The Burning

by Bentley Little

Four strangers--a young college student, a single mother, a park ranger, and a cross-country traveler--are drawn together when a train carrying an unimaginable evil preys on their darkest fears.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Fantasy, Novels, Thriller, Adult, Suspense

391 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published August 1, 2006

About the author

Bentley Little is an American author of horror fiction. Publishing an average of a novel a year since 1990, Little avoids publicity and rarely does promotional work or interviews for his writing.

Reviews

[Dirk Grobbelaar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Trying to review The Burning is turning into a bit of a chore. I’ve restarted this review quite a few times, and I am as yet unable to put into words just exactly what I liked, or didn’t like, about the novel.

Some books are just like that, I suppose.

I read The Burning cover to cover; it wasn’t great, and it wasn’t bad. It has a ghost train, which is always awesome, and as a matter of principal garners it a bonus star. There are some good ideas here, but they don’t all come to fruition. Some of them, however, do. If I really had to name a downside to the story it would have something to do with the way events are wrapped up: I thought the ending was rather bizarre and OTT enough to cross the line into cheeseville. Other than that, if you enjoy 80’s style horror as King and Koontz used to do it, you might enjoy this. I’ve read other books by Little that I thought were better, though, so don’t expect a total mindblast. Except, of course, for the fact that it has a ghost train. Or have I mentioned that already?

There are some truly sinister scenes here, which do deserve a mention, but there were also some things that didn’t make a lot of sense. Or maybe it was just because I was reading this with a sun baked and rum addled brain on a beach somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

Hence the fairly non-committal rating of 2.5 (rounded up because of, yes you guessed it, the ghost train).

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Burning is one of my favorite Little books. It has many of the hallmarks for which he is best known, such as a moral message with which he occasionally tends to beat the reader over the head (racism in this one), a one-noun title following "The," some brutal and gorily violent scenes and some graphic and uncomfortable sexual content, and an ending that doesn't really convince... But, it also has some very good characterization, and the narrative follows four different and interesting people, and the plot and pacing are excellently intriguing. The mysterious ghost train is very cool, too! It's a very good sit-outside-and-sip-some-iced-tea page-turner.

[Monte Desai · Rating 4 out of 5]

So far out of all the Bentley Little books this was kind of a mix bag for me. Definitely not one of his best. It was ok ..

[Mcf1nder_sk · Rating 5 out of 5]

After taking a hiatus from reading to do some editorial work, I finally managed to read again. This time, it was my third novel by Bentley Little, and every book of his makes me more of a fan. Some novels take 20-40 pages to get me fully immersed in the story, but The Burning had me hooked by Page 2. The story revolves around four primary characters, all in different locations, which led me to question the ability of the author to realistically tie them together by the ending. I've learned not to doubt Little; this fantastic tale is all wrapped up in a nice pretty (but blood-soaked) bow by the final page.
.
Believable characters? ✔
An original storyline? ✔
A rapidly paced story? ✔
A worthwhile read? 💯

[Mike Kazmierczak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Little keeps getting better and better with all his novels. THE BURNING is no exception. Its characters are full and engaging. The story is well thought out. And the book had many scary moments that creeped me out.

Instead of following one or two main characters, there are four people who slowly become more and more involved in the events. There is the college freshman who unearths one aspect of trouble. There is the separated woman and her son who find another source in her home town. There is the park ranger who unwittingly contributes to the growth of the evil. And there is the young man on a journey across America who finds more than he expected. Together they see the pieces of evil and hauntings come together to strike out.

One of the things that I really liked was how Little took the idea of a haunted train and wove it across the railroads and the building of the railroads and then the persecution and bigotry that came out of it. Both Chinese and Indian cultures were impacted significantly by the railroads; that impact is at the core of the novel. The only negative that I had with the novel was remembering the names of the four main characters. I easily remembered who was who with regards to the events around their lives but remember whether Jolene or Angela was the freshman was difficult for some reason. That is nowhere near enough reason to skip the book though. Greatly recommended

[Lauren Stoolfire · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF'd @ p. 40

The Burning by Bentley Little sounded like it had potential with a steam engine and all, but I could not get into this one. I didn't need those first two chapters at all.

