Customer Reviews

Blood Crazy

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Congratulations to Simon Clark for the first 5 star novel I've read in 2001. I absolutely loved "Blood Crazy". Readers will be in for one hell of a devilish ride with this brilliant story!

Nick Aten is the perfect hero for this tale. An average teenager whose main delights in life are: tinkering with his car, hanging out with his mates and a trip to the Golden Arches. Incidentally, it's amazing how enjoyable a read Mr. Clark makes the trip for a hamburger in this story. Nick really likes going out for his burgers. His character is fleshed out wonderfully.

Everything in Nick's world is as it should be on the planet's last normal Saturday. Come Sunday morning, though, things are completely different. The adults of Doncaster begin the wholesale slaughter of any child under the age of 19. It's total chaos.

What follows is an intense story of survival and self-realization. Nick comes to the aid of a girl named Sarah and her two younger sisters Vicki and Anne. They somehow manage to elude the crazed adults and find refuge with an ever-growing assortment of surviving teens and children. Into this mixture is thrown some interior turmoil, ever increasing Napoleon complexes from would-be teen thugs, the reoccurring appearance of Nick's nemesis Slatter and a population of adults that are growing more organized as each day passes.

And yet, through all of this, Nick handles himself with as much courage and determination as possible. This novel was a fantastic read. I was disappointed to see end.

Sequel, Mr. Clark!! This story is begging for a sequel! It would be wonderful to see where these characters end up in the future and what other obstacles stand in their way.

Horror fans read this one! You will not be disappointed.

"Get this message into your head. You, too, have a monster to kill. And this book just might save your life." These are the first three lines of a novel that is nothing short of fantastic. One morning Nick Aten wakes up to find that the world has gone insane. The adults are systematically killing all the children. The story that follows is a story of survival, tragedy and hope. The small number of children and teenagers that have survived the initial attacks are banding together and reforming their own society. They face the dangers of a civilization that is now extinct while the adults continue to hunt and kill them.

Nick Aten, the narrator, is an unlikely hero. He describes himself with the following: "I was born without ambition. My plans were to earn a bit of money, drink more beer and have a good time." His biggest problem, until the world went mad, is a ferocious town bully named Tug Slatter. This is what makes him one of the finest characters I've ever encountered. A regular kid forced to grow up fast in order to survive the new world. All the characters are incredibly realistic, well developed and a testament to the human spirit.

Clark's writing style is crisp, clean and chilling. There is a constant build up of tension and dread. This book contains some of the creepiest scenes I've read in a long time. Not in the slash-em-up style either. Although there are some gruesome scenes in this book, it's never gratuitous. The scenes are there to show you the horror that these kids are facing everyday.

This book is frightening, inspiring and thought provoking. It pulls you in from page one and doesn't let go until the brutal climax. I'm a big fan of apocalyptic horror stories and I I've heard this novel compared to King's "The Stand" and McCammon's "Swan Song". It really shouldn't be because, although those books were excellent, Clark's style and vision are completely original. Expect to be drawn into this book, to feel for the characters (even the evil ones). I give this book a strong recommendation. I'd also like to add a heartfelt thanks to the folks at Leisure Publishing for putting such excellent horror novels back on the market.

I just finished this book after three days of intense reading and hours at work with it preying at the back of my mind. And all I can say is, "Wow." I was hooked from page one and am at a loss to describe my feelings for this book.

BLOOD CRAZY is more than just an "end-of-the-world" gore-fest. We get deep into the mind and heart of the main character, Nick Aten (rhymes with Satan); we understand him and sympathize with him, even though we do not always necessarily agree with him. This is what made the book so special to me. The characters were real--none were magically transformed into loveable, friendly people just because the world happened to go insane. The characters, while not always sympathetic, were always real. This, as in Clark's other novels, is what really kept me interested. I cared about what happened to the characters in this book, thought about them while I wasn't reading, and the book will resonate in my head for quite a while, I'm sure.

Don't take this to mean that it was slow-going. On the contrary, the book was highly suspenseful and full of some great action sequences. And I thought the gore content was perfect--just enough to make me squeamish in parts, but never so much that I looked away.

All in all a great read, not to be missed. This is what horror is all about.

I started this book yesterday and finished it this morning. I couldn't put it down. Why? The good parts were good enough to pull me through the slow parts.
If you've read the above book description, you know that Clark has created a world in which anyone over the age of 19 suddenly and with no apparant reason is compelled to kill anyone under the age of 19. Make no mistake, this is a gritty, gory story narrated by the 17-year-old protagonist, Nick Aten ("yeah, yeah, it rhymes with Satan"). Nick is content to live a life of partying with no higher ambition; then he drags himself home one beautiful Sunday morning to find his brother's hideously mangled corpse. His parents are gone, and all the adults in town have gone crazy. The attacks on children and teens are vicious, the adults are without mercy. However, what unravels is a sort of apocalyptic coming-of-age story in which Nick finds himself playing a more important role than he could ever have imagined. He sets out trying to find help and stumbles upon group after group of youthful survivors. Along the way he also meets up with someone who puts him in touch with the root cause of the madness of the adults. Can Nick and the others battle through wave after wave of adult attacks to create a new society?
This is an entertaining book. Yes, the writing could be a bit better, but I actually found myself chuckling along with Clark's descriptions. Keep in mind that the narrator is a 17-year-old boy....this is a testosterone-filled story straight from an adolescent who watches too many action movies. Reading this, you might think I didn't like the book. Far from it. Nick is ultimately sweet and good-hearted, and even if the kids talk far more calmly and maturely than in my own experience, the characters are interesting and likeable. I give this novel 4 stars because it is entertaining; I was riveted to my seat racing through the pages to get to the outcome of the horrific attacks. Clark takes far too many pages (in my opinion) to explain the cause of the insanity, but as I wrote above, the good parts sustained the slow parts. I read for entertainment, and sometimes a bit of mind candy such as BLOOD CRAZY is just what the doctor ordered.

This is one of the best books in the horror genre that I've read in years. I was so engrossed in the story that it was difficult to put this book down. 17 year old Nick Aten (rhymes with Satan)comes home one morning after a stayover at a friend's to discover his brother's gruesome death. Death by the hands of their parents. And now Nick's parents will stop at nothing to make sure he dies too. All the adults have turned into zombie-like creatures programmed to kill anyone under the age of 19. It's kill or be killed. We follow Nick through his story, looking for other survivors, trying to keep alive and ahead of the "Creosote" ( the zombie adults) and trying to figure out what turn the adults into Creosote. How is the human race to carry on if there's no one left? Warning! This book contains pages of bloody, stomach turning carnage.

This is one unique tale! Adults are brutally killing all the children. However, some kids escape, find each other and form a survival group. Together, they'll fight the adults and try to figure out what's happening.

Readers won't figure out the cause of the adult population's loss of sanity. It's not what you might expect. You'll get a surprise ending that hasn't been done before, to my knowledge.

Will the kids survive? Will the adults return to normal? How widespread is the problem? Why isn't there one pregnant female adult in the entire story (I'm curious if she'd rip out her stomach to destroy the fetus)? Well, you'll just have to read BLOOD CRAZY to find out.

This is just the beginning of what I hope will be a long and terrifying ride on the Simon Clark roller coaster. This is by far the best!!!! horror novel to come out in years. The book grips you right from the start and never slows down. It's a wonderfully frightening story with great characters. When Curt and his sicko friends make the little girl and her dog "carry the can" I felt real anger and frustration. Many times throughout Blood Crazy I was moved to feel the same emotions as the main characters. This is not just another gory horror novel but a gripping work of fiction (if you like gruesome reading you'll get your fair share as well). Read this book! To Simon Clark...please! write a sequel and more.

Simon Clark has written a very different book about post-apocalyptic times. One day Nick, the protagonist of "Blood Crazy" wakes up at his friend's house where he spent the night, heads home, and finds his world is forever changed.

Totally out of the blue, all the adults in the world start killing anyone under the age of 19.

Clark does a great job with character development. It is very easy to visualize Nick and all the young people he comes into contact with.

There were a few disjointed areas and the book probably could have been shortened a little but all in all, this was a blood and guts, thought provoking book.

There was a very creepy scene (to me) early in the book where one of the adult killers (a Mr. Creosote) was lying on his side on the ground, head propped on his hand, just waiting for the young prey. For some reason, visualizing him casually lying there was scarier to me than if he'd been standing with an axe.

Well, I must say that the book WAS something. I mean, first of all I'm one for knowing where I am when I read a book. It wasn't until I saw how some of the words were spelled and the constant use of "mum" and he made no usage of "fahrenheit" that I realized that it took place in the UK. There were quite a few intense moments, but, as one reader put it, it did kinda drag on and on. Nick was a prolific character, and I'm glad he was able to last throught the whole ordeal,and remained true to Sarah, ... I felt something should have been done about the bully.

Leisure has done it again: found another diamond in the rough writer, this time a writer from England in Simon Clark. Most of Clark's novels released through Leisure wre written in the mid 90's and this is easily his "worst" of the five. The only novels I haven't read are Vampyhric and Darker, both of which look awesome!

The plot centers around parents going crazy over night and out for the blood of their offspring. Think of an English Night of the Living Dead; just a horrible premise, but Clark turns it into a "decent" novel, which for him is subpar. This guy is the next Clive Barker of England.

Actually, the plot is a little deeper than I mentioned, but it is pretty Jungian (he was a thinker like Freud). The novel is good, but not Clark's best. Clark is so talented he was able to save this from being trash, but not his best.

Clark's writing is clear, crisp, and chilling. He writes with the power to thrill and chill, to shock and rock, to frighten and make your stomach tighten. He is a wordsmith of the highest order and he is one of the new king's of horror.

Like I said, Leisure has found another great young voice in the horror field.