E.S.’s Reviews > Vacation > Status Update

Sounds too good to be good.

Maybe two decades ago, I received this book in an online gift exchange. It didn't strike me as something I'd normally seek out to read. And yet . . .

It works. Mechanically, it really works. The prose is fairly clean, but perhaps not as clean as Richard Matheson's—but in the play of tension, in how cinematic it is, in how immediate it is, it brings to mind the best of Matheson: I AM LEGEND, "Duel", et al.

A common criticism of Horror films used to be how unrealistic it was that people would put themselves in danger and act against their own best interests. And then the Pandemic made us reconsider if that was unrealsitic or not. There's some very real moments in this novel, thus far, that plays with that manner of thing. What people will do to feel a sense of normalcy in a sustained awful situation.

There are also some nice little observations such as even with a limited population in a dangerous world, there's still going to be predatory capitalists. I'm about a third in and I'm very pleasantly surprised at how well this works, how well done it is.

Sold! And much appreciated! I have a couple of Bentley Little collections to read for a substack post on the author, but then...