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Eleven Twenty-three
Layne Prescot, a former high school teacher returning to America after months of living abroad, meets a strange man in a Shanghai airport and ends up carrying a mysterious briefcase with an attached wrist shackle home with him. Back in the small town of Lilly's End, Layne must cope with more than just the effects of his past indiscretions and his recently deceased father's funeral. Each day at precisely 11:23, the small town of Lilly's End sinks into violent chaos, and people are dying. Cut off from the rest of the world by a strict military quarantine and with the population in rapid decline, Layne and his friends wait with dread as the clock ticks downward.
318 pages, Paperback
First published August 3, 2010
16 people are currently reading
207 people want to read
About the author
Jason S. Hornsby
8 books41 followersJason S. Hornsby is the author of DESERT BLEEDS RED, ELEVEN TWENTY-THREE, and EVERY SIGH, THE END, as well as several short stories and articles for time travel and horror anthologies. His work has been highly lauded for its originality, international settings, roots in current events, dark humor, themes of paranoia, and extreme horror.
His latest novel, DESERT BLEEDS RED, has proven a major critical success. New York Times best-selling author Peter Clines described it as "...a masterpiece. It isn't limited by genre or style or any of those other ways people try to contain a book. It's just a masterpiece." Craig DiLouie, author of SUFFER THE CHILDREN and THE CHILDREN OF RED PEAK, said that Hornsby's "prose runs deep and his imagination and sheer talent soar in this very dark and epic fantasy."
Originally from Lakeland, Florida, Hornsby is an honors graduate of University of South Florida, with degrees in Literature and American Studies. His first major release, EVERY SIGH, THE END, was written in his first year following graduation, and is considered by all the cool kids as being one of the best zombie novels ever written. He also has a Master's degree in professional writing from the Southern New Hampshire University.
The author moved from his hometown to Beijing in 2008, where he remained for nearly four years. After the release of ELEVEN TWENTY-THREE in 2010, Hornsby traveled to some of the most remote areas of China as research for the epic DESERT BLEEDS RED. He was present during the 2009 Urumqi riots, as well as political insurrections in Sichuan and Inner Mongolia. Hornsby was witness and even party to stabbings, brawls, and routine sidewalk bloodshed, and spent a month recuperating from back surgery in a Beijing hospital. He is a regular in the expat trouble-making scene, throwing up in the alley behind all the best dive bars and hidden hutong hangouts.
He has traveled and dodged trouble in over fourteen provinces in China thus far, as well as backpacked, hitchhiked, and philandered his way across Southeast Asia.
When not teaching English literature or traversing the globe, he also contributes to several travel and expat lifestyle magazines in Southeast Asia and China. Since summer of 2022, Hornsby and his family have lived in Bangkok. Before that, there were stints in Kuala Lumpur, Beijing, Ningbo, and Chengdu.
He has no current plans for a permanent return to America, but is very close to finishing his long-awaited fourth novel, tentatively titled GHOST SICKNESS.
His latest novel, DESERT BLEEDS RED, has proven a major critical success. New York Times best-selling author Peter Clines described it as "...a masterpiece. It isn't limited by genre or style or any of those other ways people try to contain a book. It's just a masterpiece." Craig DiLouie, author of SUFFER THE CHILDREN and THE CHILDREN OF RED PEAK, said that Hornsby's "prose runs deep and his imagination and sheer talent soar in this very dark and epic fantasy."
Originally from Lakeland, Florida, Hornsby is an honors graduate of University of South Florida, with degrees in Literature and American Studies. His first major release, EVERY SIGH, THE END, was written in his first year following graduation, and is considered by all the cool kids as being one of the best zombie novels ever written. He also has a Master's degree in professional writing from the Southern New Hampshire University.
