Book reviews

Book review: A Long Way Home

A Long Way HomeA Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a sweet story of how a child of five managed to survive lost in the city of Calcutta for weeks before being taken in by police, put up for adoption, then moved to Australia before, improbably, finding his birth mother still living near his childhood home 25 years later, using Google Earth, of all things.

The first third of the story depicts life in the Indian village of Ganesh Talai, where the poverty-stricken family struggles to find enough to eat. Eventually Saroo’s older brothers start begging and working around the railroads farther away from the village and one time the eldest, Guddu, offers to take the then-five year old Saroo with him for the day. Exhausted by the long train ride, Saroo waits on a platform at the station after his brother promises to return later that day–but never does.

After growing impatient, Saroo tries to find his way back home by boarding another train but ends up on a journey that takes him 1500 km away, ending with him in the giant rail terminus of Howrah, in the city of Kolkata (then Calcutta). Surviving on a combination of wits, fast legs, a general distrust and begging, Saroo spends weeks in Kolkata before finally being taken by a teen to the police and reported as lost.

Fairly swiftly he is adopted by an Australian couple and moves to a new home in Hobart, Tasmania. There, 25 years later, he uses Google Earth and then Facebook to begin an improbable quest to find his hometown and birth family.

But he never finds them. The book is only 20 pages long.

Kidding! While later admitting his search methodology could have been more efficient, Saroo does eventually find his home village and the reunion with his mother is touching, yet bittersweet, given the lost years and the fate of his older brother, killed by a train (hence why he never returned to fetch his younger brother).

While his memories as a five year old are sometimes inaccurate–he will never remember the exact train route he took that managed to land him in Kolkata) he retained enough detail about his home town to positively identify local landmarks on a satellite map, an amazing achievement, more so given the lengthy passage of time.

Even now, writing this review, I am still struck at how Saroo’s dedicated effort yielded the proverbial needle in the haystack. This is a remarkable story and well worth checking out. The photos (at the end of the ebook version) are especially sweet, showing the reunited family with smiles all around.

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Book review: Descent

DescentDescent by Tim Johnston
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I found Descent well-written in terms of the actual prose–it is even lyrical at times–but the characters are relentlessly grim and worse, uninteresting. The story tends to plod and nearly everyone talks the same way, with the exact same–and I do mean exact same–speech affectations.

This is a simple story. A family vacationing in the mountains and already beset with issues like an unfaithful husband, faces the tragic loss of their 18 year old daughter after she is abducted by a man high up on an isolated mountain road while she is running. Her younger brother, accompanying her on bike, is struck by the vehicle of the man and left at the side of the road, injured and unable to help. The next few years play out with the husband and son looking for the daughter while the wife voluntarily checks herself into a hospital (and mostly out of the story) because she can’t bear it.

This novel could also be called Grim Men Who Smoke and Talk Like Parrots because these guys are completely devoid of humor (the occasional “jokes” they make are greeted with all the delight of witnessing a stillbirth), smoke relentlessly (but always thoughtfully blowing the smoke away from the non-smokers) and go about their daily lives with jaws set tight, all the better to clench their cigarettes.

The author abruptly chooses to refer to Sean, the aforementioned son, as simply “the boy” partway through the story and at first I thought it was meant to be a metaphor for how the guy was simply not growing into a man. Indeed, by the time he is 18 he is still making foolish, impulsive decisions that imperil his safety. But then he suddenly becomes Sean again in one scene, then reverts back to “the boy” and eventually to Sean yet again, so instead of a metaphor the whole thing ends up feeling more like a continuity error.

And while Johnston does write elegant, if occasionally overwrought, prose when describing the mountain scenery or the bleakness of a small town or a farm scoured by the weather, the dialogue spoken by nearly every character goes well beyond literary license (that whole “people don’t talk like this in real life, but real life talk in a novel would be awful” thing) to the point of absurdity and worse, utter predictability. It almost starts to feel like self-parody.

An example exchange might go like this:

“I thought of something about life.”
“You thought of something about life?”
“Yeah.”
They both drew deep on their cigarettes, exhaling into the wind.

Or:

“There’s four ways to skin a cat.”
“What are they?”
“What?”
“What are the four ways to skin a cat?”
He lit a cigarette and blew the smoke off to the side. “I’m not sure, really. I thought I knew.”

