Customer Reviews

The Ruins

5 star:		(220)
4 star:		(176)
3 star:		(142)
2 star:		(191)
1 star:		(327)

 

 

I'm not sure what some of the reviewers on this site are smoking, but I found this to be an excellent horror story. I suspect many of them read the author's first book, "A Simple Plan" which was a crime drama, and expected something similar. I am not much of a fan of crime dramas, but I do love horror, and this is good horror. Horror is internal, it's about visceral fear and dread. It's not about nonstop action or contorted plot twists. This story is not primarily about the flowering plant from hell (not available at your local florist). It is about survival, and the way people really react to a life-threatening and seemingly hopeless situation. Whereas the characters in many horror stories are virtually indistinguishable from one another, the characters here are vividly and realistically drawn. They are recognizable as individuals, and seem like living, breathing humans (I think I may have dated Stacy at one time). How their relationships change as things go from bad to worse is also quite believable. And about that plant...it clearly isn't a plant at all. It is carnivorous, can live in complete darkness, can move, and eats with its flowers and leaves, none of which a plant does. It can mimic sounds and smells, why couldn't it also mimic a plant in its appearance? And if an alien life form were to find itself in a tropical rain forest, what better thing to mimic than a flowering plant? The fact that it might not be a plant is alluded to by Jeff in a conversation late in the book, but the author leaves it to the reader to draw his/her own conclusion. Anyway, this is a good read and I think Scott Smith is taking an undeserved beating here.

The book jacket for "The Ruins" offers a can't-miss premise: a group of post-grad American tourists at play in Mexico jump at the chance for a little adventure among Mayan ruins but find but then find themselves in unimaginable danger. It's the stuff of great Summer thrillers ready to be taken to the beach. But 319 pages later, the reader is left to wonder whether or not the publisher put the wrong book in the jacket.

Almost immediately, you'll notice that Smith's writing is as dense as the jungles that make the setting. However, despite the endless stream of words, his descriptions are often threadbare. Plus, there are no chapter breaks, which eventually pushes the pace until it feels like an assignment to continue.

Next, the characters themselves begin to fall flat. There are only really two couples to keep track of, and yet it's difficult for the first third of the book to distinguish them. There is little to keep you interested in what they're doing or why they might be doing it. Smith's attempts at developing these four as characters come in fits and spurts. This seems obviously haphazard and hurried - the author is jamming in backstory whenever needed to explain characters' actions as if he were patching leaks in a dam. By the end of the book, the foursome seems to be as disinterested in each other as the reader is in them.

And for the readers who are hoping to discover something of interest in the setting such as Mayan mythology or archeological lore, forget it. Aside from language barriers with the locals, there is no reason why this fantastical story couldn't have been set in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains, the Saharan desert, or anywhere else. The danger posed has nothing to do with Mexico, archeology or mythology at all.

Ah yes, the danger posed. Well, I can't say much at all because anyone could give away the entire book with one line of explanation - that's how thin the plot is. The numerous other reviews that fault this as a short story masquerading as a novel are exactly right. Suffice it to say that when you do realize what the danger is (and you'll realize it well before any of the well-educated characters do), it's a real eye-roller, as if to say "I read this many pages for THIS?".

By the time the story concludes, it's more irritating than suspenseful. The characters take so long to blithely undertake any course of action at all that you'll start rooting against them. Eventually scenes of gore start piling up in an obvious and lazy attempt to interject some action, but even aside from being misdirected, it's too little too late.

This book could have been an adventure, a supernatural thriller, a survival tale, or a horror screenplay. It could have even taken the high road as an examination on people's reactions to situations of extreme stress: some take the lead, even enjoying the challenge, while others whither into a shell of hopelessness. But none of the possibilities ever come to fruition in this disappointing effort.

Some movies are worth a trip to the theater. And some are perfectly good renters. By the same token, "The Ruins" isn't worth the price of a new hardcover. But unless you crack open only a few books a year, this one is worth reading if you can buy a used copy, borrow it from the library, or wait for the paperback.

