7 Steps to Midnight [Hardcover]

Richard Matheson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1993

After his identity is stolen by a mysterious imposter, Chris Barton must elude killers as he follows a series of cryptic messages that lead him around the world to a rendezvous with an enigmatic woman. By the author of Somewhere in Time.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

A legend of horror returns to the field after 15 years--and stumbles. Matheson's first occult novel since What Dreams May Come (1978) finds the author of I Am Legend and The Incredible Shrinking Man mining the same vein of altered reality that inspired his classic Twilight Zone and Star Trek scripts--but this new story, about a mathematician who gets enmeshed in a surreal spy scenario, offers mostly fool's gold. Government math-man Chris Barton leaves his office to find his blue Mustang missing--though the parking attendant swears that no such car has left the lot. Driving home in a borrowed car, Chris picks up a hitchhiker who ventures a wager: ``the security of your existence against your assumption that you know what's real and what's unreal in your life.'' Chris accepts--and finds in his house a stranger who claims to be Chris Barton and who calls in a threatening cop when Chris objects. Seriously confused, Chris hides in a motel and is accosted by the two men from his house--and, in self-defense, kills one. Desperate, the fugitive calls an old friend who sends him a ticket to London. But there awaits even greater mystery, involving attempts on Chris's life; spys galore; a woman who may be the ghost of a Roman aristocrat; a mystical, street-smart Indian; a mysterious microdot; and much talk of ``reality slippage''--with all this nearly arbitrary mayhem explained away in an absurdly far-fetched premise relating to Chris's top-secret math work. The model for this kind of fantastic suspense is G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday--but where Chesterton rent reality toward an inexorable climax, Matheson piles on the weirdness willy-nilly, albeit quickly and slickly. (Believe-it-or- not fans should note that, in what may be a dad-and-son first, the author's offspring, Richard Christian Matheson, is also publishing a September thriller, Created By, p. 808.) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review

"The author who influenced me the most as a writer was Richard Matheson."-Stephen King

"Matheson is the master of paranoia-pitting a single man against unknown horrors and examining his every slow twist in the wind. 7 Steps is a book to be devoured in one long swallow."-San Jose Mercury News

"Richard Matheson is one of the great names in American terror fiction. 7 Steps to Midnight commands attention. . . . The pace is as frantic as anything since the days of Sax Rohmer-but the writing is fortunately up to Matheson's high standards. This is a novel that flies across the page."-The Philadelphia Inquirer

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 318 pages
• Publisher: Forge; 1st Forge ed edition (September 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312854099
• ISBN-13: 978-0312854096
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,192,831 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Richard Matheson was born in 1926. He began publishing SF with his short story 'Born of Man and Woman' in 1950. I Am Legend was published in 1954 and subsequently filmed as The Omega Man (in 1971), starring Charlton Heston, and I Am Legend (in 2007), starring Will Smith. Matheson wrote the script for the film The Incredible Shrinking Man, an adaptation of his second SF novel The Shrinking Man. The film won a Hugo award in 1958. He wrote many screenplays as well as episodes of The Twilight Zone. He continued to write short stories and novels, some of which formed the basis for film scripts, including Duel, directed by Steven Spielberg in 1971. A film of his novel What Dreams May Come was released in 1998, starring Robin Williams. Stephen King has cited Richard Matheson as a creative influence on his work.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good! It reads like a Hitchcock movie, May 18, 2000

By 

"ploid" - See all my reviews

This review is from: 7 Steps to Midnight (Hardcover)

I found this at my local library I since I am a Matheson fan I gave it a try. It is very reminescint of Hitchcock's falsey accused man on the run theme. It has some very good twists and will keep you guessing until the very end. I was pleasently suprised by this book so if you can find it give it a try.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Promises a lot, but fails to deliver, December 26, 2007

By 

Brian Scoggins (Laramie, WY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 7 Steps to Midnight (Paperback)

After 300 pages of growing suspense and confusion, the final explanation for everything seems a little tacked on, to be frank. The entire story, until the final 10 pages or so, pulls very strongly at our desire to believe what is happening, but as far as conspiracy theories go, the eventual explanation seems a little too convenient as if every loose thread was picked up in a half-hazard sort of way. The book draws you in, irresistibly so, and that is definitely the book's strong suit. I found myself periodically putting down the book just to try out various explanations, to see if they worked, to see if it accounted for all the little twists and turns. It gets at you and is worth it for that. However, the ending doesn't live up to the suspense created by the rest of the novel, and indeed, it doesn't jive with the rest of the novel.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quite the page turner, March 14, 2007

By 

Kevin Dobbertien (Detroit, MI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 7 Steps to Midnight (Paperback)

This book had me hooked in no time. I couldn't put it down. At the end of every chapter you're left with a strong desire...a strong need to continue with the next chapter. You're constantely surprised and stunned as the events of Chris Barton's adventure unfold. I've never read a book as quickly as I read this one. I simply could not put it down. If you have ever liked a Richard Matheson book then you have to read 7 Steps to Midnight.