Customer Reviews

Castaways (Leisure Fiction)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I remember about 5 or 6 days ago Amazon sent me a shipping notice to my email saying this book, Castaways, had been shipped. Well, I forgot about it for the several days after that and much to my surprise and delight it arrived via UPS at my doorstep yesterday. I stayed up all night reading Mr. Keene's Castaways and I'm happy to report it's my favorite of his novels I've read, and I've read about all of them.

It's not a real surprise for this to be my favorite of his novels because I had read the short story in his Fear Of Gravity short story collection and loved it and always hoped he would turn it in to a novel length story. There was much demand for that story to be turned into a novel. As Keene states in the author notes in the back of Castaways, our wish is his command.

This isn't a terribly long novel at about 282 pages, but what a wallop it packs. If you, like me, love monster beastie novels in the vain of Richard Laymon's Beast House series then you are absolutely going to love this novel. I won't tell you about the plot or give away any major spoilers because I want you the reader to enjoy this fantastic novel as much as I did. I will give you a very brief overview of it, though.

Think Survivor type reality show on a deserted island with contestants and film crew thrown on it and with wild, nasty, butt-raping creatures, who are indigenous to the island, running around wreaking havoc and using human females to further propagate(don't think that's the word I'm looking for.... but anyway) their species and you have a general idea of the story. There's much more to it than that, though. Read it! It's wonderful!

Usually, I'm a fairly slow reader and it takes me several days to read a novel this size, but I blew through this like Jeff Gordon blowing through caution flags. I started reading it at about 8 p.m. and finished it around 6:15 a.m. If you haven't already, go buy this book now! It is an outstanding read! My previous favorite Keene reads where Earthworm Gods(Conqueror Worms) and Ghoul. Dead Sea was pretty straight, too!

I think it was really great of Keene to dedicate this book to the memory of Richard Laymon, and to 2 of his bloggers on his(Keene's) website that passed away recently. Richard Laymon is one of my alltime favorite writers and I don't think there will ever be another like him. Hats off to you Mr. Keene for the nod of appreciation and memory to the "Dick". He certainly would be proud of Castaways.

As a bonus, you get a sample chapter of Keene's upcoming novel titled Urban Gothic, which drops in August from Leisure. Sounds like it's gonna be a good one, too. In the meantime, do whatever it takes to get this book, Castaways, take a day off from work if you have to or stay up all night and be sleep deprived at work, but READ THIS BOOK SOON!!! You are going to have a fast paced, fun filled blast reading it!

Brian Keene has quickly become one of my favorite authors of horror fiction. Every one of his books I've read thus far has interesting characters, a twist or two, and generous helping of the icky. His track record with me is so good so far that I ordered Castaways without even knowing what it was about. The story is pretty basic: reality show contestants run afoul of ancient denizens on remote island but Keene is able to squeeze out some nice surprises and once again I was not disappointed when I got to the last page.

My only problem - at the cost of a star - is that the book seems a bit rushed. The writing is still good but I felt like characters and events were flying by so quickly that I never became fully engaged with what was happening. I think just a little more time fleshing everything out might have made the later thrills and chills even more exciting.

Still, this is a page-turner and horror fans will have a good time with it.

I have ready pretty much every book by Brian Keene and this is certainly one of my favorites. What I liked was that this book was very different in that it really didn't involve anything supernatural (don't get me wrong, I love that angle but it was nice for something more basic). I usually take quite awhile (easily a month) to go through a paperback but I read this in about 3 sittings over a few days (with the last sitting being 2/3 of the book!).

If you're a fan of his work or just looking for an exciting read, I highly recommend you pick up Castaways.

OK. Here is my first review for Amazon and what a book with which to start. Castaways is a very good entertaining read. For me it was a very engrossing horror novel that didn't hold back on the gore. I will spare you a synopsys of the whole book, Im sure it will be explained here a dozen times. However I found myself grasping the pages in shock and some moments and laughing out loud in others. This is a must read. If you are not a Brian Keene fan, give this guy a chance. You'll thank me!!!

I read this book on a plane coming back from Austin today. It passed the time, that's for sure. And maybe I'm unfamiliar with recent work in the horror genre, but Brian Keene seems especially courageous (or maybe just happily unrestrained) in his depictions of violent sex, blood and beasties (I said "and" not "or"). But the book has too many consistency problems, half-baked characters and unnecessary implausibilities (plus using the incorrect spelling "making due" -- aaarrrghhh) to allow me to give it anything more than a lukewarm endorsement. Just stuff like a woman having the same clothes ripped off an hour after they've already been ripped off; a video store "owner" whose back-story changes to video store "clerk" later in the book; and, well, you get the idea. I just think someone, an editor, perhaps? needs to keep track of this stuff.

This book is a decent addition to the horror genre, and it is a pretty good read. I would say in general, the book is mediocre at best with certain aspects being really good, and other aspects being quite pathetic, odd or crummy. In essence this book is a copy of the Hills Have Eyes, except taking place on a tropical island instead of the middle of the desert. The similarities are so profound that the book even has the same Hills Have Eyes style rape scene in it which I definitely found to be unnecessary. Below is my opinion of the positives and the negatives of this book:

The Good: The book is a very quick read, it is very fast paced, action filled and is very well written. You definitely do not get bored while reading this book and the writing style makes you really excited for whatever comes next. The writing really makes you want to keep reading and it really pulls you in! One of the best and worse aspects of this book at the same time is the amount of description. The scenic descriptors are great and really sets the atmosphere, mood and book's conflicts. At points the descriptions can be excessive but more on that below. The book is definitely cut out for people who love horror and torture movies, which I myself am guilty of being a fan of.

