β Scribed by Brian Lumley
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Alien beings bent on our destruction have seeded the world with horrible machines capable of transforming our planet into a hellhole where only they can live.
Our only hope is to solve the puzzle of a four-dimensional maze, an alien thing that is part building, part machine, and part psychological torture chamber. A few brave men and women--and one fearless dog--dare to enter the maze. What they find there will change their lives forever, as the alien machinery creates terrifying worlds based on their worst nightmares.
Its abundance of futuristic technojargon and gizmology notwithstanding, this sequel to Lumley's 1990 SF adventure, The House of Doors, is a throwback to drive-in B-movies of the 1950s, replete with evil space invaders bent on world domination and selfless human heroes. Here the villains are the Ggydnn, a renegade clan of the alien Thone, who, under the direction of disgraced mastermind Sith, have unleashed a sort of killer kudzu that is rapidly terraforming Earth to conditions noxious to humans but comfy for extraterrestrial habitation. The invasion is just a sneaky scheme to lure Spencer Gill, the agent of Sith's undoing in the previous novel, back for another showdown in the House of Doors, a Thone supercomputer whose interior contains a multitude of virtual worlds built from the nightmares of those who become trapped inside it. There is little doubt from the moment Gill, Angela Denholm and five other unlikely commandos enter the alien construct that they will find a way to master its monsters and turn its false realities to their advantageAalthough not before enduring ordeals with sentient machines, mutant births, grotesque physical transformations and other horrors fashioned from their subconscious fears. Lumley's stereotypically sneering aliens and virtuous humans often seem little more than computer constructs themselves, but the novel's plot speeds briskly over these shortcomings. Cutting-edge SF this isn't, but readers looking for the same audacious imagination that enlivens Lumley's Necroscope series will find this a pleasantly distracting substitute.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Once before, the alien civilization of the Thone administered a deadly test to determine humanity's worth. Now an outcast of the Thone returns to conduct his own vendetta against machine-empath Spencer Gill and the others who acted as Earth's champions. Lumley's sequel to House of Doors (Tor, 1990) covers familiar territory as his characters confront a series of nightmarish realities contained within an extra-dimensional alien machine. The author's penchant for gore will appeal to fans of visceral horror. Purchase where Lumley has a following.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Library : Horror
Universes : House of Doors [02]
Formats : EPUB
ISBN : 9780312871413
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