Customer Reviews

The Unseen

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Do you ever have the feeling someone is watching you? In T.L. Hines latest thriller that is just the case. The Unseen is the newest release from the self-proclaimed "Noir Bizarre" writer. This time the creepy and eerie setting is one that may be in the closet or ceiling panel closest to you.

Lucas Freund has a secret life as an urban explorer, someone who stalks in hidden crevasses above office spaces and institutions located in the metro D.C. area. Although this is Lucas's livelihood, he never does harm or destruction. Instead he plays out imaginary lives of his strangers, the odd hobby serves as comfort for his tortured childhood soul and not only has Lucas surveyed the entire surrounding area, he's good at what he does. These innocent skills are noticed by a secret club, only they take their voyeur pastime to the extreme. Events start to turn deadly as members of the club begin to die. Not only this, but Lucas is fingered as the culprit. Will he be strong enough to solve the mystery before he becomes the next victim?

The Unseen is a character driven expose on the way we look at the lives around us, the thoughts and feelings of our inner life, and the reasoning between right and wrong.

Hines has the ability to draw in the reader and insert them into Lucas's uncanny life. The intricate descriptions of places, people, and actions make you believe as if you are spying on bystanders yourself. Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas series comes to mind in comparison and contrast. Gripping and intense, the author takes us on an inside look into love and relationships using the guts of industrial buildings and underground tunnels. At times the plot and pace seems to slow, but Hines is quick to throw in a twist or dilemma to keep our attention.

The Unseen is a unique book on a growing subject of urban exploration and those who traverse it. A topic I was eager to find out more about and those involved in its secret world. Hines has crafted a complete and original story deep with characters and settings that help us explore our personal relationships and daily struggles, something that is rare just as it is unseen.

I'm going to state my honest opinion about this book - I didn't particularly like it, and I certainly didn't understand the point of this story. I could reach far into my imagination and my literary background and surmise that the author thinks that what is seen by others is the "insatiable hunger to seek out other people - an uncontrollable need to feed the Dark Vibration." And what is beneath this very unnatural desire is the unseen - "they watched while other people suffered." Society's bizarre fascination with reality shows is reflected in this book...secretly watching others and doing - nothing.

Basically, you live the entire 383 pages of this story in the mind of a man who has no memory, who doesn't know who he is and who lives is life secretly spying on people. Lucas has a brilliant mind stuffed with bizarre information. He meets a whole group of people just like him - people who sneak around spying on others. This group is the Creep Club, and they thrive on watching people harm each other. Lucas, the main character, is sort of freaked out by the Creep Club because all he does is spy on people in public places and create imaginary histories for them. These other folks like to secretly film other people hurting each other. Kind of sick.

As the story unfolds you are introduced to a host of people and the weirdness deepens. Lucas tries to warn these Creep Club victims...only to be wrongly accused of the crime himself by one guy and then be thanked and helped by another. There are some so-called government agents - "Dark Suits" that are trying to bust up the Creep Club. There are the "Dark Years" that Lucas is haunted by and that really distracts him the more the story unfolds. One group chases the other until the reader is totally bamboozled.

This book has a lot of tedious detailed descriptions loosely tying together a lot of disconnected story lines that never come together to form anything meaningful. Unless you are a criminal clairvoyant with a deep longing to work for a secret government agency, you're going to reach the end of this too long story and not have a clue what you just read. At least that was my experience. I could use my own imagination and paste some symbolism to all of this, but it would be a waste of time. I'm going to move on to other things. You can make up your own mind about this one. Check it out here.

Most of us have had the opportunity to "people watch" at the mall, the beach, in school, even as we drive from one place to another. It is a harmless pastime that can help to pass a few minutes or hours of inactivity and keep boredom at bay. In T.L. Hines' novel, The Unseen, the harmless pastime is a way of life that the author's hero, Lucas.

