Reign

by Chet Williamson, John Lakey, Laura Lakey

The story centers around a renovated theater in Pennsylvania and is arranged in three acts, plus overture and curtain call. The tension in Act I heightens as the reader must decide if this is a murder mystery, psychodrama, horror or fantasy, with the author offering clues to support each possibility. Theaters have a history of ghosts and accidents, but as the number of deaths at the Venetian mounts, the police become less inclined to accept verdicts of "accident." Owner/actor Dennis Hamilton has nothing obvious to gain from the killings, nor could he have caused them, but his strange behavior makes others wonder if he might not have a double or another personality--or something else entirely--that does want the deaths. Mystery, suspense, drama and horror combine to make this one of Williamson's finest works.

Genres: Horror

348 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1990

About the author

Chet Williamson has written horror, science fiction, and suspense since 1981. Among his novels are Second Chance, Hunters, Defenders of the Faith, Ash Wednesday, Reign, Dreamthorp, and the forthcoming Psycho Sanitarium, an authorized sequel to Robert Bloch's classic Psycho. Over a hundred of his short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Playboy, Esquire, The Magazine of F&SF, and many other magazines and anthologies.

He has won the International Horror Guild Award, and has been shortlisted twice for the World Fantasy Award, six times for the HWA Stoker, and once for the MWA's Edgar. Nearly all of his works are available in ebook format.

A stage and film actor, he has recorded over 40 unabridged audiobooks, both of his own work and that of many other writers, available at www.audible.com. Follow him on Twitter (@chetwill) or at www.chetwilliamson.com.

Reviews

[Char · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story with a haunted theater as the premise! How could a horror lover go wrong?

I received this book as part of a Humble Bundle that I won from Brian Hodge. (Thanks, Brian!) A fellow horror reader in one of my horror groups chose it for a group read and I was excited, because the premise sounded so great. I was not disappointed.

There are some cliched themes here, but I loved the way Mr. Williamson made them his own. Not only were there the expected spirits, but there was an entirely new entity and a dangerous one he proved to be. A new type of doppelganger, once realized, nearly unstoppable. And no one was safe. Of course the denouement, would have to take place at the theater-what will happen during the performance? Will the main character win the role-the role of his life, so to speak? You will have to read this to find out.

This book was well written and the story well told. I think it could have been trimmed a bit as sometimes the main character's inner monologue was redundant. Even though a couple of the characters were cliches, I thought most of them came through as real people, capable of all the feelings and changes that go along with that.

This book definitely made me a fan of Chet Williamson and I'm looking forward to seeing if he has more work for me to discover. For now, I will say goodbye to the Venetian Theatre and all of its scary, wonderful history.

Highly recommended for fans of haunting stories!

[Jon Recluse · Rating 4 out of 5]

The theater.

The place where even the phantoms wear masks....what better locale for a haunting?
Williamson takes us behind the curtains, to where the "magic" happens. Where everyone is an actor, and nothing is what it appears to be. What better locale for a mystery?
The best of both worlds....a haunting mystery that will keep you guessing, and looking over your shoulder.

[Karl]

This hardcover is copy 306 of 425 produced and is signed by Chet Williamson and Illustrators Laura & John Lakey.

[WTEK · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me awhile to get into this book, but mostly because I was in the mood for another type of book when I started it. I'm also not a huge theater fan. But the horror aspects of it were pretty suspenseful and horrific at times, so as the action increased, so did my enjoyment of the book. It is an interesting take on a "haunting", though I don't want to go into too much detail as to the nature of the "ghost." That part was pretty creative and I'm guessing that Chet's background working in theater helped inspired him to create this particular type of spirit.

[Bandit · Rating 4 out of 5]

What happens when horror and theatre collide. Interesting book, but not Williamson's best.

[Pamellia]

I lost interest in this book

[Bill Borre]

I am sorry to leave a comment here under reviews for a book that I have not read yet but I wanted to assign a date for this book and the date set functionality of the website currently seems to be broken. If they get this working I will use this and delete this review.

12-20-2011

[Brian Palmer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Horror stories tend to fall into well-worn pathways, so the acclimated reader will not be surprised by much of the plot in the book. Unfortunately, that puts the burden on the author to wow the reader in other ways, by building a setting, characters, and writing virtuosity. While I thought _Reign_ was decent, it was let down by the prose, which is very worksmanlike at best.

[BJ Haun · Rating 1 out of 5]

Got about halfway through the book before I gave up on it. I can see why people could like this book, as I thought the the plot had the potential to be interesting, but I didn't like any of the characters enough to keep going with the book. Not my cup of tea, I guess.

[Daniel DeLappe · Rating 4 out of 5]

As always Williamson tells a great story. The ending was a bit disappointing, but writing this type of story can only end one way without being a waster of a read. All in all a great read.