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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A new dimension to FEAR,
By
This review is from: Fear (Onyx) (Paperback)
I think Patrick Gates is one of the best horrorwriters of alltime (he once got labelled the next Stephen King, to give you an indication). This book isn't his best (For that read 'Grimm Memorials' and 'Jumpers') but it's scary, and engaging in it's own right. A magazine once said Gates' books are the literary equivelant of a Freddy Krueger movie. Although that description doesn't do him enough justice I think it's also partly true. It are his amazing setpieces and images that have a way of staying with you, more so than the overall plot, which can be called thin: 'Fear' is a tour de force horror/ gore novel about an alien being which posseses people's minds and makes them commit heinous murders and atrocities. In the best horror/ b-movie tradition only a few people are left alive to defeat the monster. To give you an idea off those 'setpieces' I mentioned. Near the end Gates dishes up a roaring mass of nasties and beasties for the main antagonists to fight. An old women with a chainsaw and even the monster from that movie ALIEN are included there! I won't spoil the ending but it's original and can even be called intellectual. YOU'LL HAVE TO READ THE BOOK TO FIND OUT. I have a few more words for the writer though. What ever happened to you after 'Jumpers'? I'd love to have some more of your work to read! Drop a line!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
This one pushes the taste envelope,
By John Upton "fiction-fiend" (Connecticut) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Fear (Onyx) (Paperback)
This is the first novel I finished where the driving force behind the read was not story and characters but one simple question... "This can't possibly get any worse?"
This statement does not refer to the story as a whole but to the individual scenes involved. I read the novel long before I discovered Edward Lee or Jack Ketchum so I wasn't used to the graphic violence involved here. Mr. Gates gives it to you both barrels. I remember coming upon each scene, thinking "That was pretty bad but it can't possibly get any worse than that" and then I was proven wrong every time. Unfortunately, morbid curiosity was the only reason I finished the book. This was Mr. Gates first novel and it showed. The pacing was a little erratic and characters were not as realized as they could be. I did care about the people and worried for their safety but I was hard pressed to name anyone about a day or two after I was finished with the book. Even the ending is a haze of memory. All I remembered was the violence (and a few scenes of sexual depravity). While these scenes stayed with me, I also felt they were contrived. It was as if the author was trying to see if he could top himself without any thought to the impact upon the general narrative. If you are a fan of the "splatterpunk" brand of horror then this should be right up your alley. I am not a prude to violence in horror fiction as long as it furthers the plot without seeming gratuitous. For example, Jack Ketchum's novels can hit you like a truck but the violence has impact because his stories and characters strike a cord in your heart. And when it comes to Edward Lee's novels, the violence is expected. It feels like a character that is always just out of view until its time to make its presence known. "Fear" is like slowing down for an accident on the highway; you are curious while concerned what you may or may not see but once you drive on past the memory slips away. Don't be afraid to try any of Mr. Gate's later novels because he improves with each story and deserves an audience. "Fear" is just not one of his strongest efforts.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Fans of splatter, take notice,
By Branden Poole (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Fear (Onyx) (Paperback)
I must admitt, it's been quite some time since I've read this novel...but I do still quite vividly remember the gut-wrenching violence that filled its pages. The plot was something appropriately implausible--the "Fear" was some sort of alien entity that possessed one (and eventually many) person and essentially turned them into homicidal maniacs. By the end of the book, after many separate deaths each attempting to be more gruesome than the rest, the citizens of the small town plagued by "the Fear" go on a genocidal rampage, wiping each other out. Of course, only a brave young boy and the lone adult not taken in by the madness can stop it in the end. Written in the late eighties, this novel no doubt tried to cash in on the splatter genre. The plot was quite convoluted, but I have enjoyed some good gore in the past, and this book has copious amounts. Gates gets two stars alone for the sheer variety and hideousness of his homicides. It's not for the squeamish or easily offended; just about every perverse method of torture or death is used, and there are quite a few rather grisly scenes involving the sadistic murder of young children. I think he even threw in some incest for good measure. I can't honestly recommend this book to anyone, unless they're into heavy, heavy gore. Overall, less gratuitous violence and more plot would have been wonderful; then again, I do believe this was an earlier work of the author's, so I can perhaps forgive this. I actually walked away from this book somewhat depressed; the wanton destruction has a somewhat visceral thrill to it, but eventually I feel even the most die-hard gore hounds will be repulsed.
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