Customer Reviews

The Return

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(20)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

"The Return" is the newest novel from horror author Bentley Little. Little, who also occasionally cranks out a social satire novel attacking such American institutions as chain stores or homeowner's associations, delivers a full-frontal assault on the horror genre with this book. "The Return" closely resembles "The Walking" and "The House," in that the gore and scares come fast and furious. This may be Little's eeriest book to date, quite an accomplishment for a man whose imagination explores the darkest depths of human fear and depravity.

Once again, Little sets his story in the American Southwest, specifically Arizona. We are introduced to Glen, a techie visiting Arizona to clear up the affairs of his recently deceased mother. Glen decides he needs to change his life, and he begins to do so by volunteering to work on an archeological expedition for the summer. It is there that he meets Melanie, a teacher who likes to spend her summers digging up Indian artifacts. Regrettably for Glen and Melanie, they soon find themselves in the center of an ancient evil that is reawakening after years of dark slumber. This evil involves the Anasazi people, a race that disappeared along with the Mayans nearly 1000 years ago. With the reappearance of this force in modern times, cities start to disappear, people turn to murder and cannibalism, Indian artifacts become animated, and apocalyptic signs start to occur. The consequences of these activities are both horrific and gory.

While Little creates a story that is scary, and consistently scary at that, he tends to bite off more than he can chew as the story progresses. Too many events are occurring, and too many people are wandering around in the story. Little has a tough time weaving all of these threads into a neat conclusion.

Little sets a dark tone early on as he builds towards what should be a thrilling climax. But like other Little books, the conclusion tends to be somewhat of a letdown. The showdown between Glen and the creatures is so brief that one wonders what the fuss is all about. Since this is a phenomenon that occurs in other Bentley Little books, it seems that Little enjoys writing the body of the story more than he likes ending his books. Ultimately, there is nothing wrong with this, because Little always creates an awesome build up in his books. This build up often leads to chills and wariness about strolling about in a dark house. If achieving those effects requires the sacrifice of a brilliant ending, so be it.

For Bentley Little fans, "The Return" is, well, a welcome return for Bentley Little. For those yet to experience this dark genius, "The Return" is a good place to start before you devour the rest of his catalog (although be sure to check out "The Store," one of Little's best books).

This is the scariest novel I have read in ages. Bentley Little takes a hoary old cliche like the haunted indian burial grounds and breathes new life into it by turning the concept on its head and throwing in a host of imaginative horrors. Quite a few people seem to have had trouble understanding the nature of the evil in this novel, but I don't understand why. Mr. Little certainly doesn't spoonfeed his readers, but everything's there if one takes the time to read carefully. This is one great book.

This starts as a great book but fall flat after couple of pages. There are too many loose threads and very confusing book. Now a days writing confusing horror book is a fashion or what? I will tell you, if you HAVE to read this book, keep store receipt handy to return this book. Most of the matirial in this book is laughable! LOL. If someone says 'boo' to you in day light, in front of 1000 people,telling you that he is going to tell you 'boo' and if you get scared after that,then you will love this book.

This is the first novel I have read by Bentley Little, and it was a disaster. First, the author must have had a morphine drip in his arm while constructing such a long list of uni-dimensional characters who find themselves caught in a struggle with a "monster" unleashed after they unearthed some Native American artifacts. There are dancing pottery shards featuring technicolor images of characters that view them, and, of course, there's that green-haired "Mongollon Monster" who is just thrown into the mix like cayenne pepper into a ham and cheese omelet. PLEASE!!!!!!! If you like monsters prowling around old ruins, then try Owl Goingback's "Crota."

Bentley Little's "The Return" starts out with a lot of promise, and up until about the halfway point, it's pretty intense. A good amount of evil doings and supernatural terror invades the lives of Bentley's (as usual) unbelievable, one-dimensional characters, but the story flows along well and fast.

Unfortunately, one you pass the halfway mark, the whole thing starts falling apart and Bentley can't seem to put it back together again. Too many characters, too many loose ends, too much of an unstoppable evil that, at it's anti-climatic end, gets disposed of entirely too easily and too conveniently.

