Customer Reviews

World House

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A struggling British antiquarian with gambling debts... an American socialite during the Prohibition... a young boy from Spain during Franco's reign... a barfly and a stripper in the late seventies... an autistic teenager... In different places and during different eras, seemingly unconnected strangers all come into contact with a mysterious box, and all of them at some point suddenly find themselves transported to a different place: a huge house that seems to have endless corridors and stairs, not to mention a room filled with a huge jungle, one that contains an ocean, and so on...

The World House by Guy Adams starts off well, describing the unsuccessful antiquarian Miles as he hopelessly tries to get an extension on his gambling debts. When the perspective switches to a different time and era with the Prohibition-era debutante Penelope, I was still with the author. I even stayed interested when the story switched yet again to Kesara, a Spanish girl trying to stay alive on the streets, but it's at this point that the frequent perspective shifts and seemingly unconnected narratives began to grate a bit. Fortunately, around that time, there's a mysterious and fascinating interlude that doesn't seem to have much to do with the rest of the story (yet), and then Guy Adams introduces Tom, a bar singer who looks to have been modelled on Tom Waits (notice the bar is situated on "Ninth and Hennepin"...), which was enough to keep me reading a while longer again. However, after this, two more seemingly unrelated characters enter the novel: an autistic girl, and a professor who is obsessed with finding a certain mysterious box...

Once every character has finally been introduced to the story, The World House continues as a series of mostly unconnected narratives, with everyone trying to survive the surreal environment of the house. These adventures are entertaining enough to read, but unfortunately The World House takes too long to get to the point and bring everything together. There are some clues and links here and there, and a few characters meet up, but mostly you still appear to be reading a series of seemingly unconnected stories about people who are all trying to survive separate parts of the same bizarre environment.

If you've read the OTHERLAND novels by Tad Williams, you may remember the big chunk of River of Blue Fire where it seemed like a new, weird virtual reality was introduced every other chapter. These were all well-described, original, trippy and fun to read, but they didn't advance the overall plot much, making that book the weakest installment of the series. Most of The World House by Guy Adams has that same feeling: while it's surreal and action-packed, it feels like there's just no point to much of it.

When everything finally starts to come together towards the end of the novel, The World House suddenly gets quite interesting. The final revelation of what's really going on is actually nothing short of great. Unfortunately, before you get to that point, Guy Adams spends about a quarter of The World House setting up the various characters, and most of the rest of the book putting them through their paces in the house, leaving too little time to wrap things up. Even though the separate story-lines are well-written and never boring, and it eventually turns out that, yes, everything did have a point and a connection, what comes before that point may be so frustrating for some readers that they don't even make it to the eventual pay-off.

Still, if the plot summary of this novel strikes your interest and you don't mind taking not one but several long and winding roads to reach a satisfying conclusion, you may want to check out The World House.

I found this book in the "Fantasy" section in the book area of a "Target"-style store. I admittedly decided to buy it on a whim because its description reminded me of some of Neil Gaiman's work. The World House does get its hooks in you after a bit of initial struggling. The story centers around an unusual house and its unfortunate occupants whose presence in the house is tied to a strange box and a moment of peril. The house offers animated taxidermy, nearly endless libraries containing the biographies of every person in the world, and miniature, homicidal chefs. There are several central characters and it takes a bit of patience to allow the story lines to develop. I read the last 150 pages at one sitting and groaned at the final page. I now MUST buy the sequel. Guy Adams is quite the storyteller and The World House is an entertaining read.

This book is so original, new & different it belongs in a genre all of it's own.
Guy Adams will take you on the ride of your life.
The story follows several central characters, with very different backgrounds, if not all are sympathetic they are fully formed & realistic.
Each turn up in the "house" via contact with a chinese box and have to navigate through the barking mad "personalities" of each room within.
To say anymore would be to spoil the surprises instore for the reader.
The storyline is complex, characters intrigueing & all of it well written.
Read it twice & have pre-ordered the sequel "Restoration".
Thought it the best fantasy book I've read since Clive Barkers "Weaveworld".

The concept of a house that eats people has always been an intriguing on to me as it shows up extremely often in horror films. That and I have a soft spot for what appears to be a variety of time and relative dimensions in space device. It might be a type 20 as opposed to the more frequently seen type 40.

So, The World House's beginning premise is that there is a box that is a gateway to a house. The house holds a dangerous prisoner away from the world. Normal people fall in and have a devil of a time getting out, if they even think to manage such a feat at all. Stuff happens.

This was a somewhat creepy read. The plot is revealed slowly in rather quick paced vignettes as the story jumps from group of characters to group of characters. I liked the slow acceleration as it progressed as well. I really, really liked how the ending revised how I saw the beginning of the book. As awesome twists go, this one is right up there with the best of the Twilight Zone episodes. I enjoyed the incorporation of horror elements into the novels what with the ambiance of the house itself, the isolation the characters found themselves in and the effort to dissect some characters further than others (both figuratively and literally). One could validly use the term "wibbley wobbly timey wimey stuff" when describing the story's timeline.

