions than answers, and this was no different. The real horror lies in fractured relationships and forces beyond our understanding which, inevitably consume us. Looking forward to continuing this series.
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Finally through the awesomeness of interlibrary loans I was able to read the first in this series. Wright is, always, an acquired taste. His writing is exceptional, but it's also exceptionally subtle. The horror is insidious, never overt. His books are strange and eerie and unsettling, unusual for the genre. They are also always quick reads which in itself is unusual for the quiet horror entries. With this book Wright starts his children of the earth mythos, never quite explained, mostly implied, the reader gets to watch as the newly married couple tries to make a go of living off the land and ends up getting more than they bargained for. Gradually the theoretical idyll begins to unravel, their surroundings appealing as much as horrifying all the way into the inevitable winter. For those who like their horror slow simmering, well crafted and understated.
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4.5 Stars
T.M. Wright is a gifted story teller and a great author of horror novels. This is the third book oh his that I have read and I was once again taken by the degree of mood and atmosphere that he creates. Strange Seed is not an action packed thriller. It is not a gruesome horror novel. It is however an example of a small slice of the macabre done well. It is a story about nature, life, the living, and the dead. It is about a place…
““The land, Paul…The land…creates. The earth creates.””
This is a grey short piece about a guy named Paul and his wife Rachel. They give up the city to move out to the country. As we have seen countless times, there is more to the woods than what appears. This novel reminded me of Mythago Woods at times in both its plot and its feel.
An example of the superb writing:
“And it struck him that the stillness was not the ordinary stillness of mid-afternoon—that there was no busy undertone of foraging honeybees, birds involved in mating and food-gathering, small animals slipping through the underbrush. Sounds he had grown so accustomed to they had become a part of silence. The stillness he sensed was complete, as if all that existed around him were only some vast, circular and wonderfully executed painting of what had once existed, an exhibit: This has passed. This is history. Turn the page.”
Recommended!!! -
A rather lyrical piece of weird fiction, this short novel seems to be held in high regard by many supernatural/horror fans, particularly those who admire "quiet" horror. I liked its thoughtful subtext regarding humankind and its precarious relationship with the primal forces of nature, and thought the author did a nice job of keeping these undercurrents alive without descending into didactics, or killing the tale's momentum and building sense of unease. While his two main characters were somewhat unsympathetic, Wright managed to bring the novel to a satisying conclusion. Not unlike Michael McDowell, he is an intelligent contemporary horror author whose work I plan to investigate further - lord knows he's got a lot more titles to choose from.
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A very good novel of dreamlike quiet horror. Wright's voice captures a slow feeling of building confusion and dread quite well. It's all in your head... or is it?
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Wow, the cover of the copy I have of the book was bad, but not as bad as this one is. This book would have been spectacular in the hands of another writer. What I mean is, the story was really good, and ORIGINAL, which is a pretty hard feat to accomplish in genre fiction, especially horror; but the actual writing style was just a little too... dumb. I get it, this is "subtle horror," "quiet horror," and there's not going to be a lot of blood and guts, but did the two main characters (and there were only 4 other speaking parts in the whole book, and in very limited scenes) have to be so fucking stupid? I get that they're being possessed by some weird shit, but they would do the strangest things, and then in another scene seem completely lucid, but not ever think back to being complete nuts a few pages ago. Maybe this I could write this off to the characters not remembering what they were doing in one of their moods, but, it was just kind of annoying to read. The ending is kind of vague, and I didn't understand the title until I saw the other versions' covers. The edition I have doesn't have a cover listed here, but it's of a spooky green kid putting his hands up in front of the view in a really spooky way. Oh well, I read it in two days, only reading on public transportation, so I guess it was a fast, fun read.
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At this point, I really need to think about this book. Rating could change.
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My favorites in this series were NURSERY TALE and then CHILDREN OF THE ISLAND, neither of which much depends on anything in this book. STRANGE SEED is fine but spending the entire book trapped in the dark house with this low energy couple was a bit of a slog.
The whole thing got a bit redundant as this dim duo both took turns doing or saying something confusing, then running off to reflect and wonder why they did or said that confusing thing. I liked it all fine, but particularly the ending and the scene where they discover the abandoned, homemade graves. -
Out of 444 books read, I’ve only given out 19 one-star ratings.
Well, “Strange Seed” makes #20.
I went into SS with an open mind, and no thoughts on the author one way or the other. I didn’t even know if he had written other books.
So what was so bad? Well…
At once convoluted and frustratingly sparse, “Strange Seed” was a chore to get through even at 200+ pages. Seed’s plot fails to engage, the narrative is meandering, and it features what may be the flattest characters I’ve encountered in a novel. The banality of the writing is maddening, and the dialogue just grates.
