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Book Review: The Forest by Michaelbrent Collings

cover art for The Forest by Michaelbrent Collings

( Amazon.com )

 

The Forest by Michaelbrent Collings

Written Insomnia Press, 2020

ISBN: 9798670345958

Availability: paperback, Kindle

 

The Forest is a bit different from the last few releases by Michaelbrent Collings.  His recent titles (Terminal, Scavenger Hunt, Stranger Still) were combination thriller/horror novels that relied on a fast pace and a lot of action.  The Forest relies less on action, and more on creating an atmosphere of helplessness and dread.  As usual with Michaelbrent’s writing, it’s a mystery also, and any reader will have a very difficult time unraveling the puzzle before the last few pages.  It’s a good plot and a decent read, and parts of it are excellent.   However, it does drag a bit at times and might have been better served by trimming some pages.

 

Tricia and Alex are the two main characters. They were students at the same school, and later got married.  The whole book revolves around their time interacting with the Forest, a place known to all the kids to be haunted, and of course it contains the proverbial “cabin in the middle of the woods”.

 

As kids, Tricia and Alex went into the forest to try to rescue their friend Sam from his crazy mother, and they came out having failed to rescue Sam, and with no memory of what happened.  All they know is the Forest is a bad place.  As adults, they drive by the Forest one day, and their only child vanishes into the Forest.  Later, at the advice of their therapist, they re-enter the Forest to face their fears and achieve some closure over what happened to Sam and their kid.  Needless to say, the Forest is NOT kind to visitors, and Tricia and Alex are treated to a kind of dimension-bending hell where time doesn’t exist, entities want to kill them (or save them) and nothing makes any sense.

 

Although Tricia and Alex are the primary protagonists, the true star of the book is the Forest itself.  Collings does a nice job of making it seem to be a living, breathing entity in its own right.  The use of  never-ending fog, various shapes that appear, and flashing lights do a good job of piling on the spooky atmosphere, and the secondary characters that drop in and out (some offering hints as to the nature of the Forest) only serve to enhance the effect.  Again, this book isn’t written in the usual 100 mph fashion of Collings’s past few novels, it’s more of a grim, spooky atmosphere that relies on vagueness and a fear of the unknown to make its point.  Think the 2016 Naomi Watts film The Forest (no relation to this book) and you’ll get the idea.  When it works, it’s done very well.  The sequence with Trish and Alex going crazy trying to unravel the mystery of the stream that keeps switching flow direction is the best part of the book, and may be one of the best sequences Collings has ever written.

 

As good as the writing is, there are times when it feels like Collings went just a bit too over the top with the descriptions, and it does slow the book down a bit.  There are times when the reader might find themselves skimming pages a bit, just to get to the next part.  A bit more dialogue and a bit less exposition could have pushed this book to the next level.  It’s still a good read, just a bit of a notch down from his usual work.  Also worth noting is the explanation for the mystery of the Forest may be a bit difficult for some readers to comprehend.  It’s best not to think about it too much, just take it at face value.

 

Overall, another decent one from one of the most consistent authors out there today.  Recommended.

 

Contains: violence, limited gore, profanity

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on January 30, 2021 by , Reply

Book Review: Stranger Still by Michaelbrent Collings

Stranger Still by Michaelbrent Collings ( Amazon.com )

Written Insomnia Press, 2020

ISBN: 978-8615415890

Availability: Paperback, Kindle

 

Two ordinary people (young newlyweds, of course) are abducted by a psychopathic torturer-killer who plans to take them somewhere and make mincemeat out of them, for his own fiendish pleasure.  You’ve seen or read that plot a million times, probably more.   It takes a writer with the skill of Michaelbrent Collings to take an old plot, jazz it up with a few twists, and make it seem totally new.  Chalk this one up as another success for him in the horror/thriller genre.  If you’ve read Collings before, you know exactly what you’re getting into.  It’s the usual rocket-sled ride of excitement. Each chapter is a dopamine hit that leaves the reader wanting more, leading to another chapter…and another…and another… until you’re done with the book and start waiting for him to publish another one.  It’s a good thing he writes fast!