[A~ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bentley Little-The Burning.
I had a couple of questions on this one when I was done so I started to search the internet and found a few things.
This appears to be his most unpopular book.
Not many people have written a review that went beyond what is on the back cover.
Anyway, I had read the book before seeing this, actually my second reading, so this did not deter me. I would have to say, I enjoyed the book better than most. Be advised the review may be spoiler heavy.
The book follows four different people/groups as they struggle to deal with abnormal occult happenings in their life.
Characters of Note:
Jolene and Skylar: A former border crossing guard and her son. She left her job after stumbling upon a dead family of illegals in the desert. Her marriage had also gone south. Moving back to her hometown her focus eventually is centered on a house that has been saturated with evil due to the acts of its previous owner’s racism and bigotry.
Henry Cote: A parks and recreation officer who is dealing with an unusual and unexpected awakening of his sexuality. He soon finds his park under attack by supernatural vandals which graduate to murder. Along with his new interest in sex, he starts to wonder about his Native American roots which he has denied and ignored for years. Eventually, he finds that the two are interrelated.
Dennis Chen: A young 23-year-old second generation Chinese man quits his job and starts what he hopes to be the epic road trip. His ultimate destination is California. Along the way, he finds that rather than wanting to be on the trip he is compelled to be on it. His journey across the country is plagued with sleepless nights full of dreams of past racial murders that have happened in the towns he is in. During the day he finds out of the way graveyards and roadside attractions, which would not appear on AAA’s guide list. The last leg of his journey will be a one-way ticket on a ghost train.
Angela Ramos: A half Mexican college student who shows up to college only to find that the dorm room promised to her does not exist. The only option for her is a rental room that has an unbelievable low price. Once renting the room she finds that spirit hauntings are the reason for the low rate. Besides the hauntings, the town soon finds an underground passage full of dead bodies, with the hint that this is not the only one. Soon the dead are moving and racial intolerance jumps to the pre-1900 level.
The four characters stories intertwine in an attempt to stop a brewing storm of vengeance. Bentley Little’s America has a very dark past. It would be like taking our true history of ignorance and terrible actions against minorities and ramping it up. Reading some of the acts and behaviors of the past one can’t help but be reminded of today’s attitude to immigration.
Some of the complaints I saw on this book was everyone’s sudden knowledge of what is happening. At one point of the book, all four people have the same thought at the same time. I didn’t have a problem with this. The book is a supernatural thriller and as such, I write this off as a supernatural event. It is akin to many of Stephen King’s novel where suddenly the protagonist knows the right thing to scare or kill the antagonist.
I still have my question unanswered on one point of the book. We are introduced to an FBI agent, Greg Rossiter, who has dealt with the supernatural, Bentley’s version of Mulder from the X-files. The agent makes a call to an oriental named ‘Wing’ and is promptly hung up on. Is this a tie-in with another book? I do not know one where this agent appears and have not been able to find anything on the internet. ****Update, the agent also appears in Little’s book “The Summoning” and Wing is a character in this book.********
Overall I would recommend this book to fans of Bentley Little. There is some of his trademark undercurrent of sexuality. We have the bizarre and sometimes disturbing deaths and acts of violence. And unlike some of Bentley’s other novels I was not asking the whole time ‘How could this happen’ that I get when reading his books. There is no skirting around the bigger picture of the nation’s response or the legal system we see in books like ‘The Store.’

[Matthew Tait · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like many writers of Horror Fiction in the world today, Bentley Little has crafted his own style over the years and now has it down to kind of science. His books invariably follow a formula, but it is a well – practiced formula and no doubt keeps readers coming back again and again ensuring a dedicated readership and often imitated writing method.