The author moved from his hometown to Beijing in 2008, where he remained for nearly four years. After the release of ELEVEN TWENTY-THREE in 2010, Hornsby traveled to some of the most remote areas of China as research for the epic DESERT BLEEDS RED. He was present during the 2009 Urumqi riots, as well as political insurrections in Sichuan and Inner Mongolia. Hornsby was witness and even party to stabbings, brawls, and routine sidewalk bloodshed, and spent a month recuperating from back surgery in a Beijing hospital. He is a regular in the expat trouble-making scene, throwing up in the alley behind all the best dive bars and hidden hutong hangouts.
He has traveled and dodged trouble in over fourteen provinces in China thus far, as well as backpacked, hitchhiked, and philandered his way across Southeast Asia.
When not teaching English literature or traversing the globe, he also contributes to several travel and expat lifestyle magazines in Southeast Asia and China. Since summer of 2022, Hornsby and his family have lived in Bangkok. Before that, there were stints in Kuala Lumpur, Beijing, Ningbo, and Chengdu.
He has no current plans for a permanent return to America, but is very close to finishing his long-awaited fourth novel, tentatively titled GHOST SICKNESS.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
August 3, 2014
There are so many things that are right with this book, it's almost strange to give it less than rave review. But here it is. And here's why. Hornsby is a talented writer, there is no denying that, strong and competent narrative with realistic dialogues and a clever, but inordinately overused knack for referring to the dead as past tense. And apocalyptic scenarios are ever so much fun. Yet somehow reading this book felt like work, it might have been the longest 318 page book I've read in ages and I read a lot. The premise of the book is strong, original and very unsettling, terrible things happen at 11 23, really terrible things. It has Hornsby's cast of Generation Why (and accordingly annoying as such) late 20s callow ne'erdoweellers descend into a sort of maddening paranoid nightmare. And to so in great tedious detail. Seriously, this novel's narration is present tense, minute by minute with occasional flashbacks, and it feels like forever. And the thing none of the characters, well developed as they are, are particularly likable either. The plot here is the most interesting thing and it gets severely weighted down by all the internal melodrama. The first quarter of the book is possibly the best part, Hornsby really does the pervasive insidiousness well. The horror doesn't kick in yet, but the story is heavily pregnant with it. The ending was interesting as well, because we finally get the explanations. But those two are quite far apart. Basically the main thing with this book is that it's misadvertised or misrepresented as a horror novel, but it reads like a dramatic exploration of an annoying generation, with some horror elements. It is a literary novel, not a genre novel. Maybe a literary horror, but even that seems to be a stretch. Knowing that going on and adjusting the expectations accordingly, this would have been a more enjoyable less laborious read.
June 20, 2011
This book should have been a quick, enjoyable read, but it ended up feeling like work. Hornsby takes an interesting horror concept and fills it with overwritten prose that bogs down the narrative. To be fair, I should sprinkle my review with examples such as "mendacious hazel eyes" and ice that crinkles and collapes into the melted abyss. But in reality, I was probably not predisposed to like this horror novel. I enjoy a good tale of terror as much as the next reader, but I also appreciate a well-written book, and I wish this book had been both.
March 10, 2014
An American teaching English in China returns home with his girl friend to attend his fathers funeral. His career in on the downward slide to failure and disappointment, his girlfriend is pushing for marrage his mother is a sad alcoholic still grieving over being abandoned by her now deceased husband for a younger woman. A small town like any other, where it's sleepy days seem set in the comfort of the unchanging habits of small town life. Then at the funeral for his father, the family and friends gathered in well mannered show of grief for a man no one really liked, at 11;23, people he knew as preditacble as sunshine in summer, go mad a begin killing each other. Everyday twice a day at 11;23 am at 11'23 pm the madness strikes and the bodies pile up. The town cut off without phones or internet are surrounded by soldiers who speak foreign languages. The only clue to the madness is a mysterious briefcase hidden in his baggage by a man who chatted with him in the airport before he had left China. The death toll mounts as friends and neighbors twice a day go mad, There is no escape and no conspiracy theory too far out to be believed.
The author has a deft touch with descriptive language that he uses like a paint brush to paint the world in dark foreboding tones. His characters are true to life and fully formed with emotional dpeth you rearly see in a 'horror' genre book. Not all likeable not all heroic, trying to understand and survive a world gone mad. The ending is a bit confusing, you can never be sure if he has survived the horrors with his mind wholly intact or is wondering lost in a fever dream. A book well worth adding to your bookshelf, just read it with your door locked.
The author has a deft touch with descriptive language that he uses like a paint brush to paint the world in dark foreboding tones. His characters are true to life and fully formed with emotional dpeth you rearly see in a 'horror' genre book. Not all likeable not all heroic, trying to understand and survive a world gone mad. The ending is a bit confusing, you can never be sure if he has survived the horrors with his mind wholly intact or is wondering lost in a fever dream. A book well worth adding to your bookshelf, just read it with your door locked.
March 1, 2013
Excellent, well written story that follows a young man named Layne Prescott through the most harrowing, traumatic experience of his life. After returning home from China, where he teaches English as a second language,for his father's funeral he must survive weeks of a mystery illness that is causing him and his loved ones to temporarily go insane and try to kill each other and themselves. Once he and his friends realize that they have been completely cut off from the outside world they realize that escape is the only option if they want to survive.
April 3, 2014
The story idea was great. The execution of the plot was good. The book was dragged down by the heavy writing. The scene descriptions, internal monologs and character dialogs are all written so heavy. I would not expect people to have art house/philosophical discussions immediately after a horrific event. Some people will enjoy the writing style with literary, social and musical name drops. Some will like the conspiracy/horror aspects of the story. Others will not like the book. Give the first few chapters up to the funeral a try. If you like it, keep reading. If not, you decide.
January 4, 2012
I wish I could give half stars because I liked a lot about this book but there were some parts that just didn't work. Some parts of the ending explanation didn't make sense or weren't explained so that they worked with what happened before (not wanting to spoil for anyone else so I won't explain). It was an interesting idea and it kept me reading so 2 1/2 stars would be more fitting.
January 6, 2013
Really liked it, but hate the fact that the five sentences of German in the book were not correct. It's not so hard to find a German native speaker to help you translate at least those five sentences!
February 19, 2013
I can't remember the last time I found a book as flat-out terrifying as I did this one.
September 25, 2010
Layne Prescott is an Ex-Patriot returning home to Lilly’s End, Florida from his teaching post in China for the funeral of his father. As he and his girlfriend Tara sit waiting in the airport for their plane that will take them across the Pacific, they meet up with a Mr. Scott, who has a briefcase attached to his wrist by a handcuff in an airport bar. After they land in Florida and meet up with old friends, Layne discovers the same briefcase stuffed inside his luggage. From there, things get dangerously strange, as the world falls apart at 11:23, every twelve hours all over Lilly’s End. People go mad, tearing each other apart, and then killing themselves when there is no one else left to assault. The town is shut off by the government and lies about a smallpox outbreak keep the outside world at bay. All the while, everyone still alive inside of Lilly’s End is rapidly going mad, taking things into their own hands, while Layne and a few of his friends attempt to understand what is behind all of this and try to figure out what they can do to escape it.
That is the glossy overview of this story. Underneath that, this 300 page novel is thick with conspiracy, generation why angst, and a constant flow of confusion, deception, and things for the reader to ponder. I have read Jason Hornsby’s previous novel, Every Sigh, The End, and for a long stretch of that book I despised the main character for his self absorbed approach to life, which takes a radical turn as truths about the world are revealed around him. In many ways, I can say that there are parallels between that book and this one, although Hornsby’s writing has definitely matured with this book. It is clear that this is a Hornsby book-I could have picked it out blindfolded after reading several chapters. As another reviewer has put it, no one creates young, disaffected characters quite like this author. They are disagreeable, argumentative, self-absorbed, and irresistibly fascinating. It is hard to describe effectively, but while it is hard to feel much pity for the characters throughout a great swath of this book, in the end their misery is tangible, palpable, real, and you feel it along with them. Layne is one of those characters who would constantly confound you, but if you peeled away most of his facade, he would seem to be one of the most vulnerable people you might ever know. At least that was the sense I got.
I think after reading my first Hornsby book, I got the sense that the author and I would have very little in common, very little that would connect us. My presumption was that he was much like the characters he wrote. I had the chance to meet the author at a Horror Convention recently and I realized then that this was far from the truth. Hornsby just has a knack for writing characters that make you feel like you are biting down on tinfoil. He has a talent for that.
I will readily admit that I am not much of a conspiracy theorist, and as such, I probably don’t rate as someone who is a judge of the conspiracies that Hornsby presents in this novel, but I will say this-I felt pretty damn squeamish as more and more was revealed in this story, as my imagination was sparked and I tried to comprehend how deep and dark the rabbit hole the author had created was. Mr. Hornsby has created a novel that provides the disaffected youth he writes about with a nightmarish world that is even worse than they could ever imagine, which is quite a trick to pull off. This story was creative, wild, and forces you to pay attention to it at every step. But even if you do, there is more than meets the eye, and will give you something to think about long after you put the book down.
That is the glossy overview of this story. Underneath that, this 300 page novel is thick with conspiracy, generation why angst, and a constant flow of confusion, deception, and things for the reader to ponder. I have read Jason Hornsby’s previous novel, Every Sigh, The End, and for a long stretch of that book I despised the main character for his self absorbed approach to life, which takes a radical turn as truths about the world are revealed around him. In many ways, I can say that there are parallels between that book and this one, although Hornsby’s writing has definitely matured with this book. It is clear that this is a Hornsby book-I could have picked it out blindfolded after reading several chapters. As another reviewer has put it, no one creates young, disaffected characters quite like this author. They are disagreeable, argumentative, self-absorbed, and irresistibly fascinating. It is hard to describe effectively, but while it is hard to feel much pity for the characters throughout a great swath of this book, in the end their misery is tangible, palpable, real, and you feel it along with them. Layne is one of those characters who would constantly confound you, but if you peeled away most of his facade, he would seem to be one of the most vulnerable people you might ever know. At least that was the sense I got.
I think after reading my first Hornsby book, I got the sense that the author and I would have very little in common, very little that would connect us. My presumption was that he was much like the characters he wrote. I had the chance to meet the author at a Horror Convention recently and I realized then that this was far from the truth. Hornsby just has a knack for writing characters that make you feel like you are biting down on tinfoil. He has a talent for that.
I will readily admit that I am not much of a conspiracy theorist, and as such, I probably don’t rate as someone who is a judge of the conspiracies that Hornsby presents in this novel, but I will say this-I felt pretty damn squeamish as more and more was revealed in this story, as my imagination was sparked and I tried to comprehend how deep and dark the rabbit hole the author had created was. Mr. Hornsby has created a novel that provides the disaffected youth he writes about with a nightmarish world that is even worse than they could ever imagine, which is quite a trick to pull off. This story was creative, wild, and forces you to pay attention to it at every step. But even if you do, there is more than meets the eye, and will give you something to think about long after you put the book down.
October 29, 2024
Eleven Twenty-Three: Contains gore. Lots and lots of wonderful gore.
This book is unlikely to become a best-seller but was a decent/fun read. Lots of questions, lots of trash plot line, some amazing prose, a fair amount of nearly putting it down and moving on. Central story Layne and Tara come home from teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) in China for a year, to attend the funeral of Layne's estranged father. Overnight, the sleepy hometown becomes a bloodbath. Beginning at 11:23 am and repeating at each consecutive 11:23, mass portions of the population go apeshit and start mass killing. The government has quarantined them. The outside world believes that smallpox is rampant. Layne and Tara work to escape the town and ensure their survival as well as the global knowledge of what their town went through. Zombies? No.. Insanity? Maybe.. Alternate dimensions? Mind control? Ghosts? Petrochemical allergies? God? Cost of tea in china? Who the heck knows what this is about. It is reasonably priced ($6) but I picked it up in free preview and have seen $1 sales as well. It is a good spend for a couple hours of quickly paced fiction, but don't get it with the expectation of a story that has real staying power. Pick it up for some seriously brilliant passages intermixed with confusing blah blah. Pick it up for some pulp fiction dawn of the dead cross-genre joy, try to ignore the Seinfeld episodes that break up the scenes. There is some serious gore in a few scenes. Serious. Not for the squeamish. Need more of a review? Yeah, I don't really know what to tell you. It was wordy. There was a vast section of vivid and amazing prose. There was also a lot of confusion and lofty 'coffee shop' drivel. Red herrings and dead-ends in the plotline also work well/pissed me off for seeming to waste time. I would probably read this again, and definitely suggest it but sometimes I just wanted to yell "shut up". -- Sourced: This book was found in the barren wilderness of Amazon. It was nestled beneath a warm blanket of trash and was feasting on the corpses of poorly written nonsense. I picked it up and petted it, dislodged the angry ratty teeth from my finger, then wondered how it managed to follow me home on my Kindle.
This book is unlikely to become a best-seller but was a decent/fun read. Lots of questions, lots of trash plot line, some amazing prose, a fair amount of nearly putting it down and moving on. Central story Layne and Tara come home from teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) in China for a year, to attend the funeral of Layne's estranged father. Overnight, the sleepy hometown becomes a bloodbath. Beginning at 11:23 am and repeating at each consecutive 11:23, mass portions of the population go apeshit and start mass killing. The government has quarantined them. The outside world believes that smallpox is rampant. Layne and Tara work to escape the town and ensure their survival as well as the global knowledge of what their town went through. Zombies? No.. Insanity? Maybe.. Alternate dimensions? Mind control? Ghosts? Petrochemical allergies? God? Cost of tea in china? Who the heck knows what this is about. It is reasonably priced ($6) but I picked it up in free preview and have seen $1 sales as well. It is a good spend for a couple hours of quickly paced fiction, but don't get it with the expectation of a story that has real staying power. Pick it up for some seriously brilliant passages intermixed with confusing blah blah. Pick it up for some pulp fiction dawn of the dead cross-genre joy, try to ignore the Seinfeld episodes that break up the scenes. There is some serious gore in a few scenes. Serious. Not for the squeamish. Need more of a review? Yeah, I don't really know what to tell you. It was wordy. There was a vast section of vivid and amazing prose. There was also a lot of confusion and lofty 'coffee shop' drivel. Red herrings and dead-ends in the plotline also work well/pissed me off for seeming to waste time. I would probably read this again, and definitely suggest it but sometimes I just wanted to yell "shut up". -- Sourced: This book was found in the barren wilderness of Amazon. It was nestled beneath a warm blanket of trash and was feasting on the corpses of poorly written nonsense. I picked it up and petted it, dislodged the angry ratty teeth from my finger, then wondered how it managed to follow me home on my Kindle.
November 27, 2016
En route to his tiny Florida hometown for his father's funeral, English teacher Layne Prescott is approached by a stranger with a briefcase attached to his arm. After a brief and cryptic encounter, Layne continues his journey only to find that the briefcase is in his luggage when he arrives home. Things get even stranger when for no apparent reason the mourners at his father's funeral go crazy and start viciously attacking each other. From that point on, another outbreak occurs every 12 hours at precisely 11:23. The town is surrounded by military personnel, lines of communication are cut, and Layne and his friends are left to fend for themselves. All the while the strange briefcase is at the center of the mystery.
Part Less Than Zero and part 28 Days Later [Blu-ray], Eleven Twenty-Three is an edgy tale of sex, drugs, apathy and ultraviolent mayhem. Jason Hornsby has a gift for sharp dialogue and vivid descriptions, whether he's giving us flashbacks about Layne and his circle of friends or depictions of the carnage that has been unleashed on the town. He conveys a very real sense of the terror these people are going through as well as the more mundane madness of their everyday lives, and does both with style.
My only gripe is with the ending, which was unbelievable in a way that the synchronized violent outbreaks (or the main characters' social lives) weren't. I was coasting along until that point, totally enjoying the book and then it came to a crash. It left a bad taste in my mouth, and affects my overall rating of the book.
The ending aside, Eleven Twenty-Three is a very compelling book, and one you definitely will not forget. It's exciting, pushes the envelope and offers something very refreshing in the genre.
Part Less Than Zero and part 28 Days Later [Blu-ray], Eleven Twenty-Three is an edgy tale of sex, drugs, apathy and ultraviolent mayhem. Jason Hornsby has a gift for sharp dialogue and vivid descriptions, whether he's giving us flashbacks about Layne and his circle of friends or depictions of the carnage that has been unleashed on the town. He conveys a very real sense of the terror these people are going through as well as the more mundane madness of their everyday lives, and does both with style.
My only gripe is with the ending, which was unbelievable in a way that the synchronized violent outbreaks (or the main characters' social lives) weren't. I was coasting along until that point, totally enjoying the book and then it came to a crash. It left a bad taste in my mouth, and affects my overall rating of the book.
The ending aside, Eleven Twenty-Three is a very compelling book, and one you definitely will not forget. It's exciting, pushes the envelope and offers something very refreshing in the genre.
December 23, 2012
I do this thing where I download tons of free e-books, then, by the time I get around to reading them, I have no idea what the premise of the story is. So after getting a bit into the story, I still had no idea what was going on, but it was intriguing enough to keep me going. And once the action started, I really wanted to keep reading to figure out what exactly was going on with this conspiracy. The ending left me feeling kind of blase. I wasn't really dissatisfied, but I think there were more things I wanted explained.
October 1, 2014
Huh.
This is a long book and it is not a quick read. And it is very strange. Very quirky. Kind of interesting.
I wish I was more well versed in Chinese culture and demonology. That may have helped.
The look into the dark and gritty part of China is well written, the characters are bizarre but (mostly) compelling. And the storyline bounces all over the place.
I'd like to sit down and have the author (or someone else) explain it all to me because I feel like I'm really missing something here - some "ah ha" moment which escapes me.
This is a long book and it is not a quick read. And it is very strange. Very quirky. Kind of interesting.
I wish I was more well versed in Chinese culture and demonology. That may have helped.
The look into the dark and gritty part of China is well written, the characters are bizarre but (mostly) compelling. And the storyline bounces all over the place.
I'd like to sit down and have the author (or someone else) explain it all to me because I feel like I'm really missing something here - some "ah ha" moment which escapes me.
March 13, 2012
This is a chaotic and convoluted book with a theme that is paranoid at best. It is the be-all and end-all of conspiracy theory-based novels that is not very well written and leaves the reader what will happen next.
January 23, 2013
I don't know that there's much that I liked about this book. The characters all seemed to be different shades of the same one and not one of them was remotely likeable. There were whole sections that seemed to be nothing but filler. I kept waiting for something to happen but it never quite did.
December 9, 2012
This book started out strong, and is highly addictive. I would have given this book a 5 star rating except the last 2 or 3 chapters felt less genuine, rushed and tacked on. Otherwise this was a great story!
June 11, 2013
Great book. I picked this up for free several months ago, and I'm really glad I did. sure, there are minor things one could gripe about, but getting to read about a bunch of hipsters literally being torn limb from limb makes it all worth it!
January 10, 2012
You can read my review here: http://twistedgeeks.wordpress.com/201...
January 19, 2013
Book was good... Kept me wanting to read it. Gave it 3 stars because the ending was lacking lots. Not sure what happened and left me asking TONS of questions. Too many holes left in the end.
January 22, 2013
Twilight Zone-esque. A tad much with the interludes, but a good read.
March 29, 2013
Um so so
April 17, 2013
idea was good but it was boring
June 10, 2013
This book was freaking CRAZY!
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews