JohnBem
4/27/2016
An industrial accident combined with an ancient evil make the summer of 1980 a Hell on Earth for a small Connecticut community. A big, sprawling novel, Peter Straub's Floating Dragon is filled with interesting, fleshed-out characters and chilling, harrowing, gruesome incidents. The horror grows gradually, starting with small incidents and scaling upward into large events of great devastation. The narrative style is brisk and compelling and the characters and the town are very familiar by novel's end. Straub writes about homely suburban details, like backyards and shopping trips, and gory deaths and epic conflagrations with equal skill and believability. The ending of the book, while fitting and well-done, seemed a bit short or small compared to the massive 500-page buildup that preceded it. Overall, however, this is a good, solid horror novel that was an enjoyable read