Michael Jasper Opens 'A Gathering of Doorways'

Michael John Jasper Novelist and Story Writer

Michael Jasper Opens 'A Gathering of Doorways'

Date of Review:

07/14/2008

Published Work:

A Gathering of Doorways

Reviewer:

Rick Kleffel

Source:

The Agony Column

Review Excerpt:

Having found Michael Jasper first in Interzone, with a story he later expanded into the science fiction novel 'The Wannoshay Cycle', I pretty much expected him to pop out SF novel after SF novel. So when I got 'A Gathering of Doorways' (Prime ; October 2008 ; $24.95), I saw the name and thought, "That guy sounds familiar," but because of the novel's pure Eighties Horror premise, it took me a long time to connect it with the guy who wrote 'The Wannoshay Cycle'. But here it is and happy am I to immerse once again in stories of struggling families who get much more than they bargained for. In this case, Gil and his wife Melissa have moved out to the country with their "adventurous" five-year-old son Noah. Turns out the country wants them in a big way – perhaps as an aperitif, perhaps a main course. And we're off into a world where ex-suburbanites have meaningful dreams and children disappear even if they are watched by their fathers – which they’re not. Jasper handles the mundane and surreal aspects of Eighties Horror with confidence and imagination. 'A Gathering of Doorways' is classic (Dis)Comfort Reading.