This is Hill's second novel. He's also published a collection of short stories and is writing a graphic story series (oh all right, comics series) which has been collected into two volumes to date. He's also very good, youngish (thirty-something) and improving all the time.
Horns is a fairly low-key horror-ish novel. A young man wakes up with horns on his head. The horns make people tell him their darkest desires and he can push them into acting on them. All this surrounds the mystery of the rape and murder of his long-term girlfriend and most people believe he did it. The setting is small as is the cast of characters and is really well done. It did feel a little overlong, particularly when we learn the villain's story at great length, but overall it's quite an accomplished piece.
Here a picture of him with his dad. There's something just a little familiar about the old guy.
I've ordered a classical CD this evening, the first piece of classical music I've since Holst's The Planets back in the mid-60's. This is it.
And the reason I bought it is because I bought a book entitled Electric Eden: unearthing Britain's visionary music by Rob Young following a rave review in last week's Sunday Times. I dipped into it and checked the musical discopgraphic timeline at the back and for some reason the name Ralph Vaughan Williams caught my eye so I read the section about him then visited Amazon, listen to several previews, liked them a lot, and ordered the CD above. The book itself has gone to the top of my reading pile.
The book it replaced is a literary apocalyptic novel, the 760 page first half of a dyptych, which has been garnering rave reviews.
More on these to follow.
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