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The Doorway #1
Fear Itself
After deadly shapeshifting creatures attack their town, Sara MacGilvey and Del Vaaslo must figure out how to stop them, even if it means sacrificing their own lives.
- GenresYoung Adult
208 pages, Paperback
First published December 10, 2011
1 person is currently reading
325 people want to read
About the author
S.M.R. Cooper
16 books19 followersMy name is S.M.R. Cooper; I'm the author of the seven-installment Doorway series, a modern dark fantasy geared toward an adult audience, but generally appropriate for older kids - I guess I would rate it PG-13.
My other fiction projects include the children's book "Beneficent Boy", the web-comic "Piper", and the omnibus of my serial novel "The Jennings", which follows the paranormal adventures of a 19th-century psychic and his wife.
My non-fiction projects include a series of videos and blogs that showcase the "campfire stories" couched in films and television programs, and that offer ways to use those campfire stories to help us build a better world.
I also have a video series designed to help viewers find a simpler and more rewarding path through our often-stressful modern life.
My philosophy - in writing and in life - is that the vast majority of problems can be solved with love and bravery, and I try to create characters who act according to that belief despite their very human feelings of fear, hopelessness, or doubt. My stories tend to be action-based, and the relationships in them - rather than taking center stage - form the stable hub around which the characters are able to be their best selves.
Feel free to visit me at smrcooper.com or on my YouTube channel S.M.R. Cooper; I hope to see you there!
My other fiction projects include the children's book "Beneficent Boy", the web-comic "Piper", and the omnibus of my serial novel "The Jennings", which follows the paranormal adventures of a 19th-century psychic and his wife.
My non-fiction projects include a series of videos and blogs that showcase the "campfire stories" couched in films and television programs, and that offer ways to use those campfire stories to help us build a better world.
I also have a video series designed to help viewers find a simpler and more rewarding path through our often-stressful modern life.
My philosophy - in writing and in life - is that the vast majority of problems can be solved with love and bravery, and I try to create characters who act according to that belief despite their very human feelings of fear, hopelessness, or doubt. My stories tend to be action-based, and the relationships in them - rather than taking center stage - form the stable hub around which the characters are able to be their best selves.
Feel free to visit me at smrcooper.com or on my YouTube channel S.M.R. Cooper; I hope to see you there!
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 4, 2012
I very much enjoyed this book, in a read-it-all-in-one-go sort of way (and as busy as I am these days, that doesn't happen as often as I'd like anymore!). The plot is straightforward, the characters are likeable (hooray!) and it's always highly entertaining to read about a place I've actually lived. (Okay, the place is never named exactly, and *maybe* some of it's been fictionalized and/or vagued a little bit--but it's still my old college town.)
Fear Itself is a fun romp in the best sense of the description. The bad guys are really bad (icky trans dimensional beings, in fact, so no one is sorry to see them go), the good guys are good everyman types, and the moral of the story is, really, "Don't read ancient spells you don't underestand from old books, even if you don't think magic is real. Just--don't." No grey morality here--which is rather nice, actually. It's funny in places, horrific (intentionally, mind you) in others, and the characters react believably and are, thank goodness, refreshingly practical. I particularly enjoyed the transplanted police detective, whose stubborn insistence that "no, a bear bloody well did NOT do that, I don't care what you say" was amusing and, when proven right, accepted the real explanation with very little denial or whimpering. Indeed, most of the characters, major and minor, when confronted with the facts did not behave stupidly--and that in itself is nice to see. I hate it when plot tension is artifically heightened by deliberately, suicidally stupid characters. (The Pendergast series, for example, is terrible about this.) The academic who gets dragged into it all near the end for his ability to translate just about everything (except Sumerian--but he has colleagues for that) even gets a little excited (horrified, but excited) about the whole thing, and manages to be endearing about it rather than creepy. Even the redshirts who die early on and mid-novel are, in their brief time the reader gets to know them, likeable, and I was very sad and shocked when they died--which is an indication of some very good characterization. It helped me empathize with the surivors and their grief: I shared it.
The editing was excellent--I caught maybe one typo in the entire book, which is a far sight better than many "professionally" edited books I've read recently. The writing style is intelligent, easily readible, and has a lovely wry touch in the right places. The characters managed to cling to their senses of humor (by ragged fingernails, at times), and never lost their humanity--which, in the end is what enabeled them to win.