Or:

“That horse looks like it’s going to buck that man.”
“That horse looks like it’s going to buck that man?”
“I think so. I don’t know.” He lit another cigarette, tossing the stub of the last one on top of the other two hundred piled around his feet.

Also, while the men are off finding themselves on long, rambling road trips and getting into fights and drinking and smoking, the women in the story–few as they are–exist only as props and scenery and victims. The mother checks out early and returns only at the end, to no real effect, just another prop for the men to work with. The daughter, Caitlin, has some actual spark, but is kidnapped early and subjected to misery thereafter (there’s a pun there for people who have read a certain King novel of the same name).

Overall, I found the whole thing a bit shapeless. I’m all for a good family drama (the suspense here is definitely not the draw) but the characters aren’t that compelling, mainly because of the incredibly small set of emotions each has. They are so detached and wooden–even when supposedly acting out in passion–that you come to expect woodpeckers to alight on their heads and start going to town.

I suppose if you find the idea of watching the slow-motion lives of incredibly dour men play out while some out-of-left-field set of coincidences actually lead to the story wrapping up, you might find interest in this. I can’t say I regret reading Descent, exactly, but it was a ponderous thing.

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Book review: Nightmares Unhinged

Nightmares Unhinged: Twenty Tales of TerrorNightmares Unhinged: Twenty Tales of Terror by Joshua Viola
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Warning: There be spoilers ahead, so if you want to be surprised(ish) while reading, you may want to skip this review.

Nightmares Unhinged is not a bad collection of horror stories but it’s not an outstanding one, either. It contains few surprises and while some of the stories are fun, a good portion of them are filled with nasty, unlikable protagonists who usually get their comeuppance. If that’s your thing you may enjoy these stories more than I did.

Here’s a one or two-sentence review of all twenty:

“The Brollachan” – A shapeless monster of legend takes over a girl while her grandmother rends the English language apart with the world’s greatest Scottish accent, lovingly depicted in phonetic detail. At least you don’t end up hating all of the characters, d’ye no ken?

“Fangs” – Vampire vs. dentist. The more cruel and clever one wins. Sorry, vampire!

“The Chair” – Homage to Lovecraft featuring, yes, a chair. It levitates so that’s weird.

“The Man Who Killed Texas” – Proving that family is not always the best thing in the aftermath of a global pandemic. A sad tale told well.

“Scarecrows” – Kids and evil scarecrows. There, I just rewrote the story in four words.

“Zou Gou” – Mean aliens conquer the Earth and conduct mean experiments. Twist ending! (But not really.)

“Needles” – A PSA for why junkies should not get pregnant. No one here is likable and the life lesson seems to be “don’t sleep with weird monster men.”

“The Projectionists” – Creepy old man runs the projector for Grandma’s two-screen movie theater. Grandson gets curious, skin unravels like unspooling film (that’s a metaphor. Actually, it’s not, his skin really unravels).

“The Wolf’s Paw” – Vampire vs. Werewolf. This time the vampire wins.

“Danniker’s Coffin” – The end of the family line comes to terms with his inability to carry on the tradition of coffin-making and his own mortality, neatly combining the two. A nice break from vampires vs fill-in-the-blank.

“Deep Woods” – a gory prequel (sequel?) of sorts to Friday the 13th. Everyone is unlikable but everyone dies, so it kind of balances out.

“Diamond Widow” – not-so-clever jewel thief and creepy guy picks up a jewel-making woman who turns the tables on him by turning him into a diamond. Not through magic, through some sort of crushing machine. Seriously.

“The Camera” – Unlikable couple hiking in the woods. Staged sex, shootings and revenge. Why did I read this?

“Lost Balls” – Troll vs golfers. The troll wins. Balls–the kind men have between their legs–figure prominently in the story.

“Bathroom Break” – Creep has an affair, decides to end it when his office co-worker turns out to be a little too goth for his liking (velvet drapes and black sheets, oh my), ends affair by snapping her neck in a washroom at staff Christmas party but the joke’s on him because she shambles back to the party naked, holding out his wedding ring while his wife looks on. Because being goth means you come back to life as a zombie or something.

