Review"Loop is a Suzuki masterpiece and will shake you to your core whether you like it or not." - Book Magazine (Japan)"[Suzuki] does not disappoint... Loop satisfies better than the original or its sequel when you want real answers." -* bookslut.com"High-flying science-fictional redefinition of reality... [Suzuki] is more interested in separating your head from your body philosophically than physically." - The Agony Column*About the AuthorKoji Suzuki was born in 1957 in Hamamatsu, southwest of Tokyo. He attended Keio University where he majored in French. After graduating he held numerous odd jobs, including a stint as a cram school teacher. Also a self-described jock, he holds a first-class yachting license and crossed the U.S., from Key West to Los Angeles, on his motorcycle.The father of two daughters, Suzuki is a respected authority on childrearing and has written numerous works on the subject. He acquired his expertise when he was a struggling writer and househusband. Suzuki also has translated a children's book into Japanese, The Little Sod Diaries by the crime novelist Simon Brett.In 1990, Suzuki's first full-length work, Paradise won the Japanese Fantasy Novel Award and launched his career as a fiction writer. Ring, written with a baby on his lap, catapulted him to fame, and the multi-million selling sequels Spiral and Loop cemented his reputation as a world-class talent. Often called the "Stephen King of Japan," Suzuki has played a crucial role in establishing mainstream credentials for horror novels in his country. He is based in Tokyo but loves to travel, often in the United States. Birthday is his sixth novel to appear in English. Views: 37
John Newton is a successful writer of true-life
crime stories, specializing in unsolved murders from the past. He has a happy
family life with his schoolteacher wife and two children. And he has a nice new
home in the rural countryside. Life is good for John Newton.
Until the letters start arriving…
Dark, mysterious letters. Deadly letters with
demands.
And then everything changes…
Until John Newton is faced with a seemingly
insurmountable dilemma: he can choose between the survival of his daughter… or
the rest of his family - not both.
With this, his eighth nerve-shattering novel of
supernatural suspense, Simon Clark triumphantly confirms his reputation as "one
of the most exciting British horror writers around."
***
From Publishers Weekly
A classic horror theme the unnatural survival in the
present of an indescribably nasty bit of the past gets a routine treatment in
this latest novel from British author Clark (The Judas Tree). Bestselling
true crime writer John Newton has recently moved with his wife, teenage son Paul
and young daughter Elizabeth to a stately house in Skelbrooke when he begins
receiving anonymous notes, couched in archaic language, demanding offerings of
inconsequential items mostly food and drink to be left on a grave in the
Necropolis on the outskirts of town. Though John is merely puzzled, his
neighbors, who receive the same notes, are horrified. Since Norman days,
Skelbrooke has been periodically terrorized by a primitive entity dubbed "Baby
Bones," and those who fail to satisfy its wishes meet with ghastly fates. Even
readers not well versed in horror fiction will intuit what John will inevitably
be asked to leave in the graveyard the moment Baby Bones's suggestive name is
invoked. Clark sustains suspense as best he can, with a panoramic narrative that
shows the tragic impact of the entity's demands on other lives, but several of
the subplots Paul's romantic liaisons in the Necropolis and a senile town
elder's repeated attempts to pass John important information on the town's
history seem obvious padding. Though Clark credibly portrays John's gradual
transformation from incredulous observer to desperate believer, his fans may
find the eerie climax of this tale uncharacteristically contrived rather than
earned.
***
"The hottest new purveyor of horrific thrills currently
working on these shores."
-Big Issue
"What gives Clark his lever into your own fears is taking
the mundane and making it menacing."
-SFX Views: 37
A disappearing watch. A thief in the night. Whispers around every corner... Then a mist rolls into town and refuses to dissipate. Alva Viola Taverner has lived in her small town all of her life, working as a car tech while saving for her little sister to go to university. But everything is about to change as the veil between our world and the world of the faeries weakens and falls. Views: 37
Ryan Noman is stuck in a house on a dead end street in a dying city, a loveless relationship, and a job where the owner challenges his employees to fights in the parking lot. He also has a mystery rash. When Ryan’s best friend, Gus, convinces him they need to contaminate the source of the artisanal bottled water facility where they work, Ryan goes along with it because, hey, what else is he going to do? This proves to be another bad choice in an increasingly lengthening list of bad choices in Ryan’s life. It changes everything, leaving both Ryan and Gus transformed. Thus begins Ryan’s oddly comic stumbling through his dark night of the soul in a book best described as “self-help for the helpless.” Views: 37
Jack and his friends are in a race against time to save the remaining inhabitants of a postapocalyptic London from a nuclear bomb. Two years after London is struck by a devastating terrorist attack, it is cut off from the rest of the world, protected by a large force of soldiers (known as Choppers) while the rest of Britain believe that their ex-capital is a toxic, uninhabited wasteland. But that’s not true. Jack and his friends know that the truth is very different—and incredible: the few remaining survivors in London are changing; developing strange, fantastic powers; evolving. And the Chopper force guarding London is treating the ruined city as its own experimental ground. Now, Jack’s powers are growing. His friend Lucy-Anne’s powers are developing too, and Nomad—that mysterious woman who started it all—is close by. But the Choppers have initiated their final safeguard—a huge nuclear bomb that will wipe out London, and everyone still within its boundaries. Jack and his friends must spread the news of the bomb and save everyone they can. Before that can happen, Jack must face his father, the deadly Reaper, in their final showdown. Views: 37
“You don't think this could be about Laura, do you?” Ten years ago, they were all friends. Ten years ago, something terrible happened. Ten years ago, they agreed to take the truth about Laura to their graves. All they had to do was forget, and keep their mouths shut. But when a hidden force starts cutting them down one by one, in a series of increasingly horrific incidents, the remaining friends are forced to face the truth. Somehow, Laura has come back. Laura is a horror story about six people who thought they could hide the truth, and about the girl who returns from the grave to make them all pay.** Views: 37