It contains a few moments of true creepiness. The villain is highly original. And the author skillfully portrays the dynamic of a group under duress. He's also nearly brilliant at capturing each character's inner dialog, fears, and regrets as the story plows unrelentingly to its conclusion.

That's what makes the story compelling in some places and boring in others. Human nature is fascinating, but how terrified can we be when Jeff is reminiscing about the CPR class he took in high school, or Amy is wishing for a shower and a hot meal? And somehow, interesting and intimate as some of their thoughts are, it's hard to care about the characters.

The author's use of detail plays out the same way -- at times it's incredibly effective and gut-wrenching. Other times it's so workmanlike, gruesome scenes become mundane.

That's why this book will probably succeed as a movie. We won't have to listen to endlessly whirring thoughts or read details about braiding strips of nylon tent together to make a rope. A visual medium will let us focus on the best parts of this book: the external terror, the horrible events that unfold, and the evil protagonist.

Read the book and when the movie becomes a blockbuster, you can threaten to ruin the ending for your companions unless they pay for your ticket, too.

And in case you got this far into the reviews without reading the premise, I've cut and pasted Stephen King's summary here: "You've got four young American tourists--Eric, Jeff, Amy, and Stacy--in Cancun. They make friends with a German named Mathias whose brother has gone off into the jungle with some archeologists. These five, plus a cheerful Greek with no English (but a plentiful supply of tequila), head up a jungle trail to find Mathias's brother...the archaeologists...and the ruins."

By the way, this is a nitpick, but there's an annoying continuity error in the book: on page 5, the four main characters "rode horses" and on page 254 one of them muses that if they were back at the hotel "maybe they'd have gone horseback riding. Stacy had said she'd wanted to try it before they left. Amy, too."

There came a point about halfway through Scott Smith`s "The Ruins" when it suddenly struck me how implausibly ridiculous and one-dimensional the plot line had become, and how likely it was that the remainder of the book would consist of just more of the same. At that point, I had to make a decision: either shut the book and accept the loss of several good hours of reading time, or suspend disbelief and soldier on to the bitter end. Eternal optimist that I am, I chose the latter option, hoping that the author would pull a rabbit out of his hat in the remaining 150 pages. I finished the book, but the rabbit never appeared. The only question remaining, for me, is whether the author was toying with his readership by writing a novel deliberately designed to frustrate their expectations (like Michael Haneke's movie "Funny Games," for example), or whether the book just turned out that way, by accident. More on that below.

My complaint about this book does not lie with the writing style, which is good for the genre and reads like a combination of Stephen King and Michael Crichton. My complaint lies with the plot, which (notwithstanding some initial, well-crafted suspense) becomes increasingly one-dimensional and absurd as the novel goes on. Not only does the plot enter a dark, claustrophobic tunnel, the tunnel it enters is not even an interesting tunnel to be in. Worse, in order to set up his characters` predicament, the author relies on a series of implausible contrivances, which become increasingly jarring as the book grinds on to its inevitable denouement.

Here are some examples of what grated on me about this book. (Caution, plot spoilers ahead.) The book features an archaeological excavation that apparently has uncovered nothing and never will but that nevertheless attracts archaeologists from as far away as Europe. There is a half-hidden trail to these "ruins" that exists for no apparent reason other than to be discovered by its victims. The trail to these "ruins" is guarded by a tribe of Mayan Indians who make only half-hearted and disorganized efforts to prevent tourists from discovering and pursuing the trail, but who suddenly become extremely organized, efficient, and deadly once the foolish tourists press on and begin to climb around on the mountain where the "ruins" are located. These tourists are starving and dying of thirst but unwilling even to ask not entirely unsympathetic Indians for food or water, simply assuming that any such request would be summarily denied. Last but not least, the ruins are found on a hillside populated by a biological monstrosity that is so intelligent it could easily have devoured the tourists immediately upon their arrival. Instead, it chooses to pick them off slowly, one by one, waiting until near the end of the book to reveal its superhuman capabilities, while we lose any interest in the increasingly whiny and defeatist characters. The author makes some efforts to explain some of these plot peculiarities. These attempts at explanation, however, were not very convincing and only highlighted the implausible aspects of the plot. The monstrous thing's increasingly unbelievable behavior and capabilities virtually cry out for some sort of metaphysical or psychic explanation that never arrives.

Though the book does not work well as a thriller, it could perhaps be viewed as a philosophical exercise, an existential allegory or meditation on human responses to the inevitability of death. The author does do a good job of creating a claustrophobic sense of doom and loss. The characters have some depth to them, but not quite enough, to pull this off. The fact that at one point, they sit around discussing who would play "The Boy Scout," "The Slut," "The Virgin" and "The Villain" in the film version of their ordeal shows how horror movie archetypes have invaded this book and keep its characters from being truly unique.

Scott Smith's previous book, "A Simple Plan," was so well-plotted that I can't imagine how he missed the boat here unless this was a case of a "sophomore slump" or unless he was deliberately toying with his readers. Here's what makes me think the latter could be the case. One intriguing facet to the book is the design of the tunnel into the "ruins." Could the author have been playing with us by leaving us a roadmap for the structure of the novel itself? (More spoilers here.) The tunnel descends past an unexplored side-cavern containing what looks like rails for a mine train, rails that wind out of sight and are never discussed again. The main tunnel then continues its descent to a simple dirt platform below. Branching off from the platform is a single horizontal tunnel that leads to a deadly pitfall covered by poisonous vines. Below these vines, we glimpse only whitened bones. Beyond the pitfall lies a dead end. This, to me, is the structural essence of the last half of the novel: bones, deadly vines, and a dead end. But what about the side-tunnel up above, that no one ever entered? Perhaps it represents the reader's real expectation, for a thriller about a real excavation of real ruins, instead of some "Little Shop of Horrors" remake. The author shows us just enough of that side-tunnel to catch our attention, while relentlessly refusing to explore it. That's what really turned me off about this novel.

This would have made a good short story but as written was waaay too long. I lost interest quickly and I tend to love stories like this. Part of my problem was that I did not care for any of the characters so could care less what happened to them. I actually found myself rooting for the plants. I would not waste my time on this book.

If you're reading this, I'm sure you at least know the premise of the book by now, and if not, then the recent movie trailers will reveal most of the plot you need to know: lost tourists in Mexico stuble on a hill, are trapped by the locals, an evil presence lurks, terror ensues. The novel begins with much promise, and after a great set up it becomes a long, drawn-out affair over the course of many pages, renews its interest towards the last fifteen pages, only to deflate at the very end. The characters are fleshed out in shades of vanilla, meaning they are watered-down archetypes of characters we've seen before. I read Stephen King's review of "The Ruins", and while I am hardly a learned scholar in literary fiction, I disagree with King's opinion: this IS a short story drawn out to novel length. King wrote a similar story many years ago titled "The Raft" which is very similar to "The Ruins" in its premise, but better in its execution, and many, many pages shorter with a better ending. I really wanted to like The Ruins because it had so much potential, but did not deliver. This isn't the worst novel I have ever read (that would be Timothy Maguire's Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West) but read this novel if you have plenty of time and are not too critical of your fiction.

Smith has written a page-turner, but it's like cotton candy--tastes good going down but of no substantive value; in fact after you finish you won't feel good.

Perhaps Smith meant this as an allegory about the passive yuppie-wannabes, but the characters' lack of common sense and, even more so, lack of intelligent curiosity kinda had me rooting for the, um, big bad. They have clues and they don't even look at them; they don't even try to find a way to defeat the evil.

I'm sorry I spent the money on a hardcover.