“Marginal Ha’nts” – Genuinely fun story about a new ghost who aspires to be the best ghost he can be.

“Delicioso” – Would-be psycho killer tries to pick up latest victim but–twist!–she’s also a psycho killer and is a better one than he. You may have guessed but neither character is likable.

“The Librarian” – Funny, albeit somewhat corny tale of a strange librarian, his new and unsuspecting assistant and an even stranger regular customer. I won’t spoil this one even if you may see what’s coming. It’s hammy but it works.

“Gurgle, Gurgle” – In which half the text is in italics because the author is constantly dropping in Spanish words. A nephew inadvertently discovers the genie lamp of his uncle and along with his friend makes a few wishes with monkey’s paw-like consequences. A light if predictable story. Warning: contains giant exploding penis.

“Taking the Dare” – Neighborhood kids think the creepy man living on their street is the local serial killer. And he is! Lots of stabbing and chasing. The protagonist gets “flashes” from making contact with people, ala Johnny Smith. In a longer story this might have been more significant, but here it’s simply the device to get the plot rolling. Promises more than it delivers.

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Book review: Blind Lake

Blind LakeBlind Lake by Robert Charles Wilson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Blind Lake is a near-future story that imagines a world where we have created powerful quantum computers without really understanding how they work or what, in fact, they might do. It also imagines that people will still print out copies of their email to read. 😛

Author Robert Charles Wilson falls into the trap of trying to extrapolate near-future gadgetry and technology and having current technology (as of 2017) make the extrapolation look a little silly. While the quantum computers at the Blind Lake research facility that create video images of two distant worlds, one with sentient life, seem reasonably convincing–mainly because they are steeped in mystery–the references to “pocket servers” that all of the characters tote around feel outdated in a world overflowing with smartphones (the novel predates the iPhone by four years).

Still, the story, a combination of mystery and suspense on both human and cosmic scales, is well-told and builds convincingly toward a conclusion that slightly disappoints by feeling a bit disconnected, somewhat like most of the characters.

Those characters include a withdrawn eleven year old who sees a “Mirror Girl” that looks like her and may or may not exist only in her mind, Marguerite, the mother of the girl and a scientist who doubts herself and her ability to judge others after a failed marriage to a Ding Dong-munching and verbally abusive bully–who also happens to work at Blind Lake, a reporter named Chris who carries guilt over the role his book may have played in a person’s death. Nearly every character has some kind of emotional baggage and when the Blind Lake facility is sealed off from the outside world, with no explanation as to why, the various doubts, neuroses and obsessions escalate in parallel to the budding crisis caused by the quantum computers perhaps taking a little too much initiative.

In the end Blind Lake is a weirdly hopeful sort of story, albeit in an ambiguous way that may even lead to a sense of existential dread–as it does for at least one character. The detachment and relentless struggles of everyone is a bit wearying at time and Marguerite’s ex-husband Ray is an odd sort of pseudo-villain who never gets fleshed out enough to really resonate as well as he could.

Still, the escalation of tension and the unfolding mystery of both the observed alien race and just what the quantum computers might be doing, make Blind Lake worth visiting. Just be sure to leave before you feel the earth move. It’s definitely not romance.

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Book review: The Eerie Silence

The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien IntelligenceThe Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence by Paul Davies
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Paul Davies, the chair of SETI’s Post-Detection Science and Technology Taskgroup, wrote The Eerie Silence in 2010, a short time after the Kepler space telescope launched. Back then a handful of exoplanets (planets outside our solar system) had been discovered. Since then Kepler alone has confirmed over 2,300 exoplanets and estimates for the observable universe go as high as 5.3 trillion.

That’s a lot of planets.

And yet seven years later, the eerie silence Davies wrote about persists. You might think that over 50 years of observation by SETI failing to yield any tangible results would be disheartening and indeed, Davies does admit it can be a little depressing when you focus solely on the lack of any clear signal that we are not alone in the universe. But he remains hopeful that life here is not a one-time fluke among the billions of star systems. That hope is tempered by his adherence to the scientific method, of observation and testing, with minimal speculation.