The book itself has a little bit of everything: horror, fantasy, humor, romance (a whirlwind one, but one I could actually buy!), adventure, and suspense. I especially liked the two main protagonists (this is an ensemble cast, but Sara and Vaaslo were clearly intended as the primary heroes). Sara, for reasons even she can't name, is the one person who is immune to the horrors and, in spite of the grief, heartbreak, and horror that has invaded her life remains tough and determined to protect as many people as she can. Vaaslo, the transplanted homicide detective, is badass and cool--but manages to avoid the paranormal romance stereotypes that seem to crop up nearly every time a cop character turns up in a book with fantastic/supernatural elements. (Though he is hot, mind you--I kept envisioning Vin Diesel. But Vaaslo also had actual depth, interest, and he fell for the main female protagonist for her strength and compassion and brains, not because of an indefinable "connection" or because he thought she was hot. Sara in turn liked him because he didn't treat her like a wilting flower, he *believed* her, and he actually *listened* to her--y'know, treated her like a person and not an object of desire. *Thank* you, SMR Cooper!) The supporting cast was just as likeable: Stephanie, for example, could have turned into a whimpering, quivering basket-case and no one would have blamed her, but instead she grew a spine because she loved her friends, dammit. The one character who might have qualified as "underdeveloped" is really only so because, y'know, he's the one who read the book in the first few pages and vanishes into the ether--though we get to know him somewhat through the eyes of his sister and friends, and he does do his best to help even if he is either dead or in limbo (his fate, alas, is unknown).
I definitely recommend this book--it's a far sight better than many I've read recently that were "professionally" published (seriously, it's astonishing the crap that rolls out of the publishing houses sometimes). Miles better, in fact. It's a quick read, and an extremely entertaining one.
Fear Itself is a fun romp in the best sense of the description. The bad guys are really bad (icky trans dimensional beings, in fact, so no one is sorry to see them go), the good guys are good everyman types, and the moral of the story is, really, "Don't read ancient spells you don't underestand from old books, even if you don't think magic is real. Just--don't." No grey morality here--which is rather nice, actually. It's funny in places, horrific (intentionally, mind you) in others, and the characters react believably and are, thank goodness, refreshingly practical. I particularly enjoyed the transplanted police detective, whose stubborn insistence that "no, a bear bloody well did NOT do that, I don't care what you say" was amusing and, when proven right, accepted the real explanation with very little denial or whimpering. Indeed, most of the characters, major and minor, when confronted with the facts did not behave stupidly--and that in itself is nice to see. I hate it when plot tension is artifically heightened by deliberately, suicidally stupid characters. (The Pendergast series, for example, is terrible about this.) The academic who gets dragged into it all near the end for his ability to translate just about everything (except Sumerian--but he has colleagues for that) even gets a little excited (horrified, but excited) about the whole thing, and manages to be endearing about it rather than creepy. Even the redshirts who die early on and mid-novel are, in their brief time the reader gets to know them, likeable, and I was very sad and shocked when they died--which is an indication of some very good characterization. It helped me empathize with the surivors and their grief: I shared it.
The editing was excellent--I caught maybe one typo in the entire book, which is a far sight better than many "professionally" edited books I've read recently. The writing style is intelligent, easily readible, and has a lovely wry touch in the right places. The characters managed to cling to their senses of humor (by ragged fingernails, at times), and never lost their humanity--which, in the end is what enabeled them to win.
The book itself has a little bit of everything: horror, fantasy, humor, romance (a whirlwind one, but one I could actually buy!), adventure, and suspense. I especially liked the two main protagonists (this is an ensemble cast, but Sara and Vaaslo were clearly intended as the primary heroes). Sara, for reasons even she can't name, is the one person who is immune to the horrors and, in spite of the grief, heartbreak, and horror that has invaded her life remains tough and determined to protect as many people as she can. Vaaslo, the transplanted homicide detective, is badass and cool--but manages to avoid the paranormal romance stereotypes that seem to crop up nearly every time a cop character turns up in a book with fantastic/supernatural elements. (Though he is hot, mind you--I kept envisioning Vin Diesel. But Vaaslo also had actual depth, interest, and he fell for the main female protagonist for her strength and compassion and brains, not because of an indefinable "connection" or because he thought she was hot. Sara in turn liked him because he didn't treat her like a wilting flower, he *believed* her, and he actually *listened* to her--y'know, treated her like a person and not an object of desire. *Thank* you, SMR Cooper!) The supporting cast was just as likeable: Stephanie, for example, could have turned into a whimpering, quivering basket-case and no one would have blamed her, but instead she grew a spine because she loved her friends, dammit. The one character who might have qualified as "underdeveloped" is really only so because, y'know, he's the one who read the book in the first few pages and vanishes into the ether--though we get to know him somewhat through the eyes of his sister and friends, and he does do his best to help even if he is either dead or in limbo (his fate, alas, is unknown).
I definitely recommend this book--it's a far sight better than many I've read recently that were "professionally" published (seriously, it's astonishing the crap that rolls out of the publishing houses sometimes). Miles better, in fact. It's a quick read, and an extremely entertaining one.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews