The Scream [Mass Market Paperback]

John Skipp (Author), Craig Spector (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1987

An account of the Battle of the Atlantic, based on interviews with combat participants, takes the reader onto the carrier flight deck and into the fighter cockpit, discussing the breaking of German codes and more. Reprint.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 420 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; First Edition edition (December 1, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553267981
• ISBN-13: 978-0553267983
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,426,656 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is the book Skipp & Spector were born to write., January 6, 2000

By 

cr0wgrrl (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Scream (Mass Market Paperback)

Out of all of their books, The Scream remains my favorite work by these two authors. I bought this at a used book store, not expecting much more than an afternoon's entertainment. To my delight, I discovered a thought-provoking treatise on censorship, Christianity (and this book *isn't* anti-Christian), abortion, and demonically inspired heavy metal music.

The plot is pretty straightforward, and follows three main vectors:

1. The protagonists, all part of a heavy metal band, are fighting the extreme censorship attempts of fundamental Christian televangelists.

2. The antagonists, a heavy metal band inspired by a demon from another dimension, are trying to bring their matron through to this reality.

3. One of the protagonists, Jesse, finds herself accidentally pregnant and must wrestle with her beliefs, dreams and desires over whether to terminate her pregnancy.

In the hands of less skilled authors, these plots could have become sophomoric and boring. Guided by Skipp and Spector, they are instead intense, exciting, horrifying and enthralling. It was especially nice to see a book on this topic that didn't just mindlessly bash Christianity (a topic I'm fully sick of, even though I'm not Christian), but instead approached the subject with a true understanding of the problems of narrowmindedness and greed.

Don't worry, splatterpunk fans -- there's also a lot of blood and gore, violence and insanity. My only regret is that Skipp and Spector didn't do a soundtrack for The Scream -- I'd love to hear the music in their heads.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars You may never go to another rock concert, August 3, 2000

By 

Brian D. Rubendall (Oakton, VA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Scream (Mass Market Paperback)

Skipp and Spector are rock and rollers at heart and this is their rock and roll horror novel (with a nod towards heavy metal). Like the music, it assualts your senses and in the end you know you've had one heck of a ride. This is the boys at their best.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Twisted Sister Meets Clive Barker - Not Just A Great Horror Novel But An Excellent Document Of A Time!, August 1, 2010

By 

darklordzden "darklordzden" (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Scream (Mass Market Paperback)

America, The Late Eighties: A war for the hearts and minds of a nation rages between the forces of the religious right and the liberal left; as televangelists lobby the government to implement draconian legislation that will effectively censure the constitutional freedom of expression of shock-rock artists, musicians themselves go to ever greater lengths to voice their opposition. Rock front-man and Vietnam veteran, Jake Hamer, finds himself caught in the crossfire between the two factions as he orchestrates "Rock Aid": a huge stadium-rock extravaganza designed to benefit artists threatened by the exhortations of the moral majority; but as Hamer puts the finishing touches to the benefit concert in place, a wave of horrific violence sweeps the country - much of it apparently inspired by the music of the wildly popular and deeply mysterious pseudo-Satanic metal group, "The Scream". Is it posturing for publicity or are "The Scream" really as committed to their apocalyptic doctrine as they seem? The answers will plunge Jake Hamer and his loved ones into a nightmare...the depths of which they can scarcely imagine.

I had a ball with "The Scream" as it perfectly captures the zeitgeist of the mid-to-late eighties. I was a teenager at the time this book is set and can only too clearly remember the battles that were fought in the public domain over what and what could not be considered artistically permissible; memories of the "Ozzy Osbourne" and "Judas Priest" suicide trials and the more or less entirely futile exploits of the censorious Tipper Gore rose inexorably to the surface as I ploughed through it. Skipp and Spector themselves, who were hailed as the notorious bad-boys of the newly christened "Splatterpunk" movement at the time, also clearly relished the chance to eviscerate the consciousness of Reaganite America and they did so with aplomb.

But to write S&S off as mere "Splatterpunk" authors has been to always do them a major disservice. Frankly, they're two of the finest writers ever to grace the contemporary horror genre; quite literally, when they were on top of their game, which they were for the majority of their career, they were easily the equal of Stephen King, Clive Barker, Joe R. Lansdale and any other young Turk working in the genre that you care to mention. They also stood head and shoulders over most writers working in the field. Their prose, characters and style pops and crackles with all the ferocity of a good Guitar solo...or possibly a human heart being fried in a pan.

Given the recent vogue for all things eighties, I'd love to see HBO dust this novel off and make it as a miniseries; but only on the understanding that it remains a period piece and that they eschew CGI effects in favour of the truly gruesome (and far more convincing) prosthetic creations of someone like Rob Bottin, Tom Savini or Screaming Mad George.

If you like a good horror novel of the truly visceral variety, pick this one up.