Review
The author knows how to create a plot with unique characters and an engaging story. Patricia Russo (Author of Shiny Thing)
This, the debut novel from Richard Schiver, will pique constant reader's curiosity just enough: here we are presented with uncomplicated plot strands and Lovecraftian overtones evocative (perhaps) of something fashioned from the early pen - or pseudonyms - of Dean Koontz.
Mathew Tait: Hellnotes
SHADOWS OF THE PAST is a horror-filled ride that left me white-knuckling all the way to the end! The subplots, such as the death of his wife, and the injury to his son, as well as his teen daughter's escapades into crime, lend an even more realistic feel to the story.
Charlene Gamble Literary R&RI enjoyed reading SHADOWS OF THE PAST. The story is an engaging one that for the most part is well-written and suitably frightening. Character development is good and we are given enough of Sam's past to pity him, while at the same time wanting to tell him to get it together already!
Colleen Wanglund, Horror Fiction ReviewSHADOWS OF THE PAST is a nail-biting, spine-chilling read that will take readers to the edge of their seats! Richard
knows how to crank up the tension and bring out the scary monsters:
Fiona Ingram Readers Favorite Book ReviewsI would place Mister Schiver's talents in league with Neil Gaiman's. He shines in his ability to let dialogue propel a story. That is trickier than it may seem, but the talented writers do it with an effortless grace.
T.W Brown Brutally Honest Reviews
From the Author
Inspiration for Shadows of the Past In the early nineteenth century Edgar Allen Poe visited the South Polar Region in his only novel length work titled:
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. The work relates the tale of the young Arthur Gordon Pym, who stows away aboard a whaling ship called the
Grampus. Various adventures and misadventures befall Pym, including shipwreck, mutiny, and cannibalism, before he is saved by the crew of the
Jane Guy. Aboard this vessel, Pym and a sailor named Dirk Peters continue their adventures further south. Docking on land, they encounter hostile black-skinned natives before escaping back to the ocean. The novel ends abruptly as Pym and Peters continue towards that mysterious region around the South Pole.
Many believe H.P. Lovecraft continued Poe's tale with his novella,
At The Mountains of Madness. that was serialized in Astounding Stories from February to April of 1936. Lovecraft twice cites Poe's
disturbing and enigmatic story in his text, and explicitly borrows the mysterious cry
Tekeli-li from Poe's work. In a letter to August Derleth, Lovecraft wrote that he was trying to achieve with his ending an effect similar to what Poe accomplished in
Pym.
In
August
1938 the novella,
Who Goes There, by John W Campbell writing under the pen name Don A. Stuart was published in Astounding Stories. It's been said Campbell wrote the story to show Lovecraft how a story of that nature should be written. The story has been adapted for the screen three times. In 1951 as
The Thing From Another World, in 1982 as
The Thing directed by John Carpenter, and most recently as a prequel to the Carpenter version, also titled
The Thing, released in 2011.
In each instance the alien discovery remained trapped in Antarctica. Until now.