I agree with the others who are shaking their heads over the negative reviews here. Bloated,? Tedious? Poorly explained? Really? This is a very solid, tightly plotted, flawlessly written, extraordinary read that grabbed me from the get-go and kept me reading for 6 hours straight until I finished the book, something as a very busy person with a full time job and two kids I do not usually do. Neither do I usually take time to write reviews, but I just have to throw in my 2 cents after reading all these poor reviews. This book is excellent, people! Five stars, trust me! I'm still dazed and coming back to reality and in fact have started reading the book again. I am a picky and discerning (I like to think) bookworm who has read thousands of books now at age 42, starting at age 3 1/2. I am a movie buff too, and my taste spans a wide variety of genres. I used to be a big Stephen King fan, and now usually stay away from more greusome topics in movies and books, probably a mom/getting older thing, but I was not sorry to read this, although I will skip the movie. Picturing what happens in this book in my mind is enough! The Ruins completely enthralled me even when I first picked it up off the dollar rack at a used bookstore where I got it a couple weeks ago, I remember reading half a page and tossing it in my basket more quickly than the other 5 books I picked up, and saying to my self "I'm so getting this" It did not disappoint. Actually, it was way better than I expected. Gripping, engaging, tragic, tightly written - yes it is long, but the I liked the length, thought it played out well against the slow tortuous fate these small group of unfortunate, and mostly likable, characters stumble into in the hot, buggy jungle on the Yucatan. Sure, it's main plot premise -vines that come to life with an evil sentient consciousness - is completely implausible "in real life" but isn't that true of every supernatural thriller? Hello, do not let that stop you from picking up this book! For some reason the more engaging characters in this book are the male ones - Eric and Jeff were the ones I became attached to most. The two girls are very believable characters, they just don't have much going for them - mostly self absorbed, not terribly bright. Same goes for the Pablo guy. However, I found myself rooting for all of them, they are nice enough kids who don't deserve any of what happens to them, none of which is good. In fact - it's horrible! If you like suspense and can take the horror, get this book.

If you like bizarre stories a la Stephen King, you'd probably like this book. If you want to read about things that make perfect sense, are all about sweetness & light and people doing the proper & sensible thing: avoid this book at all costs.

There are many reviews to follow that reveal so much info they spoil the story - no spoiler warnings. If you read too many, you can just forget about the book entirely, it's all given away. It's not as much fun if you know what's going to happen.

Just know this book is about a group of 20-somethings who wander into bad, bad trouble in the Mayan jungle. They encounter a situation that's a tad farfetched, but this is the genre we are talking about, people. The kids stuggle with themselves and each other as they try to figure out what to do. I'm not sure what I would do there....human nature is scary.

I thought the writing style was kind of 'dry', but the story pulled me in. I read it quickly because I wanted to know what was going on. It's like watching "Lost" on tv...

It's not the best book of this genre I've ever read, but a long way from the worst.

Again, don't read any more reviews if you think you might want to read the book yourself.

This is a thoroughly unpleasant, warmed over stew of other, far more superior tales of horror: "The Raft" (4 people trapped on a small space by some monstrous force), "Survivor Type" (the description of the shipwrecked man resorting to auto-cannibalism is very similar to the man trying to cut out the vine in The Ruins), The Beach (foolishly adventurous, interloping, multinational tourists following a handwritten map in some exotic, 3rd world locale), schlocky 1950s sci-fi, and finally, the sexually menacing vines of Evil Dead 2. I can't believe Stephen King provided Smith with such a glowing review - I would have served him with legal papers instead for such a blatant rip off of his work. There's not an original idea here.

The book begins so promisingly. I adore having the pants scared off of me, and so I was immediately hooked by the story of the naive tourists in the Yucatan, a place I have traveled. Smith's prose is wonderful and he knows how to build suspense, and I couldn't wait for any opportunity to sneak away and read the book. Trouble began for me when Smith has the tourists wading through a stream as they try to find the archeological dig. One of the Yucatan's most famous features is that it has virtually no above ground rivers or streams. How could Smith disregard this basic fact, something that the most cursory guidebook mentions immediately?

I'm willing to suspend disbelief for a good story, but the book rapidly falls apart from there, and I felt utterly betrayed when the cheep-o sci-fi gimmick is finally revealed. And the tragedy is that it was so needless - the book could have been so scary without it. Why not have the tourists be held hostage because they stumbled across a drug field, or because they desecrated some site holy to the natives, or because they were to be used as sacrifice by the Mayans in some ancient, resurrected ritual?

The story was also without redemption and hope. I don't like when characters are completely hung out to dry like that, when there's not even hope for escape. If as a writer you do that, and don't even bother to make the monster interesting or understandable, then you've created a story that is utterly depressing and pointless, which this one is.