Lucas is a young man raised to be separate. When he is not washing dishes to add money to his getaway stashes, Lucas spends his days and nights living in abandoned buildings, eating leftovers and forgotten lunches from office break rooms and watching strangers. His code of ethics is simple. He watches until he feels a connection with someone, some hint that the person is aware of him. Once a connection is felt, he creates a history, a present and sometimes a future for his subject. He doesn't interact and he never goes into their private homes to watch them behind closed doors. An orphan in more ways than one, a chance encounter changes the game and moves Lucas from life on the periphery to connections he never imagined or wanted.

As the basis for a novel, the story of Lucas as he discovers a way a group of people with a similar compulsion to watch, the story would have been more than enough to create a compelling story. Unfortunately, T.L. Hines doesn't have enough confidence in his original premise and before the end of the novel has thrown in so many unbelievable coincidences and random plot twists as to leave me feeling as if I had read not one book but at least three and none of them very good.

The biggest problem with The Unseen is that T.L. Hines doesn't know what he wants to write. After setting up a fairly intriguing character in the loner Lucas, Hines introduces Donavan as the conduit for Lucas to learn of the Creep Club. The club is a group of people driven like Lucas to watch the lives of others but unlike him they also need to record and share what they see. Within days of his first encounter with Donavan, Lucas has broken his cardinal rule and is watching people in their homes. Unfortunately what he sees is a couple planning a murder and unlike the rest of the Creep Club members, Lucas wants to get involved and save the intended victim. Again, the novel could have been saved at this point if Hines had followed this story thread to a somewhat logical conclusion. Unfortunately he decides to add a government conspiracy, genetic engineering, mind control and the kitchen sink to the story instead. The result a great big muddled mess.

I have to admit, this is the first time I have read anything by T. L. Hines. I am typically reading business and work related material. I save fiction for down time when I need a little "fluff" and entertainment to take my mind away from present matters. And, isn't that what fiction is for -- an escape, a getaway, a chance to relax and vicariously "live in someone elses world" for a while?

The main character, Lucas, in the book, The Unseen by T.L. Hines, spends his waking hours by living his life through the imagined worlds of others. You see, Lucas is an urban explorer. He lives in abandoned buildings, sewers and subway tunnels. He spies on people and invents elaborate worlds in his mind as a past time. That is until his world is intruded upon by another explorer. Donovan belongs to a group called the Creep Club. After befriending Lucas, Donovan invites Lucas to a Creep Club meeting. Lucas expects to find like-minded urban explorers, but he what he really finds is far more sinister.

The beginning of the book sets up some of the characters and starts to introduce various plot lines that coalesce toward the end of the book. I found that as the story progressed the action did as well. Hines surprised me a couple times when I thought the story should be winding down -- he infused a new shot of adrenaline and kept me moving through the pages.

For some readers, you might find this book average and predictable spotted with government intrigue, subtle romance, and good-guy-wins-in-the-end themes. For readers like me, that's okay. In a sense, like the character Lucas, I read fiction to take a break from the real world, to imagine, to recharge, and, yes, to think about bigger things than myself. So, if you have never read The Unseen, I recommend giving it a go. Find a comfy chair, sit back and enjoy.

The short answer? This one just wasn't my cup of tea.

The premise of the story, a man (Lucas) who lives vicariously by spying on people from inside walls, duct work, and crawl spaces, making up complicated histories/lives for them in his mind, sounds interesting enough. Add in the wrinkle that he runs into a group of people called the "Creep Club" who seem to share his peculiar interest. Throw in the twist that our "hero" has a mysterious background (was he really an orphan? was he part of some weird scientific study he can't remember?) and is being pursued by some shadowy government organization, "mad" scientists and even the Chinese and this should be great, right? Wrong.

Some how, some way this manages to be unbelievably boring! The book at times goes for pages and pages with no character interaction whatsoever, only tediously detailed descriptions of what the main character is seeing and thinking. This might be ok if Lucas was charismatic or compelling in some way, but unfortunately he's just.... boring. He has no home, wandering from building to building setting up his bivouac in perfect position to spy on his chosen subject. He has no family or friends and works at a menial job as a dishwasher. There is absolutely nothing about him that inspired me to "connect" with him, which is rather ironic considering he explains his behavior (to himself) as searching for that "electric "connection" that he gets every so often while spying on someone who seems to sense him watching them.

The author describes his writing style as "noir-bizarre", and I'd certainly agree with the bizarre part. It wasn't "bad" per se, just not my cup of tea.

Lucas is a loner, but he's never alone.

From page one, this novel pulls you in. It's interesting to learn how this man sneaks around and spies on others. How he longs for a connection, but pushes those people he knows in person away. He's afraid for a "real" connection, so he settles for the lives he creates for those he spies on.

When someone shows up near his current living space things start to turn around. He goes from being the spy to being spied on.

With such an intriguing start I was keyed up for an intriguing story to test my intelligence and challenge me. The story did deliver many twists and turns, unexpected story turns, and side plots.

Unfortunately for me, after so many twists and turns I felt it fell a bit flat. With so many plot threads to keep track of, several were never wrapped up. The ending had me staring at the book saying, "All of that for...what?"

An intriguing start with a muddled middle, and a disappointing end. Even the action packed sequence before the final shoe dropped didn't keep me on the edge of my seat.

In the end I really WANTED to like this book. I'm afraid it didn't happen.

Since his riveting debut a few years back ("Waking Lazarus"), Hines has established himself as a consistent and original storyteller in the thriller market. Using the tagline "Noir Bizarre" to describe his own work, Hines explores the fringes of society and finds things both disturbing and familiar there.

"The Unseen" is another sidestep from the regular thriller vein. This time, through the eyes of a disenfranchised young man named Lucas, we find ourselves lurking in businesses and restaurants, spying on the activities of regular folk. Lucas has no ill-will, only a deep longing to be connected to humanity without the risks such connection entail. He remains unseen, but even when he moves amongst the public, he finds that his fellow man has little time or energy to give to those on the fringes. As Lucas continues with his lurkings, he stumbles upon a more sinister group called the Creep Club. He's put off by their vicarious thrills, yet finds himself drawn to them like an addiction.

What starts as a one-man exploration of society, with hints of a tamer Chuck Palahnuik between the lines, turns into a fast-paced thriller that involves government plots, killers, and closely guarded secrets. This is what I like about Hines' books, his ability to take regular people and make them believable, often likable, before taking readers along on a wild ride. Although a few elements left me wanting even more--for example, Lucas' connection with Sarea--Hines does a great job of spooling out the secrets in a manner that keeps us off-guard but still engaged.

I love the cover of this book, the packaging, the layout, and all of that just adds to the quality of another Hines thriller. From the opening creepiness to the final thrills and revelations, "The Unseen" makes Hines a writer to watch for years to come.

Well, maybe someone is watching you, but in such a way the watcher goes undetected.

That describes Lucas. He is a watcher, an urban explorer, a man who spends much of his time watching other people. He knows his way around the Washington DC steam tunnels, is familiar with many of the abandoned warehouses, and takes advantage of construction abnormalities he discovers in various buildings to spy on the inhabitants. He is also a petty thief, stealing mementos from those he watches and uses them to construct precise shrines in the places he calls home.

Lucas does this because he longs for human contact, but can't reach out in the conventional way. He has no memory of a childhood, or a conventional family. The only thing he recalls is the line "Humpty Dumpty had some great falls."

But Lucas' solitary lifestyle is about to end. He discovers he's not the only urban explorer around when he stumbles onto a group called the Creep Club. At first, he excited that maybe he's found a group that will understand him, one to which he can belong. But this group gets their thrills from watching and taping the dark side of human behavior, something Lucas can't condone.

So when he tries to stop a murder, he finds himself the suspect of the crime. When he tries to stop an abuser, he ends up drawn into a game with much greater stakes. He wants nothing more than to disappear, but those after him have proven they can find him whenever they want, no matter where he goes. He can't stay, yet he can't leave, either.

The Unseen is full of twists and turns that can sometimes leave a reader wondering what is going on. There are some parts I'm still a bit unsure about, but overall I enjoyed this fast-paced novel.

One thing T. L. Hines does in his novels, at least for me, is raises various questions regarding society. For me, the question is how far can our privacy be invaded, without us knowing? How easy it is for anyone, let alone a government that may not hesitate to take what ever steps it feels entitled to in the name of security, to track the movements of another, watch a fellow citizen and that person not have any idea they are being watched.

So the next time you feel like you're being watched, and no one seems to be around, check above the ceiling tiles or look for a tiny hole in the wall of the janitor's closet. Or not, if you'd rather not know.

I recently finished reading a rather interesting novel entitled The Unseen by T. L. Hines. I enjoy a good fiction book now and again as a form of entertainment. While I usually lean towards a romantic genre- I felt compelled to try this mystery/futuristic type book.

Overall, I felt the book would highly impress and be enjoyed by those who often read this genre or type of book. The characterization of this book is by far one of the most complex and interesting in any of the books I have previously read. I felt as though Lucas was a long time friend that I have known deeply my whole life. His emotions and reactions were true and there were reasonings behind every decision. The characters Hines creates were facsinating.

While I'm not sure if it is my lack of enthusiasm over the genre or if it a characteristic of this novel or author, I felt as though the plot line was to full and confusing. I felt myself lost many times trying to follow all of the many subplots and trying to connect all of the dots. While some of these were resolved in the end, I still feel as though the plot lacks clarity, organization, and consolidation.

Would I recommend this novel? Hesitantly, and only to those who I knew enjoy the mysterious adventures and don't mind a little far fetched characteristics. I was moved by Hines acknowledgement section where he describes writing this novel while battling cancer. May the Lord bless him with many more years and continued health.

TracFones. Brainwashing. Surveillance. Creep Club. CIA. Parkour. Characters named Dilbert, Humpty, Swarm and Snake. All populate a shadowy world featured in T. L. Hines' techno-supernatural 386-page hardcover fiction release, The Unseen (Nelson).

The book tells the story of Lucas, an urban nomad who lives in the airspaces and attics of office buildings. He has no past, and his present is formed by searching for emotional "connections" with those on whom he spies. If he feels one, he steals pictures or other artifacts from their cubicles. He eats the stuff the rest of us leave behind in office refrigerators, and works for spare change doing odd jobs...until he is discovered by one of a group of other free-lance surveillance junkies who bill themselves as The Creep Club. This group of voyeurs lurks in office buildings, but also spies in private homes, filming the ugliness they see in order to showcase their scores to the others in the Club. These connections are used to pull Lucas into a labrynth-like sinister plot. Is he just a robotic drone, programmed from his youth to play this exact role in an evil drama - or can truth set him free? (Hmm.)

So, a couple of disclaimers here: I am not a fan of frigid, connection-less protagonists or paranoia-driven plots in fiction. I'm also not a fan of contempo-techno page-turners. The book came to me as a review project, so I waded through it even though my distaste for the genre in general and Lucas in particular tempted me to push it aside after the first couple of chapters. I realize I am not T.L. Hines target audience.

But when I consider the book's intended readers (my guess: gamer guys under age 40), I can mention some positives of this dark story. The plot has elements of "clever your way out of the death trap" video games and the Bourne movies. Hines does a great job creating a cold, gray, isolated world in which his grim characters act and react. And though Lucas' inner world is not a particularly welcoming place, I eventually developed some sympathy for him, thanks to Hines' slow revelation throughout the book about what brought Lucas to the troubling life he was living. And the book snapshots a fragment of the zeitgeist of our time: our culture encourages us to be voyeurs and watchers, not connectors.

One continuing annoyance throughout the book was the name "The Creep Club". I could not get past the fact that this sounded like something a catty group of fourth-grade girls would call the nerdy boys in their class. I wished Hines could have come up with a less-childish moniker, especially since The Creep Club is core to the book's plot.

Hines is a good story-teller, and if you enjoy this genre, you'll probably enjoy The Unseen.