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Martin Ruben #2
Premonition
Book by Williamson, J. N.
Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1981
129 people want to read
About the author
J.N. Williamson
99 books55 followersGerald Neal Williamson (April 17, 1932 - December 8, 2005) wrote and edited horror stories under the name J. N. Williamson. He also wrote under the name Julian Shock.
Born in Indianapolis, IN he graduated from Shortridge High School. He studied journalism at Butler University. He published his first novel in 1979 and went on to publish more than 40 novels and 150 short stories. In 2003 he received a lifetime achievement award from the Horror Writers of America. He edited the critically acclaimed How to Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction (1987) which covered the themes of such writing and cited the writings of such writers as Robert Bloch, Lee Prosser, Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, H. P. Lovecraft, August Derleth, William F. Nolan, and Stephen King. Many important writers in the genre contributed to the book. Williamson edited the popular anthology series, Masques. Some of his novels include The Ritual (1979), Playmates (1982), Noonspell (1991), The Haunt (1999), among others.
He was also a well known Sherlockian and received his investiture (The Illustrious Client) in the Baker Street Irregulars in 1950.
Source: Wikipedia
Born in Indianapolis, IN he graduated from Shortridge High School. He studied journalism at Butler University. He published his first novel in 1979 and went on to publish more than 40 novels and 150 short stories. In 2003 he received a lifetime achievement award from the Horror Writers of America. He edited the critically acclaimed How to Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction (1987) which covered the themes of such writing and cited the writings of such writers as Robert Bloch, Lee Prosser, Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, H. P. Lovecraft, August Derleth, William F. Nolan, and Stephen King. Many important writers in the genre contributed to the book. Williamson edited the popular anthology series, Masques. Some of his novels include The Ritual (1979), Playmates (1982), Noonspell (1991), The Haunt (1999), among others.
He was also a well known Sherlockian and received his investiture (The Illustrious Client) in the Baker Street Irregulars in 1950.
Source: Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 5, 2019
First of all, before I say one word about the plot or the characters, I just want to point out how freaking metal that cover is. You can't tell from the picture here on Goodreads, but the title font is embossed in raised, metallic ink, and the wooden scary face is also embossed in a faux wood grain style, giving it some texture if you run your finger over it. The car in which the freaked out kid is seated also bears the number '666' stenciled in just above the author's name. Paperback artwork from the 80's, especially on horror novels, is a real treat--we just don't see the same level of detail or over-the-top weirdness in today's releases, which seem to opt mostly for shadowy painted images of dark forests it seems. But in this era, you could almost always count on publishers like BMI, Leisure, and Zebra to deliver the weird goodness that drew readers to books like sparkles to vampires. Quite often the cover artwork had nothing at all to do with the book, or depicted scenes that never took place, but the point was to get you interested enough to give it a look, and in this case, I think the artist did a fine job. It's just a pity this scene appears nowhere at all in the novel.
What's more frustrating is the back of the book copy takes great pains to point out the location as an abandoned amusement park, once noted for "a horror house that boasted '1,000 Chills and Thrills!'". It's not a lie, since the primary location is an island with an abandoned amusement park, but that's all it is: an abandoned amusement park. It's not a story about rides coming to life or strange creatures stalking the Funhouse or anything like that. A total missed opportunity, but then again, it's hardly Williamson's fault that the artist and copy editor decided to feature a completely non-noteworthy aspect of the story in an attempt to sell more books. It's 80's horror...much like VHS cover artwork of the same era, you gotta understand that what they show on the outside may bear little to no resemblance to what comes on the inside.
This book is part 2 in Williamson's sort-of trilogy starring parapsychologist Marin Ruben. I covered Martin's background in my review of The Ritual, but the basics you need to know are that Ruben's kind of a dead ringer for Basil Rathbone's portrayal of Sherlock Holmes, he teaches Psychology at the fictional Badler University in Indianapolis, and takes on side gigs as a practicing parapsychologist.
Both The Ritual and Premonition seem to stand alone despite sharing a main character. Neither book references things that happened in the other, and in fact one character who died rather horribly in The Ritual shows up alive and well just a few chapters into Premonition. Chronologically, this must mean Premonition takes place before The Ritual. Given the events of The Ritual though, we're led to believe that story is the first time Ruben's actually encountered obvious, direct evidence of the paranormal when, if he'd already experienced the events depicted in Premonition, this notion is absurd. Maybe the best way to look at it is that Ruben's a character similar to Carl Kolchak or Fox Mulder, to whom bizarre things keep happening on a semi-regular basis, but for whom the order those events take place in is largely irrelevant. If you insist on being able to play connect-the-dots with the events of the protagonist's life, Williamson will drive you up the wall. Let it go and you'll be fine.
While a young boy was the cause of all Ruben's troubles in The Ritual, trouble takes on a much different and more pleasing form in Premonition. The catalyst for dear old Martin's roller coaster ride to Hell in this one is a beautiful blonde woman named Ingrid Solomon. Solomon has the sort of financial records that would make Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates green with envy, and she's used that money to relentlessly pursue her goals in life. Right now, her goal is something of such great importance that it requires complete secrecy. To that end, she's purchased Nommos Island in the middle of Lake Triton in northern Indiana, and this is where she and her colleagues perform their research. The former proprietors of the place ran Boysandgurls, a now-defunct amusement park presumably depicted on the cover.
Lake Triton, Nommos Island, and Boysandgurls, much like Badler University where Martin teaches, don't actually exist in real life, but Williamson is using real locations to fill in for them and playing a little fast and loose with the geography to suit the needs of his story. Early in the book, when Ruben arrives on the island and steps off the helicopter, he is surprised to see the Golden Dome of the University of Notre Dame off in the distance. There are only two lakes in Indiana where any part of Notre Dame would be visible: Saint Mary's Lake, and Saint Joseph's Lake. Both of them have islands large enough to suit Ingrid's needs for the giant research facility she has erected there, though neither one of them have ever held an amusement park. There are several amusement parks in Indiana which had gone defunct when Williamson was writing Premonition, but the only one situated on an actual island was Rose Island, abandoned in 1937 after the Ohio River flooded the area to a depth of ten feet. That's in south-eastern Indiana, well away from South Bend which is located in one of the northernmost counties in the state. Suffice it to say, there aren't any amusement parks, former or otherwise, on either St. Mary's or St. Joseph's lakes except in Williamson's imagination.
OK, so it's not exactly an island off the coast of Costa Rica, but Solomon's still fairly well cut-off from the outside world since the only way to reach the place by helicopter. What requires all this secrecy? Solomon's engaging in the most hardcore study of paranormal and parapsychological phenomena imaginable. Everything from numerology and astrology to telekinesis and demonology are being explored. To that end, Solomon's gathered leading scientists from the fields of medicine, physics, psychology, and other disciplines to carry out this research on her dime. The goal, as she explains to Martin, is life extension.
The experiments being carried out in her facility would be dismissed by most as the work of crackpots and lunatics, but Solomon's insistent that there must be something to old legends and superstitions. Anything her staff requires, up to and including live specimens for testing and experiments, can be procured without question. Ingrid's a firm believer in astrology as well, and she's taken to regimenting the lives of every man and woman in her employ with military precision: when her people eat, when they sleep, when they exercise, when they teach, even when they have sex and with whom, is all carefully charted and planned via astrology. The crazy thing is, it actually works, and her employees are all enjoying manifestly robust lifestyles, adding years to their lives. Solomon's convinced she'll soon be able to harness control over life and death itself--in short, by combining optimal physical choices with astrological charts, in theory everybody on Nommos Island could achieve immortality, or at least a greatly-elongated lifespan as long as they stick to the formulas.
Martin's excited, since this is the sort of research he's been dying to conduct for years but which Badler University will not sign off upon, and Ingrid's adding more zeroes to his paycheck than he could ever dream of pulling down even as a department head. But he still has some lingering questions. What's the deal with the bizarre mound that Ingrid insists everyone must visit once a day? Why are there so many children of varying ethnicity within the Solomon compound? What's with the strange screams he occasionally hears rend the night? And why, on an island where Ingrid Solomon has unlocked the key to eternal life and eternal youth, do so many people keep committing suicide...?
