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Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Lyons Public Library | F SAU | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Amity Public Library | FIC SAUL | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
A powerful high-tech company. A postcard-pretty company town. Families. Children. Sunshine. Happiness. A high school football team that never-ever loses. And something else. Something horrible ... Now, there is a new family in town. A shy, nature-loving teenager. A new hometown. A new set of bullies. Maybe the team's sports clinic can help him. Rebuild him. They won't hurt him again. They won't dare. From the Paperback edition.
Author Notes
Saul has several major themes in his horror fiction; children as victims, and sometimes perpetrators, of evil; technology used for horrific ends; and occult occurrences (is it something external or internal that causes the horrible things to happen to his characters?). While Saul's earlier work has been noted for its extremely gruesome quality, in his later writing Saul is trying to restrain that aspect of his fiction. Often his plots revolve around hidden, secret evil that is discovered by an innocent person, who must then battle against seemingly impossible odds to defeat the demon.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
YA-- An excellent example of the horror genre, although not as extreme as Stephen King. When Craig Tanner is offered a promotion by TarrenTech and the family moves to Silverdale, Colorado, everything seems perfect. It is a company town with quaint houses, little commercialization, and a community that supports its sports teams. Mark Tanner develops dramatically as an athlete after several sessions at the Rocky Mountain High sports center where the football players are given workouts. This is only the beginning of a training program that has some terrifying results. Creature will be widely read by athletes and sports fans.-- Anne Paget, Episcopal High School, Bellaire, Tex. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
The latest horror novel from consistently bestselling Saul ( Suffer the Children ; Hellfire ) is set in Silverdale, Colo., a company-town variation on Spielberg surburbia. There, conglomerate TarrenTech provides the high school teams with every advantage, including a high-tech sports clinic. Dr. Martin Ames beefs up the brawny, aggressive teenagers, and it's to him that newcomer Sharon Tanner goes for answers when her gentle son Mark turns into a belligerent jock overnight. This slick, high-concept thriller, which might have been titled Stepford High , won't surprise anyone, but it should please the author's fans as it continues Saul's focus on children as the vehicles and victims of unnatural forces. 100,000 first printing; $100,000 ad/promo; Literary Guild selection. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Saul's 12th horror novel in 12 years--an undemanding but slick tale of biological tampering that matches the relative best of his huge-selling mass-market paperback originals (Suffer the Children, Nathaniel, The Unwanted) and that far outpaces his one previous hard-cover, The God Project (1982). There might be a new idea somewhere in this brisk story of a mad doctor toying with teen-age boys' hormones to produce homo perfectus (and the occasional Neanderthal-like boo-boo), but it's hard to see for all of Saul's useful borrowings from Frankenstein, The Island of Dr. Moreau, much of Robin Cook, and Ira Levin's The Stepford Wives. Moreau is played here by Dr. Marty Ames, who conducts his lunacy under the guise of providing ultrahigh-tech athletic training for the high-school teams of Silverdale, Colo., the Rocky Mountain R&D headquarters of the giant Tarrentech Corp.--which hopes to profit from Ames' wacky treatments of organic disease. Ames' eyes gleam when runty Mark Tanner, stunted by rheumatic fever, moves to town, and before long Mark's spending time at Ames' lab and growing inches and muscles just like the other guys at Rocky Mountain High. But like too many subjects of Ames' unperfected techniques, Mark grows a whopping temper and fang-like teeth, too, and soon is staying out late and strangling the family dog. And as if that isn't enough to worry his stalwart mom, Saul's heroine, then just wait until she sees him loping around the lab with two fellow apeman who are busy maiming and killing. Cruise control all the way. Of interest is the astonishing fact that the publisher is charging a dollar less for this hard-cover than for the author's 1982 one, which they also published; this deflationary pricing, plus a promised 100,000 printing and big ad campaign, could give Saul his first hard-cover best seller. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Seemingly perfect Silverdale hides a horrible secret brought to light only when the coach's boys begin turning into monsters--both on and off the football field.
Library Journal Review
Another in the horror sub-genre of dreadful experiments performed on an unwitting small town. The idyllic Silverdale, Colorado is the site of Tarrentech Industries' research facility. Tarrentech has rebuilt the fading Silverdale, providing jobs and more, and now virtually owns the town and its inhabitants. But Tarrentech is conducting growth-hormone experiments on the high school football team, under the guise of a vitamin and exercise regimen. The boys begin to display amazing strength, and an almost murderous aggression both on the field and off. Tarrentech covers up by directing the boys to kill anyone who questions their behavior--even their own families. Entertaining for readers who want horror/suspense fiction of any kind, or where Saul's best selling novels ( The God Project , Suffer the Children ) are in demand. Literary Guild selection.-- A.M.B. Amantia, Population Crisis Committee Lib., Washington, D.C. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.