Danielle and Alex Anton are a newly married couple, driving across the remote highways of America on their honeymoon, when they are waylaid and abducted by Sheldon Steward.  This Sheldon is no lovable dork like the one on The Big Bang Theory. He is a sociopath of the highest order, with zero concept of right or wrong, and is equally adept at dealing pain or using chemicals to prolong agony.  However, Sheldon has made the mistake of abducting Danielle and Alex in view of the central character of the book, a man (or is he?) known as… Legion.  Legion is a sociopath also, but he’s like The Boondock Saints, he only “kills for good”. With his ability to withstand pain and destroy enemies in seconds (often in a wonderfully bloody way), Legion makes John Rambo seem like a sissy-pants.  Legion’s abilities are on full display in the first chapter, when he intercepts a convenience store stick-up.  One of the robbers is shot dead, the other gets her jaw ripped off.   As noted earlier, when Legion teaches people the error of their ways, it’s usually quite messy.

The basic thread of the story is Sheldon and Legion on a collision course, but as always with a Collings novel, there’s a slew of curveballs in the plot.  Without giving away the rest of the story, it involves the Russian Mafia and meth labs, plus Alex Anton may not be quite the person he seems.  It adds an edge of unpredictability to the story, and keeps the reader guessing while turning pages.  That’s what makes horror/thriller novels by Collings so much fun; they never stay on the straight and narrow path.  They always veer off to add new elements, and that’s what keeps the reader hooked.  Add in all the quirks of his characters that keep them from seeming mundane, and the whip-crack speed of the writing, and you have a book that’s hard, if not impossible, to put down

Like Stephen King and the tag team of Doug Preston and Lincoln Child, Collings is truly remarkable for two reasons:

  1. he produces a high quantity of output (seems like he gets out at least one a year)
  2. it’s always high quality

There aren’t many authors like that, they’re hard to come by.  Collings is one.  When he releases anything new, it’s a red banner day, and this book is definitely cause for a red banner.   Highly recommended.

Note: this book is a sequel to his 2014 novel Strangers, but it can be read as a stand-alone.

 

Contains: profanity, graphic violence.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

 

 

 

 

Posted on June 16, 2020 by , Reply

Book Review: Scavenger Hunt by Michaelbrent Collings

Scavenger Hunt by Michaelbrent Collings

Written Insomnia Press, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-699207-49-9

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

 

Five strangers wake up in a room, with no memory of how they got there.  They find out they are part of a game controlled by a sinister mastermind, who wears a mask and communicates through electronic means.  The mastermind expects them to do bad things.  That’s the plot of Michaelbrent Collings’s newest thriller, and it’s a plot you’ve seen before, many times.  Collings himself used it in his previous novel, Terminal, and many authors, from King to Koontz, have also recycled it.  Unlike certain purveyors of said plot (example: the SAW and CUBE film franchises) Collings actually knows how to make an old plot seem new and fresh, due to the speed of the writing and the unseen twists that pop up throughout the book.  Scavenger Hunt is a fast ride through a familiar plot, and is worth the time to read.

Aside from the basic plot, there are elements that you can guess will show up.  The obvious one is that all the strangers were chosen for a reason.  Even though they don’t know each other, their lives were all connected at some point in the past.  Collings wisely spaces interlude chapters throughout the book, one for each character.  Each chapter fills in the backstory of one character, and it helps you see how the plot slowly ties together.  Collings also has a variety of chapters detailing police online investigations throughout the book that don’t seem related to the plot, but are, although the reasons don’t become apparent until later.  The whole story works this way: the reader gets a clue at a time to figure out the puzzle, but it’s a very difficult one to figure out, as Collings doesn’t give away anything obvious.

Therein lies the strength of this novel.  Not everything is as it seems, and the perception of the characters changes throughout the book, turning the story into a maddeningly elliptical puzzle.

The protagonists and antagonists flip roles throughout the book, and even what seems like a sick game might be perceived as salvation by the end.  Collings does an excellent job confounding expectations with this commonly used plot.   A nice touch was the creative way to keep the game players from simply running away, once they are free to go out on the streets.  Each player has a collar and wristwatch fitted with explosives, giving the game’s mastermind the freedom to blow a limb-or head-off of any of the players whenever he sees fit.  This is also one of the few stories of this type where some of the players are actually given a chance to leave the game, if they are fine with abandoning the other players to their fate.  It’s the little things that make an old plotline seem new and exciting.

Overall, this is a well-written, fast-paced story that should please fans of horror or thriller novels.  It has elements of both, but doesn’t swing too strongly one way or the other.  If you want excitement, don’t miss this one.  Recommended.

 

Contains: violence, profanity

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on December 3, 2019 by , 1 comment
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