Didn't finish - got to goofy right off the bat. ( )

Pity I didn't read the reviews before I bought this book. I'll still want to read it, but I'm not positive I'll keep it, and it will definitely go on the bottom of the pile of things I'm reading. Not really SF, more Horror, with a bit of Mystery/Detective stuffs. Too bad.

This book is listed as a science fiction, and, in fact, is titled The Dark Door, A Science Fiction Novel. When I first saw this subtitle I glanced at the publication date of the book because it struck me as the type of subtitle put on books in the very early days of sci-fi, to distinguish it from other genres. Anyway, off I went to read it.

There is a very short (and promising) prologue which seemed to indicate why it's science fiction. Then chapter one begins and... the book turns into a horror novel, or perhaps a detective-horror novel (ever read Relic?... it's like that) . Then, 240 pages of horror story later, there's an even shorter epilogue that "wraps up" the science fiction portion of the story.

So at least now I know why they put "A Science Fiction Novel" on the front cover- 'cause otherwise you'd never know it wasn't horror.

The story is a bit dry. There are several significant characters, but they don't really sound very much different from each other (i.e. I could just cross out one character's name and replace it with a different character's name and you probably wouldn't notice anything odd). I'm not even sure you'd be able to tell which character was male and which female if their names were gender neutral.

Anyway... the concept is okay, but should have been better fleshed out, the horror was not that horrific, and the science fiction was only about 6 pages long so... while not bad, all in all it was quite disappointing. ( )