It is that speculation, though, that forms the heart of the book. Davies presents comprehensive scenarios on how other planets might support life, what that life might be like, how alien races might communicate with us–or if they would even bother. He takes a dim view on fictional portrayals of aliens as malevolent beings looking to wipe us out and constantly warns against falling into the trap of anthropocentric thought. H notes that we might not even recognize aliens because they could exist in a state we can’t comprehend.

Davies also spends time covering how SETI and others would handle the world-changing confirmation of other intelligent life (he doesn’t put much stock in politicians or government handling it well).

In all, this is a wonderfully detailed and engaging look into the possibility of life beyond Earth. Davies keeps coming up with unique angles on how to approach looking for signs of communication–whether intentional or incidental, on how other intelligent beings might act and evolve, and why he is still passionate about continuing the search for other intelligent species beyond the confines of our solar system.

Highly recommended.

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Book review: 2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: A Space Odyssey (Space Odyssey, #1)2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The novel of 2001 was written as the film was being shot and apart from the ultimate destination of Discovery being Saturn rather than Jupiter, it sticks close to the film’s plot (apparently they couldn’t get the look of Saturn’s rings quite right for the film).

The book is short, giving it more of a movie tie-in feel than one would normally expect in a Clarke novel. And–as Clarke admits in the foreword–the novel makes explicit a lot of what is otherwise left to the viewer to interpret in the film.

While I enjoyed the book, particularly the detailing of life aboard the Discovery before Hal goes bonkers, its brevity ultimately left it feeling a bit unfinished. That Clarke ultimately wrote a sequel (and then two more after) is not surprising, as the conclusion feels like the end of a first act.

As a companion piece to the film, it perhaps fares better, providing more explanation for those wanting it. The depiction of the enigmatic aliens helping to shape humanity is intriguing but again, cuts short at the end.

While this is not an essential work of Clarke’s, it’s still a solid read but may be best for those committing to the entire Odyssey quadrilogy or those interested in learning more about what was going on in the now-classic film.

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Book review: Steal Like an Artist

Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being CreativeSteal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a quick little inspirational tome designed to help spur creativity, supplemented by Kleon’s quirky choice of photographs and his own hand-drawn art and notes.

His advice, backed up by quotes from notable creative types, is sensible while some of the particulars reflect what works well for him but may not work so well for everyone else. He cheerfully recommends jettisoning anything you don’t think will work for you.

Some of his ideas are interesting–having both a digital and analog desk, keeping a simple logbook (not to be confused with a diary or journal) and having a praise file for days when you are feeling down or uninspired. Others, like a giant year-long calendar you can X off each day as you complete tasks, I am less sold on.

The enthusiasm and spirit with which he presents his advice are bound to get you motivated to try something, though. And his drawing style is weirdly cute. Recommended.

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Book review: Brandwashed

BrandwashedBrandwashed by Martin Lindstrom
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Martin Lindstrom’s Brandwashed is in many ways not surprising to those who are familiar with the lengths that companies will go to in order to market their products. What still surprised me, though, was how improved technology has allowed these companies to propel their efforts to new, absurd and downright creepy heights.

Whether it’s carefully-arranged store displays presenting illusions designed to elicit specific emotions or memories, efforts to market not just to adults, teens and children, but even to babies, or the use of sophisticated data-mining to target individuals with a disturbing level of precision, Brandwashed paints a picture of a world in which we are constantly bombarded with messages–usually subliminal–to buy certain products and services.

Lindstrom’s perspective is that of an insider, and he cites not only numerous case studies and marketing campaigns, but some he has orchestrated directly himself. He comes across a bit apologetic at times and even tries to reveal some of the good in these insidious techniques, like attempts to woo consumers toward more green products, but he also rightfully raises concerns over privacy and reach.

The book focuses on a different aspect of marketing in each chapter and the style and tone remain light, even as Lindstrom reminds us of how the flat where George Orwell wrote 1984 now has 32 closed-circuit cameras mounted within 200 yards of it.

While the thrust of the book remains as potent in 2017 as when it was originally published in 2011, some of the observations are bound to raise a few eyebrows just six years later (likely in dismay):

On the male side, there are colognes attached to the famous names Justin Timberlake, David Beckham, Usher, Tim McGraw, Andre Agassi, and even Donald Trump. “We are confident that men of all ages want to experience some part of Mr. Trump’s passion and taste for luxury,” said Aramis president Fabrice Weber.25 Actually, it appears they don’t. In one of the few cases where putting a celebrity name on a product didn’t work, a few years after it hit the shelves, according to one gimlet-eyed blogger, Donald Trump for Men could be found on clearance at T. J. Maxx for $8, down from $48.

Brandwashed is an easy recommendation for anyone wondering just how far companies will go to get us to buy their stuff (which is a lot further than most probably imagine).

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Book review: How to Grow a Novel

How to Grow a Novel: The Most Common Mistakes Writers Make and How to Overcome ThemHow to Grow a Novel: The Most Common Mistakes Writers Make and How to Overcome Them by Sol Stein
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’m a sucker for “how to write a novel” books and when How to Grow a Novel was on sale, I picked it up as I was interested in Stein’s perspective not just as a writer but also as an editor and publisher.

There’s some good stuff here and the advice is practical and precise, if sometimes contradictory. Stein both advises writers to read their own work aloud–and to not do so (because novels are read, not heard). He offers some genuinely interesting glimpses into how the book publishing business works (or at least worked, as the book was originally published in 1999, predating the rise of self-publishing through e-books).

I enjoyed the use of specific excerpts to underline the points being made but was less enthused with the self-promotion. The book Stein recommends the most is his own. At times he makes Stein On Writing sound better than this book, perhaps hoping to net a few more sales.

By the end, I found How to Grow a Novel more interesting as a reflection on the book publishing industry and less on the actual writing of a novel. A beginning writer could do worse (the stories of six-figure advances may be depressing in a way Stein didn’t anticipate) but could also do better, especially if looking for help that more readily mixes nuts and bolts advice with inspiration.

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Book review: The Tommyknockers

The TommyknockersThe Tommyknockers by Stephen King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The thing I like most about The Tommyknockers is how bonkers it is.

This was my primary motivation to re-read it for the first time since its original publication in 1987. Sometimes you just want to read something that’s flat-out bonkers.

The Tommyknockers is the story of an ancient spaceship buried under the ground of a bucolic village in Maine facing off against a washed-up and suicidal drunk poet.

It’s the story of how that same town, ironically named Haven, gets dosed with some serious crazy from the ship, leading the townsfolk to tear each other apart when they’re not busy building gadgets that defy the laws of physics.

It’s extremely violent at times, filled with gory deaths and near-misses that King gleefully describes in loving detail.

It’s also a bitter and sad reunion between a pair of former lovers and friends, both changed, both beyond redemption, each struggling with their basic humanity, one rather more literally than the other.

King spent much of the 1980s under the influence of various drugs and there’s something about the texture of the story and particularly the self-destruction of Jim Gardener, the alcoholic poet, that suggests more than verisimilitude at work here. Though the novel suffers from what feels like a hands-off approach from the editor, with a few sloppy sections that should have been cleaned up or excised, the sense that you are riding along on a rocket of destruction both serves as a strength of the story and a reminder of how King was battling his own buried demons at the time.

If you like horror masquerading as loopy science fiction, The Tommyknockers is a fun (if too-long) read. It’s my second favorite “spaceship buried in the earth” novel, after Patrick Tilley’s Fade-Out.

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Book review: 1969: The Year Everything Changed

1969: The Year Everything Changed1969: The Year Everything Changed by Rob Kirkpatrick
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Author Rob Kirkpatrick was about the same age as I was in 1969, which means he was more likely to be eating crayons than dropping acid like so many of the people mentioned in this book. Despite this, one of the strengths of 1969: The Year Everything Changed is the authoritative voice Kirkpatrick uses, lending a “you are there” feel to many of the events that are recounted.

Dividing the book into the four seasons doesn’t really add much to the book, but having devoted sections on politics, entertainment, sports and major events helps color in what the U.S. was like nearly five decades ago.

There are the stunning achievements, like the July moon landing, but the year is marked more by strife–the ongoing Vietnam war that Nixon inherited, racial violence, student protests, the rise of groups like the Weather Underground that engaged in attacks aimed at the government. It was also a time of experimentation and the shedding of inhibitions–nudity was in and drug use was more openly embraced than it had ever been before. Woodstock is remembered fondly, though Kirkpatrick reminds us that it was marred by terrible weather and a surprising number of uninspired acts that limped through their sets. Woodstock shines in comparison to the concert at the Altamont Speedway that closes out the book, though. The Rolling Stones urged the crowd, mixing uneasily with Hells Angels, to settle down even as a man in the midst of it was stabbed to death, one of multiple deaths at the event.

Kirkpatrick also covers the grim parade of death led by the Manson family and the Zodiac killer, the bracing vitality of film as it covered adult subjects with a newfound frankness, whether it be Sam Peckinpah’s blood-spattered westerns or the X-rated seediness of Midnight Cowboy (as noted, an X-rating back then had more to do with violence and less with sexual content–the film later got re-rated to R). There’s also a great deal of sports coverage here, particularly focusing on baseball and the improbable rise of the New York Mets. For fans of the team or baseball in general, these sections are terrifically written, capturing the drama and politics of the sport. Still, the sports parts feel almost incongruous next to the nigh-endless violence that surrounds them.

The book ends with a brief look ahead to the 70s, rounding out how a lot of the newsmakers of 1969 fared in the coming years. Nixon had that whole “whoops, I taped that, didn’t I?” thing, NASA’s glory with the moon landing would end just a few years later and the hippie movement faded away, though many of its ideals would persist in some form through the 70s before crumbling away under the conspicuous consumption of the 80s.

1969 offers an intriguing slice of how different the U.S. was in the late 60s. While violent police action and the disturbing growth of their militarization rightfully makes headlines today, it is sobering to see how little has changed since 1969 when police raids were executed on flimsy or false premises and gun battles–with resultant fatalities–were all too common. The biggest difference back then is probably in how so many of the protesters and people agitating for change were also prone to violence. In an era recalled as one of peace and love, the late 60s were more often bloody.

While some subjects are touched on a bit too briefly–inevitable given that the book is an overview of so many major events– 1969 still gives a good feel for that era. I can’t say I’d have wanted to be an adult living in the U.S. in 1969 but it would certainly have been…interesting.

Recommended, albeit if you don’t enjoy sports a not-insignificant chunk of the book will be a wash.

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Book review: The Fireman

The FiremanThe Fireman by Joe Hill
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Joe Hill prefaces The Fireman with a list of people who inspired him and cheerfully admits to stealing the title from Ray Bradbury and “all the rest” from his father. It’s true in a couple of ways–the story of a global pandemic that causes people to spontaneously combust has homages aplenty to King’s own end-of-the-world novel The Stand, as well as references and call-outs to The Dark Tower series. And it’s also true in that, like King, Hill tells a ripping good yarn, with vividly-drawn heroes and appropriately evil bad guys.

The story focuses on a band of infected that learn to control the “dragonscale” spores inside their bodies through group singing, something that not only prevents them from literally going up in flames but also leaves them feeling pleasantly buzzed in a communal sort of way. This turns out to have its downsides as the story plays out.

Harper Willowes, having escaped from her revealed-to-be-monstrous husband, joins the other infected in a summer camp where they lay low, wary of being found by “incinerator” gangs devoted to killing the infected. She meets the titular Fireman, a British ex-pat named John Rookwood who can not only keep the dragonscale under control but can use the fire it creates willfully.

Made pregnant by her estranged husband just days before she flees from him, Harper draws closer to the Fireman while growing increasingly concerned about the pod people-like behavior of the other infected in the camp.

As you might guess, things go sideways through intentions both good and evil, with plenty of fireworks (literal and otherwise) and mayhem resulting. Hill also demonstrates that he is not above using a well-placed fire pun. All the better to burn the reader’s expectations (ho ho).

The Fireman is a messy, bloody romp. The bad guys will have you hissing while the heroes are flawed but believable and sympathetic. The many call-outs to The Stand and The Dark Tower are fun to spot. Hill tosses curve balls from time to time to keep things interesting and doesn’t cheat much with coincidences, letting the characters largely push the story forward (there is one instance near the end where the sudden arrival of a character felt all too convenient, but Hill at least deals with it quickly and moves on).

This is an easy recommendation for anyone who enjoys post-apocalypse stories or just quality horror written in vintage King style. Hill may steal from his father but he has his own voice and with each consistently excellent novel, proves himself a valuable addition to modern horror writers.

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