SELECT * FROM uv_BookReviewRollup WHERE recordnum = 523 Thunderland, by Brandon Massey Book Review | SFReader.com

Thunderland, by Brandon Massey cover image

Thunderland, by Brandon Massey
Genre: Horror
Publisher: Dafina Books
Published: 2002
Review Posted: 12/21/2004
Reviewer Rating:
Reader Rating: Not Rated

Thunderland, by Brandon Massey

Book Review by Jeff Edwards

Have you read this book?

Jason Brooks is tormented by recurring dreams of a stranger stalking him in his own home. Unwilling to ask his parents for help, the boy turns to his friends - but their plan to contact the stalker through a Ouija board backfires. No longer content to haunt Jason while the boy sleeps, the Stranger turns life into a waking nightmare for Jason and his friends by bringing them into his own world where he possesses god-like powers - Thunderland.

Beneath its thrills and chills, Brandon Massey's Thunderland is a portrait of a dysfunctional family. Jason's mother is a recovering alcoholic, and his father is a confirmed workaholic and an adulterer - so in his time of greatest need, Jason must rely on friends he has known for only three months. Terrified of the Stranger, the boys arm themselves as best they can - but readers may be less disturbed by the Stranger than they are by the thought of a teenager bringing a handgun to the grocery store: "As they rounded the side of the supermarket,...[h]e still wore the .22 in the ankle holster, concealed under his jeans."

Massey fills his book with cliched characters - the mother who has turned her back on the bottle, the father who fills his days with work and his nights with a mistress, the wise maternal grandfather, and the abusive paternal grandfather in a nursing home. But somehow, the author draws readers into the melodrama and makes them care enough to endure all of the long-winded speeches like, "[M]y new priorities have nothing to do with drinking. You're one of my new priorities. I want to be a good mother to you because you're a good kid, and you deserve the best I can give you. Showing you that I love you is the most important thing in my life. With that as my goal, I can't afford to ever drink again." Massey balances such verbose dialogue with vivid slang used by the teenagers; unfortunately, this accomplishment may work against the novel in the long run - although the vernacular phrases ring true now, they will become dated as the years pass.

In order to enjoy Thunderland, readers will need to maintain a suspension of disbelief throughout the book. For example, a character becomes a self-taught expert on hypnosis after a few hours' worth of research on the Internet. Another character hopes to reverse his partial amnesia by falling out of a tree a second time - the kind of logic found only in an episode of "The Flintstones."

Potential readers should not be discouraged by all of this nit-picking - the book is more than the sum of its parts. Thunderland is a confident and carefully revised first novel; Massey consistently uses the full range of human senses in his writing. He also does an amazing job of varying his descriptions of thunder, lightning and rain - no small achievement for a story that depends so heavily on storms to announce the presence of the Stranger. Brandon Massey followed Thunderland with a vampire novel called "Dark Corner," then edited the "Dark Dreams" collection. His current projects include a ghost story and a potential series of "Dark Dreams" anthologies.
Click here to buy Thunderland, by Brandon Massey on Amazon

Thunderland, by Brandon Massey on Amazon

Thunderland, by Brandon Massey cover pic
Comment on Thunderland, by Brandon Massey
Your Name:
Comment:
Type (case sensitive) here:

Comments on Thunderland, by Brandon Massey
There are no comments on this book.