Thumbs down for Ring by Koji Suzuki. Horror.
I found this filed in the Literature section of the bookstore where I bought it, but please, if Ring is literature than so’s my grocery list. Though it didn’t seem much like Horror, either, as it wasn’t scary (to me), unless you count a prosaically creepy denouement. (Pity; I thought it would be appropriate to read something scary at Halloween.) Sub-mediocre writing and/or translating, but when the investigation picks up, the pages turn fast. I didn’t hate reading it, but that doesn’t mean I would ever recommend it. I do most assuredly hate having to find a paragraph to share with you, however, as they’re all equally forgettable.
“As soon as he said this, Kimura had a flashback. The muggy air, the pitch-black oil leaking from the fallen bike. The oil looked like a living thing as it crept toward the sewer. Headlamps reflected off its surface as it formed viscous droplets and soundlessly oozed into the street drain. That moment when it had seemed like his sensory apparatus had failed him. And then the shocked face of the dead man, head pillowed on his helmet. What had been so astonishing, anyway?”
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