THE SIXTH SEED by Lee Allen Howard

The Sixth Seed by Lee Allen Howard

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Reading Lee Howard's THE SIXTH SEED is like watching a particularly (for men, especially) painful episode of THE X-FILES. Howard toyed with some of my worst fears in this story, and they had nothing to do with alien embryo implantation.

I'm a fan of stories set in the real world. Stories where the horror is domestic, as much as it is supernatural or extra-terrestrial. This is where Howard excels--making you squrim in situations that are familiar. I suppose I can handle the absurd--it's horror in the mundane that sticks with me. The job, the kids... X FILES creator Chris Carter never dealt with these topics because they make government conspiracy seem a lot less scary. I believe THE SHINING would've been just as terrifying without the supernatural elements. The domestic scares us because it is what we see every day. The domestic reminds us that we've failed as employees, family members... So Howard's decison to combine extra-terrestrial situations with familiar ones was a potent one.



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