When a preacher who has lost his faith suddenly discovers that he possesses the ability to heal and perform miracles, he becomes a reluctant participant in the battle against evil as he sets out to save a teenage girl and stop the occupants--who may be demons--of a mysterious car.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Kirkus Reviews
First volume in Grant's (In the Fog, 1993, etc.) millennial tetralogy about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, this one focusing on the pale horseman Death. Far more adventurous than his story is Grant's form, which imitates the structure of a symphony. The effect seems rather feeble, though, when set beside Anthony Burgess's Napoleon Symphony: A Novel in Four Movements or Joyce's music chapter in Ulysses (``Bronze by gold heard the hoofirons, steelyringing''). Here, the small town of Maple Landing is about to witness, it would seem, the beginning of the world's end. A church bell tolls at night when no one is there to ring it--and, impossibly, only one bell of the three in the belfry rings. The altar crucifix, meantime, is coated with dead moths. Innocent young Dimitri sees a horse gallop about town that no one else can see, then hears large flocks of birds no one else hears. A crazy Bible-thumping woman warns everyone of the Lord's approaching vengeance. Following the worst winter in memory, folks at the Moonglow Diner speculate about the heavy heat, house fires, and water contamination. Reverend Casey Chisholm, a giant, hides a sorry past, but suddenly seems to have the ability to perform miracles. The rough beast slouching toward Maple Landing is a magnificent Lincoln Continental ``nearly as white and silent as the moon, silver horse in full gallop fixed on the hood.'' The shadowy driver within would seem to be a woman, accompanied by Lup‚, who can see werewolves, and by Stan Hogan, a vagrant of uncertain morality. It's likely that many of these figures will reappear in later installments. This first of the series, however, is all plotless nuance and buildup, full of hopscotch scene-drawing until the storm breaks in the final pages, releasing a rather conventional small-town apocalypse. Grant offers such modest intensity here (leaving bigger apocalypses, one assumes, for future volumes) that few will linger long. Horseman, pass by. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Understated, subtle horror,
By
This review is from: Symphony (Milennium Quartet) (Hardcover)
The Rev. Casey Chisolm lives in Maple Landing, a small New Jersey town located on the banks of the Delaware River. A complex man who enjoys serving the needs of his small flock, he functions as a sort of moral compass for the people of the village. It is a responsibility he gladly accepts, since it distracts him from his weighty personal problems.
Outwardly a quiet town, Maple Landing has its secrets. Middle aged women lust for teenage boys; drug money is being used to corner the town's small real estate market; a father mercilessly beats his young daughter. Chisolm deals with these problems as best he can, despite his feelings of inadequacy. Recently recovered from walking pneumonia, Chisolm finds himself at the center of a strange series of events. Miraculously, he seems to command a swarm of angry bees to cease their savage attack on a van full of tourists. Then, he briefly resurrects the corpse of a burn victim. Chisolm and the people of Maple Landing are stunned by his unexplained power. Already unnerved by endless days of sweltering heat, the unexplained sound of hoofbeats on the streets of their town, and by a church bell that tolls by itself, the townspeople look to Casey for answers. Pondering the significance of these events, Chisolm muses that they may be linked to the end of the Millennium. Some of the town folk scoff; others embrace the notion. Unfortunately for them all, Chisolm's theories prove to be true. Death, in the form of a white Continental, is approaching Maple Landing. The huge car, a ghost from a bygone era, slowly makes its way across the United States. The driver of the car, known only as Susan, knows her purpose--to meet and do battle with Rev. Chisolm. To that end, she has gathered a group of social outcasts who help her wreak havoc across America. In preparation for her confrontation with Chisolm, Susan unleashes her death squad in Arkansas and West Virginia. These attacks leave dozens dead, homeless, and shell shocked. But these events are only preludes to the destruction planned for Maple Landing. Susan, the embodiment of one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, longs to battle her real foe, the unsuspecting Rev. Chisolm. The two finally clash, nearly leveling Maple Landing in the process. Symphony is the first in a planned quartet dealing with the Four Horsemen described in Revelations. Grant mines the rich vein of apocalyptic legend to good advantage, updating and modernizing the legends to suit his purposes. For instance, Susan, who I presume is Death, drives a white Continental. From the opening scene, it is clear the car is lumbering towards a date with destiny. Grant manages to use its slow approach to Maple Landing to increase the tension by degrees--I haven't been this unnerved by an automobile since I encountered the black sixty-six Chevy featured so prominently in Joe Lansdale's The Nightrunners. Once again, Grant demonstrates his mastery of understated, subtle horror. In Symphony, he takes the overwhelming concept of the Apocalypse and reduces it to a smaller, more human scale. Instead of dealing with global cataclysm, Symphony focuses on the struggles of a single man whose worst enemy may turn out to be himself. The intimacy of the action involves the reader on a level that a large scale epic could not match. The horror, as seen through the eyes of a few participants, is all the more compelling because of this. Ultimately, Symphony does not answer all the questions it poses. It does, however, set up several intriguing concepts for the next three volumes to explore.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Some Interesting Characters In A Story Going Nowhere,
By Bob A. Reiss "Audiobook Reviews: The Guilded ... (Bensalem, PA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Symphony (Paperback)
Another on my list of Post Apocalyptic tales, Symphony is the first book of a four part series dealing with the four horsemen of the apocalypse. While the characters are interesting, the story is filled with subplots and tangents that just go nowhere. The writer has a penchant for placing characters in interesting situation, then leaving you to assume you know what happened. Yet, at many times, you guessing, which is not good. Grant takes an interesting course with humanizing the horseman, this time War, but this was done much better in Gaimen and Pratchett's Good Omens. Here, it basically humorless. The book's ending is ambiguous at best, and while this may be OK for some series, here it just makes you want to avoid picking up the next installment.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Death has come to Maple Landing.",
By
This review is from: Symphony (Paperback)
Death, the first horseman of the Apocalypse, and who is actually a woman tooling around in a car with a hood ornament shaped like a horse, comes riding into a small town to do battle with an apparently paranormally gifted minister. Author Charles Grant, as has been his style for years, pays closer to building an atmosphere of mystery and impending doom than any kind of actual story. Those looking for something that speaks in whispers and enigmas will find something to like here, others wanting something more focused on plot and answering the questions it raises should look elsewhere.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
