Dreamworld

by Sam West

It is Halloween and Jim Pearson is on his stag-night in Broadgate, famous for its sticks of rock, dirty postcards and the now closed down amusement-park, Dreamworld. When a leaflet advertising a spooky, midnight tour of the supposedly haunted theme-park flutters through the pub door and lands on their table, he jumps at the chance. Anything to avoid the infamous strip-clubs along the promenade. Anything to get away from Gavin, his brother's boorish thug of a mate.

The hapless stags aren't the only ones to get their hands on a leaflet. Shy and retiring Georgina is on a reluctant girl's night out with a work colleague and she too wants to do the tour. Anything to avoid being dragged to another trendy nightclub.

Welcome to the tour of Dreamworld.

Welcome to hell on earth.

This is an extreme horror novella. Please proceed with caution.

Genres: Horror

61 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 6, 2015

About the author

Sam West is a British, extreme horror author with more than forty books to her name. If you like your fiction dark, gritty, gory, perverse and truly terrifying, then you're in the right place.

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, what a rollercoaster ride in a fictional place like Dreamland (though set in a little town named Broadgate I constantly had to think about Dreamland in Margate). Jim, his brother and some friends spend Jim's stag night in Broadgate. When they start touring the haunted site of Dreamland with their guide Eric Flu things turn out strange and utterly bizarre. Of course you'll also come across scenes of extreme brutality. The atmosphere is extremely uncanny and the author refers to every cliche referring to funlands. Will any of them survive the park? What about Jim and his going back to his fiance? What is the further destiny of Tracy and Georgina? What about mysterious Eric Flu? The story absolutely did it for me. Great horror, even some reference to Dracula (LOL), Leylines and hell on earth. Great imagination, told in a straight way. Really enjoyed this tale and can highly recommend it!

[Paul Nelson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sam West's Dreamworld is another novella marketed as extreme horror and centres on a Halloween tour of an abandoned theme park. It's Jim's stag night, he only has one friend so his brothers bought a mate and the four of them embark on a pretty poor excuse for a man's last night of freedom.
 
Instead of a strip club they end up at Dreamworld, with two women and a guide that appears different to all his guests. Dreamworld harbours a reputation of death, freak accidents and horror stories, setting the scene for what is too come. The guide is named Eric Flu, an anagram of the Prince of darkness and he infects his tour party in different ways.
 
 
Eric Flu, come on baby, ingenious.
 
Dreamworld contains the usual spelling mistakes of a poorly edited piece of short fiction, extreme horror has to make you cringe even sicken you but it really shouldn't be incredulous. There were scenes that didn't feel right, impossible even and bordered on ridiculous. You see it time and time again, and if it’s a story that’s 60 odd pages, can’t someone please, please reread. Point out the errors before putting it up for release and get a flawless story out no matter the quality, apparently not.

Also posted at http://paulnelson.booklikes.com/post/...

[Ebony Eldritch · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting take on the haunted/ possessed theme park trope, with some truly fun and inventive scenes of gore and brutality, but a rather uninteresting set of characters and a rushed and unfortunate ending.

I think it's clear West's publishers were applying a great deal of time pressure with little interest in the quality of the art piece, and bearing this in mind I think it is fair to say West did the best she could under unfortunate circumstances.

West's writing is gripping, and as I said there are certainly some exciting and inventive elements of true brutal horror, however there are still dark blemishes that cannot be overlooked, like the mixing up of two character's names for a whole chapter, and the low-quality, rushed feel of the ending.

No offence to West, she clearly has tremendous skill, but this is not a good example of it.

[Andrew Lennon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this story. It felt like an adult version of a goosebumps story. The death scenes were pretty brutal and fun, but then all of a sudden it seemed to be rushed to the end.
Overall three stars, but if the end had been a little bit better it would have been four.

[JWo1855 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another Sam West roller coaster of a ride, straight to Hell this time. Literally.

Maybe it’s because I just read two Sam West works back-to-back, but man he sure does love putting fists in holes that I can’t comprehend them fitting.

Dreamworld was a little slower burn on the brutality, but it was felt when it arrived.

There was even a little hopelessness sprinkled in, but well…

[Ash · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoy reading Sam West's Novellas, and plan to make my way through the lot, eventually. I didn't enjoy this one as much as some of the others, I feel the story could have been a little more fleshed out. The ending left a lot to be desired too.

[Frankie Yates · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some mistakes in the writing that stood out quite a lot, but for the most part it felt like reading an adult Goosebumps book! It was fun with some gnarly gory bits, it did all it could with it only being a short!

[Fiona MacDonald · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nope.

[Cathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really quite a disappointing story compared to the other offerings from Sam West. The story also became confusing in certain parts where the writer got the names of the two girls mixed up for a whole chapter! Proofreader required, I think.

[Dixie · Rating 4 out of 5]

pretty good. I would definately buy another of this author.