Reminiscent of Ray Bradbury and combining the atmosphere of Edward Gorey with the phantasmagoric richness of setting found in Mervyn Peake, Deadfall Hotel guides you through a season spent in the ultimate haunted hotel. Christopher Fowler calls it “eerie, disturbing and yet strangely touching.” Told through the story of a widower who takes the job of manager at a remote hotel where the guests are not quite like you and me, accompanied by his daughter and the ghost of his wife, Deadfall Hotel chronicles what happens when nightmares seek a place of sanctuary, where werewolves and vampires, cults and creatures which cannot be named take their holiday. A product of over twenty years of work, this literary exploration of the roots of horror in the collective unconscious may be the Bram Stoker, British Fantasy, and World Fantasy award-winning author’s finest creation to date. The Deadfall Hotel is where our nightmares go, it’s where the dead pause to rest between worlds, and it’s where Richard Carter and his daughter Serena go to rediscover life–if the things at the hotel don’t kill them first. Think of it as the vacation resort of the collective unconscious. With the powerful prose that has earned him awards and accolades, Steve Rasnic Tem explores the roots of fear and society’s fascination with things horrific, using the many-layered metaphor of the Deadfall Hotel. Drawing inspiration from literary touchstones John Gardner and Peter Straub, Tem elegantly delves into the dark corners of the human spirit. There he finds not only our fears, but ultimately our hopes. “Deadfall Hotel is everything a horror novel should be. Steve Rasnic Tem is at the height of his powers with this effort.” – Fearnet.com “If ever there were a book for a cold winter’s night by the fireplace, Deadfall Hotel is it.” – Jeff Vandermeer “Steve Rasnic Tem has created a strange and wonderful world, filled with the curious and the marvelous…as much a place of joy as it is of sorrow, something [he] captures brilliantly in this extraordinary novel.” – Maureen Kincaid Speller in zone-sf.com
