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Underground
Once upon a time there were seven good friends. They were the forgotten little brothers and sisters of the Big Chill generation, born in the turbulent year when the flames of Watts lit the City of Angels and napalm kissed the war-torn skies of Vietnam. They called themselves The Underground. For Justin and Mia, Josh and Caroline, Amy, Seth, and Simon, there was nothing but drugs and music, combined with boundless cynicism and a deep yearning for something that really mattered.
As graduation rolled around, they knew they would drift apart. By Labor Day weekend, there was just enough time to throw one last private party. But where? Creepy old Custis Manor was temporarily uninhabited. So they motored out to the moldering southern plantation, ready to party the night away.
They could not have known that on the other side of the mirrors, something a corrupt, voracious force, neither fully living nor truly dead. It was a soulless spirit of evil that had spent more than two hundred years cultivating its terrible powers.
It was the Great Night. And Custis Manor was its domain.
In one terrifying night their lives were forever shattered. One died. One disappeared. The survivors were scarred both inside and out. For twenty years, they couldn't face the truth of what had really happened.
Until now.
A truly original metaphysical thriller—gory and intense, satisfying and unique, Underground is a startling vision of the nightmare dimension from one of the true masters of the genre.
As graduation rolled around, they knew they would drift apart. By Labor Day weekend, there was just enough time to throw one last private party. But where? Creepy old Custis Manor was temporarily uninhabited. So they motored out to the moldering southern plantation, ready to party the night away.
They could not have known that on the other side of the mirrors, something a corrupt, voracious force, neither fully living nor truly dead. It was a soulless spirit of evil that had spent more than two hundred years cultivating its terrible powers.
It was the Great Night. And Custis Manor was its domain.
In one terrifying night their lives were forever shattered. One died. One disappeared. The survivors were scarred both inside and out. For twenty years, they couldn't face the truth of what had really happened.
Until now.
A truly original metaphysical thriller—gory and intense, satisfying and unique, Underground is a startling vision of the nightmare dimension from one of the true masters of the genre.
- GenresHorror
254 pages, Hardcover
First published April 16, 2005
45 people are currently reading
129 people want to read
About the author
Craig Spector
34 books86 followers Author, screenwriter, and musician Craig Spector developed an interest in the macabre at a very early age: he was severely burned in a tragic household accident when he was only ten months old and did drawings of skeletons and severed heads when he was a little boy. Spector graduated cum laude in 1982 with a B.A. in Professional Music from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts and went on to attend the Atlanta College of Art in Atlanta, Georgia. He moved to New York City and published his first novel "The Light At The End" (co-authored with John Skipp) in 1986.
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July 24, 2024DNF pag. 168
Ottimo inizio, poi si perde nel caos e nella confusione.
Ottimo inizio, poi si perde nel caos e nella confusione.
July 31, 2014
Rob’s Critical Book Review: “Underground,” by Craig Spector
Though I’m sure to upset some authors and publishers who, understandably, want five-star reviews, I’ve my own definition of the five-star system.
*One Star: A crime against God and man.
*Two Stars: Poor, or otherwise not ready for publication.
*Three Stars: A solid work worth the money/read.
*Four Stars: A superior, award-worthy achievement.
*Five Stars: A standard setter, a work to stand the test of time, a work to be studied and read again and again….
(Note to Amazon: Just noticed the “new” way one posts reviews, with you “defining” what stars mean, with three, four, and five stars representing IT’S OKAY, to I LIKE IT, to I LOVE IT. This is bull****. Because a work is not a “Frankenstein” by Shelley, a novel that’s certainly five stars and will no doubt still be published another hundred years from now, doesn’t mean that a three-star work is merely “OKAY.” I stand by my own definition.)
A risky book. A reader’s book. A writer's. A streamlined horror epic!
“Underground,” by Craig Spector, a three-star winner! (Which means that I LOVED IT.)
Craig Spector, of course, stands as one of the greats in the horror community’s pantheon of writing gods, a pillar, and who—it can be argued—along with John Skipp, fathered the sub-genre of splatterpunk. True or not—and it’s more true than it isn’t—I can’t deny the impact his works have had on me over the years, back-in-the-day, taking me through high school and beyond, and repeatedly knocking my socks off with “The Light at the End,” “The Scream,” “The Cleanup,” “The Bridge,” and more.
“Underground” has been no different.
And yet it was!
Here’s the book’s description:
Once upon a time there were seven good friends. They were the forgotten little brothers and sisters of the Big Chill generation, born in the turbulent year when the flames of Watts lit the City of Angels and napalm kissed the war-torn skies of Vietnam. They called themselves The Underground. For Justin and Mia, Josh and Caroline, Amy, Seth, and Simon, there was nothing but drugs and music, combined with boundless cynicism and a deep yearning for something that really mattered.
As graduation rolled around, they knew they would drift apart. By Labor Day weekend, there was just enough time to throw one last private party. But where? Creepy old Custis Manor was temporarily uninhabited. So they motored out to the moldering southern plantation, ready to party the night away.
They could not have known that on the other side of the mirrors, something watched: a corrupt, voracious force, neither fully living nor truly dead. It was a soulless spirit of evil that had spent more than two hundred years cultivating its terrible powers.
It was the Great Night. And Custis Manor was its domain.
In one terrifying night their lives were forever shattered. One died. One disappeared. The survivors were scarred both inside and out. For twenty years, they couldn't face the truth of what had really happened.
Until now.
One has gone back, and through the mirror. And now the remaining friends are forced to confront the demons of their own pasts and a greater nightmare beyond their comprehension. Together they must face the Great Night, lay waste to its vicious legacy, and free the thousands of souls still trapped there, as the reunited Underground meets the Underground Railroad of souls.
Does the above description do its job?
Tantalize a potential reader to give the work a shot?
I believe it does.
It also sounds a tad bit familiar, if not in plot, then in concept. Seems to be part of the natural progression of writers—at least in the spooky fiction realm—to want to pen a tale about youth wasted on the young, of jaded or otherwise damaged adults reuniting to right past wrongs, or otherwise “fix” something done in their—the assembled squad's—collective past.
When this kind of story is done well, there are some real gems to be had. One cannot help but think of Stephen King’s “It,” Douglas Clegg’s “You Come When I Call You,” Golden’s “The Boys Are Back in Town,” or Peter Straub’s superb “A Dark Matter.”
Does Spector’s “Underground” deserve to be mentioned with this kind of company?
YES.
But the book is different (as if that would be a surprise, which, of course—duh—it isn’t). What was a surprise—and a welcomed one—was the risk(s) the author took, and the challenge to be overcome.
“What challenge?”
To overcome Craig Spector.
For the author, this might not have been a problem at all. This may just be part of my imagination. But often, for the very successful, for the lofty celebrity, be they a writer, an actor, a singer, a person’s previous work can become a speed-bump for future projects. Why? Because once a consumer gets satisfied with a work, once something has been consumed and enjoyed, the consumer often doesn’t want something new or different, but, instead, longs to have that previous experience replicated—again and again and again.
In my imagination, this must put a tremendous amount of pressure on an artist to keep doing the same ol’ dependable same ol’.
It makes money.
Makes consumers happy (not to mention publishers and agents).
Provides job security.
Of course, it can also produce hacks, can (and does) typecast, and can erode an artist’s willingness to … just do something different.
“Underground” is different. It’s different structurally, and with its prose.
The writing, itself, could almost be called literary. Almost. But not quite. The work is too accessible, too easy to read, the pages whizzing by too fast, to be anything quite as pretentious as literary. On the other hand, the prose does sing; despite the work’s ease-of-read, this writer can tell that the author labored to put down that just-right-word, just-perfect-line, just-right-paragraph, for page after page after page.
Yes, I know. This should be a given. After all, isn’t that a writer’s job? It is. But, unfortunately, it isn’t a given, and sometimes, even for the greats, one can get a sense of somebody just phoning it in. With “Underground,” however, this was certainly not the case.
The book’s point of view also stood out as a winner. Why? Because it couldn’t have been easy. (Well, it might’ve been for Spector.) With “Underground,” the author chose an omniscient third-person narrator, but one so unobtrusive, that despite the inevitable loss of intimacy offered by first-person or third-person limited, I still felt quite close and connected to the characters.
Another risk?
Yes, the structure. Though the book’s not short of dialogue and immediate scenes, overall, the work’s got a narrative engine propelling the plot, with plenty of (necessary) back-story provided.
In the hands of anyone but a craftsman, this would not have worked.
Next, the author pulled off writing a chaff-free affair. Unlike … say … Straub’s “A Dark Matter” (a monster of some 600-pages), Spector, not opting for an inches-thick tome with loads of elbow-room, instead produced a streamlined tale of only a mere 257-pages, and that, stopping on a dime, right where the tale needed to end—and not a word more.
