Customer Reviews

Friday The 13th #2: Hell Lake

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I couldn't put this book down, not because it was so good mind you, but because I wanted to see just how bad it was going to get. This was one truly awful book. The premise of the book sounded intriguing and I was really looking forward to enjoying this book as much as I did the first in this series. But, man this was bad. First, 99% of the book doesn't even take place at Camp Crystal Lake, but some college campus. The idea is simple, Jason goes to the lowest level of hell (a nice nod to Dante) and is "convinced" to kill his way up the levels of hell to make his way back to the surface world and kill some more. Only his return is more like the 80's flick Shocker and much less like a Friday the 13th movie. The author goes out of his to make Jason a lifeless moron who whimpers like a baby when he's injured. I could go on, but please skip this book. Read the previous book in the series and pretend this installment never happened. God knows I'm trying to erase it from my mind as I write this.

According to Amazon author Paul A. Woods is, among other things, a researcher. This is not apparent from reading this book.
I was not expecting a literary classic but at least some accuracy would have been nice.
Much of the book reads like bad fanfiction. The author introduces a Jason Voorhees who is willing to follow the requests of someone other than his mother. Jason also uses a hunting rifle as a hunting rifle rather than a club or spear. The poor mischaracterization of the main character stands as the most glaring error in the book.
This is not the only error in the book however. The author also introduces a laser pointer with the ability to burn flesh, a .48 caliber handgun, and a pump-action double-barreled shotgun.
The ending of the book is forced and makes little sense. It reads as though the author was told to hurry and decided to kill several characters out of spite.
Waste of money and time.

Hell Lake is nowhere near the high quality of the other novels in this 25th Anniversary series. Rest assured no other Friday the 13th novel is written by Paul Woods, other novels in this series such as Carnival of Maniacs by Stephen Hand and Hate-Kill-Repeat by Jason Arnopp, the Sensational alternative sequel to Friday the 13th Part 7 relate well to the classic movies made over the past 25 years. In fact the best of them refer to events in those movies as historical facts. This has not been done well by Paul Woods at all. Hell Lake is a completely different storyline novel that unlike the other mentioned novels could not immediately be made into another movie in the ongoing classic series. One other novel in this series also varies greatly from the norm and seems to have the adding of Jason as an afterthought after the author's agent discovered there will be a 25th Anniversary series. That book was the Jason Strain by Christina Faust, but at least that would have been good a read in its original form without Jason in it, I can't say the same thing for Hell Lake.

The other novels are easy smooth flowing reads you sit back, turn the pages and enjoy. I found Hell Lake hard to stick with simply because it was so badly written. I had to force myself to keep reading this and only did so because I paid money for it and had been looking forward to it for so long. I guess there's a good reason why there aren't as many copies of Hell Lake in print as the other books.

In case you have no idea what Hell Lake is about it's the story of low life who thinks of himself as Devil Boy. He is executed in Florida for his crimes and disappointed that the devil is not waiting to congratulate him in hell. Hell is not the place he thought it would be, he has been sent to the lowest level along with history's worst people where all they do is stand around for all eternity hemmed in like cattle. There he finds Jason (and how did he get here, this is never explained considering he's undead and all so this makes no sense) who even in these cramped conditions has a wide birth around him. He decides to team up with Jason to escape and fight their way out of their predicament. For some reason Jason becomes his sidekick, again in flow with the norm this makes no sense. Meanwhile a university party in the woods of Camp Crystal ends up in terror, terror which later moves onto campus. Paul Woods seems confused at times here, wanting to write a novel about minorities being mistreated by police rather than a mass murder hacker slasher novel. This is one of the many glaring examples that Jason was an added afterthought to a previously written story that no one would publish before.

Read the other books in this great series but if this isn't in your local library don't waste your money tracking it down.

Paul A. Wood's Hell Lake is a horrifying suspenseful add on story to the popular Hollywood Friday thh 13th movies. What happens when two of the most fearsome serial killers in history meet in Hell? Utter Chaos. These two killing minds the recently executed Wayne Sanchez and the notorious Jason Vorhees lead a succesfull fight to escape hell, and return to the real world. But when the escappes begin killing a fiesty group of college students an all out war begins. With more twists turns and surprises than a roller coaster Hell Lake had be sitting on the edge of my seat, but had be almopst to afraid to turn the page.

Hell Lake is deeply flawed. A fascinating story that actually allows Jason Voorhees to develop as a real character is almost killed by the horrible writing of Paul Woods. We follow Jason and a serial killer and his greatest admirer named Wayne Sanchez (who is a carbon copy of real life Richard Ramirez the Nighstalker) as they lead a rebellion in hell that unleashes the worst psychos in history on the East coast of the U.S. Woods can handle the parts of the book that focus on the villains and both Sanchez and Jason himself are great but the parts involving the heroes, a group of college kids that go to school near Crystal Lake where the portal from hell is located, are just terrible. I know this writer if from England but the dialogue between these American kids is so unrealistic it's laughable and not a one of them is particularly likeable or interesting. Basically, 50% of this book is really good and 50% is kind of okay. Worth reading for people that are interested in Jason as a character and not as a stoic villain.
I'd also like to note that this book has the most typos of any published work I've ever read.

Hell Lake... where to begin... umm I would place the time of this book to take place after "F13: Jason Goes to Hell" as it deals with Jason escaping from hell. The basic concept isn't bad as Jason is in hell and, well, makes his return to the real world. However, in tow are the massive amount of previous serial killers, murderers, and criminals that follow Jason out of hell, including recently deceased Wayne Sanchez who 'befriends' Jason.

There is some confusion by the author whether Crystal Lake and Forest Green are different towns, but now there's a college in Forest Green (according to the movies, Forest Green is the renamed Crystal Lake town) which provides the supply of young co-eds to get hacked up.

Roughly the first half of the book I liked, it fit well with the direction that F13 Pt 9 went but the second half of the book is a torrid mess with too many characters and locations. Time frame for the F13 movies take place over 2-3 days per movie, this takes place over several weeks, possibly months. The second half of the book needs reworked and it was anticlimactic. The author should have stayed focused on Jason rather than his creation of the Sanchez character. Overall, it's readable but not it's not re-readable.

The concept was certainly an interesting one; Jason leading all the worst types of serial killers down in Hell back to the real world, albeit through the promptings of a seriously sick killer named Sanchez, aka Devil Boy. The ensuing carnage that results leads the authorities to suspect everyone and everything, until it's too late.

The book has some very graphic and creative killings, which made me let out loud exclamations of (shock? surprise? I'm not sure) just like the movies do, so that part of the overall story was well done.
The main characters are whittled away as the story proceeds, but one of the more colorful aspects, I found, was one college girl who loses her mind and starts thinking she's Jason's mother. Apparently, her performance is just right, because Jason falls for it too. :)
But two things did kind of stick in my craw on this book:
#1 - In one scene, Jason is using a shot-gun. Despite the popular image of him using a chainsaw, Jason has never used machinery, except on one occasion, to do his killing. He is much more 'hands-on', if you get my meaning. And he has certainly NEVER used firearms of any sort. So his use of a shotgun in this book kinda goes against his established character.
#2 - After losing his hockey mask, Jason starts wearing a welding mask. What was up with that? Jason has never worn anything but a pillow case or a hockey mask. And since the first time that he was actually killed (thank you Corey Feldman, lol), he's almost never worn anything BUT a hockey mask, until his 'rebirth' in Jason X.

That said, that's why I give the book 4 stars. It's a fast-paced book that leaves you wanting more, if you're really into Friday the 13th, and the ending is . . . well, I don't want to ruin that for you. ;-)