My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Wow. What an amazing book.
I’m really enjoying my reading lately – I just keep bouncing from author to author. I’ve never been so open to suggestion. I read a thriller or sci-fi novel, love it, and see who the author rubs shoulders with. So many of these writers play in each others sandboxes. I always loved guys like William Gibson & Neal Stephenson, and Ernest Cline & Wil Wheaton turned me on to John Scalzi. Hugh Howey’s worlds led me to Jason Gurley, Michael Bunker and Marcus Sakey, from which I got to Brett Battles and now Blake Crouch.
Most of the time these are authors I’m already aware of; Scalzi’s Redshirts was on my wish list for years before I finally read it. But it’s when I see the same names popping up it convinces me to take the plunge. (I should point out that I am quite a slow reader, so I put more thought into what I’m going to read than some might. My kindle is filled with books I haven’t gotten to yet…)
In the case of Pines, I’d seen this popping up with increasing frequency based on my recent reads, which convinced me to give it a try even though it appeared to be a bit out of my usual areas of interest; by which I mean it looked like horror. I’m not a big horror fan, so the thriller aspects of a horror story have to be very compelling to keep me engaged past my squeamishness comfort level. Compelling is certainly a good word for Pines…
Pines tells the tale of Secret Service Agent and Gulf War veteran Ethan Burke, who finds himself in the rustic town of Wayward Pines, a slice of Rockwellian Americana nestled in the mountains of Idaho. He came there to investigate the disappearance of two agents, but a brutal car accident has killed his partner and left him a confused wreck with partial amnesia. He can’t locate his belongings, his identification or anyone who seems completely sane. The more he learns the less he knows, but he is certain of one thing: this place is dangerously strange…
Intentionally filled with the atmospheric influence of Twin Peaks, Pines (the 1st book in the Wayward Pines trilogy) does indeed have an eerie quality, although I’m not sure I’d call the novel horror. There’s a “something is very wrong here” vibe to everything, and from that environment and the descriptions, your interest may not be totally piqued. I found the beginning of the novel to be interesting but a bit familiar. But things changed quickly.
I may never have read a book to which the word momentum so readily comes to mind. The book starts off a little slowly, but I didn’t realize it was because a train takes a while to get to the top of the mountain. I was steadily more drawn in as the protagonist begins to get a grip on what’s happening, but when it hit the tipping point I was completely snagged and had to stay up far later than was wise because I needed to know where we were going.
The author does a fine job taking the familiar, Twilight Zone type premise and giving it a great twirl. Pines is extremely engaging. It comes as absolutely no surprise that Fox has adapted the novel into a 10-part series to air in 2015. http://www.fox.com/wayward-pines/
Highly recommended. Time to start book two…
