Slade House (Thorndike Press Large Print Basic Series) by David Mitchell (2015-11-04)

"Tonight feels like a board game co-designed by M. C. Escher on a bender and Stephen King in a fever." Indeed, the whole book feels like that. You get a strong hint of Escher in the curious peep-through cover (perhaps only in the hard-bound edition), and King is only one of the masters of the paranormal to whom Mitchell tips his hat. But beyond that, the comparison is pointless. As you could imagine of a book issued originally as a series of tweets, Mitchell does not intend to scare or bewilder his readers, merely invite them into a shared game. This is no more intended as a major contribution to Mitchell's oeuvre than THE STRANGE LIBRARY was for Haruki Murakami, or THE FINAL SOLUTION for Michael Chabon. But a minor work by any of these great authors is still a book written by a master, no matter how far he lets down his hair.

Like Platform 9 3/4 in HARRY POTTER, Slade House can only be found when the time is ripe, by penetrating a narrow alley twisting between high walls and opening a small black iron door set into the brickwork. Once in, however, the guest sees a terraced English garden with a splendid mansion at the end of it, a house with many rooms and a grand staircase lined with portraits that seem to change at each visit. It is a while before we notice anything amiss. The first visitors, in 1979, are a concert pianist and her precocious thirteen-year-old son. In the next section, we are in 1988, and the visitor is a Thames Valley Police detective investigating a cold-case disappearance, but also seduced by the delights of the flesh. Nine years on again, in 1997, it is the Paranormal Society of the local university (Reading, I imagine). And so to 2006 and 2015; the nine-year cycles will ultimately be explained in a later section, which could be open to the criticism of offering too much postponed exposition too late.

No, this is not my genre, and I would not have picked it up were it not for Mitchell. But as a Brit myself, I know and like his people, I know their language, I once shared their concerns. And as always with Mitchell, I enjoy his habit of paying homage to character types from the popular fiction I read when young: the brilliant child, the detective, the lonely outcast, the young woman on her way up. Yes, these are clichés, but that is precisely why Mitchell uses them: he is creating a world from familiar materials, and then playing games with them. Were it not the term too academic for the Young Adult feel (and intent?) of the book, I would call it metafiction. And, as in all his novels except the first, he is equally free in referencing his own work. If this is your first Mitchell, you won't notice anything, but many of the names tie in with characters, events, and places in everything from CLOUD ATLAS to THE BONE CLOCKS, and perhaps even earlier.

I always enjoy spending time with Mitchell, his humanity, and his humor, and this was no exception. But unless suggesting something for a bright young teenager, I would not start here. Look for him where he is really doing some heavy lifting, as in THE THOUSAND AUTUMNS OF JACOB DE ZOET, my personal favorite.

This book was written in a literary fashion, but it was a compelling thriller. I found everything in it to be a twist. It is not predictable at all, which added to it's sense of suspense. It's a unique twist on the old vampire story. Definitely not a cliche version, either.

I enjoyed the approach of tying together the short stories. It was a quick and simple read but it left much to be desired. I was torn between 3 and 4 stars... I decided that I felt generous and went with 4, even though the "final battle" left a sour taste in my mouth.
There seemed to be a lot of data dumping in the last two stories. Upon reading other reviews, I'm under the impression that Mitchell did this to tie this story into the Bone Clocks, which I haven't read. Maybe I'd be more forgiving if I had. Anyways, the story line got questionable in a few spots and the characters were one dimensional. How many times do you need to reiterate a weight problem? How many times can you say lesbian in 10 pages? His characters were so shallow that they'll be forgotten by lunch time tomorrow.
The dialogue scenes between the twins were annoying and cliche, it reminded me of when cartoon villains ramble off their evil plans to the hero before trying to kill them. Mitchell's writing read as that of a novice, which surprised me because he's so well thought of. This was my first read of his, but I'm not discouraged. I'm moving on to Cloud Atlas next.

David Mitchell is the most fascinating author writing today. No matter what the genre, he creates wonderful characters that make the unbelievable feel normal. This and The Bone Clocks are in my personal top ten.

Certainly different, highly interesting, at times creepy (in a good way), but ultimately forgettable. If you like Mitchell's past novels then you will appreciate it for what it is, but you likely won't spend any more time thinking about what it was you just read.

House Slade is a fast and enjoyable read with some overlapping characters from Bone Clocks. More suspenseful than frightening and overall a lot of fun. Mitchell's command of language and story telling really ropes you in as you navigate the mouse trap of each chapter.

David Mitchell continues his conquest of genres with this haunted house thriller. It reads a lot faster than other Mitchell novels--in fact, this is the first book in a while I've finished in a span of 24 hours. That's thanks mostly to how short it is, though the story does move pretty fast on its own. It really feels more like a novella-sized chunk of The Bone Clocks was split off and turned into a novel, and I would say that you should probably read that book before reading this one.

It's good, though. And definitively Mitchellian. I like his take on horror. Now here's hoping he takes a break from the fantastic for a book or two. it's fun and all, but it's also the reason these last two Mitchell novels have been some of my least favorites (though I still really liked them).

If you want to get even more out of this story, I suggest following the @I_Bombadil Twitter account and reading all of the previous tweets. This account's tweets, controlled by Mitchell, serve as a companion to Slade House the same way Slade House does to The Bone Clocks.

Amazing. One of my favorite books of Mitchell's is the early Number9Dream, where he revisits a narrative over and over, with different outcomes every time. In Slade House Mitchell is experimenting with fantasy and a bit of thriller-horror, and he does interesting things with the narrative this time too, taking wholly distinct characters nine years apart in five stories, bringing them to the same fate and place in different ways each time. The plot is like a set of Matryoshka dolls, where you discover a critical detail in each revisit. There are old characters from The Bone Clocks of which this is a follow on - Marinus makes a reappearance - and the end promises a third book. I simply cannot wait.