The tension vanishes, your concern for the main characters vanishes and you'll find yourself rushing through the last 100+ pages in the sole effort to get the book done and start on something more fulfilling.

A few key words and phrases always pop up when you're talking about Bentley Little:

1. Extremely graphic sex and gore;
2. Social commentary with a supernatural twist;
3. Predictability;
4. One dimensional characters;
5. Anti-climatic endings;
6. Bad story pacing;
7. Plotlines falling apart halfway through the read.
8. Occasionally VERY interesting ideas and storylines.

"The Return" will offer you all of them.

After reading this great book and being thoroughly terrified by some of the most disturbingly original imagery I've come across this year, I was shocked to see the low scores this book got from readers. Maybe you have to be from the southwest to appreciate the achievement here. Compared to Dean Koontz's BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON, which seems to have taken its Four Corners info from a map, Little knows this country and creates an epic novel of horror from this epic landscape. Scary, intense and original. By the way, I liked the ending and thought it DID tie up all loose ends.

The book is built around a great idea, the Mollongonville Monster, but the novel itself isn't very satisfying. The writing is weak and stilted. (Much like this review, actually.) The creatures don't make any sense--what they are, what they are doing, and how they are defeated the way they are are details never really explained. In fact, pretty much anything interesting is not explained. I gets old after a while. It's like a book written by a young person, where details aren't provided. Things Just Are. Then there is an embarassingly bad sex scene.

As for being scary...some scenes were effective, others were not. The creatures being described deadpan as having "afros" pretty much moved them out of the realm of being scary into being laughable.

My favorite line from the book (which I have memorized): "The man in the hip hop shorts was still alive, but he was screaming."

Oh, and I was particularly annoyed with the dig at Bigfoot researcher Grover Krantz. I mean, honestly.

I've read many of Stephen King's books, but none of those ever scared me. They didn't even come close, actually. Dean Koontz was okay--still not that scary to me though. But Bentley Little....HE knows how to write good horror! I get chills every time I read The Return, and I don't know how many times I've read it over the years. The opening chapter is quite horrifying on its own--the book just gets better from there. The use of Anasazi objects as possessed horror items was just brilliant. The ending is a little lame, but the rest of the story makes up for that. I really connected to the kid and I am glad he had such a big part in the tale. The two main adult characters were okay, if a little too normal/boring. Writing-wise, it was brilliant. I felt as though I was right there, and I could see every part of every scene playing out in my head with clarity. An awesome book I wholeheartedly recommend.

The Return started out as a seemingly very promising horror story. Once I got further into the story I realized that it was turning into a very weak offering from Bentley Little. A mummy with a red afro?? Come On!! Very unrealistic even for a horror novel!

Too many questions were left unanswered. Such as what happened to the town that dissappeared? What happened to the people that dissappeared? What exactly was the Mongolon Monster??? The answers to these questions were very vague in the story.

Also the end of The Return seemed to be rushed. The build up to the supposed climax was satisfying enough, however, the climax of the story itself was anything but!

Skip this one. Bentley Little has written some excellent horror novels. Try The Store, The Revelation and The Walking.

I read THE RETURN on the recommendation of a friend, and I'm so glad I did. This is a great book. Intelligently written and intricately plotted, it stands head and shoulders above most of today's horror fiction. There are ambitious, truly scary set pieces such as the descent of a small town into hell, a boy's horrific surreal loss of his parents, a delinquent's encounter with an ancient god in an Indian cave and an abusive father's comeuppance by the ghosts of his family that will haunt me for a long time to come. Bentley Little is as good as King, Koontz and Barker in their prime. While I can understand the frustration of some with the ending of the novel, climaxes in horror fiction have always been problematic (The ending of King's classic THE SHINING? The boiler blows up and destroys the hotel. the end.)The conclusion of THE RETURN is at least consistent with Little's Lovecraftian premise that evil is inherently unknowable. I can't wait to read the rest of this talented author's books.