The dedication in The Burning is interesting, and gives a fascinating insight into the roots of stories and how they can manifest and evolve. In this case, Bentley dedicates it to his son, who asked for a story that included a haunted train and two graves marked Mother and Daughter side by side together. Taper this with his formula and Bentley Little delivers a simple, elegant Horror novel that has no pretensions about its grassroots influence.
As with his previous novels, the author is heavily influenced by a Chinese mythological connection. In The Burning we have Angela Ramos, an Hispanic University student who has just moved away from home into a share house with a ghost. There’s Henry Cote, a Native American descendant Park Ranger who lives in the National Park and is plagued by perverse erotic dreams of Chinese twins who haunt the Canyonlands. Recently divorced Joylene has moved to Bear Flats with her son Skylar to start a new life living with her mother … and it will be them that come across the eerie graves of a Mother and Daughter. So too will they witness the gaunt, leprous face that peers in a Skylar during the night, grinning malevolently. And finally a Chinese American, criss-crossing the country on a journey of self discovery, being called toward something he only partially understands – toward ancient ancestors seeking redemption for past transgressions.

At the centre of this group, and slowly peeled away through their strange encounters, an eternal hellish Train raised from the bowels of history carrying the departed souls of different races seeking reprisal. Those that have been wronged by Caucasian man since the Civil War and beyond.

At its heart, The Burning is primarily a revenge novel, seen through the eyes of very disparate characters trying to connect the dots before the inevitable showdown as the train finally pulls into its metaphorical station. What I liked about this novel – as apposed to Bentley’s previous forays – was the more worldly aspect to it. Too often, Bentley concentrates on the small town mythos, and although this is a perfectly honorable way to tell the tale, it was utterly gratifying to see things like the White House being laid waste to eternal powers. Moreover our trips back in time to witness the decrepitude and heinous acts committed by those before the turn of the last century. And it does this without being too preachy or trying to shove a message down your throat.

There is another Horror review site that likes to give stars based on the smell of a book. A little eccentric, but one eccentricity I think we all can relate to. I give The Burning 5 out of 5 in relation to this; it’s the perfect little horror book to take on your next flight interstate … or Train ride, perhaps.

[William M. · Rating 2 out of 5]

"The Burning" was a big letdown after reading Bentley Little's masterful book, "Dispatch". I seriously considered that this book might be written by someone else while Bentley was ill and couldn't write. Who knows. I love this guy and can't tell you how disappointed I was. While one of the top 5 horror writers working today, Bentley Little seems to be hit or miss with his stories. I simply just did not enjoy reading this new release. It seemed that he was throwing way too much random horror at the reader and hoping some of it would stick. And, with everything he was trying to do, none of it - not one moment - was scary! Shadow creatures performing random oral sex, creeping fungus, talking voices in the microwave, deformed goblins peering in windows, skeletons climbing out of mud pits, tunnels filled with moving corpses, and a runaway ghost train crashing into the White House was just too silly. It reminded me of his previous work, "The Return", another disappointment containing silly, bizarre, and unrealistic situations.

The scenes of horror during the first third of the book were described during the daytime hours and lost its scare value, suspense, and atmospheric quality. The book had many problems that pulled me out of the story. One of those problems was how ridiculous it was that the police would allow a field trip to a tunnel of bodies that had just been discovered earlier that same day. Bentley needs to do what he does best, which is to come up with a gimmick, focus everything on that single idea, and continue to build suspense around it using his original and obsessed style of storytelling. It worked with "The Store", "The Association", "The Policy", and "Dispatch", just to name a few. Let's hope he gets back on track with his next book.

[TheCultureVulture · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has more ideas than sense but I know there will be chapters of this I'll remember randomly for years. I'm only two books in but Bentley Little seems like a writer who's failures are even interesting.

