Customer Reviews

The Freakshow

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

With each successive book, Bryan Smith unleashes just a little bit more of the madness. House of Blood, while a nice read, skipped over the juicy parts. Deathbringer, with his deadly and dead sexy character Melinda, gave us a glimpse of the horrors awaiting to come out of Bryan's mind. Finally, with The Freakshow, he displays a carnival of horrors that would make Jack Ketchum to take notice.

Soon after the nasty events of Deathbringer, disaster strikes another small Tennessee town. This disaster? A circus of freaks. There's a little bit of everything thrown into the plot...politics, science fiction, government conspiracies. Bryan does a nice job keeping these elements on the fringe, plot points that are important, but best kept an arm's length away to keep the focus on the action.

Having read all three of Bryan Smith's novels, I can say with certainty that his strongest talent as a writer is creating demented "bad guys." He's in top form here, with one of the creepiest and most effective villains I've encountered in sometime: Miss Monique. She's able to create orgasmic pleasure and perverse, unbearable pain all at once via mind control. Oh, she's also got a hag head.

There are a few quibbles to be had with The Freakshow. The book comes to a rushing halt via a plot contrivance that was a bit too convenient. The story's narrative is split between two characters (Mike & Heather), and I just couldn't get the sympathy stirring for Heather despite some of the horrific things that happened to her.

Not a perfect book, but man, it is one you'll remember for a long time.

Brain eating, pistols, shotguns, carving, mutilation, blood, gore galore, mind control, psychotic mutant clowns, living machines ... and yeah, freaks! The Flaherty Brothers Traveling Carnivale and Freakshow has come to Pleasant Hills, and small town America will never be the same again.

Smith's book takes off immediately at a madcap pace with nonstop terror, cliffhangers, and intense scenes, like a wild roller coaster ride from first to last page. After dumping boyfriend Craig at the side of the road, will Heather be able to save her mother Alice? What grisly events are in store for Craig? Will Mike, cowering in fear at the Freakshow, be able to make good his escape?

'The Freakshow' can easily be visualized as a gore-fest horror movie, moving from one gruesome scene to the next with terrifying velocity. The Freakshow didn't come to town to entertain, it came to absorb.

Bryan Smith is an upcoming writer to watch. 'The Freakshow' is his third novel. While the prose remains simplistic in style, his imagination certainly runs on the wilder, gorier side of horror. 'The Freakshow' is not for the weak of stomach. If you're a fan of horror, or a fan of freaks, 'The Freakshow' won't disappoint that slimy part of your brain that squirms with pleasure at the icky. Enjoy!

Stop me if you've heard this one before: A carnival arrives in a small town. Bad stuff happens.

I'd tried Bryan Smith's first book House Of Blood twice but quit because I didn't like the writing much. I decided to try The Freakshow to see if he'd gotten better. Well, The Freakshow is much better written than House Of Blood. That being said it still had a boatload of problems.

Bryan Smith seems to be growing into a very good writer. Some bits of this book were very powerfully written. I had some issues with the writing style, but overall it really gripped me. The problem is that he is still pretty uneven. When he's good, he's quite good. Then he would write bits of narration such as: "He freaked" and "His eyes bugged out." Maybe I'm just old, but slangy stuff like that should be reserved for characters to say or think. It makes the author seem like a teenager himself when it shows up as narration.

His characters were pretty devoid of character. You can see he's going for the Jack Ketchum/Edward Lee type of gut-wrenching horror here and his writing almost pulls it off. The problem is the characters weren't well written enough to make you care. All were pretty flat, stock horror movie types that it was tough to feel much for. Without believable characters this type of horror isn't nearly as effective.

Still, I didn't mind the on again/off again writing and flat characters. What really got me was the... senselessness of the story. It never really felt like it flowed together to tell a story. Instead it felt like it was just meandering its way between pointless (though sometimes very well written) scenes until a quickie wrap-up brought things to a close. Bryan Smith has the makings of a good writer, but he isn't yet a good storyteller. I got the sense that he knew what he was trying to say, but just wasn't very clear in conveying it to us. Lots of unexplained things happened that never really went anywhere. What was the deal with the guy in the woods for instance? Was he related to the carnival? I dunno. I guess so.

He really could stand to polish up his skills with foreshadowing and pacing. Stephen King is a master of this. Bryan Smith is not. New plot twists would just clumsily plop in out of nowhere. Things were kinda-sorta-mostly explained at the end, but it was hundreds of pages of stuff that felt arbitrary and unconnected only to be suddenly (and very clumsily) wrapped up in the end by a character telling what happened. He needs to work on weaving the details into the context of the story, revealing a little at a time rather than the 'Presto!' approach used here.

I'm kind of hung on a final decision here. I finished this one, but towards the end it felt like I was grinding through just to complete it. Still, I will pick up his future books to see where he goes. If he can get his storytelling up to par with his writing, he will really be something.

I for one am not a fan of the circus, clowns and such. Just something about them that is.. just wierd. This book focues on that. The story jumps around from character to character so I dont think everyone will enjoy that. But what happens to the characters is fun, demented and brutal. And the best part is that the characters that dont have the same storyline dont have the same stuff happen to them. Meaning not every character has to kill a demented evil midget clown.. just like another wont have to get violated by a car. So if you enjoy a good horror story full of violence, creepy moments then pick it up.

I love creepy carnivals in fiction so I decided to make The Freakshow my first Bryan Smith novel. I've accumulated a few of his books though the Leisure Horror Book Club and decided it was time to try one of them.

Mike makes the biggest mistake of his life when he decides to check out the traveling carnival and freakshow, along with the rest of the citizens of the small Tennessee town. Soon he's running for his life from a freak on slits. Meanwhile, Heather returns to her hometown to find out why she can't reach her mother. She walks in on her mother shooting a hideous clown. Mike and Heather realize that this carnival isn't about fun, games and candy floss, this one is all about grotesque freaks, torture and gore.

The novel tells the two main characters' (Mike and Heather) stories in alternate chapters, ending each one with a cliffhanger worthy of R.L. Stine.

There isn't much of a plot. Basically it's just freaks killing people in gruesome ways and the main characters trying to escape with a few twisted sex scenes thrown in. But the idea of alien freaks using a carnival to take over the world, one small town at a time, is unique and creepy.

Despite its lack of plot, the novel manages to hold your interest with its quick pace thanks to lots of gruesome action. That is, until the halfway point when I became bored of plotless gore scenes and struggled to finish reading it.

The poorly developed characters didn't help. I can't tell you anything about Mike or Heather's personalities because they don't have one. They're just the usual characters you would see in a slasher film: the average guy and the pretty (but dumb) girl. I didn't care about them so I wasn't interested in reading about their escape from the freaks. But the villains - the freaks - are interesting and their disgusting mutations are described in detail.

If you enjoy non-stop action and gore, and don't mind one-dimensional characters, check this one out. But if you're like me and can't get into a novel without intriguing characters, then skip it.

Ok so I know a lot of people would find this story totally outrageous and hard to get but for those opened minded few, it's quite an interesting ride. I was taken in from the very start and just could not stop reading. The story line is often bizarre so if that's something you happen to like in your horror novels - this one is for you. I was often asking my self - how the heck did he come up with that??

What an interesting mind Mr. Smith has indeed and I have grown very fond of his stories.

A totally insane read :>)

I picked this book up because I kept hearing how gory it is and I just had to see for myself and man were they right! I didn't think much could gross me out anymore but after reading some of the things going on here i was like DAMN this is nasty. But its not just pointless gore, it does fit well into the story.

Lets face it if you read a book called "The Freakshow" what do you expect?? The bad reviews were not to be paid attention to unless you do not like horror and gore. Then...do not read the book. This book is a roller coaster ride all the way to hell! Loved it!! Good horror and lots of gore. Highly recommend!

"The Freakshow" is disgusting. It has a mixture of gore and sex (at the same time it seems) unlike anything I've read before. The freaks aren't the most imaginative "people". Most of the ways of dispatching humans are fairly mundane. Like reaching a hand into the stomach and pulling out the entrails and starting to eat them while the human is still alive. You know...stuff like that. But Smith will describe the scene in a paragraph where I used 20 words. Even the necrophilia mindset isn't off limits for Smith (although that character didn't get a chance to go through with it). The thing about this book is that it started up right away. There was no building up to it.

The thing I didn't like about it was there were 3 major story lines. Two converged completely, and the third ran in the background but ended up affecting the initial two. It was well done, but there would be several chapters between in between each scene. I found myself having to go back and re-read the ending of chapters to remember what was going on.

In thinking about how to rate this book, I recall the movie Summer School. There were 2 guys that loved "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre". And they rated it "2 thumbs up. 4 for gore". I have to admit that I liked that book. The story was nothing too new, but the execution of the story and the graphic descriptions of the acts in the book made it intriguing and hard to put down.

Bryan Smith's style isn't for everyone, but if you love pulpy grindhouse fun like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I Spit On Your Grave, or the works of Richard Laymon and William W. Johnstone, then you'll have a ball with this.