The Bad: One of the most pointless parts of both this book and Keene's other book Urban Ghetto is the constant in depth descriptions of rape scenes and mutant penises. As bizarre as it may sound, I think Keene has a thing for giant mutant penises as both of his books have several unnecessary and pointless in depth descriptions of such at not a single point in the book, but in multiple points in the book... WHY? we get the point the first time!! Next, both books are notorious for the inclusion of bizarre mutant on human rape scenes which ultimately add nothing to the book or the plot and which are ultimately included solely for shock factor. The use of such reminds me of the American version of the Thai Horror movie "Shutter"... Yes like in Shutter sex with a grungy grotesque ghost girl is not creepy it is dumb and bizarre, the same holds true for the above mentioned scenes in this book. At least in this books the mutants wanted to propagate, but in Urban Gothic it was really out of left field. My last complaint about this book is the ending. The ending was just plain obvious, and sooo cliched. You read through this exciting fast paced book to get this dumb ending... I was so angry.

In essence the book is about a group of contestants on a TV show such as Survivor. They are stranded on an island and must remain there until the end in order to win a prize.. However a storm hits and they are stuck on the island.. They later find out that they are being hunted by a group of grotesque mutants who want to use them for food and for having babies. This as far as I will take the summary as I don't want to ruin anything.

I though this book was a great addition to the horror genre and was definitely a great fast paced read. The think Keene is a great writer and is a true talent in the horror genre, he just needs to leave the mutant penises out and he needs to practice writing endings... I would recommend this one if you are into horror movies, if you are not into the genre I would say that the book may be a little intense for people dabbling.. definitely for horror and torture junkies..

Think Lost & Survivor meets The Hills Have Eyes.. great combination!

I really enjoyed this story. It is the same story that has been done a lot- people stranded on an island with killers. One thing that was very different was he used people from his forum. So if you follow his forum it was fun to have them in the story. ****Spoiler**** you are waiting right to the end for a Keene ending and it doesn't come. But that is okay it is nice to have a happy ending once in awhile.

The cast and crew filming a reality show on a remote island (very similar to the CBS show, Survivor) are plunged into a world of terror. It turns out that the deserted island they are on is actually occupied by flesh-eating monsters. A cyclone hits, and they find themselves truly cut off from help and fighting for survival.

Horror works best when a talented writer presents us with flawed-yet-sympathetic characters that we care about, plunges them into extraordinary circumstances, and then (once the reader is hooked) takes us just past (or way past) our comfort level. Once the truly nasty things happen to the characters, we are too hooked to stop looking. Keene almost gets this right. He definitely took me past my comfort level. The only thing missing for me was character development. I never felt connected with any of the characters at any level that made me care very much about what was happening to them. The only thing that kept the pages turning was sheer plot.

While this novel was not perfectly executed, I would still recommend it to anyone in the mood for a good dose of horror.

On a deserted island, a group of contestants compete for a million dollars on the reality based show Castaways. The players must live off what is on the island and battle one another in various contests that the producer arranges. The winner of the day is immune from deportation while the group votes on who is exiled. The last person standing wins the prize. The contestants and the support crew assume the island is deserted, but they will learn otherwise.

The natives live in caves, but as the show's participants will learn they are hominid but not quite human. They are covered in fur, never wash or use tools and communicate with one another without speaking in any known language. It is also difficult for their females to become pregnant and those who are born are typically deformed. Their plan is simply one of survival.; they will eat the male intruders and rape the females keeping them pregnant until they no longer can bear their offspring. No rescue for the Castaways is in sight.

Although the tale of a reality TV show on an isolated Pacific island filled with monsters is not new (see Jaci Burton's Surviving Demon Island), Brian Keene refreshes his version by placing his Castaway within a horror version of Christie's And Then There Were None. Fans of Survivor will enjoy the twist as there is no getting off the island for the humans who are either sustenance or child bearers. The island paradise location adds depth to the horrific scenario confronting the show participants as Mr. Keene provides an enjoyable dark twist to reality TV.

Harriet Klausner

This is by far my favourite Brian Keene novel, I was extremely impressed with it!

The plot revolves around a group of around a dozen people who are on a tropical island as part of a reality TV show called Castaways. However, there is a storm due so the crew of the show set off on a ship for safety leaving only the contestants, along a few remaning crew members to record how the Castaways deal with the storm. However, we soon learn that our Castaways are not along on the island as they thought, when they are systematically attacked by a group of cannibalistic inbred savages who inhabit the island.

We mainly see things from the point of view of our protagonists, Becka and Jerry and also get a few chapters from other charcaters' (mainly in suspenceful stalked-by-the-savages type scenes). The suspence starts off right from the first chapter and doesnt let up untill the end so there are no boring parts, and I found the characters of Becka and Jerry to be both realistic and likeable so that you really hope they survive.

Deffinatly his goriest and most frightening book so far. He dedicates this to Richard Laymon, stating that the cannibals in this novel were inspired by the creatures from the Beast House books. Laymon is my favourite author and I think he would be proud of this book. Very highly reccomended, I read most of it in one night because I could not put it down.