Ever had to put a book down for a little while because something in it startled you?

[Nesacat]

Re: Ever had to put a book down for a little while because something in it startled y

This happened a while ago but it's probably something I'm never likely to forget and even if I do I don't think my friends will.

It's not a book but a story in a book. The story is Black Man With A Horn by T.E.D. Klein and the book is Cthulhu 2000. You see the story is set in a state in Malaysia and it happens to be a place I'm terribly familiar with because it's where my mom is from and my ex-husband. This is the place I spent most weekends and holidays at for years and years and years.

I read the story and it was very, very startling because the descriptions in the tale were absolutely nothing at all like the state, not by any stretch of the imagination at all.

It was like going out into my backyard and finding the Amazon or the Sahara there.

I shut the book, put it away, opened and read it again convinced there had been some mistake. But no ... the names and descriptions were the same. Very odd and more than a little sad because it spoiled what was otherwise a very well structured and told tale.

 

[Max the Mediocre]

Re: Ever had to put a book down for a little while because something in it startled y

When I was reading David Drake's The Tanklords anthology, I had to stop several times because it was just. too. much.

Imagine several hundred pages with an emotional impact equivalent to the beach scene in Private Ryan or Flags of Our Fathers, and you get the idea.

 

[Frozeninja]

Re: Ever had to put a book down for a little while because something in it startled y

Happens to me quite often actually. I stop for a few minutes and ponder what exactly just happened.

I think I also had to pause for a moment while reading The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch -- he surprised me by killing off quite a few of the main characters very abruptly.

That being the most recent occurance.

 

[Cuchulainn]

Re: Ever had to put a book down for a little while because something in it startled y

Why did Bambi's mommy have to die?!!! whhyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?!

 

[Lirineth]

Re: Ever had to put a book down for a little while because something in it startled y

I had almost forgotten about it, but many years ago (really many) I read The Shinning. At the begining it was nice, you know the feeling, you are scared but nice scared. Unfortunately, by the middle of the book, the only way I could read it was if I was outside in the sun, lucky for me it was summer and i used to live at the time in a very sunny hot country. Should I tried to read in bed at night, the house would 'come alive', all sorts of noises could be heard, strang breezes could be felt, it got so bad that I even started hearing my name called, so I used to go to my husband and ask 'did you call me' and of course the answer was no. Eventually I finished the book and when I passed it on to a friend, I did mention to her all this weird details, but she never said anything to me, so either I was being you normal parananoid person or my friend didn't want to admit to something similar. Lucky for me that was the only time.

 

[TomMazanec]

I was kinda surprised how, in For Want of a Nail the atom bomb is invented by a megacorp, which becomes a nuclear superpower,