Customer Reviews

White Tribe

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great novella from Gene O'Neill. "White Tribe" is filled with some really interesting characters - jailbirds to ladies trying out lesbianism all inhabit this story - all three-dimensionally - which explores some of the unexplored Northern California terrain quite successfully. There's a lot to gain from reading this - the Golden State is filled with horrors underneath the glistening surface. It's a state that's really mis-interpreted due to the current Hollywood obsession. There's a whole lot more to it than that and Gene O'Neill really acts as a kind of tour guide to a really scary situation.

There's an earthquake that let's loose an ancient evil. The only thing that prevented the fifth star is that it feels like the first part of a longer novel. On the back cover it's listed that this will be novel length in the future as, "Lost Tribe" which I cannot wait to get more involved with these people and the evil - don't want to spoil it, but you'll enjoy it. He's like a Northern California version of Dennis Etchison and RIchard Matheson. Good stuff.

Gene O'Neill, White Tribe (Dimensions, 2006)

Novella-length piece from O'Neill (the "about the author" bit says he's turning this into a full-length novel) about an Indian legend awakened from its deep sleep and the rural coastal town it terrorizes. The length is its biggest problem, and I'm hoping that a full-sized novel will get us farther into the lives and motivations of these characters (as well as giving us a bunch more minor characters for said creature to gobble up); what we have here is outlines of characters and the occasional skeleton. It's enough to make me want more, but as it stands, it's not complete yet. If you look at this as a teaser for the hopefully-forthcoming novel-length version, it does its job quite well, but as a finished piece, it feels incomplete. ***