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Division #3
The Collected Songs of Sonnelion
In this Division Mythos novel, which is being serialized on Darkfuse's website, Red Piccirilli has known madness and magic. They’re in his blood and bound to his soul as much as love and loss are. But when his family moves to the town of Division, Pennsylvania, his father grows distant, his mother troubled, and a murderer roams the countryside.
He searches for meaning and truth while battling his own darkness and rage and despair, but corpses whisper answers the dead only share with one another.
http://www.darkfuse.com/lee-thompsons...
He searches for meaning and truth while battling his own darkness and rage and despair, but corpses whisper answers the dead only share with one another.
http://www.darkfuse.com/lee-thompsons...
- GenresHorror
277 pages, Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 2012
1 person is currently reading
40 people want to read
About the author
Lee Thompson
26 books186 followers“Lee Thompson knows his horror-noir. He fuses both genres together in the turmoil of terror, tragedy, blood, guilt, and lost chances at redemption.”–Tom Piccirilli, author of THE LAST KIND WORDS
Lee Thompson is the bestselling author of the Suspense novels A BEAUTIFUL MADNESS (August 2014), IT’S ONLY DEATH (January 2015), and WITH FURY IN HAND (May 2015). The dominating threads weaved throughout his work are love, loss, and learning how to live again. A firm believer in the enduring power of the human spirit, Lee believes that stories, no matter their format, set us on the path of transformation. He is represented by the extraordinary Chip MacGregor of MacGregor Literary. Visit Lee’s website to discover more: www.leethompsonfiction.com
Some of my favorite authors: Clive Barker, Donald Westlake, Peter Straub, Stephen King, Greg Gifune, Lee Thomas, William Faulkner, Robert Dunbar, John Gardner, Michael Connelly, Dennis Lehane, John Connolly, Jack Cady, Tom Piccirilli, Brian Hodge, Douglas Clegg, Jack Ketchum, Lee Child, James Lee Burke, and Cormac McCarthy.
"10 out of 10 Stars... GOSSAMER: A TALE OF LOVE AND TRAGEDY will blow you away my friends. It is that good." -- Peter Schwotzer/Famous Monsters of Filmland.
"WHEN WE JOIN JESUS IN HELL is as crazy as its tormented protagonist. Hard as nails.” – Jack Ketchum
"The voice of the deputy feels authentic: brooding, soulful, haunted. In fact, there’s a heartfelt quality to the whole grim book. Even some of the most grisly moments manage to be poetic and full of emotion, and the author’s literary influences echo loudly. At times, the mood evokes Piccirilli or Braunbeck or Gifune combined with Sherwood Anderson."-- Robert Dunbar, author of WILLY, THE PINES, and THE SHORE
“Thompson’s voice is his own — strong, hypnotic, and unsettling. Nursery Rhymes 4 Dead Children is a bleak fucking book, and therein lies its danger. So beautifully-constructed is Thompson’s prose, that the reader is often caught off-guard, mesmerized by a turn of phrase or a descriptive passage, until the book grabs you by the balls and rips them right off, breaking your heart and your psyche in the process.” — Brian Keene, author of GHOUL, DARK HOLLOW and THE RISING.
"I’ve said it many times and believe it more everyday, Lee Thompson is not only the next big name at Delirium Books but in the genre." – Shane Ryan Staley at Darkfuse Publications.
"The Dampness of Mourning is a riveting Thriller..." Midwest Book Review.
"Lee Thompson’s prose is electric!" — Bob Freeman, author of DESCENDANT.
"Like a dark Twilight Zone meets Alfred Hitchcock Mystery." -- Lee Thompson, author of NURSERY RHYMES 4 DEAD CHILDREN.
http://leethompsonfiction.com
Lee Thompson is the bestselling author of the Suspense novels A BEAUTIFUL MADNESS (August 2014), IT’S ONLY DEATH (January 2015), and WITH FURY IN HAND (May 2015). The dominating threads weaved throughout his work are love, loss, and learning how to live again. A firm believer in the enduring power of the human spirit, Lee believes that stories, no matter their format, set us on the path of transformation. He is represented by the extraordinary Chip MacGregor of MacGregor Literary. Visit Lee’s website to discover more: www.leethompsonfiction.com
Some of my favorite authors: Clive Barker, Donald Westlake, Peter Straub, Stephen King, Greg Gifune, Lee Thomas, William Faulkner, Robert Dunbar, John Gardner, Michael Connelly, Dennis Lehane, John Connolly, Jack Cady, Tom Piccirilli, Brian Hodge, Douglas Clegg, Jack Ketchum, Lee Child, James Lee Burke, and Cormac McCarthy.
"10 out of 10 Stars... GOSSAMER: A TALE OF LOVE AND TRAGEDY will blow you away my friends. It is that good." -- Peter Schwotzer/Famous Monsters of Filmland.
"WHEN WE JOIN JESUS IN HELL is as crazy as its tormented protagonist. Hard as nails.” – Jack Ketchum
"The voice of the deputy feels authentic: brooding, soulful, haunted. In fact, there’s a heartfelt quality to the whole grim book. Even some of the most grisly moments manage to be poetic and full of emotion, and the author’s literary influences echo loudly. At times, the mood evokes Piccirilli or Braunbeck or Gifune combined with Sherwood Anderson."-- Robert Dunbar, author of WILLY, THE PINES, and THE SHORE
“Thompson’s voice is his own — strong, hypnotic, and unsettling. Nursery Rhymes 4 Dead Children is a bleak fucking book, and therein lies its danger. So beautifully-constructed is Thompson’s prose, that the reader is often caught off-guard, mesmerized by a turn of phrase or a descriptive passage, until the book grabs you by the balls and rips them right off, breaking your heart and your psyche in the process.” — Brian Keene, author of GHOUL, DARK HOLLOW and THE RISING.
"I’ve said it many times and believe it more everyday, Lee Thompson is not only the next big name at Delirium Books but in the genre." – Shane Ryan Staley at Darkfuse Publications.
"The Dampness of Mourning is a riveting Thriller..." Midwest Book Review.
"Lee Thompson’s prose is electric!" — Bob Freeman, author of DESCENDANT.
"Like a dark Twilight Zone meets Alfred Hitchcock Mystery." -- Lee Thompson, author of NURSERY RHYMES 4 DEAD CHILDREN.
http://leethompsonfiction.com
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 31, 2014
The Collected Songs of Sonnelion was originally released as web episodes and now looks like being released this year in full, I hope so anyway because this is right up there with the best of the Division series and deserves to be devoured by all. In fact I’d tentatively say that Songs is my personnel favourite simply because I was completely immersed in the tragic and agonizing culmination of Red Piccirilli’s childhood.
If you’ve read The Dampness of Mourning you’ll get some insights into what happens to Red, so I’d have to advise if you’ve not read it to leave TDOM until this comes out but for me it was simple, I’m that invested in this series and its characters that it was an impossible task not to start this immediately.
The story of Red Piccirilli’s childhood is gripping, after the events of the novella Within this Garden Weeping, Red and his family move to the town Division, a town of secrets, of ghosts, a murderous town in the grip of a killer who is taking the lives of young women.
Almost immediately Red is befriended by an older boy named Abraham who introduces him to an adrenalin fuelled game of risk and uncertainty in the town morgue. Red’s never really had many friends in his life and he’s soon taken in by Abraham, shown the ways of alcohol and strippers, leading to a particularly sickening event as Red’s life begins to slide out of control.
Life’s changing dramatically for Red, his Fathers acting a bit strange, worryingly out of character and Red learns of family he never knew existed here in Division.
The Collected Songs of Sonnelion is altogether a more hard hitting and heartbreaking story than anything in the Division Series so far, only Iron Rust Butterflies comes close to the tragedy and loss prevalent in Songs.
My review wouldn’t be complete without a quote, Red reflects while at the hospital, ‘Life has teeth and you can’t protect your babies forever can you? Because they’re destined to go out into the dark world and find their own way, and they’re destined to search out their own darkness and collect any happiness they can discover, but there’s not much balance and very little hope because the world’s teeth are so fucking sharp and its jaws so strong and its steps so quiet…’
Or two.
‘The stranger hovered there, his mouth stuck in a silent scream that seemed joyful, eyes full of a thousand storms and yet peaceful, hands clenching at air as if searching for something to keep him from drifting away and at the same time grasping for anything to choke the life from.’
This is the most absorbing and intense fiction I’ve ever read, dark and emotional, even writing this review a week after I finished, brings it all back, stirs my feelings again. Highly Recommended.
Just got to read As I Embrace My Jagged Edges, then the agonising wait for the next release.
If you’ve read The Dampness of Mourning you’ll get some insights into what happens to Red, so I’d have to advise if you’ve not read it to leave TDOM until this comes out but for me it was simple, I’m that invested in this series and its characters that it was an impossible task not to start this immediately.
The story of Red Piccirilli’s childhood is gripping, after the events of the novella Within this Garden Weeping, Red and his family move to the town Division, a town of secrets, of ghosts, a murderous town in the grip of a killer who is taking the lives of young women.
Almost immediately Red is befriended by an older boy named Abraham who introduces him to an adrenalin fuelled game of risk and uncertainty in the town morgue. Red’s never really had many friends in his life and he’s soon taken in by Abraham, shown the ways of alcohol and strippers, leading to a particularly sickening event as Red’s life begins to slide out of control.
Life’s changing dramatically for Red, his Fathers acting a bit strange, worryingly out of character and Red learns of family he never knew existed here in Division.
The Collected Songs of Sonnelion is altogether a more hard hitting and heartbreaking story than anything in the Division Series so far, only Iron Rust Butterflies comes close to the tragedy and loss prevalent in Songs.
My review wouldn’t be complete without a quote, Red reflects while at the hospital, ‘Life has teeth and you can’t protect your babies forever can you? Because they’re destined to go out into the dark world and find their own way, and they’re destined to search out their own darkness and collect any happiness they can discover, but there’s not much balance and very little hope because the world’s teeth are so fucking sharp and its jaws so strong and its steps so quiet…’
Or two.
‘The stranger hovered there, his mouth stuck in a silent scream that seemed joyful, eyes full of a thousand storms and yet peaceful, hands clenching at air as if searching for something to keep him from drifting away and at the same time grasping for anything to choke the life from.’
This is the most absorbing and intense fiction I’ve ever read, dark and emotional, even writing this review a week after I finished, brings it all back, stirs my feelings again. Highly Recommended.
Just got to read As I Embrace My Jagged Edges, then the agonising wait for the next release.
September 30, 2012
Having just read the first chapter in this serial web novel, starting a few months ago, I became a Lee Thompson fan. To those already familiar with his Division Mythos novels, this hauntingly bleak and bloody novel takes place following events in When Elenora Wakes, which introduces us to young Red Piccirilli, would-be hero and inheritor of deadly magic, who's always trying to "do the right thing" with his dark gift, but like every other young (and not so young) person, we're only human and make mistakes. Red moves with his family to the bizarre Pennsylvania town of Division, crock full of dark secrets and a dark past. And there, Red soon learns how it is no coincidence that he ends up in Division. Knowledge and the choices we make come at a cost, and Red learns just how costly that both will be for him.
Thompson's writing style is both at times simple and straightforward, as well as lyrical and poetic, evoking both wonder and awe, beauty and poignancy, blending in moments of terrible violence and horror. He reminds me of a few notables in the genre, but make no mistake, he's ALL his own. If you haven't read this limited-time web serial, do so now. While it is recommended in reading the previous story first, I hadn't (yet) and easily followed this dark gem of a novel...
Thompson's writing style is both at times simple and straightforward, as well as lyrical and poetic, evoking both wonder and awe, beauty and poignancy, blending in moments of terrible violence and horror. He reminds me of a few notables in the genre, but make no mistake, he's ALL his own. If you haven't read this limited-time web serial, do so now. While it is recommended in reading the previous story first, I hadn't (yet) and easily followed this dark gem of a novel...
September 3, 2012
With The Collected Songs of Sonnelion, the fifth book in the series that I have read, I am getting a sense of the magnitude of Lee Thompson's vision that is the Division Series. After I finished this book last night, even though it was after midnight, I went to Thompson's website and explored the landscape and characters of Division. I will caution anyone that hasn't read at least several of the books that there will be spoilers but I found it helpful in connecting these interlocking stories.
These novels and novellas fit into a patchwork and now I am starting to get a sense of the whole picture. And a dark and disturbing picture it is.
Songs is one of the bleakest of the set. Red Piccarilli (you will cry of this boy) is as tragic a figure as Job---and biblical references keep cropping up. Crucifixion imagery abounds. Red's powers emanates from a stigmata like wound in his hand, making him a Christ-like figure in this reviewer's mind. I am betting that this imagery is also present in the suggestively titled "Within This Garden Weeping"---the second in this series.
Songs is a rough book. Rough on the reader's emotions. I can only imagine how hard it was to write, but Thompson never shies away from the truth of the stories, no matter how dark and harrowing. At times I was shocked, at others I found myself almost pleading for certain events not to happen. But Thompson shows not mercy. Division is not a place of happy endings and some of the events that occur there will not leave your memory for a long time.
Like King's Derry, Division is a haunted, rotting, corrupted place where the veil between this world and the next is thin and at times non-existent. Ashes and the smell of burned bodies and rotting flesh permeate the air. The people that live there, a close-knit and damned group that interact and co-mingle with demons, are hardly ever what they seem. There are heroes of course, and they are powerful and courageous and desperately seeking protection for the ones they love and redemption for themselves, yet always outnumbered and often forced to make the most devastating of sacrifices. And no sacrifices are greater than those made by Red.
Red is a crucial character in the whole Division Mythos and perhaps its greatest hero. First appearing in Before Lenora Wakes we find him again after the action in the as-of-yet not released Within this Garden Weeping. We pick up the action when his family moves to Division after the tragic events of Garden--of which we learn tantalizing yet incomplete details. Red is powerful yet naive and easy prey for the demons that wait to feed on his innocence and delight in debasing and torturing him. But Red is more than just a confused and outnumbered boy. He has a wild power that must be respected and he has a place in the pantheon of the powerful supernatural creatures of Division and I want to see where his road takes him. Songs also brings us several new and very exciting new characters, particularly his powerful grandfather, the ambiguous and terrifying Gravesend, the deceiver Proserpine, the loathsome Abraham Nutley, and the powerful yet to this point shadowy figure of Legion.
Lee Thompson's Division series, in my opinion, is an important work of dark fantasy and should be read by anyone who follows and and is serious about dark literature. Required reading if you will.
These novels and novellas fit into a patchwork and now I am starting to get a sense of the whole picture. And a dark and disturbing picture it is.
Songs is one of the bleakest of the set. Red Piccarilli (you will cry of this boy) is as tragic a figure as Job---and biblical references keep cropping up. Crucifixion imagery abounds. Red's powers emanates from a stigmata like wound in his hand, making him a Christ-like figure in this reviewer's mind. I am betting that this imagery is also present in the suggestively titled "Within This Garden Weeping"---the second in this series.
Songs is a rough book. Rough on the reader's emotions. I can only imagine how hard it was to write, but Thompson never shies away from the truth of the stories, no matter how dark and harrowing. At times I was shocked, at others I found myself almost pleading for certain events not to happen. But Thompson shows not mercy. Division is not a place of happy endings and some of the events that occur there will not leave your memory for a long time.
Like King's Derry, Division is a haunted, rotting, corrupted place where the veil between this world and the next is thin and at times non-existent. Ashes and the smell of burned bodies and rotting flesh permeate the air. The people that live there, a close-knit and damned group that interact and co-mingle with demons, are hardly ever what they seem. There are heroes of course, and they are powerful and courageous and desperately seeking protection for the ones they love and redemption for themselves, yet always outnumbered and often forced to make the most devastating of sacrifices. And no sacrifices are greater than those made by Red.
Red is a crucial character in the whole Division Mythos and perhaps its greatest hero. First appearing in Before Lenora Wakes we find him again after the action in the as-of-yet not released Within this Garden Weeping. We pick up the action when his family moves to Division after the tragic events of Garden--of which we learn tantalizing yet incomplete details. Red is powerful yet naive and easy prey for the demons that wait to feed on his innocence and delight in debasing and torturing him. But Red is more than just a confused and outnumbered boy. He has a wild power that must be respected and he has a place in the pantheon of the powerful supernatural creatures of Division and I want to see where his road takes him. Songs also brings us several new and very exciting new characters, particularly his powerful grandfather, the ambiguous and terrifying Gravesend, the deceiver Proserpine, the loathsome Abraham Nutley, and the powerful yet to this point shadowy figure of Legion.
Lee Thompson's Division series, in my opinion, is an important work of dark fantasy and should be read by anyone who follows and and is serious about dark literature. Required reading if you will.
September 1, 2012
Work in progress being serialized on Darkfuse Publication's website every Friday afternoon. A fun but heartbreaking novel.
September 2, 2016
Lee Thompson has created an engaging, heartbreaking, fantasy/horror mythos with his Division series. Multiple stories and shorts that are intertwined and connected. Pretty crazy. Check out the website devoted to the mythos at http://divisionmythos.com/home.html
Lee’s writing is not the easiest to read for me, because he makes you stop and think - to reread some of the prose and pause to absorb some of his concepts. This can be a very hit or miss thing for me because if not done properly it can throw me off the story completely. Not so with the Division series. It is deep, but not too deep that you drown. It is dark fiction at its finest and this one is pretty dark indeed.
TCSOS is like a train roaring down the tracks and all you can do is pray you will survive the outcome. At times, you will not, but there appears to be no other way and Lee is not going to sugar coat it for you. That is for sure. Solid 4.5 Stars!
(btw, if you want to read a really great review, read Chris’s review from Sept 2012. There is no way I could have put it better.)
Lee’s writing is not the easiest to read for me, because he makes you stop and think - to reread some of the prose and pause to absorb some of his concepts. This can be a very hit or miss thing for me because if not done properly it can throw me off the story completely. Not so with the Division series. It is deep, but not too deep that you drown. It is dark fiction at its finest and this one is pretty dark indeed.
TCSOS is like a train roaring down the tracks and all you can do is pray you will survive the outcome. At times, you will not, but there appears to be no other way and Lee is not going to sugar coat it for you. That is for sure. Solid 4.5 Stars!
(btw, if you want to read a really great review, read Chris’s review from Sept 2012. There is no way I could have put it better.)
October 8, 2012
This story starts out so smooth and enshrouds you in bits and pieces of what is to come from this 15 year old boy. So far the story reminds me of Stephen King.
Toward the end of the book the chapters start to drag because the story gets a little boring with the confusing interactions with the Grandfather and the repeated confrontations with Abraham and Lucas. It is a bit frustrating to read when you want the main character to head in a different direction but he has to fit into the series for which I haven't read any other books. I wish Red could just go ahead and destroy those boys and then take Amy and Maggie away to someplace safe. I think the book could have been a few chapters shorter as I did lose interest toward the end so unfortunately I did not get to read the last 3 chapters because the serial was only online for a limited amount of time. I hope that the story will get re-released in some format so I get a chance to write a complete review and probably will bump it up a star after seeing how everything plays out.
This story was serialized for free every Friday from Dark Fuse.
Toward the end of the book the chapters start to drag because the story gets a little boring with the confusing interactions with the Grandfather and the repeated confrontations with Abraham and Lucas. It is a bit frustrating to read when you want the main character to head in a different direction but he has to fit into the series for which I haven't read any other books. I wish Red could just go ahead and destroy those boys and then take Amy and Maggie away to someplace safe. I think the book could have been a few chapters shorter as I did lose interest toward the end so unfortunately I did not get to read the last 3 chapters because the serial was only online for a limited amount of time. I hope that the story will get re-released in some format so I get a chance to write a complete review and probably will bump it up a star after seeing how everything plays out.
This story was serialized for free every Friday from Dark Fuse.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews