The Fisherman - Tak's Reading Room

paperback, 282 pages

Published June 30, 2016 by Word Horde.

ISBN:: 978-1-939905-21-5

(2 reviews)

In upstate New York, in the woods around Woodstock, Dutchman's Creek flows out of the Ashokan Reservoir. Steep-banked, fast-moving, it offers the promise of fine fishing, and of something more, a possibility too fantastic to be true. When Abe and Dan, two widowers who have found solace in each other's company and a shared passion for fishing, hear rumors of the Creek, and what might be found there, the remedy to both their losses, they dismiss it as just another fish story. Soon, though, the men find themselves drawn into a tale as deep and old as the Reservoir. It's a tale of dark pacts, of long-buried secrets, and of a mysterious figure known as Der Fisher: the Fisherman. It will bring Abe and Dan face to face with all that they have lost, and with the price they must pay to regain it.

1 edition

Alexander reviewed The Fisherman by John Langan

review: the fisherman

3 stars

well, now: this is some kind of 'how would S. King write a Lovecraftian story', even with the obligated sex scene, which surprises you. it's not a bad book, i just don't really like this style. I get everything told, what appears vaguely at the edges of the field of view. and, to start a discussion about the 'true' genre of cosmic horror, it is not in the spirit, but uses expertly the staff and leitmotifs to write something about grieve and loss.

despite what i just said, it's fine and the old-man-narrator of the audiobook converts it into quite an enjoyable experience.

peter reviewed The Fisherman by John Langan

Loss, loneliness and dark magic

No rating

I'm not sure whether it's a story with a long digression in the middle, or a story with a long framing device bookending it, but either way an odd construction—a tale split in the middle by another story as long as the rest combined. That middle story is the more vivid one to me, the characters more fleshed out, the setting more vivid, and that sort of works given that the middle story is meant to be almost an infection, capable of carrying additional details even if they aren't told.

The outer story drapes itself in the weight of loss, and I don't know that it quite carries it. Those human elements aren't what has stuck with me, at least. Not in the same way as the more fairy tale-like middle story, which spans generations and continents. That one is a story of duelling dark magicians, more compelling but I …

I'm not sure whether it's a story with a long digression in the middle, or a story with a long framing device bookending it, but either way an odd construction—a tale split in the middle by another story as long as the rest combined. That middle story is the more vivid one to me, the characters more fleshed out, the setting more vivid, and that sort of works given that the middle story is meant to be almost an infection, capable of carrying additional details even if they aren't told.

The outer story drapes itself in the weight of loss, and I don't know that it quite carries it. Those human elements aren't what has stuck with me, at least. Not in the same way as the more fairy tale-like middle story, which spans generations and continents. That one is a story of duelling dark magicians, more compelling but I guess less weird than a lonely fisherman stumbling onto the fringes of that story. So what this really is, is a weird story that manages to explain itself without losing its impact.