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Dead Lines [Mass Market Paperback]

John Skipp (Author), Craig Spector (Author)
4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)


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Book Description

December 1, 1988
Foreword by David Niall Wilson plus a new author's foreword by Craig Spector and Afterword by John Skipp

DEAD LINES is about a young writer/artist type, Jack Rowan, in NYC, whose career never took off. Hs life is in the toilet. He’s broken up with his girlfriend and crashing on the couch of his more successful photographer friend, Glen’s, loft while Glen is off in LA on a shoot. In the first chapter, Jack finishes his manuscript — a collection of short stories titled NIghtmare NYC — swigs off a bottle of vodka, then boxes the manuscript up, writes DO NOT OPEN UNTIL DOOMSDAY on it, and hides it in a crawlspace in his friend’s apartment. Then he walks up a ladder he set up in the living room, puts the rope he knotted to a steam pipe around his neck/ He takes one last swig off the bottle, looks at a photo in his hand of himself and a woman, says, look what you made me do.

The apartment is abandoned until two girls, Meryl, from a wealthy family in Boston and trying to escape her overbearing father by going to college at NYU and Katie, a waitress, become unlikely roommates. Then they start to become friends.

One night while Meryl is fixing up her room, she finds the box containing Jack’s lost manuscript. She starts to read the stories and becomes intrigued with this ‘mystery’ writer and his dark, brooding, moody vision of the city. As she reads and slowly falls in love with her mystery writer, stange things begin happening in the apartment, and in the girls’ dreams. Something is awaken in the loft – and it’s hungry, and Doomsday may not be so far away…
--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

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Product Details

  • Mass Market Paperback
  • Publisher: Bantam; First Edition edition (December 1, 1988)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0553276336
  • ISBN-13: 978-0553276336
  • Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 0.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,401,434 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
5 star:
 (4)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
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Average Customer Review
4.8 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Best short-length horror novel I have ever read., October 14, 2002
By 
:L. Miller (Minnesota USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Dead Lines (Mass Market Paperback)
John Paul Rowan thinks his life is bad, so he checks out. Then he finds out what bad really is. Meanwhile, two young ladies take over his apartment (after a little cleaning and painting it looks pretty normal again) and find some of the previous occupant's stories. With a little reading and a little supernatural twiddling, the writer figuratively and literally finds his audience.

This book clicks on so many levels you'd swear it was wearing taps. From Katie's mysterious eye scar to the reprintings of Rowan's short stories this book flows and scares with ease. Skipp and Spector were always at their best writing about the Big Apple; "The Light At The End" and this are two of the best horror books I have ever read.

Find it, buy it, read it. And try to wonder what would happen if there really were Old Ones, and they really did get tired of their witching day being celebrated with Count Chocula and Austin Powers costumes....

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Is it a novel or a book of short fiction? BOTH!, December 9, 2000
By 
This review is from: Dead Lines (Mass Market Paperback)
Ah, yes, Skipp and Spector, where are they now when we need them the most? This was the fourth of their six collaborations, and as usual, it is definitely fantastic! In essence, it is a book of short stories intertwined with a framing/interlude device. The stories and the framing device are brilliantly horrifying, insightful, and at times, even bittersweet. FIND THIS BOOK AND READ IT! That goes for all of their work: The Light At The End. The Cleanup, The Scream, Dead Lines, The Bridge, and their last, but not least work, Animals. CHEERS! PJH
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars blurs the line between short story and novel, December 22, 1998
This review is from: Dead Lines (Mass Market Paperback)
If you can get a hold of it, read it. After taking over a loft, the new owners discover a box of unpublished short stories. Each is wonderfully written, and could stand alone, but the power of the novel is in how the main characters become drawn in to and addicted to the short stories, even as their lives become horribly altered by reading them. As will yours be.
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