[Colleen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gosh, if I incorporated images or gifs in my reviews, this would be a perfect one since I can think of so many train wreck/movie images that would be applicable. I fully acknowledge I did this to myself in reading this book--much like the brother in Fried Green Tomatoes, I horsed around on the tracks when I shouldn't have and now one is bearing down on me. Really, Ghost Train is what instantly sold this book to me--Rosalind Russell in her autobiography said the most popular (and cheapest to put on) play in the stock circle in the late 20s/early 30s involved a Ghost Train--you saw it, you died was the plot.

Not entirely true in this book, though don't worry, there are a LOT of Ghost Train moments in it, which is naturally why most I think read this book. It wracks up an impressive amount of damage: defiling Grant's Tomb, desecrating Arlington, running straight through the White House (twice), and across the faces of Mount Rushmore.

And I finally got to read a book where the President of the United States says things like, "Find out what this thing is, whether it's a ghost train or some sort of invisible weapon or stealth bomb or death ray. As silly as this sounds, I'm betting on ghost train."

The Negatives:
Basically every thing else non train related. There are so many unbelievably weird moments in a book, that you EXPECT weird moments, but let me bring out the more egregious examples:

1) He hates Tom Robbins and worked this hatred into Ghost Train plot. One of the characters randomly picks up a Tom Robbins book in this book and looks at the dustcover "Gone was the happy hairy hippie with the wide, open smile pictured on the back of Still Life with Woodpecker or even the grinning new Age loon from Skinny Legs and All. In his place was a sober pretentious yuppie wearing the expression of someone too proccupied with himself to give anyone else the time of day." -- so I guess Tom Robbins stood up Bentley Little in some snooty way.

2) Well, the attitude towards women in this book is extremely odd. The hero (and this is actually how the day gets saved by the way at the end) "Once again, he was able to see the female body for what it really was: a collection of nerve endings and orifices with grotesque physiological functions."

3) Race? I realized that two of the books I've read this week (Broken World and Werewolf Cop) both had One Extremely Racist Character Who Deep Down is Loveable, One Mildly Racist Character/Hero, and Arm Candy Functionally Idiot Female. This book the characters are all relatively one dimensional, but it doesn't matter if they were all deep as literary equivalents of Meryl Streep, the plot is so ridiculous (sans Ghost Train) it's hard where to start. The Angry Ghosts of thousands of murdered Chinese railroad workers rise up, (which President Grant covered up for reasons?), the book gives a "they were all racist" back then for its brutal depictions of mass slaughter of Chinese by frontier folk. What do these ghosts do? Well form their ghosts into a Ghost Train of slaughter. And I guess they have some sort of pact with Native American ghosts?

The pact involves man/ghost sex and drawing trains all over priceless pictographs I guess. It's hard to really know what is going on because characters just telepathically figure it out--something involving with ancient shaman, and it's a shame Dan Rathers and Diane Sawyer get decapitated by ghosts on live TV. Luckily even those people with 1% Cherokee blood are safe and get drawn hypnotically like to Utah where its time to hold hands and sign songs against the Ghost Train. There's a plucky child and his bumbling mother (who basically kidnapped the kid). There's a ditsy coed who somehow keeps finding herself in Ghost Train Ground Zero.

I chuckled really hard when the final hand behind the resolution of the "plot" appeared The Spirit of America, I kid you not, descended from the sky to save the day.

But there's also the crazed racist ghost and the black mold. Public lynchings, huge death toll, all caught on camera, an evil George Washington shaped bee cloud, a demonic puppet, a room full of severed penises, but somehow it gets swept under the rug. Just a random train accident in the desert! Nothing to see here folks!

In other words, this is a terrible book filled with dubious mumbo jumbo with a few flash cameos of Ghost Train! For as bad as it was though, some of the more lulzworthy moments will stick with me probably forever.

[Debra]

Stephen King recommended author. He says: "BEST OUTRIGHT HORROR NOVELIST. Bentley Little, in a walk. Don't know Bentley Little? You're not alone. He's probably the genre's best-kept secret, but at least 10 of his novels are available in paperback; you can pick up three for the price of that flashy new hardcover you've got your eye on. The best thing about Little is that he can go from zero to surreal in 6.0 seconds. My favorites are The Store (think Wal-Mart run by SAYYY-tan) and Dispatch, in which a young fellow discovers that his letters to the editor actually get things done. Bad things."

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting story where four people from different parts of America are drawn to Promontory Point, Utah to take part in a growing battle between the spirits of past racial mass murders and their perpetrators. Black hell trains travel the night tearing up National monuments and cemeteries, wreaking vengeance on their descendants. Highly recommended.

[Anita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not his best IMO, but creepy nonetheless.

[Sedge 李 · Rating 3 out of 5]

WARNING: Spoilers and disjointed ramblings and unclear remembrances are to follow.




I have to say, this is probably my least favourite of Little's books. This is a disappointment, because it started off with a mess of interesting elements: serial killer arts'n'crafts, towns built over mass graves, and that good old Bentley Little classic-- the thing that makes people really messed up for seemingly no reason (something I'll never tire of, along with the vengeful ghosts of Asian women). In addition, it was especially relevant to my interests, being an Asian-American-- and extra horrifying for that very reason.

But something was different this time, and I'm not entirely sure what. A common theme in Little's books is to start off with several seemingly disparate scenarios (animal headed children and deranged rich guys?) and end up linking them all together. In the case of The Burning, however, I don't really feel like everything connected in the end. My memory's foggy, but I don't even recall the main characters even meeting eachother-- just ending up in the same place.

I think the biggest issue I had was the ending. Now, I've yet to come across an ending to any of Little's books that I found worthy of all the insanity that preceded it (except perhaps Dispatch); they tend to come off as being too easy. While this one ended on a much more epic note than, say, just electrocuting the monster, it also kind of came out of nowhere. Maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention, but was it ever hinted before the ending that the Chinese teamed up with the Native Americans to create this curse (as is my understanding of the situation, anyway)? Because until it was specifically stated, I was completely confused as to what the Native Americans had to do with all this, why they were gathering, and why they had the ability to stop the crazy from happening.

Another issue with the ending-- and the whole book, actually-- was that it seemed too... well explained. I like my horror to be inexplicable, and Bentley Little is good on delivering that... except here. Here, is was Vengeful Chinese People + Native American Cursing Skills = Crazy Business, Remedied by Native American Un-Cursing Skills. Compare to, say, The Store, where a bunch of inhuman entities go around setting up shop for the sole purpose of... destroying small southwestern towns? Evil for the sake of evil? Do they do what they do because they need it to survive? Why does this result in people going nuts? Are they aliens? Demons? Ancient evil spirits? Beings from another dimension? Who knows! And that's creepy! But in The Burning, even though not everything is perfectly explained by the curse (e.g. Why would ethnic minorities want to create something to make white people racist as part of their revenge against... racist white people? But regardless, result is still explained away by the mold) most of it is, and then everything seems to go back to normal in the end (unlike in The Store or The Vanishing, for example).

On the positive, I liked that Little wasn't afraid to base his story around race, racism, and the horrific parts of American history. I was also impressed that his Asian and Latina character/s were just as real as his white ones, rather than the flat caricatures that are all too common, while at the same time avoiding the pitfall on the other side of the spectrum: writing non-white characters as if they were white, with no difference at all.

And did I mention the bonus horror for Asian-American readers? I did? Well, it's worth repeating.

It's a mixed bag, which leans a bit too far into the gross part of the mix (which would be the peanuts). Overall, I'd give it a 6 out of 10.

And that's what I have to say about that.

[nightmares.of.eliza · Rating 3 out of 5]

A ghost-train revenge tale that derails into dated gore and cardboard characters—but earns partial redemption for spotlighting a grim slice of U.S. railroad history.

