Customer Reviews

The House of Lost Souls

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Eerie and gothic, there is nothing frivolous about this novel, a tale delving into the unmentionable horrors of the unknown, the evil that opposes good. From London in the jazz age and the estate of Karl Fischer, a Nazi sympathizer, to the mid-1990s, when Paul Seaton, a moody Irish newspaperman, offers to help his girlfriend with research for her dissertation, a frail thread extends from an unquiet grave to the hysterical state of a group of modern-day college students who visit Fischer House and are confronted with the unfettered malice that inhabits the estate. When Paul travels to Fischer House in search of more information on the subject of the dissertation- society fashion photographer Pandora Gibson-Hoare- he barely escapes with his life, his emotional stability severely compromised. Since then, Seaton's world has been in shambles, his relationship ruined, years spent traveling from one country to another in search of peace.

All is reawakened with the students' tragic mishap. One student commits suicide and the others are in desperate condition, visited my unimaginable horrors unless deeply sedated.
One of the hapless students is the sister of Nick Mason, a covert operations expert who meets with Seaton, the two determining a course of action to release the students from their torment. Through Paul's retelling of his harrowing experience and the diaries of Pandora Gibson-Hoare, we learn the details of an experiment in 1937 at Fischer House that has nearly destroyed Paul and threatens the remaining students. It is hard sometimes to separate the present from the past, Seaton's endeavors sprinkled with shimmering apparitions of sophisticated gentlemen in top hats and spats with soulless eyes and a thirst for depravity, or the creaky strains of 1920s cabaret songs, random visitations in the night, all hinting at an invitation, a return to Fischer House.

What is evil? Is it something to be teased, bantered with, exploited? This is heady territory and Cottam never underestimates his subject or the dangerous psychological terrain he explores, coincidental deaths, a lost boy, the nurturing of generational evil, birthed by war, nourished by decadence. Madness flickers around the edges as one chapter leads to the next, deeper into an inevitable confrontation. With the same authority of Dan Simmons's Carrion Comfort, this novel explores the nature of ancient evil, dark forces unleashed upon an unsuspecting world and one man's reckoning with his soul. Luan Gaines/2009.

"The House of Lost Souls" by F.G. Cottam is very well-written and highly atmospheric. In fact, this novel qualifies as literary fiction, for the prose flows so well and the use of language is compelling and highly imaginative. I know that this may seem to be overly high praise, but in the horror genre, which happens to be one of my favorite genres, it isn't often that one comes across such a well-written work that also has a compelling plot [and to think I found it in the local library!].

The plot begins with a group of young university students [the story is set in England] who are attending the funeral of one of their classmates who had committed suicide. The other girls go into fits of hysterics upon seeing an apparition of their dead friend at her own funeral. Soon after, each of the girls still alive tries to take her own life. This includes Sarah Mason, beloved sister of military officer Nick Mason, and in desperation [and through the intercession of a sinister psychiatrist with questionable motives, Malcolm Covey]turns to Paul Seaton, a troubled man who is trying to forget some harrowing events in his past, but finds it difficult to do so, haunted by disembodies strains of ragtime jazz.

It turns out that the students had been to the infamous Fischer House, an abandoned and isolated mansion on the Isle of Wight, which has some sinister associations. Paul Seaton is well acquainted with the house, having almost been a 'victim' of it years ago. Without giving away too much of the plot - it goes back to eleven years back with Paul discovering the journal of a certain young female photographer, long dead, named Pandora Gibson-Hoare, talented and beautiful, who also ran with a rather strange crowd including renowned occultist Aleister Crowley, horror novelist Dennis Wheatley, and the enigmatic and sinister owner of the house itself, Klaus Fischer, a man dedicated to the dark arts.

There is much in this novel to engage an avid fan of supernatural-themed stories - the plot moves along at a good pace, and one is never mired in too much details. Literally every page made me eager to get on to the next, to discover what was going to happen next. There are enough elements of suspense and puzzles here to keep a reader figuring out what is going to happen, right till the very end. This is not one of those novels where a seasoned reader can see the plot twist coming from a mile away - I was kept guessing right to the end, where there is a major twist, one that had me shaking my head in appreciation for the author's mastery of his craft.

Too much platitudes? This book deserves it and more! The themes are indeed dark and reveal the bitter darkness and depravity of some human souls, but it also attests to the unwavering courage in others to do what's right. It is the quintessential battle between good and evil portrayed in a riveting story of the supernatural peopled with human characters that readers can genuinely care about, and other not so human or monstrous characters that repulse and horrify. Other novels I'd recommend are Jonathan Aycliffe's novels such as Naomi's Room and The Matrix,and Susie Moloney's "The Dwelling", among others. Conclusion - highly recommended for fans of atmospheric & character-driven supernatural stories.

This came up as a suggestion when I bought Harwood's The Ghost Writer (no relation to the Polanski movie), and its main failing is the same: after many pages of wonderfully creepy atmosphere and absorbing nested tales, the ending goes right off the rails with a truncated, poorly-explained resolution. I think both books are still well worth reading, as long as you realize they won't bring it home with a satisfying conclusion. I agree with another review as well: Cottam's language becomes repetitive in a rather distracting way. I think the adjective "blearing" was used at least six times, and it became a bit annoying. Still, he really delivers atmosphere, and I enjoyed reading this enough to check out his other work.

Books like this one always have a tricky patch to traverse; at some point, the author must quit with the ambivalent foreboding business, and actually put the protagonist into a confrontation with the evil that has been previously hinted at. Unfortunately, the closer that 'House of Lost Souls' gets to that final confrontation, the more its atmosphere and sense of dread evaporate, and the more the weaknesses in the plot begin to intrude into the enjoyment of the story. As a result, a book that starts very promisingly slows almost to a crawl, wobbles, and then falls apart spectacularly in one of the worst 'resolutions' I have ever encountered.

To give credit to the author, the first four chapters or so are as well done as any I've seen in this genre. Cottam does a great job of building a gradually increasing sense of dread, presenting the reader and the main characters with clear hints that something terrible is going on behind the scenes, but keeping enough hidden that it grows in the imagination. Maybe it would be impossible to follow through on that promise- to build a confrontation big enough and frightful enough to deliver on the sense of foreboding and moral horror that the author has created. Whatever the case, the book never makes it back into that early grove of a steadily unfolding story wrapped in a well-crafted atmosphere.

Once the plot brings the main character, Paul, together with Nick, his SAS second banana, trouble begins to brew. First, the action stops dead for an extended period as we delve into a series of extremely detailed flashbacks about Paul's early adulthood. This section is clearly close to the author's heart, written with a lot of period detail and care, but doesn't really mesh at all with the rest of the story. The momentum and foreboding aura of the early story vanish as we get lengthy descriptions of the time Paul almost met his girlfriend, and then how he did meet her, what she was like, how she did at University, and, only then, how this all ties into Paul's visit to Fisher House.

A pair of diaries feature heavily in the plot as a means of providing back story and keeping the main characters moving forward. Their presence is somewhat inexplicable; several times, I found myself wondering who these diaries were written for, and why. Their voice is also not particularly well distinguished from that of the main narrator. How these books come to be in the hands of Paul and Nick and and how they respond to their contents represent one of several flaws in the plot, where decisions seem to be made by characters on the basis of the fact that they will drive them towards the author's conclusion, rather than any internal logic.

Finally, there is the evil itself, the shadowy diabolic antagonist who lurks in Fisher house. Paul confronts it once in flashback, and then again in the finale. The first encounter seems much less creepy and mind-shattering than many of the spooky incidents that occur earlier in the book. Again, maybe a symptom of a job too well done in the early chapters, but it seems like the author is capable of much better.

The final confrontation and conclusion to the book, on the other hand, is simply awful. The story absolutely collapses for no reason; I found myself flipping back a page or so, thinking that I must have missed something. To summarize the final confrontation with the evil of Fisher house as 'and then, for no apparent reason, the story ended' is not at all too far from the truth.

I had given the story the benefit of the doubt with regard to earlier plot holes and pacing issues up until I encountered the last five or so pages of the book. It is rare for me for the ending of a book to be so bad that it spoils anything I enjoyed earlier; this was one such ending.

House of Lost Souls is an atmospheric haunted house story in the grand tradition of the genre as set forth by the likes of M.R. James and Shirley Jackson. Cottam injects a sheer, overpowering sense of dread, however, that calls to mind the best of Lovecraft's psychological horror and the madness that infects those who encounter it.

Paul Seaton is a journalist who years earlier experienced first had the terrors of the Fisher House, a home once own by a Nazu sympathizer and acquaintance of Aleister Crowley. Paul's experience in the house leaves him a wreck of a man and yet the distinction of the only person to have survived the terrors in the notorious home. Years later, several college students make a tragic outing to the house leaving them all dead except for the sister of Nick Mason, a former U.S. soldier. Nick tracks down Seaton as the man who lived through the terror of the house. He intends to get to the bottom of the abominable evil and destroy if once and for all.

House of Souls builds meticulously, if somewhat slowly, with Paul relating his own trials in the Fisher House to Mason in lengthy flashback sequences. Now I don't normally care for novels where much of the story is related in flashbacks but Cottam uses this method for great effect. It's important to relate the history of the Fisher House from the experience of the one who lived it rather than the narrative spilling it out blandly. This gives the reader a view into Seaton's fragile psyche as well.

While the story crawls at times Cottam provides enough jolts to hook your attention. British popular music plays a key role throughout the book as Seaton remains haunted by songs on the radio by artists who have either committed suicide or died in some other tragic manner. These songs seem to come on the radio or are heard coming out of a pub at the most inopportune of times for Seaton. These songs portent something ominous and greatly help set the tone of the book.

In Seaton and Mason we literally get two characters at the opposite end of the character spectrum and one of the driving forces of the stories is seeing how these two characters eventually bond and unite together in confronting the evils of the Fisher House. The final third of the book literally percolates with a tense and terrifying ambiance that few writers are able to capture.

I'll admit it - I have a problem. I'm slightly addicted to all things paranormal. My DVR is bursting with old episodes of Ghost Hunters and Paranormal State and I have read every single Fear Street book ever printed. However, despite my voracious appetite for this stuff, I still find it rare to stumble across a decent supernatural thriller. Sure there are old standards like Dean Koontz and even Stephen King, but often those ones focus on "monsters" as opposed to ghosts, which are really more my thing. So once I found "The House of Lost Souls," I knew I had to get my hands on it!

This novel focuses on Nick Mason and Paul Seaton. Nick's sister is slowly spinning into insanity after a visit to the notorious Fischer House in England where horrific, satanic acts and rituals took place in the first half of the century. Paul Seaton is a "sensitive" journalist who is called in to save Nick's sister. Why Paul, you might wonder? Because, he is the only known person to visit Fischer House and come out with both his sanity and his life. As Paul works to save the girl, he must confront supernatural experiences from his past by returning to Fischer House and coming to terms with the evil that lurks there.

I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed "The House of Lost Souls". Not only is it extremely well-written, with vivid, lush descriptions of one of my favorite cities in the world, London, England, but the characters are well-developed and most importantly, believable. While reading, I felt like I may have been listening to my old friend recount their adventures overseas, like I was actually there and being spoken to by a real person, instead of just words on a page.

Another part of the writing that I was really impressed with was the intertwining storylines. The book is full of long stories that are interesting within themselves, but seem to have little to do with the plot at hand. Just when you're about to give up on this book on a tangent, Cottam connects the recollection to the main story, demonstrating his cleverness. This really left me feeling like Cottam is well-read and probably wrote a book that he would want to read. My favorite little storyline had to be of a photographer, Pandora Gibson-Hoare and her involvement with Klaus Fischer (of the Fischer House). This tangent begins with Paul remembering an old girlfriend and his attempt to help her with a fashion school project on Pandora Gibson-Hoare. This project is eventually what lead Paul initially to the Fischer House, but as I said before, is so cleverly done that you never see it coming. Cottam also weaves real people into the novel, like horror novelist Dennis Wheatley and world famous satanist Aleister Crowley. This addition of real characters makes the story even more believable and really enhances the experience.

If you are a fan of the paranormal, specifically a good ghost story, then you must read "The House of Lost Souls," by FG Cottam. With its rich atmosphere, great characters and most importantly, its spooky story, you will not be disappointed.

This ghost story follows the lives of those who have visited the Fischer House on the Isle of Wight off the English coast, those who have survived their visit anyway. The novel begins with Nick Mason, former military operative, who is deeply concerned for his younger sister. It seems that she and her friends, all philosophy students studying the paranormal, visited the mysterious Fischer House and encountered something so awful, one has committed suicide. Mason's sister seems to have slipped into a perpetual state of paranoia bordering on hysteria, and the other students are following-suit. Seeking to solve the mystery behind his sister's condition, Mason contacts journalist Paul Seaton. It seems that Seaton visited the Fischer House as a college student himself, and lived to tell the tale, though not without his own sense of unease and paranoia. Together, Mason and Seaton decide to uncover the truth behind what seems to be haunting the girls, and discover a horrifying tale dating back to the 1920s. As Mason's sister declines more and more, the hunt to stop whatever is stalking her grows more desperate.

British writer, F.G. Cottam, has created a dark, gothic ghost story in The House of Lost Souls that will appeal to adults and teens alike. The novel begins with a sense of foreboding and mystery: something terrible lurks in the Fischer House, something that drives anyone who visits the house insane with terror. After visiting the house, one of four college friends has committed suicide. The other three seem ready to follow suit. Trying to discover what it is that is haunting these students, as well as journalist Paul Seaton, enthrall the reader. The ghostly experiences of those who have visited the Fischer House, as well as the fact that the haunting continues long after they have returned to their normal lives, will appeal to teens. Fans of the horror/monster/ghost genre will enjoy the spooky happenings in The House of Lost Souls. One factor that makes the story appropriate for older teens is the lack of gore, language, or sexual situations that are often better suited for adult horror novels. Cottam prefers the psychological scare, and doesn't need blood and guts to achieve his goal. Another factor that will appeal to horror fans is the presence of historical horror and occult novelist Dennis Wheatley as a character in the novel. The House of Lost Souls is an excellently crafted and truly creepy ghost story; one that is sure to be
loved by teens and adults alike.

This is definitely a book for older teens or adults as it does get quite scary at times, but for those who can handle it, you're in for a treat! I loved the mix of history and fiction, they worked together well to make an excellent ghost story. Can't wait for F.G. Cottam's next novel, Dark Echo!

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Overall this is a very skillfully done work.It is a pastiche of THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE and ALL HOLLOWS EVE,with liberal doses of THE EXORCIST and ROSEMARY'S BABY set in 1980's and 1990's England.If that sounds interesting this book is for you.On top of all that the author throws in Aleister Crowley and Herman Goring.Until the end I found it an intelligent effective entertainment vehicle.Granted except for the main character, the characterizations are pretty weak but I can't say I particularly cared.It is the end that bothered me.I have to admit , I don't think I understood it.It just didn't seem to add up.I think this is a problem that a lot of fiction dealing with the supernatural has .The author often can't figure out how to bring the thing to an end.In supernatural fiction you can work in blatantly unrealistic elements because after all you are dealing with the unreal almost by definition but you have to face the fact that you do have real readers who want to have some sense of what is going on. This is where the problem often creeps up.Once you start explaining the inexplicable there is a tendency to get lost or even stop making sense and I think that is a problem here.Satisfaction in this context is usually maximized by a mixture of ambiguity and explanation. The author needs to explain enough to make it clear you haven't just read an incoherent mish mash but needs to resist the temptation to have it all make sense as if it were a Hercule Poirot story.Here I had the feeling that both too little and too much were explained.That said , supernatural stories are for me what detective or crime novels are for others light entertaining reading and this is a good one.I did find it hard to put down and I admit I will try to reread the end.

I say that in the very best way. Creepy is well done in this read that turns the pages by itself.

The music references are fantastic, they suit the book completely.

For anyone who enjoys a good supernatural thriller.

I love to read this type of book but it was so slow going in the start.I was halfway through before I got really into the story,not a good sign right!But I stayed with it and I am glad I did it got better and better and better.The beginning needed a lot of editing but in general I say stay with it it does get really good.