If it sounds like I’m being harsh, consider this illustrative passage:
“Well, that’s it,” she whispered. She settled back, eyes on the narrow road ahead.
“Yes,” Paul said.
“That’s it,” she repeated, at a whisper.
“Yes.” He took his foot off the accelerator to negotiate a long, slow curve. “Yes, that’s it.”
“Maybe it would have worked, Paul.”
“Maybe.”
“And maybe not.”
“That’s true.”
Try just saying those lines and see how it sounds... Yes, most of the novel is like that. I also found it odd that so many of the couple’s one-on-one conversations had them ending sentences with each other’s names.
Yeah, it sounds like I’m being a hater, and I guess that’s not entirely off-base. I feel somewhat guilty about that, and I’m even willing to concede that Wright’s later novels might be better than this one. But, for now… oh, man. -
This is my first read of T.M. Wright. Pure quiet horror at its best…and a nice example of folk horror, too! It’s a slow burn that doesn’t bore. Wright created an atmospheric novel like I’ve never read before. But for the life of me, I can’t describe the atmosphere: it’s not gothic (new or old), not dripping with a sense of doom. Yes, there are the woods, and yes the spooky old farmhouse, and yes the cryptic warnings from the old local salt-of-the-earth fellow. But it’s so much more than these typical attributes. There’s just an overall sense of….something. Wright’s writing is superb. He never comes right out and tells you how you should feel or think. It’s subtle and ambiguous, yet strangely clear. Although the tension certainly escalates, both with the characters and nature all around them, it’s the overall feeling of something unnatural that prevails. I like how the story is a blend of cautionary tale, folk horror, ghost story, haunted house and psychological unraveling. It’s not that the author is trying too hard to check all the typical characteristics of atmospheric horror. With Wright’s unique writing, it all works perfectly together.
The basic premise of the story sounds so familiar (couple from the big city moves out to the countryside into an old farmhouse in a spooky forest with few, and quirky neighbors), but Wright handles it with a fresh voice. -
4.0 stars!
Odd tale with a foggy gossamer feel. Couple moves where civilization meets the woods. Slow burn creep. Not for gore hounds. Kind of has a pagan horror feel, which I like. I need to read more T.M. Wright.
Welcome addition to any serious horror collection. -
A very talky, but still bearable horror story. I read The People Of The Dark by T.M. Wright first which is book 4 of the Strange Seed series. This was book 1. I quess I should of looked before reading. Oh well it didn't matter much. Every time I read a book by T.M. Wright I think of Charles L. Grant and his "quite horror" style.
Story revolves around a couple who move out of the city to the man's childhood home in the country. Soon the children come.A creepy little nude boy is taken in by the couple and soon things start to go down hill from there. The ending was pretty nice. I didn't see it coming. That was a plus. This might of been a bit more effective if it were written as a short story. -
Really enjoyable book!!
First of all I like to compare the books I read to movies.
This one kind of remided me of The Haunting In Connecticut (Peter Cornwell, 2009).
"After a family is forced to relocate for their son's health, they begin experiencing supernatural behavior in their new home, and uncover a sinister history."
-IMDb
In addition:
Before we go any further, I would like to say that Paul's character was kind of like a nicer version of Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) in The Shining (Stanley Kubric, 1980). Jack is the caretaker of the Overlook Hotel during the off-season. When he runs into Delbert Grady he learns "he has always been the care taker." In comparison, I think that Paul and Jack are much alike in that they were drawn to these places for whatever reasons.
Anyhow, in Strange Seed these folks move into this house expecting it to be all Aces, but it's just the start of things turning weird.
* (You know like this conversation just got weird)
NOSTALGIA
There is this idea in Paul wanting to go back to where he grew up. And both seem somewhat in denial of their reality hinting on, perhaps, a deteriorating psyche.
PSYCHOLOGY
Rachel is calm, spoken, she speaks in soft tones. At one time she ascerts she is worried she is suffering from epilepsy; and, could be inventing things. This could be due to the possibility of her being infertile, and Paul is sucked into her imagination. The house could be seen as a metaphor for infertility. And what they claim to see are the ghosts of all the couples who have visited this house, in which mind you have shared a similar situation. Rachel even starts to come to terms with the place in saying, "she feels at home there," and Paul agrees by adding, "yeah, the place starts to grow on you." Though, he seems to give into every fancy of Rachel, and she knows this, and perhaps, this is what she wants. Paul never lets his guard down for to long. She knows however Paul's weaknesses and likes that he is enthused by her ever word, kind of like he is in a hypnotic trance she put on
him.
REFLECTION
The story proves to be a worthy tale of how we can easily lose ourselves when we become adults. We bestow upon new emotions and feelings. When we look back on our former selves, our old self doesn't recognize us, or we don't them.
MY GRADING RUBRIC
Is the prose very concise and precise?
-Yes.
Does the text flow and is it easy to follow and understand?
-Yes.
FAVORITE WORD
"Aloofness," I like that the author put this word in the story.
Word used often = incredulous
GRADE
B + -
A book in which characters are in a near-constant state of confusion can be great; not so great is a book that tries to achieve this by making readers confused by leaving out details and descriptions.
This starts pretty soon when Rachel sees the boy featured on the book cover and finds him so beautiful that she is repulsed. ? Things start happening, but T.M. Wright focuses only on Rachel and Paul’s reactions and arguments about these strange things. I suppose that was the point, and I can imagine such a book working, but I needed Wright to show me the weirdness that has them both crazy.
I did not like nor particularly believe Rachel and Paul’s marriage/love. I don’t like that Rachel starts out sketched as a tough independent NYC gal, but she quickly turns into a cowering hausfrau. They get married, and suddenly Paul tells her that they are moving into the country, to the middle of nowhere. Um..... He would have a helluva lot of explaining to do were he my husband and a split second after our vows, he tells (tells!) me we’re leaving the city. Paul is an chauvinist asshole, and that might be interesting if Rachel stood up to him but she doesn’t. Her presence feels more like a foil to Paul and not a fully-realized woman.
These two can’t seem to make up their mind about anything, and this vacillating attitude is annoying. If they started with a firm attitude—be it fear, revulsion, empathy, love—and slowly moved to the opposite, then this story would have an arc. But instead, they are both all over the place.
This book doesn’t play up the creepiness that it tells us is going on. There was one truly scary scene that gets cut off just as it should be getting going and suddenly we’re a couple weeks afterward, denying us a good scare.
I started this review with Strange Seed at 3 stars, but putting my thoughts down solidified that I did not like this book. It was an easy read. It kept me going because I wanted to know more... but because it never ever fulfilled its potential and showed me anything real, I’m left unimpressed.
Oh! And Wright three times used “prone” to mean “supine”, which really frustrated me. -
Wright's first novel. Although it belongs to the hackneyed subgenre of cityfolk-meet-rural-horror, already overfamiliar in 1978, it's set apart by the author's detached, highly-analytical handling of his characters, his careful avoidance of pulp sensationalism despite potentially lurid elements of the plot, and by his uncompromising refusal to explain his horrors: by the end of the novel, we have barely glimpsed, and do not at all understand the somewhat Machenesque goings-on. This sort of understatement naturally produces far more eerie results than the opposite approach, but the book's coolness does leave the reader somewhat uninvolved. The wholly bleak ending is striking.
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Stephen King recommended author and book. Noted as "important to the genre we have been discussing" from
Danse Macabre, published in 1981.
"T.M. Wright is a rare and blazing talent!"
Blurb from book by Stephen King: "The best supernatural novel since Interview With the Vampire." -
I am still left confused with this book, even after reading it. But I really did enjoy it! Although the main characters were very irritating and currently outdated, I still held on. Paul is a chauvinistic pig, while Rachel is a Stepford Wife. Yet it worked for me.
Wright’s writing is incredible- almost like a dreamlike, poetic quality to it. However, I couldn’t figure out who the f the naked kids really were. And I would only get glimpses of happening but not the whole story unraveled.
I think that this easily could have been shortened to a novella. -
I stopped reading this a little over halfway through. I thought maybe I'm just not in the mood for quiet slow horror. But it's not that. It's just plodding and boring, with unlikeable characters. It's all atmosphere and no plot. Not even a real sense of dread, just confusion. When you go looking for articles about the book to figure out what the hell is going on, I wouldn't call that good writing.
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Solo atisbos de horror. Más rollo psicológico de la pareja protagonista, que resulta en un terror introvertido, de aire solemne, con sugerencias horrorosas envueltas en misterio pero de las cuales gotea poca sangre e incluso menos entendimiento.
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Bin nicht weit gekommen. Liegt vielleicht an der Zeit, in der es geschrieben wurde. Sehr altmodisch, der Mann ist der Herr im Haus, sie das Weibchen, das still mitmacht und erträgt. Komisch geschrieben überdies.
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The Kindle format was terrible and disjointed, or maybe it was the writing. I'm really not sure. I did like the story itself, but poor formatting made it difficult to follow.
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2.5
I was very confused the entire time -
A story that is easy to get ahead of because it plods along entirely too slowly and at too much length.
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Trippy, almost Twilight Zone-like; leaves you wondering what is going on but there are a couple more of these yet to read for the continuing story....