Bentley Little’s The Burning (published in Poland as Pociąg upiorów) starts with a premise any pulp-horror fan should love: an infernal steam engine barrels across America’s forgotten tracks, hauling the restless dead toward anyone whose ancestors wronged them. Intercutting four strangers—a college freshman, a newly divorced mother and her anxious son, a park ranger on sacred land, and a rootless twenty-something on a cross-country road trip—the novel promises a mosaic of terror that will converge when the train finally stops.

For a while, the setup works. Little can still stage a grisly set-piece: skeletal brakemen materialize in motel mirrors, desert ruins ooze black fungus, and wind chimes made of finger bones clack outside a child’s bedroom window. Even better, the author digs into an often-ignored chapter of American history—the exploitation and slaughter of Chinese and Native workers during the railroad boom—giving the ghost train a moral engine as well as a literal one.

But momentum sputters fast. Each POV character feels cut from the same paper doll: minimal back-story, interchangeable voices, predictable reactions. Instead of building dread, Little cycles through shock scenes that feel randomly shuffled—undead migrants here, erotic dream demons there—until repetition smothers suspense. By the time The Burning reaches its climax (think The Polar Express meets Syfy-channel CGI), the escalating mayhem slides from chilling into downright cheesy, and the neatly moral epilogue can’t paint over the cartoon logic that precedes it.

Is it unreadable? Not at all. If you grew up on ’80s splatter paperbacks or crave a midnight movie in prose form, you’ll race through the 270 pages with nostalgic glee. Just temper expectations: this is comfort-food horror, heavy on goo and light on character nutrition. The social-justice undercurrent hints at what Little might have achieved with subtler strokes—but as the conductor of this particular ride, he’s content to blow the whistle, pour on the coal, and hope you don’t notice the loose rails.

Fun in flashes, frustrating in bulk. Recommended only for die-hard Little collectors or readers who want their history lessons served with ectoplasm and entrails.

[John Bruni · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've heard of haunted house stories. Haunted car stories. One time a haunted fold-out bed. But this is the first time I have ever heard of a haunted country story. It's very appropriate, considering our current situation in the world. We do live in a haunted country. Not literally, of course. But think about all the grim specters of our past. Our government carried out a massive genocidal war against the Native Americans who originally lived here. Now they live in squalor on reservations. Then there are the Africans our government bought and put to work in the cotton fields. Or how about the Chinese workers who were slaves despite never being called slaves.

Ah yes. That last one is what concerns this book most. A crazed serial killer travels the country, convincing the locals to lynch the Chinese of their communities, and the repercussions of this bears rotten fruit in the future, our present day. Black mold starts growing on white people, which eventually turns them against every other race. Mass graves vomit up Chinese corpses eager for revenge. And that crazy train? Made of living screaming corpses.

Bentley Little is great when it comes to depicting normal situations as horrifying events. There is a lynching that happens on the campus of a western university, and it comes out of nowhere. It's absolutely terrifying. The worst part is, we (in real life) might be reverting to such horrible racism given our political climate.

We are currently in a war for the soul of America, and this book is especially relevant today, a mere ten years after its publication. My only problem with the book is the ending. Little very rarely handles endings well. This one sounded kind of silly.

Oh yeah, and that FBI Mulder-ish dude? I'd like to see him in other books.

[H · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I had to pick one word to describe this book, it would be: Incongruous. Between the ghost-train-cum-cemetery, black mold that makes people racist (yeah), and a house in California in which old, mummified body parts are found (which I think was supposed to tie together the racist mold and train, but that was a weak link at best), it was a pretty lame plot. Add in the characters that seemed to suddenly "realize" or "understand" some big plot point that would have been literally impossible to piece together in real life, grasping tons of loose ends to come to a conclusion that was really poorly-developed plot device of the author to move things along, the entire book became tedious and contrived. I read over half the book in one day, only because so little information was given even after 150 pages that I felt I HAD to keep reading in order to get anywhere and understand anything. Which didn't even happen after finishing the book, anyway.

The only good part of the book was when a number of school children, under control of the racist mold, smash their teeth out and fill the sore, bleeding sockets with bits of twig and wood to emulate George Washington. (I'm not even sure what that had to do with the plot, but really: nearly everything in this book gave me a "What the hell does this matter?" and "How does this tie in?!" exasperated feeling. Definitely going back to the second-hand-donation store I got it from. Not worth keeping.)

[Kellybrianna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've read all of Bentley Little's books and I was excited to get my hands on his new one. Sadly the book was only medicore. For me Little's books are in two catergories, first the ones I think are really good, interesting and well written (The Store, Dispatch, Dominion, The Association) and second the ones that are so-so (University, The House, The Resort). I guess I would have to file The Burning in the second category. Don't get me wrong Little is a good writer I just found that this book took too long to get going and that the several story lines of different characters didn't fuse well together. However I still find Little's work more often than not worth reading and I will still buy his new books when they come out.

[Checkman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nothing extraordinary. Fairly typical horror story actually. Based on the various premises of the evil that men do lives beyond them, violence begets violence, two wrongs don't make a right and the Anglo-Saxon culture that dominated the United States in the 19th century was rotten with evil and corruption and intolerance. Like so many other contemporary horror novels there is a strong strain of Political Correctness running through the story which I think takes away some of the punch.Lazy writing. I thumbed through the last 100 pages. It simply had lost my interest by then. Definitely not a keeper.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was little.

[Ana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Powrót do książki po około dekadzie i strasznie się zawiodłam. Napis "największy obok Stephena Kinga amerykański mistrz horroru" jest sporym nadużyciem. Ta książka nie dorównuje nawet najsłabszej powieści Kinga.
Od horroru wymagam tego, że sprawi, iż będę czuła - co najmniej - niepokój, że będzie mi momentami źle, że nie będę chciała czytać tej książki wieczorami. Natomiast podczas czytania "Pociągu upiorów" czułam znudzenie, zniesmaczenie i irytację tym, że cała historia jest całkowicie bez polotu.

Fabuła skupia się na kilku, całkowicie sobie obcych, postaciach, które stykają się z tym samym, upiornym, nadprzyrodzonym pociągiem i innymi związanymi z nim rzeczami, które sieją zło i zamęt. Trochę duchów/upiorów/zombie (tak do końca to nie wiadomo), trochę opętań poprzez pleśń (!), trochę dramatów rodzinnych, trochę erotyzmu, trochę książkowego odpowiednika kina drogi a na koniec nawet trochę metafizyki. Jednym zdaniem: wszystko i nic.

Przechodząc do konkretów: początek nawet mnie zainteresował, pierwsze rozdziały i przedstawienie każdego bohatera były ciekawe, wiadomo, że coś się dzieje, ale nie wiadomo co. Ta nutka tajemnicy trzymała mnie przy książce, jednak im dalej historia się przesuwała, tym rzadziej sięgałam po tę pozycję. Nie interesowało mnie to, co się dzieje i co się stanie z głównymi bohaterami, liczyłam nawet na to, że może wszyscy zginą (może oprócz Skylara - chłopak był całkiem przyzwoity).

Wydaje mi się również, że autor pod koniec pisania książki bardzo się spieszył z jej zakończeniem, ponieważ zostawił mnóstwo dziur i logicznych, i fabularnych. W sumie może to i lepiej, że nie napisał ani strony więcej.

Podsumowując, nie polecam. Nie jest to najgorszy horror na świecie ani tym bardziej najgorsza książka. Jest nudna i bezbarwna, ale był dobry pomysł i dobry początek. Autora również nie skreślam i jeśli kiedyś trafię na jego inną powieść, to pewnie się skuszę.