Now that’s a feat.
Maximum story in minimum time!
With “Underground,” will every reader be happy?
No. Of course not. Such is the case with any work, by any author, but especially with books that are well done. And especially with works that are a stretch, a risk, something outside of the typical play-box.
With “Underground,” readers aren’t going to get “The Bridge” or “The Scream,” or some other vintage-esque Spector-work in competition with his other titles (or anyone else’s). Instead, one gets the chance to consume a story written by a mature writer at the top of his game, a work—that due to its quality—was probably produced more out of a labor of love (and if not love, perhaps necessity) than anything as mercenary as simply wanting to make a buck.
For those that love to read, “Underground” does its job.
For those that love to read and love to write, there’s a lot to learn here.
All my best,
Rob M. Miller
Though I’m sure to upset some authors and publishers who, understandably, want five-star reviews, I’ve my own definition of the five-star system.
*One Star: A crime against God and man.
*Two Stars: Poor, or otherwise not ready for publication.
*Three Stars: A solid work worth the money/read.
*Four Stars: A superior, award-worthy achievement.
*Five Stars: A standard setter, a work to stand the test of time, a work to be studied and read again and again….
(Note to Amazon: Just noticed the “new” way one posts reviews, with you “defining” what stars mean, with three, four, and five stars representing IT’S OKAY, to I LIKE IT, to I LOVE IT. This is bull****. Because a work is not a “Frankenstein” by Shelley, a novel that’s certainly five stars and will no doubt still be published another hundred years from now, doesn’t mean that a three-star work is merely “OKAY.” I stand by my own definition.)
A risky book. A reader’s book. A writer's. A streamlined horror epic!
“Underground,” by Craig Spector, a three-star winner! (Which means that I LOVED IT.)
Craig Spector, of course, stands as one of the greats in the horror community’s pantheon of writing gods, a pillar, and who—it can be argued—along with John Skipp, fathered the sub-genre of splatterpunk. True or not—and it’s more true than it isn’t—I can’t deny the impact his works have had on me over the years, back-in-the-day, taking me through high school and beyond, and repeatedly knocking my socks off with “The Light at the End,” “The Scream,” “The Cleanup,” “The Bridge,” and more.
“Underground” has been no different.
And yet it was!
Here’s the book’s description:
Once upon a time there were seven good friends. They were the forgotten little brothers and sisters of the Big Chill generation, born in the turbulent year when the flames of Watts lit the City of Angels and napalm kissed the war-torn skies of Vietnam. They called themselves The Underground. For Justin and Mia, Josh and Caroline, Amy, Seth, and Simon, there was nothing but drugs and music, combined with boundless cynicism and a deep yearning for something that really mattered.
As graduation rolled around, they knew they would drift apart. By Labor Day weekend, there was just enough time to throw one last private party. But where? Creepy old Custis Manor was temporarily uninhabited. So they motored out to the moldering southern plantation, ready to party the night away.
They could not have known that on the other side of the mirrors, something watched: a corrupt, voracious force, neither fully living nor truly dead. It was a soulless spirit of evil that had spent more than two hundred years cultivating its terrible powers.
It was the Great Night. And Custis Manor was its domain.
In one terrifying night their lives were forever shattered. One died. One disappeared. The survivors were scarred both inside and out. For twenty years, they couldn't face the truth of what had really happened.
Until now.
One has gone back, and through the mirror. And now the remaining friends are forced to confront the demons of their own pasts and a greater nightmare beyond their comprehension. Together they must face the Great Night, lay waste to its vicious legacy, and free the thousands of souls still trapped there, as the reunited Underground meets the Underground Railroad of souls.
Does the above description do its job?
Tantalize a potential reader to give the work a shot?
I believe it does.
It also sounds a tad bit familiar, if not in plot, then in concept. Seems to be part of the natural progression of writers—at least in the spooky fiction realm—to want to pen a tale about youth wasted on the young, of jaded or otherwise damaged adults reuniting to right past wrongs, or otherwise “fix” something done in their—the assembled squad's—collective past.
When this kind of story is done well, there are some real gems to be had. One cannot help but think of Stephen King’s “It,” Douglas Clegg’s “You Come When I Call You,” Golden’s “The Boys Are Back in Town,” or Peter Straub’s superb “A Dark Matter.”
Does Spector’s “Underground” deserve to be mentioned with this kind of company?
YES.
But the book is different (as if that would be a surprise, which, of course—duh—it isn’t). What was a surprise—and a welcomed one—was the risk(s) the author took, and the challenge to be overcome.
“What challenge?”
To overcome Craig Spector.
For the author, this might not have been a problem at all. This may just be part of my imagination. But often, for the very successful, for the lofty celebrity, be they a writer, an actor, a singer, a person’s previous work can become a speed-bump for future projects. Why? Because once a consumer gets satisfied with a work, once something has been consumed and enjoyed, the consumer often doesn’t want something new or different, but, instead, longs to have that previous experience replicated—again and again and again.
In my imagination, this must put a tremendous amount of pressure on an artist to keep doing the same ol’ dependable same ol’.
It makes money.
Makes consumers happy (not to mention publishers and agents).
Provides job security.
Of course, it can also produce hacks, can (and does) typecast, and can erode an artist’s willingness to … just do something different.
“Underground” is different. It’s different structurally, and with its prose.
The writing, itself, could almost be called literary. Almost. But not quite. The work is too accessible, too easy to read, the pages whizzing by too fast, to be anything quite as pretentious as literary. On the other hand, the prose does sing; despite the work’s ease-of-read, this writer can tell that the author labored to put down that just-right-word, just-perfect-line, just-right-paragraph, for page after page after page.
Yes, I know. This should be a given. After all, isn’t that a writer’s job? It is. But, unfortunately, it isn’t a given, and sometimes, even for the greats, one can get a sense of somebody just phoning it in. With “Underground,” however, this was certainly not the case.
The book’s point of view also stood out as a winner. Why? Because it couldn’t have been easy. (Well, it might’ve been for Spector.) With “Underground,” the author chose an omniscient third-person narrator, but one so unobtrusive, that despite the inevitable loss of intimacy offered by first-person or third-person limited, I still felt quite close and connected to the characters.
Another risk?
Yes, the structure. Though the book’s not short of dialogue and immediate scenes, overall, the work’s got a narrative engine propelling the plot, with plenty of (necessary) back-story provided.
In the hands of anyone but a craftsman, this would not have worked.
Next, the author pulled off writing a chaff-free affair. Unlike … say … Straub’s “A Dark Matter” (a monster of some 600-pages), Spector, not opting for an inches-thick tome with loads of elbow-room, instead produced a streamlined tale of only a mere 257-pages, and that, stopping on a dime, right where the tale needed to end—and not a word more.
Now that’s a feat.
Maximum story in minimum time!
With “Underground,” will every reader be happy?
No. Of course not. Such is the case with any work, by any author, but especially with books that are well done. And especially with works that are a stretch, a risk, something outside of the typical play-box.
With “Underground,” readers aren’t going to get “The Bridge” or “The Scream,” or some other vintage-esque Spector-work in competition with his other titles (or anyone else’s). Instead, one gets the chance to consume a story written by a mature writer at the top of his game, a work—that due to its quality—was probably produced more out of a labor of love (and if not love, perhaps necessity) than anything as mercenary as simply wanting to make a buck.
For those that love to read, “Underground” does its job.
For those that love to read and love to write, there’s a lot to learn here.
All my best,
Rob M. Miller
January 15, 2026
Written in much the same style as Spector's 1980s 'splatterpunk' collaborations with John Skipp, this is immensely readable and strong stuff, despite the generic setup, but it suffers from far too many characters and a denouement that fails to live up to most expectations.
July 30, 2017
It's been a while since I've read a book by Spector. The last was TO BURY THE DEAD. It seems that since his partnership with John Skipp dissolved that neither of them are writing as fast. I know Skipp has been busy with a bunch of other things but I haven't heard as much from Spector. Not a 'dis; just an observation. A ton of possible reasons for the quiet and privacy. Anyway, UNDERGROUND is an enjoyable book but there were also a few points with which I was disappointed.
Josh Custis is the leader of his gang of friends. Shortly after their high school graduation, they accidentally open a door into a dimension of evil and lose one of their members inside. Now twenty years later, he reunites the group in an attempt to rescue the lost member and their friend Justin who forced his way through the doorway.
A normal enough theme for a horror novel but then there wasn't quite enough behind it. When I found out how they opened the doorway initially, my thought was "That's it?! No further mystical reasoning!?" Then it was a little disjointed to find out that the other dimension was populated by the souls of dead slaves and that they needed to be rescued. The two plots never really intertwined to me. The novel is enthusiastic and Spector does pull you into it. However there were times that I knew I was being pulled in rather than eagerly running through the book myself and that kind of pulled me back out again.
Josh Custis is the leader of his gang of friends. Shortly after their high school graduation, they accidentally open a door into a dimension of evil and lose one of their members inside. Now twenty years later, he reunites the group in an attempt to rescue the lost member and their friend Justin who forced his way through the doorway.
A normal enough theme for a horror novel but then there wasn't quite enough behind it. When I found out how they opened the doorway initially, my thought was "That's it?! No further mystical reasoning!?" Then it was a little disjointed to find out that the other dimension was populated by the souls of dead slaves and that they needed to be rescued. The two plots never really intertwined to me. The novel is enthusiastic and Spector does pull you into it. However there were times that I knew I was being pulled in rather than eagerly running through the book myself and that kind of pulled me back out again.
August 6, 2013
Too much power
is to blame
for all the lives
taken for gain.
A slave to a master.
A remembrance of pain
is not easily forgotten
for it is ingrained.
To be less of a person.
An animal trained to fear.
To not be man.
A lash or a shear.
Humiliation a friend.
Worth nothing, a tear.
To cry out for injustice.
To bow down and pretend.
To suffer another's sin.
Can there be any wonder
why time does not amend?
by Nikki
An old slave master and all around bad guy has one of his slaves teach him about magick that will bring him more power. The magick does this, but the cost is high. Custis is willing to pay it in blood.
The story started out as a biography of each of the character's which made for a super-slow beginning and some might be tempted to give up there.
I kept going and the story picked up and the idea behind it was a very good one. Spirits of people trapped in the Custis Manor needed to be set free. This read had the potential to be 5 stars, but the overly long character descriptions and backstory should have been better intergrated in the story.
An alright, okay read.
is to blame
for all the lives
taken for gain.
A slave to a master.
A remembrance of pain
is not easily forgotten
for it is ingrained.
To be less of a person.
An animal trained to fear.
To not be man.
A lash or a shear.
Humiliation a friend.
Worth nothing, a tear.
To cry out for injustice.
To bow down and pretend.
To suffer another's sin.
Can there be any wonder
why time does not amend?
by Nikki
An old slave master and all around bad guy has one of his slaves teach him about magick that will bring him more power. The magick does this, but the cost is high. Custis is willing to pay it in blood.
The story started out as a biography of each of the character's which made for a super-slow beginning and some might be tempted to give up there.
I kept going and the story picked up and the idea behind it was a very good one. Spirits of people trapped in the Custis Manor needed to be set free. This read had the potential to be 5 stars, but the overly long character descriptions and backstory should have been better intergrated in the story.
An alright, okay read.
September 10, 2021
Craig Spector is a good writer. No doubt about that. His biggest problem, in my opinion, is that some of his work just doesn't live up to the same quality as other works. this book read more like a screenplay to me than a fleshed out novel. A good idea, decent execution... but the ending felt rushed to me, and I wanted more character development. I wanted to feel for the characters like I have in some of his previous novels, but unfortunately, I just didn't. It's a good book. Don't get me wrong. But it left me just somewhat unfulfilled. I wanted more.
August 23, 2017
I agree, this book had a lot of potential. Too many deviations...I skipped a bunch.
October 22, 2017
Intriguing enough to finish, but tedious enough to skim through massive portions to get it done.
August 21, 2008
When a group of friends go to Curvis manor to celebrate the end of Senior year, they open a breach to a demoniac dimension. 20 years later they go back to the mansion to try and close the portal.
The premice of this book was very interesting but I have to say i was a little disappointed. It sometimes feels like a history lesson on slaves and you can feel lost in it. THe parts in the "hell" are very well written but unfornatly too short.
All in all, not the best book I've read but still good.
The premice of this book was very interesting but I have to say i was a little disappointed. It sometimes feels like a history lesson on slaves and you can feel lost in it. THe parts in the "hell" are very well written but unfornatly too short.
All in all, not the best book I've read but still good.
May 2, 2012
This book had a lot of potential. It feels like an epic novel that was cut short by 200 or so pages. The set up and cast of characters warranted a longer tale. Instead it rushes to an end that doesn't quite satisfy.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews