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I read this hoping for a nice cosy horror story that would be of little literary significance but full of entertaining plot and characters. I had high expectations. Sadly, it was surprisingly dull and more uneventful than I would have anticipated.
The story is about a scout master (Tim) who takes five teenage boys (Kent, Ephraim, Max, Shelley, and Newton) to Falstaff Island just off the main coast. Already the premise is pretty dumb. Teenage boys alone with just one scoutmaster? Modern boys in their teens who care about scouting? Really? But hey, the book needs to happen so let's just go with it. So they're staying at a cabin on the island when out of nowhere a man arrives on a boat, a man who is patently very ill and apparently needs to keep consuming food. He eventually dies and a strange worm-like creature comes out of him. Then, one by one they all appear to be infected by these worms. And well... that's about it. Not much more happens (except one of the boys suddenly being a psychopath out of nowhere). That's about as scary as it gets. The authorities surround the island and don't let anyone come or go.
To make matters worse, the book is written with lots of pointless exposition which undermines all the tension. There are question and answer interviews with scientists and military personnel between several chapters where the worms and their existence are explained. Frankly, I would rather the book kept the cause of their existence vague but the book literally spells everything out -- who created them, why, where, the tests they did on animals, etc. Everything is given away. Then there are articles from newspapers and magazines reporting on what happened in the past tense. You could have removed all of these and you would have lost nothing.
The only part of the book that I found entertaining was the conversations between the boys, their juvenile humour and funny jibes. It had a mild Stand By Me quality which sadly wasn't present for very long. Otherwise, it was a little dull and plodding. Hardly anything happens. The worms are certainly creepy but it never gets gross or terrifying. It's all a bit... whatever. And the fact that one of the boys is revealed to be a raging lunatic in the final third was a tad moronic, suggesting that Cutter himself had lost faith in how scary his own story was. He clearly felt the need to beef things up by doing this.
Ultimately, a bit of a damp squib.
The story is about a scout master (Tim) who takes five teenage boys (Kent, Ephraim, Max, Shelley, and Newton) to Falstaff Island just off the main coast. Already the premise is pretty dumb. Teenage boys alone with just one scoutmaster? Modern boys in their teens who care about scouting? Really? But hey, the book needs to happen so let's just go with it. So they're staying at a cabin on the island when out of nowhere a man arrives on a boat, a man who is patently very ill and apparently needs to keep consuming food. He eventually dies and a strange worm-like creature comes out of him. Then, one by one they all appear to be infected by these worms. And well... that's about it. Not much more happens (except one of the boys suddenly being a psychopath out of nowhere). That's about as scary as it gets. The authorities surround the island and don't let anyone come or go.
To make matters worse, the book is written with lots of pointless exposition which undermines all the tension. There are question and answer interviews with scientists and military personnel between several chapters where the worms and their existence are explained. Frankly, I would rather the book kept the cause of their existence vague but the book literally spells everything out -- who created them, why, where, the tests they did on animals, etc. Everything is given away. Then there are articles from newspapers and magazines reporting on what happened in the past tense. You could have removed all of these and you would have lost nothing.
The only part of the book that I found entertaining was the conversations between the boys, their juvenile humour and funny jibes. It had a mild Stand By Me quality which sadly wasn't present for very long. Otherwise, it was a little dull and plodding. Hardly anything happens. The worms are certainly creepy but it never gets gross or terrifying. It's all a bit... whatever. And the fact that one of the boys is revealed to be a raging lunatic in the final third was a tad moronic, suggesting that Cutter himself had lost faith in how scary his own story was. He clearly felt the need to beef things up by doing this.
Ultimately, a bit of a damp squib.