T.M. Wright (1947–2015)

A haunted house tale that's more of a haunted neighborhood tale, this book has its share of unconventional ghosts.

Katherine leaves her boyfriend Larry and moves into an old house set in the woods. She's an artist; she paints and apparently has enough money to live on. This is not the first novel with that type of scenario. (Wish I could do that!)

From there, the book fills up with unlikable characters, both living and dead. I had a hard time getting inside Katherine's head. She's easily show more manipulated and not very strong and totally surrounded by manipulative men. However, in the end, I found I never liked her, either.

As for the horror aspect, its not terribly scary and not easily resolved at the end. That's fine as far as horror goes, but I do have unanswered questions. show less

This story had some of the most chilling moments I've ever read.

Kathleen and James own some property next to a lake in the state of Massachusetts. The property consists of their own home as well as a few cabins which they rent out during the summer months. One day, James goes out to the lake and finds the body of a young boy.

After that, things start to go bad. James becomes more and more withdrawn and spends a lot of his time scribbling in a journal which he won't let anyone else see. When show more he does talk to Kathleen, it's about things she doesn't understand and she's becoming more and more convinced that James is going insane.

Then James disappears. His journal does too. Kathleen is left to try to figure out what happened-from the dead child in the lake, to the whereabouts of James. She seeks out a friend to hear her story and help her figure out what is going on.

As a huge snowstorm begins to blanket the lake and her home, she tries to find answers to her questions. Is insanity contagious? Is there something else going on-something evil hidden in the snow? Something evil hidden in the lake? There is a clue in the title, it's not a view "OF" the lake. It's a view "From" the lake.

The author respects the reader enough to let them draw some of their own conclusions and I like that.

If you enjoy truly chilling, creepy moments in your horror fiction rather than blood and guts,then this is the story for you. show less

Pretty good little story that seems to wander a bit and doesn't tie up some loose ends, like the author got bored with it and didn't know what to do. The book begins in 2047 AD (not CE!) but ends sometime after an apocalyptic nuclear war in the early 21st century. The "vampire" in question, poor Mr. Elmo Land born in 1907, presumably has returned to the real dead spirit world from the living dead by then and wants to borrow someone's Book, a sort of computer that controls one's life, to show more write his "life" story. There is some sort of weak and unresolved commentary about social media having come to dominate interaction in the near future here.

Anyway, the hapless ol' Elmo just quits feeding because of guilt and/or world weariness after WWIII and finally just wastes away. His sidekicks are the real creeps, first the sociopathic Lemuel, then the English professor, and and finally the truly scary psychopathic arson-cannibal Jeff. There is a really weird interlude about vampire rodeo cowboys that almost seems like an unfinished short story that Wright tried to incorporate.

Well written if a little repetitive, there is a kind of second verse same as the first that keeps popping up as Wright tries to drill us into Elmo's psyche but it seems a little padded and unnecessary. Wright's insight into, and his development of, this character is what gives the novel its finer qualities. The book really ends up as a pretty poignant character study of a really luckless and depressed guy that Wright would have been better off sticking to.

A nice little book though.

I know Leisure Books/Dorchester really fell into some shady areas and treated its authors poorly but they sure did publish some good stuff in their time. show less

Normally I would spend this first paragraph of a review giving a brief overview of the plot of the novel in question, however in this case I feel it is entirely unnecessary. It's about a man with psychic abilities trying to solve a murder mystery. Do I really need to say any more? No, I think not.

The problems with this novel are numerous, but the biggest issue is undoubtedly how under-developed it feels. The main character's psychic abilities, despite playing a major role in the 'conclusion' show more (so to speak) of the novel, feel lacking in depth. The plot is really jumbled in the beginning and it just feels incomplete and unsatisfying in the end. The whole book feels like it needed more work. It was very readable, in that I read through it at a fairly quick pace, so it wasn't painful to read at least, but that's about the only positive thing I can say about it.

It almost seems like, if you took decent author, sat them down at a computer, and told them to write a full novel page-by-page in a single sitting without leaving their seat, this is what they would write. It's shallow, disjointed, and comes off as being rushed and written haphazardly.

Ultimately, The Ascending is a bland, forgettable novel from the early 90's, which is probably why you have never heard of it until now. show less