By: Bentley Little Publisher: Signet Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Signet Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 384 Publication Date: November 01, 2000 Release Date: November 07, 2000
Product Description: The dead are getting restless...
Across the country, they have risen. And they seem to have a mission....
The walking has begun...
No one knows why they are walking. No one knows where they are going. And no one can stop them....
They are here.
From the acclaimed author of The Store, The Ignored, and The Town comes The Walking-and it's going to make Bram Stoker Award-winner Bentley Little the biggest name in horror. He's already got the critics screaming....
Bentley Little...
"...grabs the reader and yanks him along on a terrifying ride."-Gary Brandner
"...keeps the high-tension jolts coming...unlike anything else in popular fiction."-Stephen King
"...has created nothing less than a nightmarishly brilliant tour de force of modern life in America."-Publishers Weekly
"...is must reading for Koontz fans."-Harriet Klausner
"...is thinking person's horror." -Los Angeles Times
"...is a must for those who like horror with a bite." -Richard Layman
90% good I really enjoyed "The Walking" until the last 30 pages or so. The story got bland. I'd say the part where everyone meets up at the lake was when the story went downhill. Maybe Bentley Little wasn't sure how to end the book. Most of the book had me glued to the pages. I loved the "Then" chapters better than the "Now" ones. Very well written.
First half: pretty good; second half: not so much This was my second book by Little. My first was THE STORE, which knocked me out. With that in mind, I looked forward to reading more by him. THE WALKING, however, was not nearly as good.
The first half or so of the book held a lot of promise. In particular, the Prologue was simultaneously unnerving and had to be one of the best 'hooks' ever in a horror novel prologue -- it definitely made me eager to continue. The two basic premises/concepts (dead peoples' corpses walking around for no apparent reason, and a long-gone community of witches in the Arizona desert, which end up being linked)were clever and creative, but I think this is one of those cases where the author didn't put nearly as much work, thought, and creativity into how to resolve the premises as he did into coming up with them. The net result is, while the first half burns brilliantly, the second half fizzles out -- reading the last hundred pages in took more work for me than did the first 270. And the ending is definitely anticlimactic.
Despite my lackluster impression of this book, I'll still give a few more Bentley Little novels a chance, based on THE STORE plus some good short stories I've read by him. Based on what I've read of other reviews of this author's books, it seems there are really two Bentley Littles, or, at least, two types of Bentley Little novels. The first is the thinking-man's horror/dark satire type, exemplified by THE STORE. The other is the basic, mainstream Koontz/King, semi-predictable/interesting-premise-with-weak-ending horror story, which I think is the category into which THE WALKING falls. I suspect if I make sure to stick to the former type while avoiding the latter, I'll go back to enjoying Little's novels. I'll try THE UNIVERSITY next; hopefully it'll be more in the vein of THE STORE than THE WALKING.
PS- This is another proof that winning the Stoker Award doesn't mean a book is great (kind of like how winning an Oscar doesn't mean a movie's great, either.) Surely Little deserves the award -- just not for this particular book. (Even worse, in my opinion, was the recent awarding of the Stoker to Jonathan Mayberry's GHOST ROAD BLUES, which I thought was even worse than THE WALKING, but I digress.)
The Walking Has A Good Pair of Legs Blending pop-horror and mystery with what can only be described as satirical humor, The Walking tries to be several novels at once and almost pulls it off, until the end.
There are several genuinely haunting moments in the book and the flashbacks - once you realize what they are - are really well-done. Bentley Little even manages a few laughs without pandering for them, and the main character elicits pathos in his almost gumshoe pursuit to find out what is causing the strange events surrounding him and his father's erratic behavior.
Given the solid foundation on which the book is built, the follow-through doesn't quite pull off what Little probably intended. It is, however, extremely entertaining and easily readable - I read the book in a single afternoon - and should definitely be given a shot for those looking to expand one's horror horizons.
THESE BOOTS WERE MADE FOR WALKING... Once again, this Bram Stoker Award winning author brings it home with yet another, highly inventive horror yarn. Stephen King is a fan of this author, as he has declared this book "the horror event of the year." This is high praise indeed from this venerable master of the horror genre, and rightly so. This was the first book I ever read by this author and I have been hooked ever since, as this author's books are generally well-written, highly original, and genuinely creepy, as well as full of twists and turns in the plot. This one does not fail to deliver.
This book is really two stories. One takes place in the remote western frontier of the nineteenth century. The other takes place in the present. Both are compelling stories that are inextricably interwoven and intertwined. It seems that during the nineteenth century, an unusual group of people was the focus of ongoing persecution. One man, William Johnson, a member of his group, decided he wasn't going to take it this persecution lying down and secured permission from the United States government to start a colony of his people in a remote place called Wolf Canyon in the then Arizona Territory. This book tells the story of their town and what happened to it and its inhabitants.
In present day small town America, somewhere in the Southwest, something mighty strange is beginning to happen. Some people are dying but they are just not staying dead like they are supposed to. Instead, they begin to walk. They are an unstoppable force, as they do the unthinkable and walk purposefully with a seeming destination in mind. This is the mystery that confronted private investigator Miles Huerdeen, when his dead father decided to trip the light fantastic and begin to walk. Miles soon discovers that the walking dead have a connection to Wolf Canyon, but the reason why is what his journey will reveal.
The author seamlessly weaves these two tales together, creating a highly inventive and entertaining story. As the connection between the past and the present is made clear and the two stories meld into one, the reader is kept spellbound. This author knows how to put together a tale of contemporary horror, making the reader believe the unbelievable. This author is right up there with the best contemporary writers of the horror genre. Those who enjoy this genre will not be disappointed by this book and will, undoubtedly, be looking to read this author's other works.
What happened to this guy? I guess once you hit a certain level of popularity you can just sit back and produce junk books with the absolute certainly that your growing public will buy them and love them. That seems to be the case with Bentley Little, who had an amazing earlier career but hasn't put out anything of quality for the last four or five novels. I keep picking them up hoping for a redemptive title, but so far nothing. The walking is the book where he fell. It has about 30 pages or so of interesting material and then just falls flat. The ending was so anticlimactic that I can't even remember it and the few plot threads that he's trying to spin fly off the spinning wheel sometime during the second half. Do yourself a favor and pick up the early books. University is the ultimate gross out/scare the hell out of you book, but I also recommend the Store and (for a more intellectual book) the Ignored. Also good, but to a slightly lesser extent are: the mailman, Dominion, and the House. Just don't bother with the walking or anything after it, they're just a waste of paper.
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