[denudatio_pulpae · Rating 2 out of 5]

To było tylko 270 stron, ale nieźle mnie wymęczyło i co najgorsze, na pewno nie przestraszyło. Może to wina tego, że raczej nie przepadam za żywymi trupami i zupełnie nie mogłam się wdrożyć w klimat tej książki, ale jeżeli zombiaki i tym podobne atrakcje są okraszone dobrą dawką grozy i paskudztwa to i to przejdzie. Niestety, ten pociąg widmo pojechał zupełnie w złym kierunku, szkoda, że nie ominął mojej stacji.

Moim zdaniem w tej książce było zbyt dużo różnych elementów grozy: duchy, zombie, nawiedzony dom, dziwna pleśń, która "zmieniała [...] w zaciekłych, nietolerancyjnych kołtunów" - nie, że w groźne czy krwiożercze monstra - nietolerancyjny kołtun brzmi przecież bardziej przerażająco! Niedobry kołtunek, niedobry!

Wszystko razem stworzyło trudną do przebrnięcia mieszankę. Może jeszcze frytki do tego? Te puzzle nie do końca ze sobą harmonizowały i zamiast powodować uczucie strachu dawały wrażenie chaosu. Do tego zakończenie mnie bardzo, bardzo rozczarowało, było chyba najnudniejszym momentem w książce.

Temat uprzedzeń rasowych jest na pewno ważny, ale jak dla mnie mało się nadaje na kanwę dobrego horroru, a już na pewno nie w takiej formie w jakiej został przedstawiony w "Pociągu upiorów".
4/10

[Carol Aselton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, Bentley Little is quite the writer -- if you are into the "other side." His writing is superb. His imagination is beyond any comparison. I am not sure if I am into the "other side," but this book was extremely entertaining. He brought 4 characters -- all totally different -- from different parts of the country together -- not only physically but into the climax of the story. Of course the story, was beyond(!) but once you get into it, there is no putting it down. It was also interesting from the historical part of the book. It had to do with the completion of the transcontinental railroad, and though I am a history buff, I was unaware there was so much controversy in the completion of the lines. Would like to read someone on that. I will definitely read more Bentley Little.

[Collin Henderson]

Not the best Bentley little book, but this is the MOST Bentley little book. Trying to describe what happens in this would not do justice to how strange it is, how many mistakes it makes, or how ham fisted it is in trying to deliver a message. It’s really REALLY difficult for me to take a book that has a major storyline that is a dude being jerked off by ghosts seriously. And maybe I’m not supposed to? I can’t say.

I also can’t say if it’s good or bad. Probably bad, but also extremely memorable in a variety of different ways.

[Jeffry · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you like straight horror

If you like straight horror this is the book for you. There is no pretense of trying to be something other the a supernatural horror story. It's bloody and gooey with the dead rising to seek vengeance on the living. It's just what a horror story should be.

As a whole it reads easy though there are places that I skimmed over because it was pretty apparent what was coming next. But all in all it was a good read.

[Kilgallen · Rating 4 out of 5]

the subject matter of this one will not be for everyone. This one takes on the history of the railroad in America and the plight of the Chinese workers. There is lots of body horror and some rather tough depictions of abuse that will certainly be a trigger to some. I found the pacing to be good and even though there were multiple storylines/ narrators everything did end up coming together in the end.

[Mister Hookman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd have appreciated it more if the mold didn't feel so...fucking confusing, to be honest? Why did it turn some white people racist and make them lynch a Chinese woman...when the mold is supposed to be an agent of the dead Chinese workers. Because we also later see the mold fuck up white people.

That whole aspect felt SUPER underbaked and contradictory. It's a fun ride, but such a crucial aspect of the story making no sense hurts this book a lot.

[Matt Littrell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my third book by Little, and I still don't know exactly how I feel about him. So far I've really enjoyed the story he tells, and his writing style. But they've all left me feeling a little confused and not sure what I'd just read. I think I'll try a few more.

[Teena Renken · Rating 4 out of 5]

ExcellenT story

We sometimes forget what went into making our great country.
This is a haunting tale of a terrible injustice committed by the railroad company. Very creepy and a haunting tle