Premonition isn't a great book, but it's a solid read nonetheless. Williamson's still as wordy and verbose as before, and lots of his characters speak like they're quoting encyclopedia entries instead of putting knowledge into their own words, but the idea behind the story is certainly intriguing. Williamson's clearly getting a handle on the more adult aspects of writing horror too--while The Ritual contained a few scenes that would guarantee an 18+ certification had they been filmed, Premonition absolutely blows it out of the water for sheer luridness: tons of sex, tons of violence, and especially at the end, tons of gore are squished into this book's 287 pages. It feels like Williamson went out of his way to test the waters with this one, to see just what his publisher would let him get away with. Leisure, being a fairly trashy, pulp-ish publisher at the time, likely didn't care what Williamson wrote as long as they could sell it, and their target audience tilted heavily in the male direction. The risk of sending some little old ladies off to their fainting couches with depictions of grotesque violence and prurient sex was minimal.
That said, while I liked the concept of the book and as a horror fan I'm not upset by either an overabundance of sex or violence in my paperback reads, I still don't feel like Premonition was all it could have been. Seriously, the 'abandoned amusement park' had such great potential for adding to the atmosphere, but after it's introduced, Williamson just forgets about it. Nobody ever goes exploring what's left of it. Nobody gets it in his or her head to visit the former house of 1,000 chills and thrills. There aren't any rampaging demons rattling the old roller coaster around at night. And while the experiments being carried out by some of the island's less-reputable residents are horrific, they're also glossed over pretty quickly once the end comes around. In fact, Premonition doesn't have an ending so much as it just stops. Like, there are still some major unanswered questions facing the protagonist after Williamson's concluded the story, including just how the hell he's going to get off the island, not to mention how he's supposed to go back to his formerly ordinary life after experiencing everything he's seen and done on Nommos.
One thing I will give major props to Williamson for is his monster. The creature stalking Nommos Island, driving men and women alike to suicide, is one pulled from ancient Hebrew mythology. I've never encountered one of these in any other horror story, and it's nice to see something other than the same old vampires and werewolves raising hell with the characters. It's the kind of thing you'd simultaneously love and fear to see for yourself, for reasons I won't get into since you really shouldn't know what exactly Martin and his companions are facing until he learns for himself.
So: great creature, average characters, competent (but not masterful) writing, and an ending that leaves a lot to be desired. Maybe Williamson will explain himself in the third Martin Ruben book, Brotherkind, but given how completely this book stands alone from The Ritual, I tend to doubt it. It's nice to see Williamson cutting loose with the violence and sex, even though like most authors who don't write erotica for a living, his sexy bits feel about as awkward as some backseat fumbling of one's own. I'm really torn on this one--the writing is definitely better than The Ritual, but that's to be expected since The Ritual was a first novel and those are notoriously mediocre for most mid-list horror writers. While the writing may be better and the author taking more creative risks, there's still that certain something I can't put my finger on which makes Premonition not as good as its predecessor. Mostly I think it comes down to wasted opportunity. Abandoned amusement park, man...come on, that's got 'horror story' written all over it, and it's hardly mentioned.
Bad points aside, I still finished it, and at a fairly brisk pace too. Williamson's engaging, if nothing else, and I'll keep looking into his work to see what else I can find. At the very least, I'll read Brotherkind to see if any loose ends get tied up. A solid three out of five stars from me.
Best Scene:
Shortly after arrival on Nommos Island, Martin finds himself in his quarters filling out an extensive, not to mention intrusive, survey. The questions cover virtually everything you could imagine in Ingrid's effort to ensure astrological compatibility among her staff: obvious stuff like date and time of birth along with one's astrological sign open the questionnaire, but it isn't long before the form's delving into Martin's most personal habits, fears, and fantasies. Fed up with Ingrid's line of questioning, Martin begins putting completely random or utterly nonsensical stuff down on paper. On the question concerning his sexual preferences, Martin scrawls that he's unable to be satisfied sexually without at least three women sharing his bed--a complete and utter lie, but he's exaggerating to the point of absurdity to get a rise out of Ingrid.
The joke's on Martin, however, when his designated time for sex rolls around, and the knock on his door reveals not one, not two, but three completely nubile and willing women, who are all astrologically compatible with him and will not take 'no' for an answer. The resulting orgy is more than enough to satisfy our protagonist, but it's never made clear if the women were sent because Ingrid believed what Martin put on the form, or because she wanted to teach him a lesson about taking everything on Nommos Island seriously.
What's more frustrating is the back of the book copy takes great pains to point out the location as an abandoned amusement park, once noted for "a horror house that boasted '1,000 Chills and Thrills!'". It's not a lie, since the primary location is an island with an abandoned amusement park, but that's all it is: an abandoned amusement park. It's not a story about rides coming to life or strange creatures stalking the Funhouse or anything like that. A total missed opportunity, but then again, it's hardly Williamson's fault that the artist and copy editor decided to feature a completely non-noteworthy aspect of the story in an attempt to sell more books. It's 80's horror...much like VHS cover artwork of the same era, you gotta understand that what they show on the outside may bear little to no resemblance to what comes on the inside.
This book is part 2 in Williamson's sort-of trilogy starring parapsychologist Marin Ruben. I covered Martin's background in my review of The Ritual, but the basics you need to know are that Ruben's kind of a dead ringer for Basil Rathbone's portrayal of Sherlock Holmes, he teaches Psychology at the fictional Badler University in Indianapolis, and takes on side gigs as a practicing parapsychologist.
Both The Ritual and Premonition seem to stand alone despite sharing a main character. Neither book references things that happened in the other, and in fact one character who died rather horribly in The Ritual shows up alive and well just a few chapters into Premonition. Chronologically, this must mean Premonition takes place before The Ritual. Given the events of The Ritual though, we're led to believe that story is the first time Ruben's actually encountered obvious, direct evidence of the paranormal when, if he'd already experienced the events depicted in Premonition, this notion is absurd. Maybe the best way to look at it is that Ruben's a character similar to Carl Kolchak or Fox Mulder, to whom bizarre things keep happening on a semi-regular basis, but for whom the order those events take place in is largely irrelevant. If you insist on being able to play connect-the-dots with the events of the protagonist's life, Williamson will drive you up the wall. Let it go and you'll be fine.
While a young boy was the cause of all Ruben's troubles in The Ritual, trouble takes on a much different and more pleasing form in Premonition. The catalyst for dear old Martin's roller coaster ride to Hell in this one is a beautiful blonde woman named Ingrid Solomon. Solomon has the sort of financial records that would make Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates green with envy, and she's used that money to relentlessly pursue her goals in life. Right now, her goal is something of such great importance that it requires complete secrecy. To that end, she's purchased Nommos Island in the middle of Lake Triton in northern Indiana, and this is where she and her colleagues perform their research. The former proprietors of the place ran Boysandgurls, a now-defunct amusement park presumably depicted on the cover.
Lake Triton, Nommos Island, and Boysandgurls, much like Badler University where Martin teaches, don't actually exist in real life, but Williamson is using real locations to fill in for them and playing a little fast and loose with the geography to suit the needs of his story. Early in the book, when Ruben arrives on the island and steps off the helicopter, he is surprised to see the Golden Dome of the University of Notre Dame off in the distance. There are only two lakes in Indiana where any part of Notre Dame would be visible: Saint Mary's Lake, and Saint Joseph's Lake. Both of them have islands large enough to suit Ingrid's needs for the giant research facility she has erected there, though neither one of them have ever held an amusement park. There are several amusement parks in Indiana which had gone defunct when Williamson was writing Premonition, but the only one situated on an actual island was Rose Island, abandoned in 1937 after the Ohio River flooded the area to a depth of ten feet. That's in south-eastern Indiana, well away from South Bend which is located in one of the northernmost counties in the state. Suffice it to say, there aren't any amusement parks, former or otherwise, on either St. Mary's or St. Joseph's lakes except in Williamson's imagination.
