Only at first glance, and after that, you find out that there are more doors inside than you could ever imagine. Doorways inside of doorways inside of doorways. There's only one way out for any occupant - decide which door is the right one - and go through it. It could lead you to paradise...or into the depths of hell. It's up to you, so are you ready to go knock, knock, knocking...?
Brian Lumley was born near Newcastle. In 22 years as a Military Policeman he served in many of the Cold War hotspots, including Berlin, as well as Cyprus in partition days. He reached the rank of Sergeant-Major before retiring to Devon to write full-time, and his work was first published in 1970. The vampire series, 'Necroscope', has been translated into ten languages and sold over a million copies worldwide.
He was awarded the World Fantasy Life Achievement Award in 2010.
Fun science fiction/horror mashup by Lumley, but one that will not task your brain that much. This starts off with a mysterious castle that just appeared one day in Scotland; a castle without doors or windows. Our main protagonist, Spencer Gill, is something of a Gary Stu, and possesses the unique ability to empathize with machines; he can tell how they work, when they are working well or not just by seeing or touching them. While the new Scottish 'castle' has just sat there for a few years, the Government knows, in part thanks to Gill, that it is really an alien machine, but they have put a lid on it.
Lumley introduces a handful of characters in their own chapters early in the book, but things things really take off when Gill, along with his 'minder' and the other characters presented already are somehow 'transported' into the 'castle' on a visit there. Once 'inside', they find themselves facing the castle once again, but this time it has lots of doors, a veritable house of doors you might say.
This is mildly spoilerly, but it seems some alien species, the Thone, seek the galaxy for new planets to colonize, but when they encounter an 'intelligent' species on one they want, they are obliged by their code of ethics to give the natives a test. After spending some time studying the civilization, a handful of its members are brought into a house of doors where they will face numerous challenges; if they pass the test, the Thone leave them be, if not, time to colonize! The rub here is that the Thone in charge of the house of doors in Scotland is a little rogue, and ramps up the test to epic proportions...
The House of Doors could use some editing (can you say continuity errors) and the characters by and large are animated tropes. Nonetheless, the punchy dialogue and wild challenges Spencer and company face are entertaining to say the least. Each member must face up to their worst nightmare; if they do not break, they past the test. Some of the handful in Spencer's company have very vivid imaginations! Total popcorn read, but still a fun, light read. 3 Thones!
I'd vaguely heard of Lumley and his never-ending Necroscope series as well as his Lovecraftian fiction. What I'd heard of the former didn't exactly have me rushing to check out the latter, but I decided to finally sample something by him and this novel seemed like a good place to start as I wanted something outside of the Necroscope series to start with.
The novel is billed as horror, but really, it's closer to science fiction, and even closer to a plan and simple action thriller. Lumley certainly has a powerful if raw imagination; much of the rest is simply undercooked or half-baked. The appearance of a weird castle in a small Scottish town is certainly a promising set-up, and when we finally enter this strange place some of the imagery Lumley spins is suitably awesome, if couched in somewhat less than deathless prose. But the story begins to bog down with its characters; the hero is somewhat interesting in that he possesses an unusual ability to enter into a sort of empathetic rapport that lets him fathom how anything mechanical works; he is also dying of a fatal disease. Beyond that, however, he remains as much of a cipher as the remaining stock characters; a heavy-handed, arrogant politician, a tough secret agent with bodily and mental scars, a claustrophobic Frenchman, a fanatical occult investigator, a cheap hoodlum, an abusive drunkard and a woman. The woman's role is of course defined by her gender and driven by sexuality; to do otherwise would apparently defeat Lumley's understanding of storytelling.
The protagonist, the somewhat awkwardly named Sith of Thone, quickly turns out not be a truly cosmic threat but the sort of flawed, easily-understood and ultimately defeatable bogeyman of a million alien-invasion scenarios. The strange realms that the humans enter into via the many nestled Houses Of Doors turn out to have more in common with the old game show, The Crystal Maze than with, say, the dream realms of Lovecraft or Clark Ashton Smith's many magical worlds.
Ultimately, this novel doesn't hinge on a sense of horror or on its somewhat stock science fictional tropes; it's a thriller, an adventure yarn of victory against all odds, one that has more in common with the potboilers of Alistair MacLean than anything else. Although his occasional leaps of imagination can catch at the edges of the awe mechanism in the reader's mind, Lumley's plodding prose, and leaden plot machinations drain those few moments of wonder of their charm and strangeness. It's not a bad entertainment, but it isn't something that needed to have been called a horror novel at all, at heart.
I read this one years ago but wanted something creepy for Halloween season. This fits the bill. Plus it had been so long since I first read it that I had forgotten most of it. Loved the setting and all the different places the characters visited - some truly creepy and imaginative things here. The only drawback, really, is the female character. Though not totally wimpy, she is a bit of a trope (the damsel in distress needing a hero to save her). Otherwise, worth reading. I'm sure I'll reread it sometime in the future.
Interesting premise (an enormous castle appears with no explanation, causing international consternation and a then a group of people get sucked inside and have to choose among various doors. That's the good part.), but the execution wasn't my thing.
The bad? I didn't grasp the pseudo-scientific explanation (of what should probably be unexplainable) but what really put me off was the horrific sexism. The book was published in 1990, so it's certainly recent enough that it can't be explained away by the age of the book - the only use for the female character is as a sex object, either to be protected or to be desired (as a target for rape, natch). And, what is with the focus on sex anyway? I've seen this in a few other books and it never ceases to confuse me - so a group of people are trapped in an alien castle, with horrific monsters trying to kill them and the men have the time/inclination to want to RAPE someone? People are thinking of sex? Or of anything other than survival? Makes no sense.
I just found this book 20 years after the first time I saw it. Though it probably should have had one more rewrite (some continuity errors, like 222 being Varre's number in one scene and Angela's in another), Brian Lumley's insanely fertile imagination and macho, balls-out style of storytelling make up for everything. Super cheesy, like the best EC comics, super violent and dark, super creative and always surprising, this is just Brian Lumley doing what he does best, raping the hell out of your brain!
I’ve been reading Brian Lumley’s books (over and over) for a long time and I can’t believe I never heard of The House of Doors until recently. This is a scifi/horror story, which he’s very good at. One day a castle with lots of doors suddenly appears on the side of a mountain in Scotland. People are pretty stunned to say the least. Once word got out about it, investigators (and others) from all over the world traveled to Scotland to find out what it was. What it was to me was a bit of a mindblower, but I’m used to that from Lumley. I was a bit upset at Lumley for creating a dog that went missing in the first chapter, but he made up for it. I don’t want to say anything else about it, except that I had a hard time putting it down because it was such a mysterious story. If you’re a Lumley fan like me, I definitely recommend it. I also got the sequel, Maze of Worlds, which I’ll start as soon as I finish up a couple of other books on loan to me.
a fun scifi horror adventure the house reminded me a lot of things (it, darktower2, cube etc) in the way that every door leads to a personal nightmare from all the landscapes i liked the machine planet and the tunnels and least of all the desert and the jungle turnbull and gill were my favourite characters
Задверье Я… чувствую их, вот и все. Я разбираюсь в них точно так же, как Эйнштейн разбирался в цифрах или как палеонтолог разбирается в старых костях. Я ведь не механик. Но я могу объяснить любому механику, что и как делать. Я чувствую машины. До этой книги ничего не знала об одном из старейших фантастов, разрабатывающих лавкрафтово направление. Собственно, как и того, что он преимущественно лавкрафтианец. Знала бы,наверно обошла стороной. Ну, потому что желания замахиваться на Говарда нашего Лавкрафта, после пары неудачных попыток, не испытываю. Просто не мой автор, хотя у него и без меня масса поклонников. Но об обширной ктулху-библиографии Брайана Ламли ничего не знала, описание книги показалось интересным.
У каждого своя фетиш, мой двери и лестницы: тема повторяющихся снов, предмет повышенного интереса в литературе и кино. Потому, встретив упоминание о книге "Дом дверей", которую автор обзорной статьи характеризовал как отменный хоррор, не устояла. Придя в ужас от предисловия с множественным ктулху в анамнезе, однако тронул-ходи, взялась, так уж прочти. Что ж, это, увы, не хоррор и совсем не отменный, но, Ура! - и не про ктулху.
Хорошее крепкое фэнтези про множественность миров, несколько в духе Берроуза (того, который про Тарзана и Принцессу Марса, на всякий случай, не того, который про голый завтрак). Достаточно современный антураж, еще без повсеместного интернета, сотовых телефонов и соцсетей - книга написана в девяностом. Но все эти радости цивилизации там и некуда было бы особенно приткнуть, большей частью действие происходит внутри некоего объекта, который можно было бы назвать синтезатором миров.
Итак, в шотландской провинции, неожиданно, совершенно в стиле "по щукину велению, по моему хотению" появляется замок. Он прекрасен и стилистически идеально соответствует местности, но напрочь лишен д��ерей. Как водится, военные оцепляют, журналисты освещают событие, от правительства на место прибывает министр, от спецслужб агент, привлекший к работе прежде служившего в военной полиции экстрасенса (который болен раком, но удивительно талантливого в работе с разного рода механизмами).
Министр, спецагент и экстрасенс оказываются рядом с замковой стеной, к ним присоединяется француз, полуофициально представляющий свою страну, в последний момент в кадр влетает красотка, преследуемая маниакально ревнивым мужем. На мгновение стена становится проницаемой и героев затягивает вовнутрь странного пространства, которое могло бы быть Землей, но скорее всего ею не является.
И вот уж в этом месте дверей будет в избытке. Не забыть бы сказать, что внутри они встретят неказистого человечка, попавшего сюда чуть раньше - мелкую криминальную сошку в бегах от подельников, которых сдал, спасаясь. И еще одного подозрительного типа, ну явно же инопланетного агента. А потом начнутся те самые ужасные приключения в калейдоскопически меняющихся мирах, в ходе которых сначала все вместе, потом каждый по отдельности, окажутся в персональном варианте ада.
Нет, не страшно. Местами забавно, местами увлекательно, иногда скучновато. Но сюжет крепкий, финал жизнеутверждающий, а исполнение вполне достойное. Кто любит приключенческое фэнтези - рекомендую.
Not Lumley's best. Somewhere between his better Necroscope books and his mediocre Titus Crow stories. The cosmic horror elements were neat and some of the premises interesting, but ultimately kind of 'meh'. Not the worst horror fiction out there, and far from the author's weakest work. But nothing I would write home about.
Interesting premise but any author who thinks frequent rape is necessary to propel a story similar to "The Cube" is wrong. I had high hopes for this book but 56 pages in and I'm done with it.
Though billed as horror, this is science fiction, undercooked but also overdetermined. Though published in 1990, it's about as sophisticated as lower-end 50s genre yarns, with a pulpy writing style that heavily foregrounds action and sensationalism. Everything is explained--and later re-explained--early on, so there's little suspense. It's sort of like a pat James Bond, with secondary trope-y characters in tow, exploring Arthur C. Clarke's Rama, but without any mystery, because we also get the Raman-equivalent POV. Rama, you say? Hear me out on some of the similarities:
1) Alien Construct as a Testing Ground – Both The House of Doors and Rendezvous with Rama feature an enigmatic, artificially created environment designed by an alien intelligence to observe, test, or challenge human visitors.
2) Exploration and Survival – The protagonists in both novels must navigate a vast, unfamiliar structure filled with strange and potentially dangerous phenomena, often relying on problem-solving and adaptability. Lumley invokes a lot of analogies and some pop psychology.
3) Alien Crab-Like Entities – Rendezvous with Rama features biomechanical creatures called "crab" robots that perform maintenance inside the Rama structure. Similarly, The House of Doors includes monstrous, crab-like alien entities as part of its environments.
Clarke knew that less was more. Lumley believed more was less, and apparently still had extra left over for a sequel.
Everything involving Angela was particularly noxious; one star demerit for that alone.
It took a lot of concentration to get through this one. I even skipped a portion to get closer to the final pages because I was ready for it to be over. This book as one of the coolest covers ever, like a heavy metal rock album, but the story is distinctly science fiction--not horror like it advertises itself to be. This is fine, but it's not the most original idea ever, nor does it have the best pacing or characters. The titular House of Doors resembles a medieval castle from the outside, and appears in rural Scotland to a farmer and his dog. The castle shimmers at first as if made of mist, until the man touches it, it suddenly becomes solid and physical.
We spend the first third of this book reading about 6 or so different characters before they come together and enter the castle. The castle turns out to be an alien escape room of sorts. Inside is a virtual reality of different biomes and challenges. The idea is an alien conquering race called the Thone put a House of Doors on different civilized planets and if the inhabitants pass the tests, the Thone will let that planet survive. I never got hooked by the idea and Brian Lumley's writing wasn't the most descriptive about the environment around the characters. I kept hoping it would get better but it never really did.
As a fan of both the science fiction and horror genres, this book was perfect for me, but readers who only enjoy one of those would likely find the novel to drag in some areas.
House of Doors is a phenomenal blend of science fiction and horror. I didn’t find any of the main characters to be annoying and found it handled the heavy concept of sexual assault in a non-exploitative manner, which are both sadly common pitfalls of 80s and 90s horror. No other book in the past several years has had me tearing through the final 20% in one sitting like it did. It’s not only very readable, but also deep enough that you don’t forget it after it’s conclusion.
This novel is about people lost in an alien environment, trying to find their way out. The setup was a bit interesting, but I just didn't find the story compelling or any of the characters believable. Some of my issues may be because I listened to the audio version, and I didn't care at all for the narrator's voice. But I still feel the story itself was lacking. This will not stop me from reading Brian Lumley books because most have been amazing.
This was a fantastic read - and I'm sure in a few years I will re-read the book again. It's full of sci-fi adventures, but not the mind numbing kind. This is a smart book that makes you think and it's a delight to read. The main character, Spencer Gill, has a special gift where he can "understand" machines. I'll say no more.
This was my first Brian Lumley book... I may need a week or so before I can venture into another. And if I see a module / castle /crystal with lots of doors, you can be sure i will not be knocking on any of them!
What I thought would be a straightforward horror novel turned out to be a surprising mix of sci-fi, adventure, romance, and yes horror. If this had been turned into a film after its publication I could see John Carpenter doing it justice.
I really enjoyed this book. The storyline was outstanding,I can't wait to start book two. If the second book is anything like the first book, then I will not be disappointed
57:28 You who believe, heed God and believe in his messenger; He will give you double shares in his mercy and grant you a light to walk by as well as forgive you. God is forgiving, merciful.