6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Decently horrifying, July 9, 2009
This review is from: The Bone Factory (Leisure Fiction) (Mass Market Paperback)
As with all good authors, Nate Kenyon improves with each book. His first novel, Bloodstone, was merely okay; its successor, The Reach, was good. The Bone Factory continues to show Kenyon's growth as a writer: it may not be perfect, but it is still a good horror novel.
At first glance, The Bone Factory is reminiscent of Stephen King's The Shining. Both involve an unemployed father bringing his wife and child to a isolated area for a new job. In addition, the child has some sort of psychic ability that clues her in to possible danger. The similarities end there however. David Pierce is actually a nice guy and is not in danger of becoming another Jack Torrance.
That's not to say that all will go well when David, wife Helen and daughter Jessie move to a tiny community on the U.S./Canadian border. David is going to work for a hydroelectric company to help set up a new plant; it seems like a dream job, especially since David lost his last job under unpleasant circumstances. Not all is going well at the job, however, as it is undergoing investigation for possible pollution.
This, however, may be a secondary concern for David. The family that once occupied his new house left after their daughter disappeared in the local woods, an event that is particularly frightening to a protective father like David. In addition, Jessie is being plagued by more visions of monsters, especially a "blue man". And, as the reader knows, even if the Pierces don't, there is definitely something malevolent in the woods.
I read a lot of horror fiction, so it's hard for me to be really wowed over by any but the really outstanding books. The Bone Factory doesn't fit in that category, but it is well-written horror that should impress the more casual fan of the genre. Even if you're more of a die-hard fan, you should not be disappointed.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
creepy horror thriller, July 1, 2009
This review is from: The Bone Factory (Leisure Fiction) (Mass Market Paperback)
Worried for the future especially their daughter Jessie, David and Helen Pierce are reaching the bottom of their savings. He is currently trying to get work having quit his last job when his superior stole his ideas without giving him any credit; his supervisor's boss sided against David so he left. In retaliation they blacklisted him as a malcontent in the industry; no one will hire him due to the lies.
Hydro Development is building a hydroplant in an isolated area of Quebec. Michael Olmsted interviews and hires David for the position of completing the plan and overseeing the development of the reservoir in tiny Jackson. David and his family relocate to Jackson in the winter so can do little on the project. Jessie is clairvoyant, but her parents are in denial unable to accept the paranormal especially with their child. They soon learn the house they currently reside in, once had a little girl who just vanished without a trace; as did one of the searchers. Jessie and David see a shadow being, but both assume it is their active imagination while Helen fears she is being watched by a stalker though she sees no one. None of them understands the danger they face while a local deputy sheriff has stumbled onto a horrific site in the nearby woods that unless a miracle occurs could be the next stop for the Pierce trio.
There is a growing sense of foreboding as animals and fish look strange and a psychotic person disappears. Jessie's visions increase that feeling as the reader senses like she does something is coming for her. As the Pierces put together the puzzle pieces, their chances of survival decreases; their only hope to get out alive is if David can find the missing links that relate the incidents to the project. Fans will enjoy Nate Kenyon's creepy horror thriller as the next stop for the Pierce family appears to be a one way ticket to hell.
Harriet Klausner
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
"The black shapes that chased him during the night had faded like an old photograph left in the sun. . .", September 16, 2010
This review is from: The Bone Factory (Leisure Fiction) (Mass Market Paperback)
******POSSIBLE SPOILERS******
David Pierce, an engineer, is desperate for a job after losing his after a disagreement with his ex-boss. In a scene copied right from the first few pages of Stephen King's "The Shining, he's being interviewed for a position by Hydro Development as the head engineer and boss for an isolated plant in the small town of Jackson in Quebec, Canada during the height of the winter. He gets the job of course, and he, his wife Helen, and his little girl Jesse have to move to Jackson. He goes up there, and checks out a house that is owned by Hank Babcock. David finds that he has walked into snake pit. Just recently another little girl disappeared from the house that he is now moving to, there has been a gory death, and another man has, like the child, disappeared. Then there is that the Jackson Plant has mysteriously shut down for what looks like a very harsh winter, and it is being investigated for possible discharges of toxic chemicals. And to top it off, his daughter has obsessive/compulsive disorder and keeps falling into catatonic fugue states that are really psychic visions.
"The Bone Factory" is also a multi-viewpoint story, and the novel's story is also told from the viewpoint of several other characters. The most prominent is Jonathan Newman, a six foot five, scarred Vietnam vet, who is also suffering from schizophrenia (?), and PTS. He has started working as a watchman at the Jackson plant just when the mysterious murders and disappearances started.
This book starts off with a bang, and then it slows down. I mean, it slows down to a crawl. One of the main problems with this novel is that it is just too long. Kenyon spends the first two hundred pages in what some would call character building, but what I would call putzing around. The first one hundred pages alone could have been condensed down to twenty pages. Except for a few visions from Jessie, some viewpoints from government overseer Dan Flint, who has discovered something in the water around the plant that is turning animals insane, and some crazy visions from Newman, not much happens. The novel's storyline doesn't really pick up any steam until near the novel's last seventy pages or so.
Another problem is the characterizations. There is Dr. Seigel, Newman's psychiatrist who is just extraneous, Jessie, who is nothing special except that she is your clichéd scared little girl, her visions contribute almost nothing to the story. And then there is Newman, who is every crazy psycho Vietnam vet that has cluttered up horror and action fiction (whether it be movies, tv, or novels) since THAT war ended, and is a Jason Vorheeves stand-in.
The end result is a novel that is just slow, predictable, and too long for what it is. There is a red herring that ends up never really getting resolved, the killer is just exactly who you think it is, and Jessie's psychic elements are never really exploited or explored as well as they should have been, they are just THERE, and become redundant and tiresome. This is a real disappointment after Kenyon's last novel. He struggles to pad a thin ninety page story into a three hundred and twenty page, low-rent "Friday The 13th" rip-off. Only for the very, very easily entertained.
Two stars because there are a couple of nice scenes in the end, but you gotta wade through an awful lot of excess verbiage to get to them.
I have reviewed the following books by Kenyon for this site:
Bloodstone (Leisure Fiction)
The Reach (Leisure Fiction)
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