I came to read December after recently getting hooked on the Merrily Watkins series. To me it felt like a (long) book of two halves: the first half could have done with a really good edit for both length and pace, but the second half (particularly the band's return to the fated abbey studio) fired along with dramatic tension.

The premise is a clever one: a rock band made up of psychics put into an old abbey to see what they come up with, and it isn't pretty. As usual, Rickman walks the fine line between the supernatural and the believable very well. It's also a story that exposes why it's unfair to label Rickman's work with a genre 'horror' label - there is much more here than just the overarching supernatural plot, with portrayals of creative dynamics and responses to adversity that make the book worth persevering with beyond the slow start. Lovely to see some favourite characters such as Gwyn Arthur Jones popping up too.

In terms of Rickman's stand-alone novels, I think I probably preferred Candlenight for its tighter structure and more comic edge to lighten the tone occasionally. ( )

This book is so disjointed, and the writing is abysmal. No way I will be able to finish it. It's like reading the thoughts of a whiny teenage boy. Horrid. ( )

I love Phil Rickman. This was my first Phil Rickman novel and I really liked it. Loved the setting, liked the story and the characters. ( )

Brilliant intro to this novel from http://brightjul.wordpress.com/tag/abbey-tapes-the-exorcism/

Without giving away too much of the story, here’s the gist: In December of 1980, four musicians were invited to the ancient Black Abbey in Ystrad Ddu, Wales, near the Skirrid (a mountain) to record an album as the band Philosopher’s Stone. It turned out to be an almost cruel trick by the record producer to exploit these sensitive, psychic artists. The Abbey itself had been haunted since the 12th century when the Welsh bard Aelwyn Breadwinner (Breuddwydiwr, Welsh for “Dreamer”) died there. And each of the musicians had his own ghosts or obsessions which all seemed to come into play that fateful night, December 8… the same night John Lennon was killed. The tapes for the notorious “Black Album” recorded that night were thought to be destroyed.

The musicians scatter and live with the damage done that night. Fourteen years later, the tapes resurface and the group is persuaded to reunite for another session. For the group and their friend and producer, Prof Levin, it becomes a reluctant attempt to heal, exorcise perhaps, the evils which still haunt them, the Abbey, the town and the Skirrid. Plenty of fascinating characters, bits of Welsh history and mystery, and scary stuff goes on. December has been called “horror” and does have just enough blood, guts, and ghosts to satisfy that genre; but the depth of characterization and empathy elevate the novel beyond horror and in fact it works as a murder mystery/crime fiction. Rickman likes to call it a ghost story. Suffice it to say, if you are looking for cozy, you’d best look elsewhere. Especially alluring are Rickman’s sardonic humor, occasional eroticism, and tidbits about the inner workings of the music industry. ( )

The book opens in December 1980, a group of musicians, most of who are psychic as well as talented musicians, recording under the name ‘The Philosopher’s Stone’ are working overnight in a recording studio sited in an old abbey in rural Wales. The recording doesn’t go well and ends in tragedy, simultaneously, across the Atlantic, John Lennon is murdered. The story is then picked up 14 years later and explores how the events on both sides of the Atlantic have affected the various band members as they slowly come under pressure to reform and complete the unfinished sessions.

This isn’t traditional horror, as always with Rickman’s writing the atmosphere is evoked in the spaces that he leaves in the narrative with the atmospheric abbey always situated at the heart of the story, Rickman roots this book in a landscape familiar to anyone who’s read any of his other books, for fans of the Merrily Watkins series – there’s even a fleeting reference to Ted Watkins – and the book does go some way to explaining some of the backstory to some events in that series.

I really don’t understand why Rickman isn’t a bigger name in British fiction writing. ( )