OK, so it's not exactly an island off the coast of Costa Rica, but Solomon's still fairly well cut-off from the outside world since the only way to reach the place by helicopter. What requires all this secrecy? Solomon's engaging in the most hardcore study of paranormal and parapsychological phenomena imaginable. Everything from numerology and astrology to telekinesis and demonology are being explored. To that end, Solomon's gathered leading scientists from the fields of medicine, physics, psychology, and other disciplines to carry out this research on her dime. The goal, as she explains to Martin, is life extension.
The experiments being carried out in her facility would be dismissed by most as the work of crackpots and lunatics, but Solomon's insistent that there must be something to old legends and superstitions. Anything her staff requires, up to and including live specimens for testing and experiments, can be procured without question. Ingrid's a firm believer in astrology as well, and she's taken to regimenting the lives of every man and woman in her employ with military precision: when her people eat, when they sleep, when they exercise, when they teach, even when they have sex and with whom, is all carefully charted and planned via astrology. The crazy thing is, it actually works, and her employees are all enjoying manifestly robust lifestyles, adding years to their lives. Solomon's convinced she'll soon be able to harness control over life and death itself--in short, by combining optimal physical choices with astrological charts, in theory everybody on Nommos Island could achieve immortality, or at least a greatly-elongated lifespan as long as they stick to the formulas.
Martin's excited, since this is the sort of research he's been dying to conduct for years but which Badler University will not sign off upon, and Ingrid's adding more zeroes to his paycheck than he could ever dream of pulling down even as a department head. But he still has some lingering questions. What's the deal with the bizarre mound that Ingrid insists everyone must visit once a day? Why are there so many children of varying ethnicity within the Solomon compound? What's with the strange screams he occasionally hears rend the night? And why, on an island where Ingrid Solomon has unlocked the key to eternal life and eternal youth, do so many people keep committing suicide...?
Premonition isn't a great book, but it's a solid read nonetheless. Williamson's still as wordy and verbose as before, and lots of his characters speak like they're quoting encyclopedia entries instead of putting knowledge into their own words, but the idea behind the story is certainly intriguing. Williamson's clearly getting a handle on the more adult aspects of writing horror too--while The Ritual contained a few scenes that would guarantee an 18+ certification had they been filmed, Premonition absolutely blows it out of the water for sheer luridness: tons of sex, tons of violence, and especially at the end, tons of gore are squished into this book's 287 pages. It feels like Williamson went out of his way to test the waters with this one, to see just what his publisher would let him get away with. Leisure, being a fairly trashy, pulp-ish publisher at the time, likely didn't care what Williamson wrote as long as they could sell it, and their target audience tilted heavily in the male direction. The risk of sending some little old ladies off to their fainting couches with depictions of grotesque violence and prurient sex was minimal.
That said, while I liked the concept of the book and as a horror fan I'm not upset by either an overabundance of sex or violence in my paperback reads, I still don't feel like Premonition was all it could have been. Seriously, the 'abandoned amusement park' had such great potential for adding to the atmosphere, but after it's introduced, Williamson just forgets about it. Nobody ever goes exploring what's left of it. Nobody gets it in his or her head to visit the former house of 1,000 chills and thrills. There aren't any rampaging demons rattling the old roller coaster around at night. And while the experiments being carried out by some of the island's less-reputable residents are horrific, they're also glossed over pretty quickly once the end comes around. In fact, Premonition doesn't have an ending so much as it just stops. Like, there are still some major unanswered questions facing the protagonist after Williamson's concluded the story, including just how the hell he's going to get off the island, not to mention how he's supposed to go back to his formerly ordinary life after experiencing everything he's seen and done on Nommos.
One thing I will give major props to Williamson for is his monster. The creature stalking Nommos Island, driving men and women alike to suicide, is one pulled from ancient Hebrew mythology. I've never encountered one of these in any other horror story, and it's nice to see something other than the same old vampires and werewolves raising hell with the characters. It's the kind of thing you'd simultaneously love and fear to see for yourself, for reasons I won't get into since you really shouldn't know what exactly Martin and his companions are facing until he learns for himself.
So: great creature, average characters, competent (but not masterful) writing, and an ending that leaves a lot to be desired. Maybe Williamson will explain himself in the third Martin Ruben book, Brotherkind, but given how completely this book stands alone from The Ritual, I tend to doubt it. It's nice to see Williamson cutting loose with the violence and sex, even though like most authors who don't write erotica for a living, his sexy bits feel about as awkward as some backseat fumbling of one's own. I'm really torn on this one--the writing is definitely better than The Ritual, but that's to be expected since The Ritual was a first novel and those are notoriously mediocre for most mid-list horror writers. While the writing may be better and the author taking more creative risks, there's still that certain something I can't put my finger on which makes Premonition not as good as its predecessor. Mostly I think it comes down to wasted opportunity. Abandoned amusement park, man...come on, that's got 'horror story' written all over it, and it's hardly mentioned.
Bad points aside, I still finished it, and at a fairly brisk pace too. Williamson's engaging, if nothing else, and I'll keep looking into his work to see what else I can find. At the very least, I'll read Brotherkind to see if any loose ends get tied up. A solid three out of five stars from me.
Best Scene:
Shortly after arrival on Nommos Island, Martin finds himself in his quarters filling out an extensive, not to mention intrusive, survey. The questions cover virtually everything you could imagine in Ingrid's effort to ensure astrological compatibility among her staff: obvious stuff like date and time of birth along with one's astrological sign open the questionnaire, but it isn't long before the form's delving into Martin's most personal habits, fears, and fantasies. Fed up with Ingrid's line of questioning, Martin begins putting completely random or utterly nonsensical stuff down on paper. On the question concerning his sexual preferences, Martin scrawls that he's unable to be satisfied sexually without at least three women sharing his bed--a complete and utter lie, but he's exaggerating to the point of absurdity to get a rise out of Ingrid.
The joke's on Martin, however, when his designated time for sex rolls around, and the knock on his door reveals not one, not two, but three completely nubile and willing women, who are all astrologically compatible with him and will not take 'no' for an answer. The resulting orgy is more than enough to satisfy our protagonist, but it's never made clear if the women were sent because Ingrid believed what Martin put on the form, or because she wanted to teach him a lesson about taking everything on Nommos Island seriously.
January 4, 2021
Finished my first book read of 2021 and it was a car wreck, in the sense that I could not put it down, could not look away. To be more precise, it was a multi-car pile-up on the interstate. Let's look at the plot, shall we? So the plot involves a modern institute on an island, dedicated to researching the paranormal. But wait, there's more- the institute is built on the site of a defunct carnival that had a history of mysterious deaths. But wait, there's more- the carnival was built on top of a native mound which is e-e-evil. But wait, there's more- the head of the psychic institute believes she is the reincarnation of King Solomon. But wait, there's more- on the island is a scientist who is cloning dinosaurs. But wait- what did I just read? I finished it, because I could not choose to not finish it, but what the hell? The plot was not great, though it was readable at least. Most of the women of the story are defined by their breast size (and nipple size and placement). There is a romantic interest for the protagonist who appears on maybe 12-15 pages of an almost 300 page book. It's a mess. But I couldn't look away. Recommended to the curious, but don't expect quality.
November 8, 2022
Spooktober 2022 Book 3
Haunted roller coasters? Skeletons riding along in a torturous tunnel of terror? An amusement park populated by ghosts and ghouls and other spooky denizens of horror?
Nope.
Instead, you get some typical overwritten lame ass Williamson novel about horoscopes, astrology, demons, haunted mounds of grass, immortality, and a gross, sub plot about the main character’s obsession with a 17 year old which ends up making him a pedophile and statutory rapist.
Premonition should win an award for having quite possibly the most misleading cover of all time (and yes; that includes infamous Zebras and Tors too) since nothing of any kind of haunted amusement parks or broken down rides ever happens here (aside from a minor mention that the land on which this terrible story takes place) happened to contain an old merry go round. Eventually this book got so bad and unreadable that I basically went the DNF route and skimmed the last 80 pages…and didn’t miss a single thing.
Williamson may have won some lifetime achievement for his mass amount of output in the genre but quantity will never replace quality…and the quality of his work is severely lacking.
Haunted roller coasters? Skeletons riding along in a torturous tunnel of terror? An amusement park populated by ghosts and ghouls and other spooky denizens of horror?
Nope.
Instead, you get some typical overwritten lame ass Williamson novel about horoscopes, astrology, demons, haunted mounds of grass, immortality, and a gross, sub plot about the main character’s obsession with a 17 year old which ends up making him a pedophile and statutory rapist.
Premonition should win an award for having quite possibly the most misleading cover of all time (and yes; that includes infamous Zebras and Tors too) since nothing of any kind of haunted amusement parks or broken down rides ever happens here (aside from a minor mention that the land on which this terrible story takes place) happened to contain an old merry go round. Eventually this book got so bad and unreadable that I basically went the DNF route and skimmed the last 80 pages…and didn’t miss a single thing.
Williamson may have won some lifetime achievement for his mass amount of output in the genre but quantity will never replace quality…and the quality of his work is severely lacking.
March 27, 2018
Too bad I didn't have a premonition that this book would be a dud. It's a shame because this had potential. It does not live up to any of them. It starts out well. But goes straight down hill. The crux of the plot is, a disused island that was once a Walt Disney type park for kids is now a center for parapsychology and other talents along that line. There is a mound of dirt that everyone goes to everyday. Every teacher, scientist what have you was dying, now they are getting healthier and have stopped aging. Then a rash of suicides plague this utopia.
The problem is, the old rides and settings at the play land is never really used. The parapsychology angle is much more like a manual. We teeter on turning this thing into a non-fiction book. There is so much talk about this doctor. This study. This sensitive that I lost the point in what was going on. It sunk the novel for me. So much talk, with no action. The mound turns out to be a succubus. Not much on that front. This had a few good things going for it. That's why I kept reading. It just let me down time and again.
The problem is, the old rides and settings at the play land is never really used. The parapsychology angle is much more like a manual. We teeter on turning this thing into a non-fiction book. There is so much talk about this doctor. This study. This sensitive that I lost the point in what was going on. It sunk the novel for me. So much talk, with no action. The mound turns out to be a succubus. Not much on that front. This had a few good things going for it. That's why I kept reading. It just let me down time and again.
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May 24, 2021
Despite the fact that it has one of the greatest covers I've ever seen (one which, unfortunately, has nothing to do with anything that happens at any point in the book), this is honestly a total mess all around. The book reads like the work of someone who read too many 'true' occult books and decided to throw as many concepts from them in to the book as possible (reincarnation! Ley lines! Astrology! Who cares if any of this makes sense). These elements often barely factor into the plot, as if the author meant to utilize them but forgot to. Half the time he explains these in great detail (astrology in particular tends to get particularly long explanations, although it also plays a more significant role in the book than most of the others), the rest of the time he just drops the terminology in with no explanation; generally speaking, the more obscure the term, the less likely it is to be explained. He also does a lot of namedropping of what I assume are significant figures in that particular field, at one point spending two paragraphs listing names. The pacing is also off, with most of the book spent setting up the scenario and repeating information that the reader has already received, before suddenly increasing the pace and killing off most of the characters very quickly. At around this point a strange fixation on cancer also shows up; again, this isn't particularly well integrated into the plot. The book also provides several of the worst sex scenes I've ever read (one that mentions a character's 'aged member' stands out in my memory as being particularly bad), these often go on for several pages, adding little to the book while assaulting the reader with various colourful metaphors. Later on in the book, dinosaurs show up, unfortunately they don't really do anything until the climax, which somehow manages to be at once ridiculously over-the-top and frustratingly underwhelming. At one point in the book, an odd speech impediment that affects one character (the insertion of the word 'hm-m' at random points in his dialogue) somehow makes its way into another character's speech, suggesting poor editing (of course, this is an early 80s Leisure publication, so that's practically a given). I think I'd have liked the book better if it was literally about skeletons on a roller-coaster.
April 18, 2024
Premonition has the old school sci-fi, adventure story vibe of an early H.G. Wells novel. It focuses on a shadowy group–headed by an unscrupulous sexy female scientist and her team of terminal lackeys–who set up their own island laboratory to find the secret of immortality. It’s a wild ride that involves secret experiments, mysterious premonitions, supernatural abilities, cloned dinosaurs, a giant succubus, and ancient and deadly earth mounds. Yet, oddly enough, it’s pretty dull. Like I said, it has the vibe of H.G. Wells but none of his skills, as the content and characters are both well beyond the writer’s abilities.
The problems start early. The protagonist, a young college professor, is the merest caricature of a human being. He has the demeanor and thought process of what most conservatives must think a college professor is: pompous and condescending toward ordinary folks. He is described as looking like Basil Rathbone, and I think his intellect and methods of deduction are supposed to rival Sherlock Holmes, but his observations are all contrived, either low-hanging fruit or unbelievable. The evil scientist who emerges later in the story is no better, speaking each line of dialogue in pretension and stuttering as some kind of affectation. Just as bad is the Belgian astrologist who, while only a minor character, still has time to utter the most stereotypical French lines like “sacre bleu” and “mon ami.”
The sex is of the cringiest kind. Flaccid descriptions of what passes for basic male fantasies with no creativity or real passion. And, Jesus, how many euphemisms can you come up with to describe pubic hair? Plus, the succubus at the end of the story is supposed to be irresistible to everyone, but the descriptions make them sound like a melted Barbie doll with “adorable” feet. It’s much less erotic than confusing. This is all even more disappointing because there was a real opportunity here to show the tension between the allure of sex and the threat of something nefarious going on behind the scenes, but the execution is so bad the whole thing falls flat.
Little of the plot coheres, as the narrative rambles from one nonsensical moment to another. It was mostly enjoyable to laugh at for a while, but even so, I was willing to go check on my laundry right in the middle of the climax. As it turns out, the towels were dry.
The problems start early. The protagonist, a young college professor, is the merest caricature of a human being. He has the demeanor and thought process of what most conservatives must think a college professor is: pompous and condescending toward ordinary folks. He is described as looking like Basil Rathbone, and I think his intellect and methods of deduction are supposed to rival Sherlock Holmes, but his observations are all contrived, either low-hanging fruit or unbelievable. The evil scientist who emerges later in the story is no better, speaking each line of dialogue in pretension and stuttering as some kind of affectation. Just as bad is the Belgian astrologist who, while only a minor character, still has time to utter the most stereotypical French lines like “sacre bleu” and “mon ami.”
The sex is of the cringiest kind. Flaccid descriptions of what passes for basic male fantasies with no creativity or real passion. And, Jesus, how many euphemisms can you come up with to describe pubic hair? Plus, the succubus at the end of the story is supposed to be irresistible to everyone, but the descriptions make them sound like a melted Barbie doll with “adorable” feet. It’s much less erotic than confusing. This is all even more disappointing because there was a real opportunity here to show the tension between the allure of sex and the threat of something nefarious going on behind the scenes, but the execution is so bad the whole thing falls flat.
Little of the plot coheres, as the narrative rambles from one nonsensical moment to another. It was mostly enjoyable to laugh at for a while, but even so, I was willing to go check on my laundry right in the middle of the climax. As it turns out, the towels were dry.
August 15, 2021
A follow-up to The Ritual that has no connection other than the sameain protagonist, this entry devolved into a weird and off-putting meld of science and the supernatural that never really seem connected to one another. Random cloning, eternal life via astrology, and a mound "demon" just never congeal into anything other than throwing the kitchen sink in for good measure.
May 3, 2012
Only okay, honestly. I've liked several of his books, and like the previous Martin Ruben story, but this seemed very scattered, all over the place.
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