Book Review - Terminal by Brian Keene
Category Book Reviews
Since I'm on a Brian Keene kick right now (thanks, John!), I took the book Terminal with me on vacation. This was an excellent read reminiscent of Koontz and King's current supernatural storytelling.
Tommy O'Brien is one of those small-town guys who works at the local foundry, lives in a double-wide trailer, and is sinking deeper in debt with no real hope of rising above it all. If it wasn't for his wife and small child who he dearly loves, you could pretty much paint him as white trailer-park trash living for beer, cigarettes, and his next one-night stand. What little he does have to live for comes crashing down when he's diagnosed with terminal cancer at the age of 25, and he's got about a month to live. He tries hard to hide it from his wife, as well as the fact that he just got laid off from the foundry too. With no way out, he plans a bank heist with two friends in order to attempt to leave his wife and child with something more than a pile of debt after he dies. But the heist goes wrong when one of his friends starts killing hostages, and the other friend (who's driving the get-away car) is shot by someone else. The situation continues to go downhill quickly as he watches his friend slowly die from the gutshot. But to his amazement, a small child who's a hostage has the ability to cure injury and illness by touching the victim. He heals the gunshot wound and cures O'Brien's cancer. But now Tommy isn't sure he can save the hostages from his other friend's increasingly erratic behavior and intent to kill everyone...
There were a number of things I liked about this novel. For one, it wasn't as "way out there" as some supernatural thrillers can get. Koontz was like that with his earlier work, where every book seemed to have a killer zombie. The current work is more "mainstream" in story-line, so you can more readily put yourself in the story and identify with the characters. Keene is at this point with Terminal, and you could identify with the helplessness of O'Brien and his situation. I also thought the pacing of the story was perfect, as well as the premise of robbing a bank when any punishment they can hand out is meaningless due to your short lifespan.
For readers who like King and Koontz, I'd highly recommend adding Keene to that list. And starting with Terminal would be a nice point of entry...
Since I'm on a Brian Keene kick right now (thanks, John!), I took the book Terminal with me on vacation. This was an excellent read reminiscent of Koontz and King's current supernatural storytelling.
Tommy O'Brien is one of those small-town guys who works at the local foundry, lives in a double-wide trailer, and is sinking deeper in debt with no real hope of rising above it all. If it wasn't for his wife and small child who he dearly loves, you could pretty much paint him as white trailer-park trash living for beer, cigarettes, and his next one-night stand. What little he does have to live for comes crashing down when he's diagnosed with terminal cancer at the age of 25, and he's got about a month to live. He tries hard to hide it from his wife, as well as the fact that he just got laid off from the foundry too. With no way out, he plans a bank heist with two friends in order to attempt to leave his wife and child with something more than a pile of debt after he dies. But the heist goes wrong when one of his friends starts killing hostages, and the other friend (who's driving the get-away car) is shot by someone else. The situation continues to go downhill quickly as he watches his friend slowly die from the gutshot. But to his amazement, a small child who's a hostage has the ability to cure injury and illness by touching the victim. He heals the gunshot wound and cures O'Brien's cancer. But now Tommy isn't sure he can save the hostages from his other friend's increasingly erratic behavior and intent to kill everyone...
There were a number of things I liked about this novel. For one, it wasn't as "way out there" as some supernatural thrillers can get. Koontz was like that with his earlier work, where every book seemed to have a killer zombie. The current work is more "mainstream" in story-line, so you can more readily put yourself in the story and identify with the characters. Keene is at this point with Terminal, and you could identify with the helplessness of O'Brien and his situation. I also thought the pacing of the story was perfect, as well as the premise of robbing a bank when any punishment they can hand out is meaningless due to your short lifespan.
For readers who like King and Koontz, I'd highly recommend adding Keene to that list. And starting with Terminal would be a nice point of entry...
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