Dan McNeil's Blog

I've had a long day today. A very long day.  In order to make sure I was across town before roads starting closing for the London Marathon (and in expectation that they may close earlier than planned, thanks to the events in Boston earlier in the week) I was in a car driving away from home at 6.30am this morning. I've found myself mostly flying out of Terminal 5 from Heathrow recently, and so being dropped off by the car at Terminal 3 was quite a blast from the past.  A blast from the days when I used to take the pre-7am SAS flight over to Stockholm.  Terminal 3 hasn't changed much.  In fact, besides a few of the restaurants changing names, everything seems in pretty much the same place. Terminal 3 is a weird building.  A million miles away from the huge windows of Terminal 5; there aren't really any windows at all. You need to be at one of the gates or in one of the Business Class lounges to actually see real daylight in there.  It's also not a patch o...

I've written about my disappointment with a James Herbert book before  and so maybe I should've learned my lesson and not read another of his books.  But this time I thought it'd be difference. I've said before that "Haunted" is one of my favourite horror books.  It's short, simple and has a rather good ghost story with very little padding.  It's subtle and interesting.  It was followed by "The Ghosts of Sleath" which wasn't dire, but certainly wasn't as good as "Haunted".  And then the third in the trilogy - "Ash". I had high hopes.  I thought "this could be another Haunted" and so I sat down to read it.  It's a fairly large book - seven hundred or so pages.  And it was awful.  Truly awful.  Oh - just a warning - there will be spoilers in what I'm going to say below - but if that puts you off reading the book, then thank me for saving you from wasting those hours of your life... So, the pre...