by Steve Newman

Created on: February 18, 2010

“ There is a box. Inside that box is a door...and beyond that door is a whole world.”

You know, the older I get the less attracted I am to reading new fiction, to reading fiction in general. When I do read the stuff – and that's less and less - it's generally volumes I first read forty or fifty years ago: the odd novel by Hemingway or D.H. Lawrence, most recently some Richard Hughes, Ian Fleming and Charles Whiting, and the occasional short story by the now almost forgotten Denys Val Baker, whose work from the 1950s and 60s still stands head and shoulders above most British writers of the period. There are one or two exceptions to the new fiction reading rule, most notably Guy Adams, if only to see if he can regenerate my interest in new fiction.

The answer is yes and no.

Guy is an excellent writer whose genre is the fantasy thriller, with his latest novel, The World House, an extremely enjoyable journey through the dark – very dark – corners of his mad imagination, and our fears – a very fertile place - where, after he has led expertly down a terrifying dead end, he diverts us into another, deeper, horrifying dimension.

What Guy Adams is not though is another Stephen King, who, as a writer, can never bring to life the dusty Gothic world ( the now moulding world of Sherlock Holmes) that is fast becoming Adams' territory, and a territory where the 'now' and the 'then' come hurtling together with great chunks of humour and dread.

And The World House is quite a journey, and one at times that reminds me of the writing of H.G. Wells – always a good mix of humour and horror – without the political preaching that was thought a necessary requirement of the times; although Guy does offer lessons in decision making, in helping one another:

“ As soon as he'd lifted her on to his shoulders he realised this was the wrong thing to do. You weren't supposed to move someone who had been in an accident, just in case you made things worse. He paused, not knowing what to do next. He wasn't a man used to making executive decisions, definitely a 'go with the flow' kind of guy. Well, there was little point in worrying about it now; he'd picked her up, the damage was – if there was any – was done and there was no going back from it...”

The story of the Good Samaritan.

And the more I read The World House, and became a part of the discovery of the inside of that box - and of the journey of the disparate group of

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