The characters were as one would expect from a horror novel. That is to say they reacted as (and were for the most part) normal, everyday people stuck in a very extraordinary situation. Those characters who were less pedestrian (at least from the outset) were humanized over the course of the novel and put into a historical context where their skills would have been more common.

I liked Carruthers, Miles and Penelope the best, particularly as they seemed to have one of the more definitive plans regarding how to move about the house. I also found the flirting between miles and Penelope delightfully awkward. It made for a nice light note amongst the darker events running through the book.

Alan was an interesting character, but not one I found sympathetic all of the time, particularly regarding his early history (once the reader learns of it) and also because his motives regarding the prisoner and how Alan knew of him were somewhat nebulous to me.

The house itself was an interesting character, a collection of nightmares and things that go bump in the night. How Sophie interacted with it seemed to feed into the "haunted house" trope where females are at particular peril from the building itself. There way that she "spoke" to the house and perceived the world around her were a distinct mood break from everyone else's points of view.

My primary gripe is that the book ended on a little cliffhanger. It seemed like a decent breaking point, but I have a feeling that a sequel book is likely forthcoming. Which I will likely read.

Adams has constructed a tale of such originally and wonderfulness that I was honest to god, taken aback.



When I picked this humble looking book off the overcrowed wonderful shelves at Powell's in Portland I had no idea what I was in for. I have decided that I must try authors I haven't seen before, read what no one has sugested and hope for the best. I believe there always has to be a first, one who spreads the gospil of a book far and wide. Well I might not be the first but I will sing praise loud and long for The World House.

Guy Adams paints a world in which normal, everyday people are transported through time and space to a house that defies the laws of physics. It exists in a reality of its own and in it everything is possible. "Nothing is impossible, just unexperienced." Guy Adams creates a cast of characters each overwhelmingly likable and with their own unique voice that the reader is perpelled as if by outside forces through the pages at light speed, absorbing each wonderful word with an ever increasing hunger for more.

I am honest when I say you really must pick up this book and read it for I'm sure that even if you do not normally read fantasy you will love it as much as I have. Thankfully, it also is part of a series to which I will be picking up the second book shortly.

Thank you Mr. Adams for writing such a lovely, fun, original book.

This book was well-written, imaginative, and thoroughly enjoyable. It did remind me a bit of Tad Williams' Otherworld series, in a good way. It held my interest all the way through and to the end. I do not think you will be disappointed. I've already pre-purchased the sequel.

Man...I finished this book last week, and this is the first time that I read this author and I was pleasantly surprised....This story, by the way, which is book one of a new series, had lots of action, awesome characters, and the story was very well told and excuted...very interesting, and I am looking forward to book two in the series....give this author a try...you might enjoy him as much as I did!!!

Christopher Berry

I put this book down with about 100 pages to go. The characters are shallow and only one of them had a description; I have no clue what the rest look like. I didn't even realize that they were from different times until I read a review here from someone who got it (not sure how); I think Guy Adams tried to make them sound like they were from different eras but it wasn't implemented well. The writing is a little sporadic and there are a few copy-edit errors.

The dialog was probably what turned me off the most. There's only supposed to be three British characters (I think) and the rest, except for a Spaniard boy, are American but they don't speak like Americans at all; such as saying "bloody" a lot and "torches" when meaning flashlights. It may not seem like a big deal to most people, but it really breaks the immersion. As for the Spaniard boy: he speaks English poorly which is understandable since it's supposed to be his second language, but it just makes him sound stupid and it's a chore to read his lines.

There is a lot of really cool imagination regarding the house they're trapped in and I would have liked to finish the book but I can't read it for more than a few paragraphs before the stilted dialog and melodramatic characters grate on me.

The book is pretty well written, and it has one of my favorite concepts. Group of people trapped in death game that defies physics and dimensions, time and space. Seems kind of obscure, but it's a scifi cliche if not a genre unto itself.

What I didn't understand at the start of this book is that it's part of a series, that the next book is not out yet. If that will be the last, I don't know.

The good points to this book would be the deathgame that defies ecet, ecet. (To me anyways)

It's well written.

Has some interesting characters, and a mildly complex plot.

Time travel plays a bigger role in this book than you could ever know. I don't know why it's not filed on the back rather than say... Worlds Within Worlds.

Downsides would be...

It has some terrible characters. I won't spoil that part for you.

It relies heavily on cliches, and at first it can be daunting. For some more critical people like myself, it can be hard to look past certain characters as anything but an annoying cliche.

I personally had mixed feelings about how it all wrapped up.

All in all, it was satisfying enough to read. The ending of things is usually where it kills it for me, but it was an acceptable enough ending I suppose. Certainly wrapped everything up, if not clubbed you over the head with some of the 'subtleties'. One actually has to wonder what the second book might be about.

I picked it up looking to try something new, but also hoping to see a little of my favorite 'genre'. I got that at the very least. I hope I helped your decision on rather or not to buy it.